[JoeyV]

I got a CD project coming up soon, my first actual release as a leader and I have no idea what im going to play on it for a guitar..This will be a soul jazz/boogaloo/acid jazz project....so were talking alot of Benson, Norman Brown, Wes Montgomery, Grant Green types of sounds and feels over funky ryth. section thats kind of Meters, fusion, groovy ....think organ trio without the organ and with my own quirky twist of some surfy,bluesy, country and western swing lines and effects thrown in to the mix as well however this could all change, as I have about 40 demos in all styles to choose from, but my instinct tells me to go in this direction......Im kind of in a rut right now and getting anxious about the project or I should say on edge(always a good place for me as I get more creative when under pressure) I'm looking for a guitar to knock me out of the rut and inspire me ...I played a Gibson Historic 57 Les Paul Custom yesterday...this guitar was just wonderful..it was fast as heck, it sounded very balanced, looked classy, not to heavy and I was so comfortable on it...however....it was $1,900.00 and I just could not pull the trigger on it knowing that at times I could get those same tones out of my tele...my 68 tele is a wreck right now and needs a lot of help I have not used it much over the last year, maybe on a few gigs and it was kind of lack luster and problematic....im getting bored with the "Duke Robillard" strat all ready as I cant help but play to much in that blue-strat vein on it, not bad but I feel I did it , done it bought the cheap suit many years back and have grown out of that kind of thing a long time ago (will never sell the guitar as it has alot of memorys of Duke playing it ) I need the right guitar now, a guitar to inspire me, a guitar that will perform flawlessly, with minimal effort...this isnt about the tone is in the hands thing,,I understand that and I got hands and have given that speech a thousand times,its not about chops or lack of musical ideas and what not Im ok with all that stuff....this is purely a matter of my tools and the tools not being up to snuff or just not feeling right or working properly...my guitars all have little things that make them fall short of being good guitars...my freinds pickp my guitars and are like "I cant believe you play this piece of Sheeet"....it's more about say you were a painter of beautiful landscapes and the brushes you needed to use were all cheap 1$ brushes you buy at Home Depot and your wife painted the cabinets with them 5 years ago and never really cleaned them right, and all you had was your kids Scooby Doo water color paints, you would not paint a picture as good as you would if you had the right oil paint and fine artist brushes, you know what I mean?....I dunno, I just dont know what to get.... Some kind of custom made guitar? I been thinking a bit about the American 62 RI Tele , that surf green double binding is very sexy but its all the way it plays and feels in my hands that really matter, as I'm wicked fussy and drive guitar stores crazy when there trying to sell me a guitar, Im impossible to please but other times I will pickup a piece of crap and just love it, I got a Danelectro that I still love to play sometimes just sitting around and at times its my best playing guitar. On alot of those soundtracks and TV programs that I have played on, you would die if you saw the gear I used to record those tracks, nothing fancy and nothing that cost more then a few hundred dollars,I got software plugins that cost more then most of my guitars and amps..go figure!!,,,,,,,I just dont know.....I was happy for a few years playing my 68 tele with flatwound 12's on it into a twin ..but that just dont do it anymore....I like very fast guitars , I like a tight feel but not a stiff feel, I cant play on a flat radius and like the vintage radius, I dont mind heavy laquered fingerboards, I dont mind laquer on the back of the neck and I also like pool stick warn away finish on the back of the neck, I dont like skinny necks, I dont like huge necks either,I play regular D'Addario nickel 10's, I like 70's style U shaped strat necks or late 60's tele necks, perfect intonation, vintage frets, low action, no string rattle, noisless pickups,tone controls that start to cut highs as soon as you start turning the knob down as opposed to tone controls that you got to turn em almost all the way down (like the one for getting wha wha effects I dont dig those) lightweight bodies are my favorite, warm fat but distinct neck pickups, twangy bridge pickups , and balanced blend of the two,,,,I dont like Fender guitars with P90's or strats with P90's but do like old Gibson hollow bodies with them in em, have tried humbucker in the neck and mini humbucker in the neck of my tele and did not like that, my favorite is still the plain old tele neck pickup.....I like Fender type pickups and think Leos design is perfect for the Fender guitar... I would like to try those Kinman noisless.....I also play very clean and hardly ever use any overdriven sounds.....big fat and jazzy clean, funky clean or twangy country and surfy....guitar into Fender or Gibson amp kind of guy.....Sooooo,,, after all that what do you guys think I should do?