Venus God of Love that You Are... HNGD!!!

[TaylorPlayer]

Picked up this on Craigslist over the weekend. I always wanted a Surf Green Strat, but I already have a CIJ Strat ST-54 Reissue I love. This seemed like a great addition to the collection, gave me something really different and satisfied my wanting a Surf Green Fender......

Behold, the Courtney Love designed Squire Venus from the Vista Series of guitars. I love that it has a bound neck with a 12" radius. I can fingerstyle play just like on my acoustics with this one. Pretty different for Fender though with the TOM bridge, String through design and bound neck.

Anyone else here have one of these beauties? In a way, it reminds me of a Tele with just the two pups. I kind of wish it had a tone control but in reality, my old Magnatone amp has a great tone adjustment that does everything I need with this guitar. Having this is making the wait for my Custom Nitro Daphne Blue Tele to be done a bit easier.

[TaylorPlayer]

I forgot to add... it actually sounds really good and is 100% stock. The neck pickup and bridge/neck combo settings are really nice and thick tones and the bucker alone is really raw sounding.

[Guit-jitsu]

very cool, funky guitar! I like the bound neck a lot, looks sharp. Although I'm dependent on my tone control!!! Is there room in the cavity to add one if you decide to mod??

[basher]

It's the extra notch of coolness past a Squier 51. Very nice!

[TaylorPlayer]

Originally Posted by Guit-jitsu

very cool, funky guitar! I like the bound neck a lot, looks sharp. Although I'm dependent on my tone control!!! Is there room in the cavity to add one if you decide to mod??

Actually that is a mod some people have done. Since the input is on the face of the pickguard, they put one in the body (like a Tele input) and use the hole for a tone pot. I haven't looked under the hood, but have seen photos of the routing and yes... there is plenty of room for that, adding active electronics if you want etc. Very simple design though and I am finding that I haven't missed the tone control yet only playing at fairly low volume at home and much of that has been fingerpicking just cause it sounds so good. The neck is probably one of my favorite things by the way. I think it is very similar feeling to an Eric Johnson Signature Strat neck with the flat radius and nice chuncky feel to the back. Much different from my CIJ 1954 Reissue Strat with it's V and 7.5 radius! lol......

Originally Posted by basher

It's the extra notch of coolness past a Squier 51. Very nice!

Thanks basher..... it does have that cool factor to me at least!

[antiuser]

Very cool... I've always wanted one of those, especially the 12-string version! Congrats!

[Blazer]

That's a cool guitar. I guess the Cobains were the first husband and wife that got signature models from Fender.


The Venus is actually based on a Custom Chandler guitar that Courtney used during the Band's sophomore years, she can be seen playing that one in the videos for "Violet" and "Doll parts"


Courtney's Custom shop Fender Venus guitars usually came with only a neck pickup, although she got a few dual pickup versions too.

"Violet" live at the 1995 VMA's Courtney is playing one of her neck pickup only Venus guitars.

[castpolymer]

Cool guitar in a great color. Every one that comes up on CL is crazy high in this area.

[elicross]

That's definitely a slick looking guitar.

[goldtopper]

Cool that a TDPRI member got it- I've seen it on CL for several days now.

[TaylorPlayer]

Originally Posted by goldtopper

Cool that a TDPRI member got it- I've seen it on CL for several days now.

He actually had four Venus guitars. Two were Surf green and I got one. I just saw he listed his other Surf green one with basically the same ad he used on mine, photos and all. No biggie as they were identical. I think he just collects guitars and sells or trades them on Craigslist as a hobby as he has several different guitars listed currently. Seemed like a really nice guy who was easy to deal with.