Frisell's MIM Tele?

[nosuch]

BF: "Actually, my main Tele® is a Mexican one. It was like $500 and it’s great! That’s what I’ve been playing for the last few months."

from http://fender.com/news/index.php?display_article=38

does anybody know which guitar he is talking about?

[boneyguy]

Price wise I'm guessing it's a MIM Standard. They were around $500 about a year ago I think. They're about $400 now so it depends on when the interview was done I suppose.

That's my guess.

[byrdbrain]

I think it's the Thinline:

Edit: I think the "like $500 or so" is the very same phrase I use
when telling my wife I've spent twice that amount.

[nosuch]

Originally Posted by byrdbrain

I think it's the Thinline:

He's using different guitars all the time, in a more recent interview he says he uses a custom shop relic. I just wanted to know which mexican made he is referring to.

Originally Posted by byrdbrain

Edit: I think the "like $500 or so" is the very same phrase I use
when telling my wife I've spent twice that amount.

good point!

[byrdbrain]

Around the time of that Fender "gear interview" he was using
a (Daphne blue?) MIM '69 Thinline a lot, so I think that's the one
he's referring to.
I've seen him twice in concert, but he used a Klein both times.

[Mark Davis]

Id say its a 50's Classic MIM. If he knows a dealer he could have got one for that.

[Rob DiStefano]

I saw Bill at the Blue Note this past December, and he played a modded MIM Thinline ...

[nosuch]

what did he do to the bridge?

[byrdbrain]

It looks like a Callaham with slanted saddles:

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

Id say its a 50's Classic MIM. If he knows a dealer he could have got one for that.

Also he said that is how much they cost, not how much he paid for it.
I would be surprised if Bill Frisell paid for that guitar.
Fender will sell a lot of MIM's based on his comments.
I am not saying that it is an engineered comment- but he is a Tacoma endorsee already- It isn't a big ask for MIM as well.

[enalnitram]

Bill has a guy he knows that lives in Oregon, that works on many of his guitars. Bill likes Callaham hardware and Lollar pickups. but that isn't to say all of his teles have those things. the MIM thinline isn't stock anymore. but that's all I know.

Bill does have several teles, and he acquires new ones all the time, while letting others go. he himself isn't sure what some of them are. he has had a at least one parts guitar, where he wasn't sure where the bodies and necks came from.

the blonde tele in the video isn't a MIM. it's a custom shop relic. that guitar was his main guitar for about 9 months or so, around 2004-ish. the video was filmed in April 2004.

I visited Bill in Feb 2004, and brought my 98 MIM nashville tele with me. he was very impressed with it. I'm sure he had played a MIM before that, but he acted surprised about how the neck was so good, and how I got it for 350.

tdpri member mtwang told me about Callaham, and I told Bill ... that's how he came to start ordering from him.

I get the feeling that Bill's most favorite guitars are the ones that don't leave the house. he has a jag neck on a painted tele body, that he loves. he also has a sunburst tele with white binding, and a calaham american style bridge, that he was really excited about in 2004-2005. there are pics floating around of these. but he hasn't used em on stage in a long time.

[kludge]

When I saw him a few months ago, he was playing a sunburst Tele with some sort of 1960s-ish pickup at the neck... maybe a gold foil, or a Teisco.

But the tonal difference between MIM Teles and fancier ones, compared to the difference between Frisell's hands and ours, is like a crack in the sidewalk versus the Grand Canyon. His tone is just magical, no matter what he plays.

[rand z]

i noticed (on the video clip above) that he is using, almost totally, down picks.

could contribute to the tone, as there is a difference in the sound/tone of down and up picked notes.

i love everything he does, and its all different and yet its all him... amazing!

i must see him...

imho.

rand z tropicalsoul.net

[aram]

I actually had the opportunity to open up for Frisell in January at the Rutgers university with Jamaaladeen Tacuma's band, which afforded me the opportunity to check out his setup in close detail at soundcheck.

He runs his mexican thinline tele into a TU2, Tube Screamer, Rat, Keeley DD6, Line 6, which is split in 1 DRRI.

The other split goes into a zvex ringtone and then some sort of rackmount delay, and then into another DRRI.

Still, even though I know all the effects he uses, I still had no idea how he was getting some of his sounds.

After the show Bill and I checked out each others guitars.

He also has a Rick Kelly tele. I let him play mine, and he really seemed to like it. He played it for about ten minutes or so!!!

His guitar is just a $400 Mexican 69 thinline. But he's had a lot of mods done to it:

all the electronics are swapped out, and he had the neck refinished in nitro.

Watching Bill play was amazing.

I know this is a gear page, and that people spend countless hours figuring out how to get this tone or that tone.

Bill's tone is 99.9999999999% in his hands.

He's always changing his right hand position to elicit different sounds, and subtly bending the notes with his left hand.

In the middle of the set he did this chord solo that was astounding. The low E string was slightly out of tune but he was just playing with it, enjoying that wavering sound. The complexity of the voicings and the voice leading was so elegant. It was just beautiful.

After the set I said "Man Bill, that was amazing."

He was so funny.

He smiled and said something like "Yeah that was. What was happening with that string? It was cool sounding"

In some ways, it seems as if he was just an observer watching what was coming out, in just as much amazement as the audience. It was very innocent and childlike.

Anyway. It was a great night. Bill was a very friendly, humble and gracious man.

And a badass guitar player.
(:
__________________

[xjazzy]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

Id say its a 50's Classic MIM. If he knows a dealer he could have got one for that.

has said before, that can't be a Classic '50. That thing is yellow! And the knobs are different too.

[maestrovert]

Originally Posted by Mark Davis

Id say its a 50's Classic MIM. If he knows a dealer he could have got one for that.

Hmmmmm.....i was noticing that in some of the shots from the headstock, his fingerboard has a pretty flat radius.....much too flat to be a '50's Classic anyways.....

[Telemarkman]

Originally Posted by aram

Bill's tone is 99.9999999999% in his hands.

If so, why does he have to swap out the electronics?

That 0.0000000001% difference wouldn't be audible ... Hee, hee!

[aram]

Originally Posted by Telemarkman

If so, why does he have to swap out the electronics?

That 0.0000000001% difference wouldn't be audible ... Hee, hee!

Well, I've seen him play on an acoustic, and he still sounds like Frisell.

So yeah, let's say it's 95% in his hands.

[lupowitz]

Originally Posted by aram

Well, I've seen him play on an acoustic, and he still sounds like Frisell.

So yeah, let's say it's 95% in his hands.

I pretty much agree with you with your estimation.
He probably is the most genuine sounding guitarist of today, electrics aside.

When he played in the Bass Desires with Scofield, Erskine and Marc Johnson, he played an SG Jnr, but even then you could tell it was him. But some who digs him since his americana period came to alive would be surprised to hear his sound back then. (He even played with no other but HENRY KAISER, yes THE Henry Kaiser who collected so much votes for being the worst sounding guitarist)

He had a tele neck pickup in his black Shadowsky strat in the late eighties early nighties, had one in both of his Kleins, he really likes that sound, something what doesn't surprise me at all for some reason. So his turn to teles almost exclusively in recent years came naturally I guess. He played a blonde 60's looking Tele with rosewood board in 2003 in Budapest the last time I saw him, which was the best concert I ever attended up to this date by the way. (The closing concert of the New Quartett tour, they squeezed everything out of themselfs. Charlie Haden once said, that Bill and Sco are the yin&yang in guitar playing. Then I don't know what Greg Leisz and Bill are together, but it was one of the most magical nights of my life).

Here's a link to a site, which claims to sell -or rather sold- a part of his collection :
http://www.myjazzhome.com/frisell/bfpricelist.html

[FraKo]

Originally Posted by maestrovert

Hmmmmm.....i was noticing that in some of the shots from the headstock, his fingerboard has a pretty flat radius.....much too flat to be a '50's Classic anyways.....

The image is stretched, the radius may seem flatter that way... but I agree: it looks more like a blonde/maple HW1 in my humble opinion