ok my old friends.......I need some advice (this is wicked l

[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?

[Kingpin]

Cut back on the coffee!

As you are an accomplished player I'm sure you could make any axe sound good. It just sounds like you're looking for something new to inspire you, the problem is, once the novelty of a new guitbox wears off you're back to where you started. I think you will find plenty of inspiration once you dive into the new CD project, after all, it's the music that inspires-not the guitar. The first thing I would suggest is taking your guitars to your tech for a tuneup. If that doesn't help, I think a Gibby 335 would serve you well...

Good luck on the CD, have fun!

[Brian K.]

Hey Joey, while I don't have any gear advice for you but reading your post about "soul jazz/boogaloo/acid jazz project" made me wonder if you've ever heard Mel Brown? He's not very well known but in the late 60's he recorded some records for the Impulse label mainly "Chiken Fat" and The Wizard". All instrumental hence the jazz label but to me those records sound like Booker T & The MG's on funk steroids. Very soul jazz/boogaloo to the extreme. He's even backed by Herb Ellis on second guitar on the Chicken Fat LP. These records always inspire me. Some real crazy funky guitar playing. As of last checking they still weren't released on CD and vinyl copies routinely sell for $25 on up on Ebay but well worth it. It seems noone knows about these records. Even at record conventions I would ask dealers for Mel Brown records and they had never heard of him. I stumbled upon them via $1 yard sales so I was lucky. He did become a session player and played for Bobby Blue Bland in the 70's and has some recent CD's out that I have not heard but these early Impules LP's are very cool. I know thats not what your post was about but your description oy the style your doing instantly reminded me Mel Brown's Chicken Fat LP. Have you ever heard them? If not I think you would enjoy them. Good luck.

[Brian K.]

Here is one at 9.99 no bids yet.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...&category=1078

[Anonymous]

... half a valium and call us in the morning. ;-)

Originally Posted by JoeyV

I'm looking for a guitar to knock me out of the rut and inspire me ... I need the right guitar now, a guitar to inspire me, a guitar that will perform flawlessly, with minimal effort... I dunno, I just dont know what to get.... Some kind of custom made guitar? ... I'm wicked fussy and drive guitar stores crazy when there trying to sell me a guitar, Im impossible to please... 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 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 ... lightweight bodies are my favorite, warm fat but distinct neck pickups, twangy bridge pickups and balanced blend of the two... I like Fender type pickups and think Leos design is perfect for the Fender guitar...I also play very clean and hardly ever use any overdriven sounds.....big fat and jazzy clean, funky clean or twangy country and surfy... what do you guys think I should do?

Nah, I understand exactly what you're saying. And I kinda think you may just have to go and play a bunch of guitars until you find one that "speaks" to you. But in the meantime, this is one worth checking out.


It's a G&L ASAT Z-3 Semi-hollow, and it's everything you asked for -- except the vintage frets, and you can order it with those if you like. If you're ordering new, you can also choose the neck profile, radius, fingerboard wood, finish, pickguard, etc. And those weird-looking pickups were Leo's noiseless design, and they're my second favorite (next to Bardens).

Anyway, that was a great rant, and best of luck. :-) CS

[dean]

Sounds like you're getting pretty cranked up for the CD! I actually had a Tele that would do virtually everything you ask for - it was one of the best Teles I've ever played. It was a mid-'80s MIJ '69 Thinline RI with Harmonic Design pickups. The S-90 bridge still grabbed the Tele twang, and the Vintage + neck was pure jazz heaven.

I kept the pickups when I sold the guitar, and they now sit in my '52 RI custom Tele. As good as the pickups are, the Thinline/HD combo was the one that sounded best.

I'd give the Thinline a look if I were you.

Good luck and let us know how things turn out.

Dean

[JoeyV]

You got the idea of the kind of record Im going to make....I have been looking for Mel Brown stuff too...cant find anything. I have been checking out some of the new guys doing this kind of stuff and there is some great stuff starting to come out...Look under Boogaloo at Amazon.com ......I have been a huge fan of this style for years ....Bill Black did some stuff like this too and I think Bill Doggert is the grandaddy of the idiom.....some older guys were telling me that Renee Hall was also a complete monster on this kind of stuff too but tracking what he played on would be pretty tough......
As far as the guitar goes ...I need that perfect Tele....thats whats going to do it for me...when I mean perfect I mean,,,the right neck..and all the other stuff done right....great frets, good piece of resonating wood, perfect setup and some good pickups....I might need two guitars and I think my second choice would be an ES330 or something along that lines with some fat warm P90's and that shorter scale..
So in short....the best made tele with a perfect setup will be the tool im looking for....could be a MIM from MusicOne or somebodys used one , or I might just have to build it or have one made with USCustom parts......were it comes from I dont care, just as long as its the best it can be and it works perfectly......

[jumpnblues]

...1. Have a USA Custom Guitars Strat or Tele made to your exact specs, or, if you don't like P-90's on a Fender-style guitar but like them on Gibson-styled guitars (and this is a really cool idea even if I do say so myself) 2. Have Jason Lollar make you one of his P-90 equipped archtops. They are way too cool. You can choose Florentine or Venetian cutaways and I don't have to tell you how Jason's P-90's sound, or do I? Well, since you asked, you did ask didn't you? ...They sound gorgeous!! Well there you have it. The solution! Oh yeah, that little issue of price. I think, if I recall correctly, the Lollar guitars are in the $4000. price range, but that shouldn't be any obstacle at all for a man of your means Seriously (if you can swing it), check them out. It would be the PERFECT guitar for what you're planning to do. JMHO YMMV. You "trailer park mullet-head" you (you cracked me up with that post awhile back) :D

[Mike Better]

I was thinking maybe some kind of Hamer.. maybe an Artist Korina.. P-90s, semi-hollow, a smaller body than a 335 style..

http://www.hamerguitars.com/?fa=detail&mid=382&sid=177

Or as long as we're talking about Lollar, how about one of his solid bodies - a tele, or his "ToneMaster", but maybe with a Charlie Christian pickup in the neck..

http://www.lollarguitars.com/tonemaster.htm

These both seem like good rut guitars, something new to get you on a different path..

Mike

[benbo]

A gibby 335, cool funky tones, endless sounds, for a player like you, you could get any sound you wanted out of it....... aint gonna be cheap i'm afraid... but cool sound.......benny

[sanhozay]

PRS

go here for more info: http://209.151.81.189/board/

[sanhozay]

i forgot to add:

[Bill]

When I look for a big change from my Teles, I grab my ES-347 (which is easy to do, since I have it hanging over our unused fireplace). It's a somewhat jazzier, more sustainy 335. I changed the brass nut to bone, and ditched the way-overpowering pickups for a set of Fralins. It's very creamy sounding, yet complex. And it switches from humbucking to single coil with a flick of the switch. I think of it as my 50's/60's switch.

It's a great guitar when I want something different. My was cheap when I bought it used years ago, but I think they go for $1500 used these days.

Maybe you could borrow guitars from local players? I figure they've already checked out a bunch of instruments to pick their own, that way you'd be getting the best of the best.

Here's a link to a photo of mine:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/...69109069STgshb

There's a link at the bottom of the page that let's you view a full-size version.

[JoeyV]

ES 347 .....cool guitar I have never actually seen one before...that Hamer Korina also looks pretty cool too...and the G&L is very cool too!!! Some nice guitars for sure..... :D
I was thinking about it tonight and I think the custom route might be in order,,, having US Custom spec my favorite neck out ...couple ideas I had were.

Sticking to the Tele theme:
1. Make up a neck with the radius and contours of my favorite neck however do it short scale like the ES350t and ES 330, and have an ebony finger board vintage Fender radius, maybe slightly larger fret then vintage Fender, maybe a vintage Gibson size fret wire, bullet truss rod or one that is up by headstock, (maybe binding on the neck) and mahogany for the rest of the neck then for the body make up a semi hollow tele body, binding like a Tele deluxe, with a nice spruce top, and maybe mahogany or flame maple for the rest of the body and no f holes...or maybe a combo of maple, mahagony laminate for the body with a spruce top? ...light blonde nitro finish and a really nice P90 or two P90's for pickups and use a strat hardtail bridge(maybe have some saddles machined out of ebony!!!)..or do something even more radical..and have one nice Charlie Christian pickup on it.. volume and tone..

[Bill]

OK Joey, you said you'd get a custom neck with binding. So my question is, would you have the frets go over the binding?

I love the look of binding, but on Gibsons at least, the frets only go up to the binding, and the binding is cut to the shape of the frets. That looks really nice, but you miss about an 1/16 inch of fret on each side of the fretboard. If I ever had this kind of guitar refretted, I'd have the frets overlap the binding. Get more usable fret that way.

Something to think about if you custom order.

[JoeyV]

Makes sense ...i probably will not have the binding go over it.....

[Dacious]

Joey, Joey, I got what you need, right here....

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....category=38083

[JoeyV]

wow ..thats a different spin on the tele.....very different...very LesPaul Custom like

[wakiyan_luta]

Spend da same money on a "PRS"!!! should fix yew rit up !!

[Adam Waldron]

Reckon this could help man....

It sure would me!


http://www.prsguitars.com/showcase/c.../sp_mcsoap.htm

Cheers,

Adam

[JoeyV]

Hmmm that is kind of what I'm look for.......I will have to check one out....

['ol hank pank]

If you want, you can check out my 2 teles.

1 is a solid ash w a SD broadcaster bridge and HB neck p/u I modded out.

2 is a thin line w/ a SD Donahue bridge and a Fender Vintage neck. Between the 2 I can sqeeze out many many different tones. I am just up 95 about 4 exits.

If you like you can borrow them.

Let me know.

Rich