ginandcigarettes

The first thing to do is figure out how much money you're willing to spend and then what you want to sound like and what features you want. I'm guessing that since you're looking to sound like Wilco you're going to want piano, some electric pianos, and some organ and synth (but really, not much synth). Really, a good piano sound will get you through most of Wilco's keyboard catalog. Casio, M-Audio, and Yamaha make some decent piano-centric keyboards in the $500-$900 range, but they won't have much of the other sounds (but they probably will have enough that will do fine in a pinch). I neglec

The American Standards have a polyurethane finish. This doesn't mean it won't age, per se, just that it won't age like guitars from the 50s and early 60s. Starting in the mid-60s, Fender used polyester or polyurethane to finish their guitars. So if you want to see what your urethane-finished guitar will look like in 40 years, go to your vintage guitar shop and look at the Fenders from the 70s. If what you want is the finish to be checked and finger marks worn off the neck, then you'll need to go nitro. If the way 70s guitars age pleases you, then polyurethane is fine.

They do; all of Fender's American-made Vintage Reissues are done up in nitrocellulose -- so SpeedRacer's new 52 Reissue will age quite nicely. A couple of their artist-series (like the Eric Johnson strat) are done in nitro, as are the Vintage Hot Rod, and the Highway One (though, like the Road Worn, this has a poly-finished neck). The thing is, except for the Highway One, these are all higher-ticket guitars.

Sounds like you remembered it better than me: I built/refinished my first guitar I didn't really follow this discussion when it happened, but I talked to him at the First Millennial Southern California Wilco Jam, and I could have sworn it was ReRanch and he also put a short-scale tele neck on it. Maybe he built another one. Or maybe I'm just wrong. There's one way to know.

Ha, I think you're talking about (all-around super nice guy) Andy Miller who got (I think) an unfinished tele body and finished it using ReRanch nitrocellulose lacquer. I saw that tele up close about a year ago and, I tell you, he did a phenomenal job with the finish and the relic'ing; it was a real beauty. I haven't seen him around here is a while. I hope he posts.

In alphabetical order: At Least That's What You Said Bob Dylan's Beard California Stars (Jay live) Forget the Flowers (both studio and Jay live) I'm the Man Who Loves You Remember the Mountain Bed Secret of the Sea Summerteeth Theologians That's Not the Issue (Jay, live)

I'm not so against these guitars. If you put aside the relic-ing, a lot of these guitars have some pretty nice features -- in the case of the roadworn tele, ash rather than alder, nitrocellulose rather than polyurethane finish (except, unfortunately, for the neck), tall frets, fat neck, good pups, various 50's accouterments. I think these features don't quite justify its price (which is a couple hundred more than I think it should be), but these guitars can have a nice suite of features that aren't readily available stock on other guitars. If you're asking whether all-things-being-equal woul

Hee hee. Yeah, I remember playing around with that before settling on the version that I tabbed for reasons that escape me now (it has been a year). It certainly seems really Jay-like to climb up a single string, but perhaps I thought it would be easy to hook the C# under the fretting fingers at the second position.* Or perhaps I was seduced by the sixteenth-note triplet in bar 4 that seems to pull off onto the open E which is slightly more accessible if you're already down there. I think if I had heard the E-string drone, I would have put it on the 7th fret B-string, though. Still, I don't

No problem. I think I used PowerTab; it's not my favorite (well, I haven't used anything else so it might be my favorite by default), which is to say it's not quite as user friendly or intuitive as I would like and I'm not sure why the notes in standard notation are shown as they are played and not as they sound (so when you bend and F# to a G, it's shown as an F#, which is really weird to me for some reason, but that might just be how this stuff is done). PowerTab does have the overriding virtue of being free, however. Yeah, let me know how this tab works out for you. Suggestions, comme

I'm not sure about that last point, but I totally agree about the knobs and switches; I can't stand scrolling through a dozen menus to find how to boost the treble a tiny bit.

I have played one but it was 10 years ago so it was before I really knew what I was listening for (not that I particularly know now, but I'm closer). As I remember it was somewhere between a tele and a dano (as one would expect). It didn't exactly blow me away, but it was fun to play. Congratulations! Great guitar!

I think it's actually hollow or semi hollow like a Danelectro and it's just made to look like an old-timey radio.

I think the old Lindert guitars had chicken head knobs. They were kinda fun, quirky guys: I kinda wish I'd picked one up when they were more common.

Thanks! Yeah, I think I have a Mustang bridge but I couldn't get the action low enough to be comfy for my miniature girl-hands or the radius flat enough to avoid fretting out on high e-string bends. I've seen some folks use the saddles of the Jaguar for the outside E strings and the Mustang saddles for the inside 4 strings (or maybe it was vice versa). But the point was that you could get a flatter radius and avoid fretting out.

Well, I think they are worth a look. I haven't as spent much time with one as I would like, so I'm hesitant to make a recommendation. But I think that (if you're not disgusted with the idea of Road Worn) it might be a reasonably priced contender. It does have a nitro-finished ash body (though a poly neck) with big frets and decent (though not great) pickups.

Now there's something I know something about. I have a CIJ Tele Custom with Bigsby and it's my number 1. After a good setup it plays like butter. A couple of thoughts on it (and Japanese reissues and Bigsbys in general): (1) The electronics are absolute crap. You can wring some bite from the bridge pup, but the neck has really no personality. I replaced them with Seymour Duncan Antiquities. I also had the pots, caps, wire, and switch replaced and now it has some pretty good tone. (2) The Bigsby bridge is essentially a Jaguar bridge and as such it sucks. It seems that someone was thinking abo

I saw this at GC yesterday and thought seriously about getting a job so I could buy it: Mmmm... 76 weighted keys... superfluous tube... oversized switch... decent sounding piano... me wantee!

The Marshall ED-1 is a good all-around compressor and will get a good country sound, but I just realized that it's no longer made (or at least MF and zzounds no longer carry it). A lot of folks like the Orange Squeezer for country. I've never used one so I can't say anything. I know that BBE made a squeezer clone, but I think they discontinued it (apparently a lot of my compressor knowledge is outdated). The BiCompRosser has a squeezer clone in it, and you get a nice Ross clone as well. On the telecaster discussion page I frequent, some people love the Danelectro Surf & Turf. And it's

I've heard good things about the Barber Toner Press, but also check out the Guyatone ST-2; it also has a switch (though not a blend knob) for adding the uncompressed signal back into the mix for a more natural sound. I like it a lot, and my friend who's a studio engineer loves it to tears. Everybody's tastes and needs are different, though, so check it out for yourself. I think the Keeley is a straight Ross clone (albeit with true bypass and not 30 years old) and it's pretty magical (so I'm told), but you can also find other manufacturers making Ross clones or check out BYOC and make your ow

Hee hee. I was being a little tongue in cheek there and I was also perhaps generalizing unfairly from my experiences at GC Hollywood, which seems to be staffed by the entire line ups of Cinderella and White Lion who have no doubt gone slightly mad from having to listen to Tracii Guns (look-alike) play deedly deedly deedly deedly deedly for 8 straight hours broken only by some 15 year old trying to play a three-note nu-metal riff with only two notes on a dimed Marshall. I have been to a GC in Connecticut that was quite pleasant. That said, (1) I wish I could play deedly deedly deedly deed

Most of the time this means trying out a pedal and using an amp and guitar at the store that most closely matches your amp and guitar. I used to spend a lot of time at West LA Music* and they have a soundproof(ish) room with all their amps. When I was trying out pedals, I grabbed a Tele off the wall and ran it through a Deluxe Reverb RI and got a pretty good idea of how it all worked together. I never had the guts to do this, but if your amp or guitar model just isn't at the store, you could ask a clerk if you can bring in yours to try out a pedal. My guess is that they would oblige if (1) t

I've never heard anything but good stuff about the Bad Monkey (though I can't speak as I've never played with one). My friend has an OCD and he loves it, but I've never played through his rig long enough to hear how it worked with me (he has no compressor, so I couldn't say if I would actually sound good with it). I have a Fulldrive and it's pretty good -- essentially a Tube Screamer clone with an option to kick in an additional stage of boost. It also has a switch to lift out the clipping diodes so it's just clean boost (with all of the overdrive coming from the smashed front end of your am

I've used the VooDoo Labs PedalPower, OneSpot, and GodLyke PowerAll and the VooDoo is probably the quietest and overall best, but it just takes up too much real estate on the old pedal board. At some point I needed room for one more pedal and the VooDoo had to go. The GodLyke is my second favorite, and it's what I use today (and have used for the past three or four years). It's pretty quiet and monstrously convenient. I have a power strip on my pedal board (seeing as I have a couple of effects that actually plug in and also for convenience's sake) and so it works out pretty well. (By the wa

Well, we should probably distinguish between his live rig and what he did on record (even though I tend to think that he favored using an odd instrument on record than trying to make a normal instrument odd). I think we're also comparing really early Jay when he was in a country band to really late jay when he was a solo artist and ignoring a good chuck of Jay history. Yeah, in the early and late periods, Jay didn't use many pedals. But he (over)used a wah-wah on the Being There tour and at least had some kind of phaser or flanger to get a Leslie-like effect on Outtamind Outtasite (check out

Hee hee. That is, in point of fact, the house rug at the Silverlake Lounge. That is to say, that rug is just the rug that has always been on the stage there. It is, however, a good rug. I have played at the Silverlake Lounge on several occasions (typically the 8:00 or midnight time slots -- you know, where they stick bands that no one wants to see) and always enjoyed the rug. I have even gone so far as to have a lie down on the rug in the middle of a set when I got SMASHINGLY drunk during a show a few days after a particularly bad breakup. The other times I got drunk during the set and h