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OK, this has kind of been bothering me. I noticed this in Des Moines the other night, and in some recent photos that Nels has been playing a black Jazz Master. This seems strange to me because he seemed to favor that beaten up jazz master quite a bit. But then I saw it closer and started wondering if he had just painted it black. Anyone have any insight on this? Black paint, or new guitar?

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It's a Jazzmaster. It's black with a black pickguard. The pickguard is more of a "satin finish" it's not shiny. It's 100% Jazzmaster. Guitarists can rarely settle on a guitar, and even if they love a certain type, they want to try them all. Fender did the J Mascis Signature...maybe they're working on a Nels Signature.

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It looks more "new" than anything but it's definitely a jazzmaster. It's not his old one, either. If you look at pictures of his '59 that he beat the hell out of for the ten years it has three painted/whatever dots on the headstock, while the new one has two. Also the old one has a giant chip in the headstock, while this one does not. I can almost conclude that they're different, but I can't rule out that Nels heavily re-modded the Jazzmaster...which would be sad because I love how his Jazzmaster looks like it went to war.

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Yeah over the residency all the guys sported new gear and I'm pretty sure this is just a new JM, like previously stated his '59 was on it's last legs. Nels also had a new Jerry Jones (sunburst) and the double neck, maybe a few other things as well. They're all on Wilcoworld anyways. Tweedy got new Vox amps and a couple new Tele's and pulled out his pre-war Martin. Pat had a few things we haven't seen before. Instead of his Reeves he had a Twin Reverb and an AC30 on a few nights.

 

The JM actually looks too new. One time I talked to Nels he said he would never play one of the new reissue Jazzmasters he would only play the old ones (says the parts on the new ones suck). So that's more incentive for the painting theory but it looks pretty damn new so maybe he took it back now! Sounds great anyways.

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i read that his sg's were custom made birthday presents from sue. that was in guitar player around agib.

Only the blue one.

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I don't remember exactly what Nels said, but he was on the "Watt From Pedro Show" a few months ago (Mike Watt's online radio show) talking about his guitars. He and Watt spent a lot of time talking about gear. I seem to recall him telling Watt he couldn't stand the stock version of the new Jazzmasters, but he had some new ones that he really liked, which were modified by someone (in Chicago, I think) to make them feel and play similar to his old one.

 

I think it's highly unlikely that his '59 has been repainted.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Over in the "Just a Fan" section of this forum, there are two videos of Nels recording with Mike Watt and Bob Lee (aka: Tha Black Gang). Nels is playing his old Jazzmaster and it definitely has not been refinished. The sessions were on April 5, 2008.

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