Apart from briefly (for an hour)
considering chopping in the Gibson for a Lone Star Strat in the early Penguin
Steak day, I’d never seriously considered going back to Fender. That changed in
April 2010.
I’d been listening to The Eagles and a
compilation called American Heartbeat, and thought it might be worthwhile
getting a third guitar, especially after hearing some of Joe Walsh’s work on
Hotel California. I picked this on up for a cool £310 on eBay. I specifically
wanted the Roadhouse because of its twangier Texas special pickups.
What I do like about Fenders is that
they’re very utilitarian and workmanlike. You can throw them around a bit and
mistreat them. They don’t require any special handling and with 5 pickup
combinations there’s a lot of sounds in there. Because I attached no real value
to this guitar, I had it out all of the time so it was the go-to axe, while the
Gibson and The Rickenbacker stayed in their cases.
Then in March 2013 something rather
serendipitous happened. For the sake of just playing something, I re-recorded
an old song of mine one afternoon with the Strat. It just wasn’t sounding right
though, and I wasn’t getting the same feeling. In a moment of pique I got the
Les Paul out of the case and used that instead. Everything fell into place. The
next day I got into a serious songwriting groove on my old Les Paul. Shortly
afterwards I looked back on the last three years of Strat ownership and decided
I’d achieved very little, felt inspired to continue using it even less, and
that I would sell it when I returned from my 2 month job in India. Out of the
blue, I was contacted by the guy who sold the guitar to the guy I bought it off
– he wanted to buy it back and offered me the same price I paid for it. At the
time of writing, I’m still India, but I’m fairly sure he’ll make good on his
promise when I’m back, and I’ll probably use the money to buy a studio
compressor.
2022 Update: Sold this in 2016 - not to the original seller! Never liked it, to be honest.
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