Who inspired you to start playing offsets?

[ravcon]

Alessandro Alessandroni

[farmer42]

Around that time, I was watching K-On, and when they got to the second season, I saw this:

I always wanted to watch that show but never got to it. One of my favorite bands (Scandal - the Japanese one) has to be partially based on that manga, although they'd never admit it. They formed right after it debuted, though, and were also four high school girls who couldn't originally play instruments... If it's coincidence, it's a strange case of life imitating art.

Did you ever watch "Linda Linda Linda", which is live action but seems to have a similar story? That movie got me into Italia guitars - I have wanted one ever since seeing that.

Linda Linda Linda was OK. I moved from K-On! to BECK, and that pretty much wrecked my face.

[LBx]

[obligatory] J Mascis and early Sonic Youth. [/response]


Also!:

[LBx]

Paying a bunch of money and feeling lukewarm with an Epiphone Les Paul didn't hurt either...

[panoramic]

Lee Ranaldo

[Embenny]

First it was Brian Molko's jag:


Then I realized someone else I was digging had a similar-looking guitar:


I know, I know. What a cliche. But it's the honest answer to the question. This was long enough ago that I remember being so excited that the AVRI's were announced, but they were beyond my means. MIJs were hard to come by in Canada at the time. When I finally got my hands on one (my '94 LPB MIJ jag with matching headstock), I renounced my previous Strat allegiance and never looked back.

[Whiny Minotaur]

Thom Yorke playing a Jazzmaster. I just thought it was a cool looking guitar, he's always pretty low in the mix so I didn't realy know what it sounded like.

Then later on I saw a performance of Sonic Youth playing Dirty Boots. I loved how chunky their tone was while still having that Fender treble.

I actually didn't like Jaguars at first. Something about all that chrome that looked haphazardly drilled on to the body was offputting. It's kinda funny how Jaguars became my favorite looking guitar later on.

[Telliot]

[marqueemoon]

Gotta love DB! He really doesn't get enough credit as a guitar player. Early Talking Heads (even as a 3 piece) were tight as fuck.

I guess I've always loved surf guitar tones. Adam Franklin (Swervedriver) first got me interested in a Jazzmaster in a rock context, and I discovered Sean Eden (Luna) around the same time. MBV too of course.

[Freddy Le Cragg]

Jaco Pastorius and Leo Lyons.

[paddyb]

Johnny Marr and Nels Cline

[shoule79]

I discovered music and began playing guitar in the early 90's. Offsets were like the strat of my generation, all my favourite players used them (the usual suspects, SY, Dinosaur Jr, MBV et al). Rick from the Afghan Whigs is the only guy I was really into who hasn't been mentioned so far (well him, Tristan Psionic and occasionally Hayden).

Finding a MIJ JM in 97 (finally) to replace my tele was it for me, a jag and Mustang followed quickly and I've pretty much always had an offset since.

Oddly enough, I usually saw pictures of Kurt Cobain with his mustang when I was 12 or 13 and assumed it was a strat, so I never lumped him into the offset group initially.

[BoringPostcards]

Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. Saw footage of them playing live back in the early 90s and fell in love with the "strange Fenders" they were using. Up until then I don't recall ever seeing anything other than Telecasters, Stratocasters and the odd Bullet model.