Nels is Mad

[mediocreplayer]

Commenting on a custom shop JM from NAMM:

[Embenny]

If they did this without his knowledge or consent, that's pretty ridiculous. Especially since he's been such a Jazzmaster guy. I'm sure he'd have been open to hearing from them officially.

Also...he's not wrong. 8 grand gets you a whole lot of vintage Offset action!

[BlueMelody]

If that’s true, he has good reason to be mad...yeesh.

[zhivago]

Big +1, this is stupid...give Nels a call and an apology, Fender!

[Mechanical Birds]

I mean, he’s using a Fender guitar, something designed, produced and sold by the company - intellectual property usually sounds stupid to me but like, it feels to me like they have every right to do this. They’re not using his likeness or name to promote it and there’s probably, what, a handful of them for purchase?

Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. It’s nothing like them stealing the Venus design or anything.

[Trout]

The pictures so far are crappy, but I don't think they look very much alike.

[timtam]

There was a generic CS reliced JM that looked similar, here at Sweetwater ...
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... r-sunburst
Although the one in the OP's pic has the RSD bridge. And maybe isn't black over sunburst .. OK maybe it's not so similar.

[Kent]

Tempest in a teapot.

Fender Inc. invented that guitar and it is such a common color scheme. The wear pattern approaches his but that kind of wear (on an oft-played guitar) isn't uncommon. That, and the bridge is one of those odd Fender Custom Shop things. It looks like a bit of tribute but... well, I'd bet they've spoken to him about a signature model at some point. He stated that they have his contact info.

This could also be a one-off and the picture is pretty poor.

[dinosaurkale->]

i dont see the big deal
its a black tort guitar with some distressing
anyone can do or make this

[leokula]

I saw that and I think Nels Cline is overreacting big time. It's tort on black ffs...

[601210]

If it's supposed to imitate the pattern of wear on his guitar it's a bad job, anyways.

But the idea that a wear pattern on an otherwise bone-stock guitar is somehow someone's trademark is kind of ludicrous. It's not even a particularly unique kind of wearing out like on the Joe Strummer Tele.

[marqueemoon]

He can be mad if he wants I guess, but unless his name/likeness are being used to sell the guitar Fender isn’t doing anything “wrong”. I do think it’s short sighted of Fender not to get in touch with him about this though.

[Trout]

A NC sig model would mean a JM with a Mastery. I don't see Fender doing that.

[Embenny]

Exactly, there's absolutely nothing legally wrong about this, and yes, it's a common colour scheme, but it just feels discourteous because it's pretty clear what it's based on, and Nels is high enough profile that most people buying $8k relic'd JMs have likely seen his.

It just feels like bad form is all. Fender could have sold black strats with black pickguards and white pickups all day long, there's nothing trademarked about that by any artist, but everyone knew whose guitar that would be imitating so instead you got an official DG model.

[timtam]

Here's another pic of the CS masterbuild at NAMM 2019 he's concerned about .. on the right..


There's also a purple jag with a floyd rose (!) at the Google drive link with NAMM CS pics (at 'Click here to see pictures' ...) ...
https://www.themusiczoo.com/blogs/news/ ... -namm-2019