I bought this guitar 7 years ago, when I was looking for a different sound than I was getting out of my Strat and kind of somehow had vaguely heard of this band called Sonic Youth that were alright.
Since then, it's always had something wrong with it, and I've always had a different guitar around that I've liked better. You'll notice it's not listed in my signature. Most of its life I would have sold it if I thought I could get 200 bucks for it, which I never could because it was usually mutilated in some way. The picture I posted is from when the pickups were falling out . The painters' tape "competition stripe" is there to cover some other metallic tape that used to be all torn up and irritate the underside of my arm whenever I played it. But for whatever reason, I've held onto it. It has been through a lot with me, and I've been trying to look at it more positively.
The stock pickups (PAF style) were way too dark for my taste. I moaned and complained endlessly about that without ever taking the simple way out and replacing the pickups, my rationale being why drop the $ on a guitar I didn't like much. Finally my faithful tech and spirit guide, Josh over at Velvet Unicorn Studios, tired of my caterwauling and removed the pole piece screws. I got the guitar back after not playing it for a while (he knew I wouldn't miss it) and... well, it was a whiplash-inducing paradigm shift to hear the difference. Where before there was only wooly, subdued cleans and unremarkable driven tones, now a bright, focused sound was going on. Not quite WRHB but definitely much closer to the "fat single coil" sound I was looking for.
It does need help staying in tune, always has. I'm not sure if that's a result of the bridge or tuners or what. I did have someone add more springs to the trem situation, that did mitigate the problem somewhat. But it still gives me trouble. The neck itself feels good, and the body feels substantial. If I could get the tuning thing figured out, I suppose I'd probably have a pretty okay guitar.
I guess I'm just curious to hear what y'all have to say about this thing. It's always just kind of "been there", never assisted the transcendence process like some of my other instruments. But I'm open to realizing that maybe my perspective needs to shift in order for it to meet me in that place. I don't know. I'm divided because I'm also trying to build two strats and there's always the convert-what-little-I-could-get-for-it-into-Strat-parts argument. I think I'd feel KIND OF sentimental towards it if I did that though? Maybe? Would I?
I don't know how this turned into a Freudian/Lynchian psychological analysis of my relationship with the guitar. Maybe I need to just play the darn thing. I don;t know.
