When I got off work today, I wandered into my little music room and realized I had sat down and was playing my Telecaster.
Telecasters are iconic. Because of that, I always thought I should have one. And like it enough that I, at the very least, occasionally played it. So, in like 2013, I finally bought one. I had always thought I’d get a butterscotch blonde one, but the one I got was just blonde. It was a 2010 50s Road Worn. I had played a couple of them in the store and really liked them. I bought this one used from a guy. I met him at a Starbucks on the west side of town and took it home.
I really tried to like it. It just never did much for me. Although I don’t really have a problem with a relic-ed guitar, I was just never into the look. And it sounded kind of…boring. Nothing about it stood out. I changed the pickguard from the stock aged and reliced white (which I thought looked kind of dumb) to a black one. I never changed anything else. When it came time for the great gear purge of 2020, it was one of the guitars that got traded/sold.
Then I saw one of Anderton’s vids and that purple Tele that Danish Pete plays. I loved the look of that one! But, knowing I wasn’t really sold on Teles, I just admired it from afar. Then one day I saw Fender came out with a special run of 50s Road Worn Teles in purple. I liked the look, but resisted temptation. Then Anderton’s announced that they were doing a run purple Classic Vibe Teles.
Since the Classic Vibes were half the price of the Road Worn, I decided I’d get one. Figured, if nothing else, since it had a Squier price tag, it might make a good mod platform if I didn’t like it. It made it all the way over here from jolly old England. And, in my opinion, it was a lemon. I contacted Anderton’s, and, as you can imagine, they weren’t super interested in having to pay shipping to get it back to them.
Since it wasn’t sold in the US, it had no warranty. Instead, they paid the bill for me to carry it to a local luthier. I had the neck reset, the nut recut, and the guitar setup. It still really wasn’t a player. So it became my travel guitar…that guitar that you take on trips because you don’t care if it gets stolen or busted. If it disappeared, it wouldn’t be a loss and I wouldn’t replace it.
Honestly, that Squier kind of ruined that brand for me. I had bought a couple of others that were ok. Not great, but not bad. This one was bad enough I don’t think I’ll ever buy another one.
But I was itching to try a Tele again after that. So, I scoured the internet in search of one of those purple Road Worns. I think I got the last new one available in the country. Out of all the online retailers, Musicians Friend listed them as in stock (and $100 off). I ordered one. After I placed my order, I went back to check the listing, and it showed as no longer in stock. Oddly enough, the guitar came from a Guitar Center a couple of hours south of me.
When I pulled it out of the box, I wasn’t real happy with it. It had a pretty good case of hanger rash. It had fret sprout. The neck pickup was sitting crooked. You could look at it and tell that it was the last one on the wall because nobody wanted to bother having to fix it. So I figured I was going to return it. Then I went online, and I couldn’t find a single one available anywhere. Nobody had a new one in stock anymore. The couple of used ones I had spotted were no longer available. So I kept it.
Over the course of the next year or so, every now and again I’d pull it out of the gig bag I had put it in, and I’d work on cleaning up the hanger rash and trying to file the sharp fret ends down. Then I’d play it for a while. Lo and behold, it sounded just as boring and generic as that other 50s Road Worn I had gotten rid of.
I eventually got the sharp fret ends mostly gone. The hanger rash was eventually gone. I really, really liked the look of it, so I didn’t want to get rid of it if I didn’t have to. It was playing a lot better than it did when I first got it. It was the sound that I wasn’t happy with. So I started looking at pickups.
In my search, I went back to Danish Pete’s Tele since I liked the look and sound of it. I found a set that was supposed to be his set or endorsed by him or something. But they were (1) $300 and (2) shipped from England. That was more than I really wanted to spend just in hopes that I liked them, and I had learned my lesson ordering stuff from across the pond. From what I found, it seemed that the neck pickup was a Twisted Tele pickup. Or inspired by that one. Or similar to it. And the bridge pickup was a Nocaster pickup. So I went in search of those.
I found out pretty quickly that those weren’t that popular on the used market. Or at least nobody was selling them where I was looking. I could get them new, but I’d have to buy 2 sets of pickups to get the 2 pickups I wanted. And that was going to cost me $500. So I started looking for alternatives.
I finally found a Telecaster Guitar Forum. On that, I found that quite a few folks had gotten Bootstrap pickups and really liked them. So I kept looking and found that they made ones that were supposed to be similar to the ones I wanted. I still had to order 2 sets to get what I wanted, but both sets only set me back $100. Thinking back, the neck pickup similar to the Twisted Tele was called the Pretzel and the bridge pickup similar to the Nocaster was the Palo Duro.
Had to wait nearly 2 months for them. While I waited, since my soldering skills suck, I ordered one of those Mojotone solderless harnesses. Once everything came in, I got it all put into the Tele. At first, I wasn’t blown away, but I was a LOT happier with it than I was with it stock. The pickups had more clarity, the neck pickup is actually interesting sounding, and the bridge pickup sounds like what a Tele should sound like in my head.
It still went back into the closet. Mostly because my ES-355 and Les Paul were the go-to guitars on the wall. A couple of months ago I decided to pull it out just because I was doing some stuff where I wanted that single coil sound. The Les Paul got put up. That Tele has been out ever since.
I still like the feel of the neck on the 355 and LP a lot better, but I’m really digging the sound of the Tele. Despite having a super thin neck compared to the other two, the sound keeps pulling me back. I have finally found a Tele that I enjoy playing.
