New guitar
I’ve not really been playing much for the last couple of years. Some of this has been due to my stupid job soaking up all the spare hours in the day, some of it down to struggling on and off with tedious back pain. One day I realised that the real problem might perhaps be that I just didn’t have a guitar lying around handy.
When it comes to guitars you see, I’m a tinkerer. In the absence of any regular gigging or rehearsing schedule, my preferred form of instrument practice regime is to wander past a handy guitar, grab it and noodle away. This noodling may even take the semblance of co-ordinated practicing; I’m no stranger to scales, chord construction, finger callisthenics. Equally I’m sometimes happy to dial up the amp and just play squeally false harmonics and make faces at myself in any nearby reflective surfaces. The key to it all is the serendipity. If this ad-hoc hobby approach is to keep any sort of momentum, I decided, it’s essential to have a readily playable guitar sitting close to hand, the better to trap my magpie spirit whenever I pass.
For the past umpteen years, my main guitar has been a nice example of an Ibanez RG550. Faintly spiky, none more black, light and springy, with a tuning system that owes much to I.K. Brunel. As a workhorse guitar it’s an inspired creation; it can be coerced into approximations of all the guitar sounds you’d normally expect, the wide skinny neck aids the clumsiest of slippery sausage fingers, and you can gig all night on it without it deviating from it’s fixed tuning. The price you pay for this is in fragility ( it’s on it’s second replacement neck ), and in complexity ( floating double locking vibrato bridge unit makes for a lengthy restringing job ), meaning that it’s often sporting too-old strings, and packed away in it’s case, safe from accidental knocks and bumps . Out of sight, out of mind, and unplayed.
The idea occurred that maybe I needed to get a second ‘toy’ guitar. Something robust and straightforward that I could leave out on a stand for day to day plunking around. Something with some mass to it and a fixed bridge. Maybe a telecaster. I’m not at the front of the queue of tele fanciers, although I’ve always admired the 70’s thinline models . Getting something far away from a strat would also give me some variety as a second guitar.
Sitting on a bus passing a local guitar shop one evening I spotted one of the old Hohner Steinberger licensed ‘cricket bats’ in the window. This made an intriguing new option. Small cheap, portable. Easy to re-string, albeit using more costly double-ball-end strings. Not only robust, but small enough to tuck away on a shelf entirely out of harm’s way. Filled with enthusiasm, I mounted a shopping trip. Unfortunately the stick in question was not only pricier than anticipated ( £350-ish ), but it turned out to to be a left-hander, surprisingly enough.
Undeterred, I carried on a minor tour of the local music shops. No thinlines to be seen. Sound Control had some Peavey not-quite telecasters that almost appealed, but they all had rather obnoxious paint effects. None of the Fenders on offer really grabbed me either, at least not the comfortably priced Mexican built models. I nearly talked myself into trying some very nice looking hard tailed Schecters, but backed away, as they were really stretching the upper price limit of what could comfortably be termed a cheap second instrument. And then, right as we were about to pack up for the day, I found it.
It’s a ‘Cruiser’ which seems to be the cheap Chinese label for ‘Crafter’ , who themselves make an inexpensive but interesting range of far eastern electrics. The finish and shape of it were what immediately caught my eye. It’s some kind of double-cutaway Les Paul Special / Junior kind of thing, a flat top, bolt-on neck, with a tune-o-matic style tail, and imitation P90s. The colour is a very rich take on the yellow colour that the 50s specials used to come in, and just looks superb. When I enquired about price, I was just amazed to hear it was going for £99. For that kind of money it was heading towards being a foregone conclusion, but I thought I’d ask to plug it in and try it out. It sounded and played well enough, and so I happily bought it on the spot.
It sounded even better when I got it home and had a chance to properly dig around with a good amplifier. Lots of ring with plenty of sustain. Enough mid signal to shape tones, perhaps a little harsh on the top end, but easily tweaked away with EQ. Frankly I’m astonished by the quality of modern cheap music kit. This is immensely better than the standard I’d have expected from the sub-£150 beginner’s guitars on offer back when I was learning to play. It holds tune remarkably well, and has been given a good shop setup by the people at Rikaxxe. I had my concerns about Gibson scale length, as I’m more used to Fender, and some of the chords are a bit of a squeeze, but the neck and action are really playable. The pickups, often a disappointment on low end instruments, do a reasonable job and seem well shielded - hum free in a room full of lights and computers. I’ve had it for a week or so now, and I’m still playing it daily. Mission accomplished, for about two hundred quid less than I was planning to spend