The Second Guitar

Telecasters are for professionals. Julian Lage plays one. Everyone in Nashville plays one and has another as a backup. Show up with a Tele and people will assume you can play anything from chicken' picken' to Jimmy Page licks.

This is not me. Also, the neck is half a baseball bat, and I can't get on with it.

Jazzmasters are for indie guitarists, and I'm just a little too old to fall into that demographic. By a few decades. Also, a real Jazzmaster has the rhythm circuit control on the upper section of the body, and quite a few of the Fender models don't now. The Squires do, and the Fender Vintera's. I played a Vintera a few months ago, and it needed to be better finished for the £1,000 price tag. Sounded nice. Then there's all that stuff about how the bridge is not the best design, and the neck needs re-setting to make it better. Maybe not.

But still, and all, never say never. And also, I need a single-coil guitar with Fender wiring. The McCarty is double-humbuckers with Gibson wiring.

I was browsing the Regent Sounds website, which goes under "day-dreaming", and came across something only a guitar nerd could love. A mash-up of a Jazzmaster (body, neck, headstock and neck pickup) with a Telecaster (bridge pickup and ashtray, selector switch and controls).

You know when you see the girl across the room and know you have to talk to her?

That feeling. Well, nearly.

Except about a guitar.

(Musicians are not normal people. Amy Winehouse even wrote a song about a new guitar.)

So the next time I was in town, I wandered down Denmark Street, like I had any right to, and into Regent Sounds. They set me up with a Fender Blues Junior, and I noodled around for a while. Yes, it balanced on my knee. No, it did not weigh 9lbs or so. It sounded good. I knew I was going to buy it.

So I did.

And eventually, UPS delivered it.

It sounds and plays real good.

Here it is...