BILT
s.s. ZaftIg
BY CHARLES SAUFLEY
Fender’s also-ran guitars of yesteryear aren’t such also-rans these days. While
vintage Stratocasters and Telecasters are
out of reach for most folks who don’t
have a CEO after their name, Jazzmasters,
Telecaster Customs and Thinlines, and
oddities like the Starcaster are now hunted
and hoarded by less affluent collectors looking for a slice of the classic Fender pie.
For a lot of adventurous players,
however, these guitars—which were relatively easy and cheap to get a few decades
back—became pillars of their sound.
Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood used
the big, orchestral qualities of the semi-hollow, humbucker-equipped Starcaster
to shape Radiohead’s equally expansive
sound. Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo used a
Telecaster Deluxe and Jazzmasters fitted
with Telecaster Deluxe pickups to help
craft the band’s signature banshee howl.
And the legions of vanguards and geniuses—from Tom Verlaine to Kevin Shields,
J Mascis, and Nels Cline—who embraced
to hear audio clips of the guitar at
premierguitar.com/apr2012
CLICKHere…
the off-kilter expressive potential of the
Jazzmaster and Jaguar are, at this point,
well chronicled.
But it’s taken the demented genius of
Iowa-based Bil T Guitars to figure out how
to bring together elements of all four in a
single instrument. And it’s far from a gimmick: This is a guitar of expansive sonic
Mastery bridge
Lollar Regal
humbuckers
Jazzmaster-style tremolo
