The Red Tele Is Done!

Well actually it's been done for weeks, but this the first I've had a chance to take some pictures to post.  As you recall I picked up an American Standard Telecaster to be my FrankenTele....  I lucked out and found a beautiful one that played and sounded great.  I almost didn't want to toy with it, but I did.  You can see my short troubles with the first whammy bar here.  You can see the work order to my tech for all the requested mods here.  I did have a little trouble at first.  The P90 magnetics were not aligned the same as my Tele so there was nasty phase cancellation.  Lollar modified a set of P90's so that they would the rest of the pickups in my Tele and it sounds great.   So here are the pictures of the finished FrankenTele.   I took it with me to my labor day gig and couldn't be happier with how it played and sounded.  I'm really loving the Bigsby B5.  If your wondering about the weird bar attached to the Bigsby, it's a Chet Atkins Bigsby arm that I swapped in from Guitar Parts Resource.   The stock arm fell right across my volume  and tone knobs.  I found that when I installed the Chet Atkins bar and reversed the "kink" in it up instead of down, how Chet used it, the new bar felt comfortable and fell in a perfect spot.  Enjoy the pictures... Hopefully I'll get some time in the future to post some sound samples of the P90 in this configuration.

Does anyone else just shake their head at "Relic'd" Guitars?

There is, however, a mounting backlash to these instruments. Some feel that relics are the ultimate in ‘poser’ guitars, aimed at making anyone look like a seasoned, gigging, veteran player whether they are or not. Stevie Ray’s Stratocaster got to the condition it was in by countless nights on stage, but now a guitar in similar distressed condition can be ordered brand new from Fender Custom Shop and spares players the bother of actually playing gigs.
via gear-vault.com

I just never understood why anyone would pay the premium charged for a brand new guitar to look like a "relic"! Your paying for someone to trash it so you can look cool.

Yes, AT&T stinks in Philadelphia. Thank God for my Verizon MiFi

I'm in Philadelphia with the family for an allergy (egg) challenge for Zach. Was planning to take daughters around the city while Julia stays with Zachary. Figured I would just use my iPhone and google maps to wing it for the day... AT&T is incredibly spotty in the city. Luckily I brought my verizon MiFi so I can at least access the Internet. I'm so off AT&T when the iPhone is on any other network!

Garage sale as emotional roller coaster...

(thanks to Max B. on Flickr for the photo via creative commons license)

I hate having a garage sale, but it's so hard to throw stuff out that is in good working order.   Also very tough for the wife to part with kid's old clothes, toys and miscellanea.   Every one full of a memory that we all want to hold to dearly.   But garage sale we had yesterday morning.  We put it in the paper for "rain or shine" and with the weather expected to be awful, Julia thought I was nuts.  But even though it was scheduled for 8am, when I put signs out around the neighborhood ( at 7am) that pointed to our house, cars lined up like the closing scene from "Field of Dreams".   It seems that, due to the weather, we were the only game in town.   It starts with the "professionals" that get there as early as possible and bargain the hardest.   As amatures, we never know what to ask for but the rule of thumb is "if it doesn't go now it goes on garbage day"... Thank God it's over!