July 20th, 2007 at 9:30am by Baconstrip
Fender is coming out with a Telecaster guitar whose design is based on legendary CLASH co-founder Joe Stummer which will be appropriately called The Joe Stummer Telecaster.
Anyone remember THE CLASH? Thirty lashes with a wet noodle and other nasty tidbits if you don’t. Shame on you. Go look them up, listen and learn NOW! When I was growing up this was one of my favorite bands (along with DEVO, BLONDIE, THE RAMONES, RUSH, and many more I can’t mention for fear of taking up way too much space). Anyhow their now classis album “London Calling” was one of my regular favorites to zone out to – yeah – in the dining room – while my parents were watching TV at night quite often I’d settle down with the headphone & my records & listen away to entire albums?(yeah – LP’s, records, you know those round things with grooves in them that you need a record player to listen to and many argue to this day sound better than CD’s). Now I am forever cursed with way too many lyrics burned into my head from doing that. Yikes.
Anyway back to the guitar! Just click here to read the story about it!
The Joe Strummer Telecaster – will it be destined to be a classic? Collectable? Only Time will tell.
… I’m sure that Joe would be turnin’ in his ‘kin grave if he knew… they may as well pump out some other retro ca$h-in guitars whil$t there at it eh, here’$ a wi$h li$t…
jimi hendrix – replica burnt strat
richard hell – rickenbacker
jayne county – flyin’ V’s
sid viscious – precision [smack sunburst]
fred flintsone – BC rich
+
white punks on dope distressed scratch plates
& charlie manson machine heads
…whatever next eh ?
Re-issues are fine. Recreations like this are LAME. If you want your own beat-up looking telecaster, go get one and beat the hell out of it. You can even get a black-on-black 66 re-issue. I just think that Joe himself wouldn’t want anyone playing a guitar that expensive just because of him. Joe was a humble, incredible man and it’s fucked up to make money by stamping his name on stuff.
Recreations are for posers.
I can see the angle that Steve is coming from… but on the other hand, it is a nice gesture to a guy who did so much for punk/rock and music in general. Having had the chance to see joe play live was a fantastic honour, given I am only 24. I play bass but i would definitely look into getting my own guitar to keep as a symbol of an extremely talented musician. But to actually play….i reckon go out and trash a cheap guitar is the best option. I can see the sellout/hyprocrital angle in this though…it’s a touchy issue. Would have been much worse if it came out immediately after Joe’s passing.
I can see both angles you guys have mentioned – at least, for the most part, the guitar companies are judicious in who they do signature guitar lines for so we don’t get flooded with them – then it would be obvious exploitation and extremely lame of the companies to do so.