new gear day Archives

ANOTHER belated new guitar day – Jackson DK2M

We’ve all been there, surely – the most tempting guitars appear, seemingly as a taunt from above, at the exact time we can least afford them. My James Tyler – initially I found it as I was in the middle of paying for my Blackmachine, and it slipped away, only to re-enter my life due to pure good fortune (of which more another time). My Tele – I found it when I’d been going through a dry spell in paid gigs, and was not best placed to buy yet another guitar effectively on impulse. And, because I never learn, the story continues.

My local music shop has developed a rather interesting rotation of new and used guitars in recent years, and none interested me more than a certain pointy headstock I saw poking out upon a visit not long ago. I recognised this guitar instantly as a Jackson DK2M, and not the current model either – the version built from around 2006 to 2010 in the old Japanese factory where Jackson built the Pro series, among other things, until operations moved to other countries with cheaper manufacturing.

This would be a lot of guitar for twice the money.

I’d always loved this particular model – my imagination captured way back in my early teens when I spied a review of it in a magazine. The high-contrast black sharkfin inlays and logo on the pale maple fretboard looked unbelievably badass to young me, and the image stayed lodged in my brain. The guitar in the magazine was white, one of the best colours for this model, but the example before me in the shop had another particular thing going for it – it was black. A black, two-humbucker, 24-fret superstrat with a maple fretboard is an aesthetic that is significant to me, because it reminds me of the old ESP M-II that Ben Tovey of Rise To Remain, an early guitar hero of mine who became my guitar teacher when I was fifteen, used to use on stages all over the world.

Anyway – I’ve always thought these guitars were exceptional value. When they were new, they came in hard cases and had proper Seymour Duncan pickups, a not-awful locking bridge and, of course, were made in Japan, but sold for only about 500 sheets. And used, values have remained temptingly affordable – surely they can’t stay this cheap for long.

But for now, the residual values are feeble enough that I’ve managed to become the proud new custodian of a properly awesome, vibey, flamboyant superstrat of a type I’d wanted to rock out on for years. It is currently set up in drop C and being used for all sorts of shred and metal stuff. The Duncans sound great, although may be swapped out in time, and the neck is truly astonishing – every Jackson I play has a superb neck and this is no exception.

Honestly – Japanese Jacksons are still a bargain. Get one now, before everyone realises.

EDIT 11.6.2020 – Here’s a video – some talking and some playing from me.

Belated new guitar day – my first ever Tele

Well, it finally happened. I’ve needed a Tele for an awfully long time.

I’ve had Strats, I’ve had Les Pauls, I’ve had superstrats aplenty, I’ve had a bloody seven-string… I’ve had Flying Vs, LP Juniors and a Jazzmaster, but one thing I have never owned until very recently is a Telecaster. Every time I play it, I wonder what took me so long.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – I’ve played loads of Teles and I’m very familiar with them. Indeed, the first electric guitar I ever played was a Tele, my dad’s mid-80s Japanese Fender blue flower reissue (it took me a few years to realise how lucky I was). My dad’s other mid-80s MIJ Tele (a pink paisley, no less) remained my benchmark for this iconic design for years, and years. The perfect weight, almost hilariously resonant, with a tiny little neck and a gruff bark from its aftermarket Lollar single-coils, it was and remains a fabulous guitar. Every time I put it down, I knew I needed a Tele at some point, but only if it gave me as good a feeling as that one.

Fast forward to February this year (sorry for such a long break between posts, by the way). I’d met up with my friend Pete, a man not short of an excellent guitar or two, and he mentioned that he had a ‘partscaster’ Tele kicking around if I was interested in having a look. A Mexican Road Worn body, and the huge maple neck from the limited edition Brad Paisley signature model. My interest was piqued.

Financially inopportune it may have been, but upon playing this Tele I realised I was in trouble. The huge neck was fantastic, the body was resonant as you like – even louder, if anything, than the 80s pink paisley. The pickups, stock Fender though they may be, growled with the authority one would hope for from a significantly more expensive model. The relic finish is pretty crap though – Fender’s cheapest mass-produced Road Worns, perhaps understandably, can’t really reach a significant degree of realism for the money they cost. It doesn’t bother me unduly though – at some point I imagine I’ll probably cough up for getting it refinished…

Having lived with the guitar for a little while, and gigged it too (pre-lockdown), it is consistently impressive. It’s not one of my more expensive guitars, but it plays and sounds good enough to firmly earn its place alongside guitars I own which cost a lot more. The set-up is perfect, it’s strung with Elixir 10-52s and sounds enormous. And, funnily enough, it is exactly the same weight as the old pink paisley…

New Bass Day…

Yup, it’s a guitar blog by a guitar player, and one of the very first things I’ve written for it is about a bass. But that’s the way it’s worked out – the most recent bit of gear to arrive at Pluckin’ A Towers is my new low-end machine. I’ve had a few over the years, only feeling able to justify one at a time since I’m not a “proper” bass player, but none have quite stuck. I had an Ibanez SR five-string which was very nice, sold that to fund an American-made Fender Dimension Bass five-string which was also very nice, but the bass I couldn’t erase from the back of my mind, over all those years, was a Warwick Thumb, and it had to be the neck-through five-string version.

So I’ve bought one of those.

The Fender sold a week or two ago, and then only a couple of days later, this beautiful example of a Thumb 5 NT appeared on Facebook Marketplace, and for a price I could actually afford having sold the Fender. Jumped on it so damn hard I almost twisted my ankle, obviously.

It turned up a few days ago and I’ve barely put it down – partly because it sounds and feels so great, and partly because it’s so heavy that lifting it off my lap to put it down is a physical effort I’m rarely willing to put myself through.

There will be a fuller review of it in due course, but for now I thought I’d just put up a nice photo or two of it. If you check out my Instagram, you can see a clip or two of it as well.