stupid Fender "Road Worn" gimmick

btw I have zero desire for these and the "wear" on the tele is just bizarre (looks like maybe it was owned by an LP player who kept trying to switch pups with his pick), but hating on "relic" guitars is as ridiculous as relic guitars. Some people like them. Boo hoo.

And by zero desire I mean that P-Bass is kinda hawt.

My first thought is that while I think these are pretty silly, they're not that much more silly in principle than preferring a red guitar to a white one, or wanting one with a WWII-style woman painted on, or camouflage or punk stickers or whatever. Or like liking Bigsbys because you think they look cool/retro. I mean, I go to the trouble of putting tortoiseshell pickguards on my guitars even thought they don't sound any different from the white ones; it's just aesthetics.

On second thought, though, the relic'd guitar suffers from a confusion of ideas. First is the fetishization of wear, the notion that there's something morally or spiritually superior ("mojo") about a scratched guitar vs. a pristine one. But the second idea, which doesn't really go with the first one, is that there is no shame in purchasing this wear rather than "earning" it. The market is NOT a person who truly and deeply believes that a road-worn guitar is morally/spiritually superior, because he would know that his guitar was purchased that way. The market for these is a person who believes it is desirable to look as though his guitar has been battered by service on "the road" (even though he knows it has not been).

All that said, I have no problem with Fender selling guitars to these people given that they appear to exist.

it's probably spelled 'pricey'?

are you sure it's not "pricky"

As always, the marketing language of the big guitar brands is completely vile.

(xxpost) well, the guitar market is pretty complex. There are people who want an instrument that's reliable and a reasonable price. There are kids who want a cheap instrument to learn on (Squier/Epiphone). There are people who want the latest high tech components (Gibson Robot/Dark Fire).
Then there are the posers, who believe that somehow having an expensive guitar that looks good will fool people into believing that the owner can really play or is at least a cool dude, man. Poser guitars break down into a) AAAAAAAAAAAAA+++ quality book match flame tops, b) replicas of famous guitars ("oh wow man! your axe looks just like Jimi's!"), and now c) "road worn" ("man, you must be a great guitarist, you've practiced so much your guitar is really worn!").

Pointless but tangentially related anecdote: Once when I was a child, when my mother had just gotten a new violin case. She thought it looked too new, so she asked me to take it out to the driveway and kick it around on the pavement for a while. I don't know whether she just preferred the look of the battered case she'd had for 30 years, or whether she really thought that other violinists would laugh at her - haha n00b, or whatever.

Maybe new violin case = not violinist but gangster with Chicago typewriter?

replicas of famous guitars ("oh wow man! your axe looks just like Jimi's!")

Gotta admit, the best fake-aged guitar I've ever seen was a $199-or-so mock-up of James Hetfield's with matching wear -- i.e., a totally sensible way to get your 13-year-old an affordable guitar he will still have a reason to think is super-awesome.

I'd like to think that playing guitar was super-awesome enough by itself to encourage kids. Although fair play, at that price. It's not like charging $1000 for a guitar that's been gone over with a belt sander. These "Road Worn" models are stupidly expensive in anyone's money.

for now, i'm holding my tongue, but suffice it to say that i am increasingly disappointed in fender as a whole and am considering some major changes in the near future at the store that may not have a lot of room for the new face of fender. which bums me out, but i still prefer the idea of buying with my conscience, not "tradition".

I can understand why Fender and other companies are doing this relic/replica/worn thing. Musicians don't have much money to burn at the best of times, and in a downturn the first thing we say is "I can get along with this guitar/amp/whatever a bit longer". Meanwhile, rich people looking for a prop so that they can play at being a rock star tend to keep spending.

Pre-stressed road-worn attitude sold separately.

I generally have no problem with the "dudes with a 'tude" marketing schemes of the world (Some Urban Outfitters stuff, Hot Topic, these Fender guitars, post-1998 Pontiacs, AFI, etc). I mean, you've gotta sell a product. It sucks but it's harmless. What makes me sad, though, is knowing that beyond the good people at ILX/ILM, there are thousands, if not millions, of people - the consumers - across America who would love these so they could record their latest Breaking Benjamin cover and upload it onto YouTube. I guess a band sticker or non-brown color on your guitar is kind of the same aethetic, but I don't pay $1000 for it, and they don't necessarily broadcast "road warrior badass dude who's been touring for decades" even though I'm 24.

I also hate that Fender turned "relic" into a verb and took out the "e," as if regular conjugation wasn't cool enough.

I've been trying to find a clip of that episode from the first series of Blackadder where Edmund is made head of the Church of England. But I can't.

Baldrick: Moving on to relics, we've got shrouds, from Turin; er, wine from the wedding at Cana; splinters from the cross (his finger gets a sliver from one of the splinters); er, and, of course, there's stuff made by Jesus in his days in the carpentry shoppe: got pipe racks, coffee tables, coatstands, bookends, crucifixes, a nice cheeseboard, fruit bowls, waterpoof sandals... (picks up a piece of wood that's partly carved) Oh, I haven't finished that one yet.

Percy: But this is disgraceful, My Lord! All of these are obviously fake!

Edmund: Hah, yes!

Percy: But, but how will people be able to tell the difference between these and the real relics?

Edmund: Well, they won't! That's the point!

Percy: Well, you won't be able to fool everyone. Look (he takes a red cloth from his sleeve): I have here a true relic.

Edmund: What is it?

Percy: (unwraps the cloth) It is a bone from the finger of Our Lord. It cost me 31 pieces of silver.

Edmund: Good lord. Is it real?

Percy: It is, My Lord. Baldrick, you stand amazed.

Baldrick: I am -- I thought they only came in boxes of ten. (he opens a box of finger bones)

Percy: What?!

Baldrick: Yeah, yeah -- fingers are really big at the moment. Mind you, for a really quick sale, you can't beat a nose. For instance, the Sacred Appedage Compendium Party Pack: you get Jesus' nose, St. Peter's nose, St. Francis of Assisi's nose, and (picks up a pair of false breasts) er, no -- they're Joan of Arc's.

I'd like to think that playing guitar was super-awesome enough by itself to encourage kids.

Well, sure, but I can remember going to a guitar shop as a 14-year-old without much money -- i.e., at an age where you kinda want a guitar that feels cool to you or matches whatever cool-guitar-player dreams you happen to have -- and winding up choosing between a Squier and a totally metal-looking Ibanez cheapie. (I disliked metal, but took the Ibanez anyway, because the Squier felt very Dire Straits or something.) I guess I'm saying that since most guitars in the cheapie price range are going to be kinda middling-quality anyway, it seems like the one area where it'd actually be nice to get gimmicks. (Though I guess that'd kill the joy of the teenage band with the charming jumble of sticker-covered "personalized" instruments, where it's like a fake Hofner bass and a Flying V knock-off guitar and a drummer who clearly got that kit for jazz band.)

I realize the reason this doesn't actually happen is that the whole way you make a cheap-ass entry-level guitar is by mass-producing the same basic thing in huge volume, but a boy can dream, etc.

Just based on cursory catalog-browsing, there seem to be as many Guitars of Flair(TM) with Squier and Epiphone on the headstock than Fender and Gibson. There's a Squier thinline Tele; Squiers with the bigass 70s headstocks; Hello Kitty Squiers. You can get an Epiphone LP with your favorite college sports team logo. Not to mention various Evil-looking Schechters. All are $200$300ish instruments, no?

I've probably said this, but the quality of guitars in that price range (while not uber-artisanal) is light-years beyond what their equivalents would have been like in my youth. Yr kids on a budget should stay away from the $100 and sub-$100 First Act things at Target or Best Buy, but today's Epiphones and MexiFenders seem pretty decent to me.

for now, i'm holding my tongue, but suffice it to say that i am increasingly disappointed in fender as a whole and am considering some major changes in the near future at the store that may not have a lot of room for the new face of fender. which bums me out, but i still prefer the idea of buying with my conscience, not "tradition".

I am super interested in what you have to say abt Fender (and any other manufacturers actually), dude.

I've probably said this, but the quality of guitars in that price range (while not uber-artisanal) is light-years beyond what their equivalents would have been like in my youth. Yr kids on a budget should stay away from the $100 and sub-$100 First Act things at Target or Best Buy, but today's Epiphones and MexiFenders seem pretty decent to me.

― Ye Mad Puffin, Wednesday, January 14, 2009 1:37 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

Not exactly true. Many of the Japanese Squires of the 80's were as good, if not better than your MIM or even USA Fenders, and you can probably still find used E Series Squire Strats for less than a new Mexican Fender or Epihone Les Paul (the latter just look too fucking goofy to me).

so SeMo, i'ma interpret this as 'stop waffling and buy that cij antigua tele TOMORROW', eh?

(SCOTCH!)

How much is said cij tele?

it 'was' $850 bucks, aka too much $ considering i've never payed more than $300 for a guitar
-but that's my all-time favorite guitar & finish combo...

cij = covered in jizz

Maybe Fender will make a "road worn" punk special that's covered in audience spit...

stupid Fender IPO gimmick

oh sorry dude, i started a thread abt this on ILM before i saw this bump

nbd

stupid james hetfield car paint gimmick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdXp1nhmzW0

cued to the right part of the video:

https://youtu.be/EdXp1nhmzW0?t=2m39s

What the actual shit is this? (mildly NSFW)
Joe Doe by Vintage Punkaster Electric Guitar

huh
https://www.guitarplayer.com/news/joe-doe-unveils-wild-new-punkaster-guitar

the back of the neck is.... something

https://www.tuneyoursound.com/sites/default/files/sam_2026.jpg

Shades of the 1997 Will Ray signature "Jazz-a-Caster", whose similarly deranged cousin the Jorgenson Hellecaster I own one of

I was in the market for a new guitar a few months ago and Fender had this Vintera strat in a really beautiful Daphne blue, but it's just got loads of stupid fucking holes and abrasions sanded in it, infuriating

I get unnecessarily angry about relic guitars

They can look good but it's a fine line - replicating the UV fading of early Fender metallic colors mostly.

My local Guitar Center has a room of Fender Custom Shop relics and they're all terrible, not even just ugly but they don't look particularly well done compared to some small shops, mixed with tacky appointments like gold hardware and gaudy flame maple necks

I mean I could see some aging being ok but the shit I see on Craigslist is more "attacked by a drunk with a belt sander"

I’m pretty intrigued by the new Jason Isbell tele - MIM, supposedly chunky neck, “road worn” nitro finish... not out yet so we’ll see but if the neck’s right and the wear’s not awful this could be my jam

just looked, the road wear is pretty subtle

nice looking

The Chrissie Hynde Road Worn looks cool too.

They did a '50s Road Worn in purple that I saw at Guitar Center before the pandemic - the neck was pretty nice, definitely on the thicc side compared to the '60s C on my Jazzmaster.

there's a britt daniel signature thinline tele now?? how did i not know that!

I think of him as an ES-335 player (but then it has been ~16 years since I saw them play)

we should do a thread on "people you are surprised have a signature guitar model" because that happens to me on a weekly basis

Chris Cornell's hideous olive drab Gibson signature model to thread

oh yeah that's a rough one. cornell will always be a gretsch player to me.

Fender gave Ben Gibbard a sig mustang recently...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qwJnyelGb0

Jeff Skunk Baxter sig Epiphone acoustic

Lee Ritenour 'Ibanez Signature Model' Guitar ad, 1981 pic.twitter.com/2rvk8DnpIv

— Barney Hurley (@barneyhurley1) April 10, 2021

Lee Ritenour Ibanez

that strikes me as one of those you could pick up cheap and it would be better quality that a gibson that cost hundreds more

Could be
Wonder how much one goes for these days

does he have a signature synthaxe model too?

One would hope

relic guitars always make me think of the kids who didn't know how to skate that you'd see scratching their decks or grinding their trucks on curbs

Posers

we should do a thread on "people you are surprised have a signature guitar model" because that happens to me on a weekly basis

I find signature models offputting for reasons I can't fully justify, even though the guitars themselves are sometimes quite good.

One signature model that I've always been a little bemused by is Squier's Simon Neil strat, which stuck around for a few years. It's actually a great shade of Fiesta Red, but every time I see one, it reminds me that I've still never heard Biffy Clyro.

Who?

The Bono Gretsch is pretty cringey

https://gretschguitars.com/gear/build/hollow-body/g6136i-bono-falcon-hollow-body-with-cadillac-tailpiece/2411409846

I mean, it's probably a pretty decent instrument, but no one in the universe thinks of Bono as a guitar player.

Boner sig gtr? Gtfo

guitars with slogans on them really stand the test of time.

I hate when they even put the signatures on the front of the headstock. Should be on the neckplate if anything.

#shame/ I like the Noel Gallagher Union Jack epiphone

Pick guard is the worst

A vision board on the pick guard

Now there is a guitar that actually would be more palatable if someone went over it with a belt sander.

razed by wolves

Rory Gallagher, who rode a motorcycle named 'Authenticity', would surely have approved of this relic oh wait no he probably wouldn't...
Rory Gallagher Signature Stratocaster

How about the Jason Smith Builder Select Garage Mod Stratocaster? 'Garage mod' in the sense that it looks like its been knocking around in a garage for a few years.

Alternatively, do you want a guitar that looks like it's been stored in a basement that flooded? Try one of the Fender Custom Shop Super Heavy Relics.
https://images.guitarguitar.co.uk/cdn/large/170/200918362198025-6352252b_03.jpg?h=500&maxwidth=770&scale=canvas&bg=ffffff&quality=70

I read something a long time ago that claimed that Gallagher actually 'reliced' his own guitar - there's the story about it being stolen and found in a ditch but that didn't actually do much damage and he stripped it himself in the late '60s.