When I got my drivers license, I did
two things—cruised to the beach
and burned rubber between every used
record and guitar store from Santa Cruz to
San Francisco. There were a lot of rare gems
in those shops. But the guitars that fascinated
me most were the oddballs and ugly
ducklings that enterprising players threw
together in search of some elusive sound
buzzing around in their heads. Some were
abominations, of course. But others were
inspired—mad, monstrous collisions of
borrowed, stolen, traded, aftermarket, and
dumpster-dive-sourced pickups, tremolos,
and tuners. All were customized with six
bucks’ worth of Krylon spray paint.
Fender’s elegantly simple solidbodies
were always a target for these ambitious
garage-guitar surgeons. If you needed the
higher output of an aftermarket humbucker
or some newfangled locking tremolo, you
could do a lot with a router, a drill, and a
couple of screwdrivers (not to mention undo
the damage with a little wood filler, bondo,
and spray paint). The funny thing is that
many of those Fenders became icons—from
David Gilmour’s black Stratocaster to Kurt
Cobain’s Jaguar. And while you could argue
that the results were either beautiful or sacrilege,
the most important thing is that they
enabled their players to make extraordinary,
unique, and deeply personal music.
With their unusual, mutated features and
configurations, Fender’s new Pawn Shop
Series guitars—the ’51, ’72, and Mustang
Special—pay homage to the spirit that
made those guitars and thousands like them.
They’re also a tribute to the experiments
and oddball guitars—like the Swinger,
Marauder, and Maverick—that sometimes
leaked from Fender’s Fullerton, California,
factory way back when. Each of these new
guitars looks, feels, and sounds familiar, and
yet each also conceals surprises that can
prompt new musical directions or lend
fire to the most tired licks.
I explored each of the Pawn Shop
Series guitars though a 1964 Fender
Tremolux, a Fender ’63 Vibroverb reissue,
and a 1966 Fender Super Reverb.
Running through every tone possibility
on each of the guitars made for a lot of
fun at the jam space, exploring everything
from dirty Southern rock to fuzzed-out
garage punk, open-tuned droning, and
strange points in between (
Click here to watch the video review).