Introducing: The Off Key One

Well, I'm-a-pleased to introduce you to that rarity, a Jooky guitar that has gone together easily and quickly without the usual levels of angst and tooth grinding,

*peel of drums
roll of trumpets*

...The Off Key One.

As the regular reader will notice, it is a lovely mahogany body and necked SG Junior type of delight, with a beautifully marked rosewood 'board.

The top of the body and indeed the front of the headstock have been gloriously smothered with an active bronze paint,  and then splattered with a 'House Special' mixture of acid to provoke a patination for the err, nation as though attacked with acid rain. This gives a rather nice greeny-blue rustiness that will wow your friends and amaze that bloke who goes thru your bins and peeps thru your curtains late at night.

As for the rest of it, well the tuners and wrapover bridge are Wilkinson - the tuners having a lovely worn bronze finish I couldn't resist, while the bridge is adjustable, so good for intonation and all that tuning stuff.

As for the wiring, well I've been a long time admirer of the vintage-esque parts Fake58 make/supply for restoring or recreating classic guitars, and despite this not being vintage on any level, I decided to go for one of their reproduction '50s wiring looms, one for a Les Paul Jr as it happens, but close enough.

This looks fantastic with it's Bumble Bee cap and top notch CTS pots, but more importantly sounds brilliant and clear and god forbid, the tone and volume controls actually work all the way down. Madness and unlikely to catch on.

Actually it didn't, did it?

Of course wiring and pots are nowt without a good pickup, and I must admit it was a bit of a leap of faith when I chose the Jess Loureiro handwound P90, seemingly on a whim, but I have to say it sounds absolutely gah and I'm feeling all inspired and vaguely smug.

I said at the time that Jess had recomended one Alnico 2 magnet alogside an Alnico 5 to give both warmth and power, and he was bang on the money. I've tried most every P90 available in recent times and most have cropped-up in Jookies along the way, but this is something special and dare I say it, maybe even better than the original.

A clever bloke once described a P90 as 'sex-in-your-face' and this is that and maybe a couple of Premiership footballers and their WAGS along for the ride too. You'll no doubt hear me talking about trying the rest of Jess' pickups at a later day, but if this is anything to go by the chap is a well kept secret for not much longer.

So there we are, I even remembered the Strap pins..it plays divine, and if you'll excuse me I'm going to plug-in, drop out and generally get a bit bloozy.

It may be a while before you hear anymore from me...