From the top we have a paislified ash Tele body, with a maple/maple neck. Kluson-esque tuners and a superb Wilkinson Strattish trem, all steel block and push-in arm. And man does it get zingy-wid-it. I'm not a big Strat trem fan - especially on Teles where I'm quite trad normally - but this feels so solid I can't help but use it. And the sustain is just excellent.
What else? Well, a hand-chopped Jerry Reed scratchplate, introduces itself sweetly to a Mojo Pickups hand wound Wide Ranger Humbucker, which is the dog's doodies.
Controls are standard Tele fare, apart from that Marc has put together a bespoke wiring loom that twists the Esquire formula to work beautifully with the Wide Ranger. So three quite gorgeous tones can be had from the three-way-Tele-switch. And man, I am loving the full fat one, it sears your ears in a big way, while using the tone control on the middle one brings out a really mellow tone that I almost feel bad about mentioning is quite jazzy. Scary stuff when you have fingers like saveloy and a memory for chords like, err, a wotsit that doesn't remember much..
And it is true that these Wide Rangers are something all by themselves. I talked about them a lot when I did The Tatty One, and they really do catch the Tele tone, but with more grit in there that makes you want to really belt the strings as you get such a jolt back. It is pretty addictive.
As you'd expect cleans with a touch of reverb are just sublime, but that clarity cuts thru even the full on fuzz I use to cover up my dodgy playing. Actually, I'm not sure such visibility is that good a thing. Hmmm. maybe it's time to get another flanger, an octaver and a couple of delays to smooth things out.
So there we are, Raymondo is in the house, and the boy has got some pipes on him.
La la laaa
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