Anyway, the journey (dontcha love that word) this one on has been on is weirder than normal, even for a guitar named after Willie Nelson and Jack Kerouac's 's love child.
Firstly, I wanted to make a guitar for a cool geezer over in the Americas called Patrick.
He gave me some fine input and then I spent nigh on two years making a guitar. Now this guitar has had more bodies, necks, trems and pickups than even I can remember. It was paisley, it was rusty it was golden and it even had lots of copper nails in it at one point, but what it never did was feel right. I wanted this to be a special guitar with loads of tones to choose from. To get a WTF reaction whether it was the noise it was making or sat on a stand.
Anyway, eventually I got there. It has Mojo pickups - A Wide Range Humbucker, a lipstick single coil and a PAF iirc, and I was kinda chuffed with the finish. too. The neck is something special I got made just for this guitar by a rather talented man of my acquaintance, and the hardware is cool as well. Bladerunner tremolo, Sperzel locking tuners etc. Solid as a rock and sounds like seven circles. Beautiful sounding guitar, and that from a chap who doesn't love Strats to put it mildly.
And in a lot of ways this was the prototype for when I changed things around last year, and is only the third of my Jooky Customs (it would have been the first if I'd got my act together of course, but luckily Patrick is a patient chap. Saintly patient.).
So before Christmas, I packed it snugly in it's Hiscox and gave it to a Fed-Ex driver; it should have been in Pat's mitts before the festivities kicked in.
From there, it totally disappeared. U.S Customs (I'm told) took exception to it, and hung on to it for months for no apparent reason, before finally deporting it.Would have been nice if they'd told somebody I must admit. It finally arrived back here in Jookyland last week, soaking wet and slightly disheveled.
So anyway, it has been taken to pieces, dried out, the wiring re-soldered (it worked OK, but just in case) and I finally got it back together today. Oh new tuners as the originals were bumping and grinding, which was annoying to say the least.
And it is an odd feeling. I normally finish a guitar, send it on it's merry way and never see it again. It's why I get excited when I see the odd one pop up on ebay. It's like bumping into an old school friend you'd half forgotten.
But all good things come to an end, and assuming the new case arrives as planned, and after a few days of settling all is well, The Travellin' Man One will be back on the road shortly. Second time lucky doesn't sound quite right, but fingers crossed it will get there this time. And if ever one of the stupid names I gave a guitar was apt...
Oh, and there are still no fotos, as let's face it, I wanted to surprise Patrick and as he still hasn't seen the thing it would be nice to think he got the first glimpse. The U.S Customs Skiffle Band apart.
La la laaaa
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