Fender just announced some additions to the Pawn Shop series we may all be interested in. Lets hear your comments on the new guitar. [forum thread]
This post will cover – new 3-color Sunburst for the Pawn Shop Mustang. It’s the same Pawn Shop Mustang that was released last year – now available in 3-color sunburst.
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Fender Mustang Special Page [link]
Fender Pawn Shop Series Page [link]
So you’ve been asking for it for years and years and Fender has finally made it available. The latest NAMM press release has recently come out introducing the Kurt Cobain Mustang. (Also reported in the jag-stang.com forum and by many sites inc musicradar and premierguitar)
With the Kurt Cobain Jaguar released last year and now the Kurt Cobain Mustang Fender has made available both the guitars jag-stang.com visitors have been asking for for many years. While the Jaguar retails for $1299.99 US it is expected the Mustang will retail around $999.
Press release and guitar images copied below.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Jan. 16, 2012) — When Kurt Cobain hit the stage, it was very often with a Mustang® guitar—an enigmatic anti-hero figure with an esoteric anti-hero instrument. It’s with great pride then that Fender introduces the Kurt Cobain Mustang, which evokes the man, the band, the sound and the times, and gives an authentically crafted nod to one of the most unlikely guitars to ever find itself at the center of a musical maelstrom.
Cobain liked Mustangs a lot. For one, he preferred offbeat guitars that didn’t cost zillions of dollars, and the Mustang certainly fit those two criteria. Also, being somewhat physically diminutive himself, he liked to perform live with slightly more diminutive guitars, like Fender Mustang and Jaguar® guitars, which better fit his hands and his reach.
See for yourself—go back and watch the famous 1991 video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and there heis and there it is slung over his shoulder. Or think back to when you saw them on the ’93-’94 In Utero tour, when he seldom went onstage with anything but a Mustang. Quite often and especially later on, Mustang guitars were a big part of what Kurt Cobain was all about, musically.
Inspired by his arsenal of modded guitars, the new Fender Kurt Cobain Mustang takes you back there, with highly distinctive features including an angled single-coil Mustang neck pickup and ferocious Seymour Duncan® JB humbucking bridge pickup mounted directly to the body, dual on-off/phase in-out switches for each pickup, a polyester-finished alder body and an Adjusto-Matic™ bridge with dynamic vibrato tailpiece.
Other features include the classic 24” Mustang scale length, C-shaped maple neck with urethane finish, 7.25”-radius rosewood fingerboard with 22 vintage-style frets and vintage-style ivory dot inlays, four-ply pickguard (Aged White Pearl on Fiesta Red and Dark Lake Placid Blue with stripe models; Tortoiseshell on Sonic Blue model), master volume and tone controls, vintage-style tuners, and chrome hardware. Finish options include Fiesta red, Sonic Blue and Dark Lake Placid Blue with stripe. Available in right and left-handed models. For more information, go to www.fender.com.
Above from Fender Japan blog: http://fenderjapan.co.jp/blog/?p=770
A few years back AJ shared his very cool “Gold Top” jag-stang project with us which we featured on the blog. Heres the link.
He’s sent in some pics of his restored and modified 1975 Fender Mustang to share with us as well. And it is also very cool! His description and photos are below. Enjoy!
It’s a restored 1975, with some obvious modifications (something the purists might not dig…but whatever). The pickups are full-size single coil filtertrons which sound sensational. The tuners are Planet Waves locking. I opted to lose the stock switches and installed a 3-way toggle switch where the jack hole usually is. I moved the jack hole to the side of the body (as seen in the photo…a VERY scary drilling job…but thankfully it turned out quite well). Also, the stock nut was replaced with a brass nut.
This was my first electric guitar that I bought new in 1975 from Charles Music Store in Glendale, California, so there’s a lot of personal sentimental value. It was originally dark brown in color. Plays great and sounds very unique with the ‘trons. Definitely a strong, edgy surf tone. Gotta love it!
Thanks for sharing with us AJ!
Hi everyone! The reviews from people with actual hands on the new Pawn Shop Fender Mustang are few and far between. If you have one or have tried one out in your local shop we encourage you to share your opinions in the official review thread located here:
Pawn Shop Mustang Reviews (official thread)
We often like to feature content from the forums on the blog. Forum member HNB has been working on some Mustang modifications and recently finished them up.
Mods: Hard tail with 6mm bolts and washers, metal dome knobs, SD JB trembucker, custom pickguardian.com parchment pickguard, and ’85 MIJ strat bridge pickup in the neck.
For more photos and details visit the Forum Thread Here.
Another new Mustang variant is now available from Fender! It’s being labeled as the Pawn Shop Mustang Special with the tagline “guitars that never were but should have been.”
Available in Lake Placid Blue and Candy Apple Red the MSRP for these is $999.99 which comes to a list price around $799.99. Some of the features that jump out are the 9.5″ radius neck, hard tail stratocaster bridge and additional pickup switching options.
Here’s the quote from the Fender series site about the guitar.
The Pawn Shop Mustang Special has a modified offset Mustang® body, ’60s “C”-shaped 24” short-scale maple neck, and dual Fender Enforcer™ humbucking pickups with ’70s-style covers and unique switching. Other features include a rosewood fretboard with modern 9.5” radius and medium jumbo frets, pickup toggle switch, three-way coil selector slide switch for each humbucking pickup (enabling 18 different tonal options), mint green pickguard, ’70s-style hard-tail Stratocaster® bridge, vintage-style tuners and strap buttons, and deluxe gig bag.
Links to check out for more info:
Check out the Premier Guitar video review below.
url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBBUGn3jO4E
Fender recently put up a really good article on the history of the Fender Mustang. The article is definitely worth a read. [The Fender Mustang Guitar @ Fender.com]
Small excerpt from the article below:
Fender was keenly aware in the mid-1950s that there was much to be gained by offering “student” instruments for retailers who offered in-store music instruction. The thinking went that if beginners with beginner guitars stuck with it, dealers who offered lessons were well placed to launch them to the next level by selling them full-size Fender Telecaster® and Stratocaster® guitars. Hence the arrival in 1956 of Fender’s first two student guitars, the single-pickup Musicmaster® and the two-pickup Duo-Sonic™. Both were short-scale guitars (22.5” compared to 25.5” for the Telecaster and Stratocaster) at the low end of the price list ($119.50 and $149.50 respectively). Fender revamped its student guitar line in 1964 by offering both guitars in both short and medium (24”) scales and by introducing an entirely new guitar that August, the Mustang.
Via multiple gaming news sites comes news of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5. (ign and evil avatar) The tracks in the game are Smells Like Teen Spirit and Lithium.
Looks like they have Cobain playing the humbuck-ified Fender Mustang in the game. See the photo and video below for a look at the virtual guitar and the lithium track as played in game.
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