- First Jag I Ever Played -
Long before, say about 02/03', I played a 1963 Fender Jaguar. Up until that point, I was planning to BUILD a Jaguar with a locking trem and high output humbucker pickups. For 10 years Jaguars would come into the shops, but they would never be for sale, or they were behind the counter and not allowed to be played (by me at least). Jaguars by this point, in my mind, were a delicate, weak instrument. I was constantly intrigued how everyone talked about them like they would fall apart if you looked at a Jag wrong....especially since watching Kurt with his 65' showed the opposite....Kurt's Jag was thrown around like a rag-doll, and used to beat a bouncer, and slammed against amps, and douced in canteloupe juice. I found out pretty quick all this "delicate guitar" B.S. was exactly that. The Jaguar has more in common with a Telecaster than a Les Paul made out of styrofoam.
I go to the Guitar Shoppe one afternoon, and a pal of mine who worked there said "I have something you'll like", and brought out an old black tolex Fender case. I was hoping it was a Jaguar but had my hopes set low so I would not be disappointed. So as a tease, it got pulled out of the case slowly, and I saw the upper wing, lo and behold, that was my first time ever playing a Fender Jaguar. It was a bone stock 1963, from an estate sale, only one owner, reliced to heck and back.
I plugged that guitar into a Mesa Boogie Heartbreaker, set to Bold, with the gain all the way up, the highs tastefully backed off (to make up for the added high end from the 1 meg pots), and I'll be darned if that guitar was not one of the BEST sounding guitars I've ever played, right up there with my Jag-Stang. It also was fast, easy to play, and the vibrato, contrary to my former experiences with the Jazzmaster, was quite extreme (shorter scale/lower tension). They wanted $1500 for it, I tried in vain to get the money for the guitar, but I never managed to afford it, and before too long, I was saving to move to Washington, so that killed off any potential of buying that Jag.
It was pretty much beyond that point that I quit thinking of building a Jag and decided to go as stock as possible. The next part continues when I talk about buying my Jaguar.
