New Guitar Day!

Actually, New Guitar Day was Thursday, but that's my big news for this week. Check it out:

That's a Rickenbacker 330/6 FG. It was made in 1995 but it's in remarkably good shape. And it plays and sounds as good as it looks!

This past year has been an interesting and educational year for me re music gear, and my experiences revealed something about myself to me.

There's a part of my personality that is a compulsive collector, that wants to have one of everything. I've been playing guitar for years but for most of that time I couldn't afford to actually buy most of the guitars I was interested in. In recent years I've been in somewhat better shape so coinciding with a renewed/increased interest in music, I started buying more instruments. I've always been the kind of person who'd rather have three okay guitars than one really nice one---one never knows when one will need the distinctive tone of Instrument X.

But at the same time, as I got more guitars, I realized that I didn't really get that much satisfaction from just having them, and no matter how many I had, I tended to gravitate towards the same two or three most of the time. I don't like having guitars I don't play. But at the same time, I really like the guitars I have. They're (almost) all really good instruments. Every time I think I should unload some, I play them and remember why I liked them in the first place.

In any event, I'm not really actively shopping for more guitars right now. There are two variants that I'd like to have that I don't currently possess (to wit, a hollowbody electric and something with P-90 pickups) but those are low-priority goals.

But...

I've really become a big fan of Rickenbackers lately. If Gibson and Fender are the Coke and Pepsi of the guitar world, Rickenbacker is the RC Cola. They've always been around and everybody's heard of them, but they're a little bit different from the big two and you just don't see them that often.

Their place in history was assured by the Beatles: all three guitar-playing Beatles played Rickenbackers at some point. Most early Beatles clips show John Lennon with his model 325; George Harrison famously got one of the very first Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitars, which he used prominently on songs like "A Hard Day's Night", and Paul McCartney can be seen playing his model 4001 bass in the "I Am the Walrus" clip from Magical Mystery Tour.

Actually Rickenbacker basses are very popular and have been used by legions of famous bass players, but the guitars have remained further out on the fringes. Electric 12-strings are an odd little segment of the guitar universe, but within that segment Rickenbackers are dominant. Besides George Harrison, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds used one to create that distinctive Byrds jangle, and Tom Petty is also commonly associated with Ricks. Other Rick players include Paul Kantner back in the Jefferson Airplane days, and more recently, Johnny Marr from the Smiths, Peter Buck from R.E.M., the Smithereens, and one of the guys from Radiohead.

Since it was a variant I didn't have and had a distinctive tone, I had long wanted to add a Rick to my collection/arsenal. And, I like and respect Rickenbacker as a company. Fender and Gibson have each been sold during their existence---a couple times, I think---and as a result there have been ups and downs in quality over the years: certain periods are considered less desirable by collectors; both companies went through "dark ages" in the 70s. But Rickenbacker is and has been a family-owned company for several generations, and despite opportunities to get bigger or capitalize on their name by bringing out a cheap line of imported mass-produced instruments, they have remained relatively small and still build all their guitars by hand in California. They've never gone through a "bad" period. They've undoubtedly passed by a fair amount of quick money by taking the position they have, but they are preserving the long-term stability and good name of the company, and I respect them for doing that.

Anyhow, over the summer, I found a good deal on this one:

That's a 360/6 JG. Getting it delivered was a bit of a nightmare, but that's a story for another day. I quickly fell in love with it and it became one of my go-to guitars. Although Ricks are mostly known for their jingle-jangle rhythm guitar sound, they are capable of much more. I used it exclusively for the last Xylenes show.

(There's a Strat in that picture too but it was just a back-up; I never plugged it in.) If you check the set list in the blog on our MySpace page, you'll see what a diverse set we played. The Rick worked great for everything.

Ricks sound different from other guitars so if you have an amp set to get a good sound with a Rick, it won't sound good with, say, a Strat or a Gibson, and vice versa. So of course in the back of my mind was the thought, I really should get another Rick for a backup, if I'm going to be playing this 360 regularly for shows.

And then lo and behold, this 330 popped up on craigslist, at a good price. I felt the hand of fate tapping me on the shoulder. I love the classic Fireglo finish, and the slightly more angular body style. And although technically it's very similar to my 360, it definitely has a different character when plugged in and played. I'm really digging it. But I think I'm definitely going to have to sell something now. Probably my Ibanez electric 12-string. Of course, then I'd need another electric 12-string...

If you're interested in Rickenbackers, the Rickenbacker corporation web site is really pretty good. For even more information, the RickResource fan site is the place to go.

Please excuse me; I'm going to go play my guitar.