Clash Guitars

[dstrummer]

Greetings Clash City Rockers ...

As you are aware, Joe and Paul played thrashed classic Fender Guitars and Mick had an assortment of favorites with red hot humbucker pickups. I know a number of Clash devotees who have created their own classic homage to Clash guitars. Though it is quite trendy to create worn out relics of guitars and there are thousands now who hope to find glory in a copy of Joe's unmistakable battered Telecaster which carried his message throughout this planet. (The official Fender Joe Strummer Telecaster saddens me, though having it out there allows for the memory of Joe and the Clash to be in the hands of musicians, and when people see the guitar they just may go out and buy or download music by The Clash and Joe.

I still remember the day that I purchased my black telecaster because of my addiction to the sound of Joe's telecaster bashing through a live set of music that changed my life. I don't know what I would do withought my black thrashed Telecaster that I have been playing since I was fourteen...

The purpose of this post is to call out for photos of guitars that members of this board play Clash songs on ... some may look like Joe's, Paul's, or Mick's ... and others may be totally different. But these are the axes by which we let the sounds of fury ring out.

[modskin]

It's 3AM here in NYC, so I'll hold off on posting a shot of my Simmo bass until I wake up in a few hours..

[Rat Patrol]

I know he only played it for 1983 and B.A.D., but the Bond Electraglide is one of the most badass-looking guitars ever made. They're incredibly rare with only 2000 or so ever sold (Mick got all his for free from Andrew Bond, and the camouflage paint job one from the US Festival pic was an early prototype). But quite a few of them are still in circulation on an active aftermarket of refurbished units, and they're a real collectors item for guitar afficionados. It's like the DeLorean of guitars. People who've played 'em say it's the greatest rhythm guitar ever invented...not so great for intricate leads (which is why Mick pulled out the Les Paul for the more rockabilly songs), but awesome for rhythm and ornamental sound and keeps its tuning especially well. I actually like Mick's guitar from that era...he'd pretty much given up on real playing and rehearsal but the cleaner and post-punkier sound he rolled out in '83 and perfected on TIBAD was a nice change from the FX slophouse of '82 and a good evolution for him for the mid-80's. Much warmer sound than the Les Paul and seemed to let him do a lot of interesting minor-key twists on songs on the mini-tour that breathed a little life into the back catalogue. He actually kept playing these things all the way through 1995 (possibly beyond...there were only a few '97 B.A.D. shows before the Radioactive fiasco basically shelved them as a full-band live act, so can't verify what he was playing on that material). So it was actually his longest-lasting guitar of choice and appears on more albums than any other, even though he has played many more shows with the Les Paul and certainly his best playing was done on Gibsons. Bonds are kind of lost in history because mid-80's was such a shitty era for high-profile guitar work save for (largely discredited) metal/rock shredders, but this was the model The Edge was playing on Joshua Tree and peak-era U2 so they're much more influential than most people remember.

I hope that master US Festival DVD gets released before too long because the SISOSIG snippet from The Future Is Unwritten finally cleans up the extremely muffled lead guitar mix on the circulating soundboards, and would give a more representative sample of that model's sound.


I don't even play or really have more than bare-skeletal knowledge of guitar shop talk. I just want to hold one of these things someday and feel that all-graphite body.

[yetaca]

[daredevil]

I'm not a musician and in fact the worst guitar player in the world, but here's mine..