JMJM

JMJM and Blacktop JM in the SATV studio.

The J Mascis signature jazzmaster guitar.  It has been a long time coming.  Before I show off more pictures, I want to give some back story behind this guitar.

In the late 1980's, I started playing guitar when I was 13 years old.  I lived on the east side of Green Bay (Wisconsin), a few blocks away from the Fox River.  At first I wanted to play the bass, but my parents said first I had to learn to play guitar.  So I took my mother's folk guitar and taught myself how to play.  It was an old Barclay acoustic guitar.  The neck was really wide, it was hard to get my hands around, and it was very difficult to play.  Keeping it in tune was nearly impossible.  I persevered and learned to play a few chords and melodies.  Eventually I got a Fender acoustic and hashed it out (unplugged) for a couple years.

When I was 15, I went at a party and I tried playing an electric guitar for the first time.  It was so easy to play !  This guitar had a thin neck and you barely had to push down on the frets.  Plus it had... Chorus !  Reverb !!  Distortion !!!  I was now wielding an immense power and I could feel the electric currrent go up and down my spine.

I needed to get an electric guitar. I had learned to play the hard way and it was now time to go electric.  My father and I went across the river to Heid Music and tried out a bunch of guitars.  I decided to go with a Squier II stratocaster.  It was black with a white pickguard, and it came with a free Squier amp.  I still have this guitar but it is not in playable condition.

When I was a freshman at East High, a few friends and I formed a band called the "Lacerated Bagels".  We had band practice on a regular basis in the drummer's basement in Allouez (Wisconsin).  The singer played a Squier stratocaster, which I always thought sounded better than mine.  Obviously the Squier was a step above the Squier II.

Fast forward to a few years later.  I'm living in Beverly (Massachusetts) and I have a sweet lifeguard gig at Folly Hill.  I spend my days working on my tan, strumming the guitar, and listening to Dinosaur Jr albums next to the pool.  You're Living All Over Me.  Green Mind.  Where You Been.  Without a Sound.  J Mascis had become my new favorite guitar player.

One day in the mid 1990's, I went to a guitar store in Northampton (Massachusetts).  I tried playing one of the Fender jazzmasters they had hanging on the wall, since that was the type of guitar that J Mascis played.  It had a dark green metallic finish and was priced at $400.  It was old and beat up, so I didn't buy it.  Looking back, this was around the same time that Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon lived in Western Massachusetts, so it could have been one of theirs.  Regardless, I passed up the opportunity to own a somewhat vintage jazzmaster.

Fast forward to many years later and I have a collection of twenty odd guitars.  Fenders, Gibsons, BC Rich, Martin, etc.  In 2008, Fender decided to make a sparkly purple J Mascis signature jazzmaster, so of course I had to try it out.  After playing it for a bit, I would have considered paying $400 and making some upgrades.  However, the list price was $800, so I decided to pass again.

A few years later I bought a house in Beverly and rented out my condo in Salem.  A word of advice --- NEVER buy a condo.  I decided that when I sold the pain-in-the-ass condo unit, I was going to buy the new Squier J Mascis signature jazzmaster as a reward.  It took awhile but I finally sold the condo.  Then I went to the local guitar center and, lo and behold, I saw this:

Actual picture taken before purchase.

Sold.  It might be a Squier jazzmaster, but it was a better guitar than either of the Fender jazzmasters that I had tried previously.

I have only made one modification to this guitar.  I removed the AOM bridge and put on a GFS gold chrome bridge, which was a straight fit, no adjustments needed.  To be honest, I think the AOM sounds better, but the gold one looks cool so I'm sticking with it for now.

Here are some closeups of the bridge:

Also, I put some D'addario XL flatwound  (11) strings on it.  The only complaint I have about this guitar are the stupid vintage style tuning pegs, which I am too lazy to replace.  It is a solid guitar and I have often thought about buying another one, which will never be played or touched by human hands.

Sunrise in the Shire.