Tuesday 30 September 2008

Review: Fender Mexican Telecaster

Fender Mexican Telecaster

Let’s face it, Telecasters have a severe image problem. Telecasters are not cool, they are not sexy, they are not hip. I know that you will at this point wave your arms and pull faces at me, giving a long list of top dudes from the most happenin’ bands on the planet who pack a Tele with attitude, but I don’t care. Think Telecaster and the image that comes into your head is not Tom Morello or Lee Glaze, but Francis Rossi, or, worse, Garth Brooks. Albert Collins, the man they dub “the Master of the Telecaster” was last cool round about the same time that the woolly mammoth died out. Telecasters are associated with tedious Country and Western, over-serious blues noodling, and bad ponytails. It is no co-incidence that Andy Summers plays a Telecaster. As cool and hip celebrity rock n' roll endorsements go, Andy Summers is right up there with Prince Phillip.

Of course, it is not Fender’s fault. Uncool people buy guitars just as much as cool people, and Fender have happily been handing them over to personality-free people making personality-free music for decades now (Travis and Coldplay have amassed about twelve thousand between them, apparently). They have even, particularly in the 70’s and 80’s, attempted to make ‘cool’ Telecasters, festooning them with whammy bars, lurid paint schemes, overcooked humbuckers, f-holes and pointy headstocks. They sold about four of them, because, as any fule no, adding cool bits to something that is not cool, just makes it embarrassing, like a Trabant with a spoiler, or a politician with a baseball cap. The cool and happenin’ dudes of the time, took one look, laughed heartily, and went back to their pointy Washburns and heroin addictions.

So the Telecaster has been pretty much unchanged since Wilma Flintstone looked at the prototype and said it looked ‘a bit last year’. Fender, having realised that they are doomed to churn out the same tedious square piece of wood for all eternity, quite sensibly outsourced much of the production to Mexico, so that they wouldn’t have to look at the damn things quite so much. The Mexicans managed to cut the production costs to the extent that you can now be spanking your own plank here in Blighty for as little as £300. Have they sacrificed quality? You might think that it’s not actually possible to get such a basic guitar design wrong, seeing as Telecaster wiring diagrams are available on the floor of Roman villas in mosaic form, but it can, with a great degree of effort, be achieved. Encore, for example, managed such a feat by fitting theirs with the very worst pickups in the entire universe, resulting in an instrument that squealed with feedback if it was so much left in the same room as an amplifier, during a power cut.

Sadly, it seems that Fender’s Mexican suppliers haven’t had that much imagination, and this instrument is solid and well built. The electrics are flawless, no bits are falling off, and everything fits together very well. This example is in fascinating ‘Black’, and other vibrant colours available include ‘Blue’, ‘White’ and, for those that can stand the excitement, ‘Sunburst’.

Plug in and you are treated to the whole gamut of Telecaster tones, from “twangy” to “twangalicious” from two single-coil pickups that are free from noise and well-balanced. Your audience will be pleased to note, as their stomachs surge up through their spinal columns in attempt to strangle their ears, that your country pickin’ rendition of “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain” is delivered with crystal clarity and excellent string balance. And should you push the boat out for a rousing rendition of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”, and turn the gain on your amp up to an ear-splitting two-and-a-half, that the tone and character of the guitar (and sadly your own) pushes clearly through the overdrive.

The strings are a bit close together for my fat fingers, but the action is low yet buzz-free, implying neck geometry and fretwork of a very high standard. Make no mistake about it, this is a quality instrument, and considering that is costs less than ‘cheap’ imitation designs from the likes of Tokai and Fernandes, whilst being of at least equal if not superior quality, it represents remarkable value for money. Therefore if you’re going to commit credibility suicide, or if you regularly wear a cowboy hat without irony, you’re best off going for an original, at least at this price. I’ve played an American-built Tele before (I was drunk and it wasn’t mine, ok?) and I honestly can’t say that it was significantly better than this, certainly not enough to justify paying almost three times the price. It would be a great guitar for the studio, partly for its crystal-clear tone and versatility, but mostly because that way no-one will see you play it.

So do you still want to buy a Telecaster? Consider the following facts:

1.Ryan Peake, rhythm guitarist in Nickleback, plays a Telecaster.
2.Ryan Peake is even less cool than Chad Kroeger.
3.Chad Kroeger looks like a gargoyle trying to swallow a squirrel.

Ryan Peake (in common with many things, including the majority of mummified corpses), is less ugly than Chad Kroeger. Chad, however, plays that most fashionable of instruments, a PRS. Therefore, Ryan’s relative lack of coolness must be down to his choice of guitar, implying that playing a Telecaster is about as good for your social stature as organising a Gary Glitter benefit gig.

So yes, this is a quality guitar with character. Sadly the character is that of the assistant manager of the Swindon branch of Endsleigh insurance.

Verdict 4/5

A great guitar that will lose friends and alienate people.

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