so kurt did use the ferrington mustang live after all

[murdok]

so the ferrington mustang was designed & built during Feb/March 1992.

Previously we knew Kurt had it with him backstage at Reading during August 1992 based on the famous picture of all his guitars from that show.

Turns out he had it with him as early as June 1992. AND PLAYED IT LIVE.

Youtube 06/21/92 Point Theatre Dublin and skip to the 18 minute and 30 minute mark. Dave also mentions that this was their first show in 3 months, so this is most likely the debut of the ferrington mustang.

An interesting snippet of gear history. its not as cool looking as the jagstang and sounds like ass, but there it is.

It is strange finding this out 20 years after the fact. Watching the footage it feels like kurt played this yesterday, but there he is, getting it done 20 years ago. And we are only talking about it. It boggles my mind to think how much he fit in from late 1990 to mid 1992. he had written all of nevermind and basically most of in utero by that point.

[Pacafeliz]

Presumably this Charles Peterson photograph was taken backstage at the Reading Festival or at one of the two Rio shows (Brazil).

From left to right; 1965 Fender Jaguar, Ferrington Mustang, white Stratocaster, Telecaster, Fender Competition Mustang, sunburst Stratocaster. (rear - Krist's bass)

Source
Guitar World March 1995

[hotrodperlmutter]

i do not unnerstahnd

[NickS]

i do not unnerstahnd

You do not need to understand - only BELIEVE!

[stewart]

its not as cool looking as the jagstang and sounds like ass, but there it is.

it just sounds the same as all his other guitars to me, especially in crapola-home-video-camera-with-girl-screeching-o-vision.

[Addam]

I watched to video and disagree, looks like the all white strat in the pic Pat posted.
The tort pickguard would stick out like a sore prick, but that pickguard blends in with the rest of the guitar.

*EDIT* I change my mind, at about 26 mins in looks very much like the Ferrington guitar.
Shit video quality though

[youtube][/youtube]

[paul_]

There was a picture somewhere of the broken-off headstock lying around near some of his other gear iirc, so if he smashed it onstage he must've used it live at least a couple times.

[Rox]

I'm not surprised . Talented musicians with little cash play whatever they could get cheaply.

[riotshield]

watching that moves me

[moob]

Did Earnie Bailey have a hand in the design of it? What's the history/story behind it?
[/mustangnovice]

[iCEByTes]

Did Earnie Bailey have a hand in the design of it? What's the history/story behind it?
[/mustangnovice]

1). The Ferrington Guitar. The luthier Danny Ferrington made a custom guitar for Kurt in 1992, based on the Fender Mustang. Had no serial #, of course (59). Here are two articles on it.

"Kurt is left-handed, and he really likes the Fender
Mustang he's been playing for a few years. But his
playing style is so rough, and left-handed Mustangs
so rare, that it was beginning to look as if his
favorite guitar was going to break apart right out from
under him. I'd talked with Nick Close, one of
Nirvana's roadies, about trying to find replacement
necks for the Mustang, but finally Kurt called me to
talk about ordering a new custom guitar.

"Nirvana left for Australia a few days later, and Kurt
faxed me a great little picture showing where he
wanted the pickups to be and what shape to use for
the body. It was the first time I'd collaborated by
fax, and I thought it was real fun to be designing a
guitar by long distance using such a modern
communications technology.

"I built his guitar to be a lot like that old Mustang,
except we used a Gibson-style bridge that's better
at keeping the guitar in tune, and I made the neck a
little straighter so that it won't be so apt to break
when Kurt plays it hard. It's tricky making left-
handed guitars, though, because everything on a
left-handed guitar is counter-intuitive for me. Right
off the bat I made a few mistakes on Kurt's guitar,
so finally I took to labeling all the parts 'This Side
Up' to remind myself that I needed to do everything
backwards. The guitar turned out real well, and a
few months later Kurt came by with his wife to pick
it up. Just after he started playing it he stopped
dead in his tracks and said, 'This is like my dream
guitar!' His wife asked, 'Honey, are you gonna
trash this one too?' but Kurt got this horrified look
on his face, and in a solemn voice he said, 'No, this
one's going to be my recording guitar.' I was tickled
to death, and it was incredibly satisfying to hear that
I'd hit the nail right on the head" (28).

The Ferrington guitar is distinguished by several
features. It has heart-shaped fretboard "dot" inlays,
a stylized "f"(for Ferrington) on the peghead, three
pickups (which look like single coil neck and middle
pickup, and a humbucker bridge-position pickup),
and an almost-Mustang pickguard where the plastic
continues right down to the control knobs (this
section is chrome on actual Mustangs). The
Mustang slide switches are replaced with a toggle
switch where the input jack would be. The actual
input jack is a Stratocaster-style jack mounted
below the pickguard. The body is basswood, with a
maple neck and rosewood fretboard. Its finished in
what Fender calls sonic blue, with a red-swirl mother-
of-bowling-ball pickguard. I don't know of any
pictures or footage of Kurt playing this guitar, but this
could be because it was used only as a "recording
guitar" (28).

Second article:
"[Kurt] hooked up with Danny Ferrington via Richard
Thompson's guitar technician, who was friendly with
Nirvana roadie Nick Close, who was desperately searching
for left-handed necks to replace the ones that Kurt had
destroyed onstage."

"'Kurt called me from the backstage of Saturday Night Live
when Nirvana was doing the show,' Ferrington narrates. 'We
talked for a long time about what he wanted. Basically, he
loved Fender Mustangs, but he also hated them because you
couldn't tune them. And it's hard to raise the action. He
thought you could improve on it. He essentially wanted a more
sophisticated Fender Mustang. So we talked about the features
he wanted. Then the band went to Australia, Kurt faxed me
over a little drawing that he'd done, with the pickup placements
and other little notes.' The instrument Ferrington built is depicted
in his book. In body shape and headstock, it's closely modeled
on a Fender Mustang, but it has a Gibson-style Tune-O-Matic
bridge and three Bartolini pickups. The bridge pickup is a
humbucker, while the neck and middle pickups are single coils.
The middle pickup is angled. The bridge pickup, Ferrington
further explains, 'has a coil tap, so you can get series, parallel,
and single coil. Kurt said he wanted a lot of switch options.'"

"The bridge pickup variations are governed by a small toggle
switch located below the guitar's two knobs (a tone and a
volume). There's also a Strat-style pickup selector. The
instrument's body is made out of basswood, with a maple neck
and a rosewood fretboard. The baby blue body colour and
tortoise shell pickguard were Cobain's choices, as were the
heart-shaped fret inlays" (32).
Another picture.

[Rox]

And here I was thinking Ferrington was some cheapy no name brand ..

[taylornutt]

After looking at pics of the Ferrington, I think I see where Squier got the idea to put Strat jacks on the Squier Jaguar and Jazzmaster guitars.

[NickS]

Why do they keep calling it an input jack? It's an output jack (socket).
(To the tune of the Pink Panther theme:)
pedant, pedant; pedant, pedant pedant...

[kim]

yesterday at rehearsal the drummer (who plays guitar/sings) in speedözer was talking about how he liked the design and sound and feel of the neck on the kurdtz jag, in short, nothing but praise, the name kurdtz got dropped once and that was it. thankfuck. shit's good if shit's good. fucking kurdtz.