are Jags Teles for the aging guitarist?

[WayToHip]

Perhaps in their older age they realize their is more than just strats and teles and embrace something new.

Uh, boom?!
Maybe they are looking for a new sound too. The Marr jag has the seriies/paralell switching. Tons of sonic options.

He did get that idea from Tele modders, though. They had the 4-way Tele switch way before it was ever put on a Jaguar.

Oh okay, thanks then.

[HeartfeltDawn]

It's all part of the cycles of guitar popularity. In the Britpop days, semis ruled the roost. Very few of those bands had Jaguars in their midst, Richard Oakes with Suede being the only one who comes to mind who plays one. Now with shoegazing/dream pop etc Jags and JM's are perhaps as popular as they have ever been over here in the UK.

[singlepup]

Interesting to hear it is becomming popular in Country Music though, yet another twist in its history.

Very interesting, but makes sense. Jags are quite bright and the bridge pup does have a bit of twang IMO. As this thread implies, Jags and Teles are somewhat similar instruments, and we all know about the Tele's place in country music history.

I think what makes the use of Jags in country music interesting is not really the Jag's sound but more its image. When one thinks Jag, one thinks of surf, grunge, alt, indie... So Jags are breaking new ground in any case!

[dezb1]

It seems to me the Jaguars popularity happens periodicly, usually with the same kind of players in or around the tag 'alternative'. It was inevitable that Marr would use them at some point.
Will Sergeant predictably used them in the 80's, not often but there is definitely some footage somewhere.

It is now a legacy design of course, repackaged, with its Surf connections long forgotten.
The reason it was reborn and became popular the first time, we must have discussed a thousand times.

Interesting to hear it is becomming popular in Country Music though, yet another twist in its history.

never knew Will Sergeant used them in the 80s (though not surprising if he used them in Electrafiction as they had a bit of a grunge influence), the whole country music thing is interesting.

[superfuzz]

[youtube][/youtube]

A jazzmaster no less, but still. I'd make the argument (I think I already did) that offset fenders were an absolute staple of 1960s music. the johnny cash guitarist using offsets might seem tangential but there are other occurrences of guitar slingers sporting these guitars.

They also showed up on andy griffith.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Fran]

It seems to me the Jaguars popularity happens periodicly, usually with the same kind of players in or around the tag 'alternative'. It was inevitable that Marr would use them at some point.
Will Sergeant predictably used them in the 80's, not often but there is definitely some footage somewhere.

It is now a legacy design of course, repackaged, with its Surf connections long forgotten.
The reason it was reborn and became popular the first time, we must have discussed a thousand times.

Interesting to hear it is becomming popular in Country Music though, yet another twist in its history.

never knew Will Sergeant used them in the 80s (though not surprising if he used them in Electrafiction as they had a bit of a grunge influence), the whole country music thing is interesting.

A lot of early Indie/Alt bands were influenced by the 60's and Psychedelia, the era the Jag had been left behind at. Bands like the Happy Mondays, Spacemen 3 and MBV certainly took a lot of influence from that era and all used Jags in the mid to late 80's. Grunge came along after and made the model more desirable.

When I saw Electrafixion, Will was using a 335 type, not sure what it was.

[sread92]

It's all part of the cycles of guitar popularity. In the Britpop days, semis ruled the roost. Very few of those bands had Jaguars in their midst, Richard Oakes with Suede being the only one who comes to mind who plays one. Now with shoegazing/dream pop etc Jags and JM's are perhaps as popular as they have ever been over here in the UK.

Oakes is underrated, saw him recently with Suede and he played both a 355 (335?) and a Jag

[HeartfeltDawn]

^^
When he joined Suede, he picked up the 355/335 to play Dog Man Star tracks. In recent times, he's had the lot out and has played a JM too.

[dezb1]

It seems to me the Jaguars popularity happens periodicly, usually with the same kind of players in or around the tag 'alternative'. It was inevitable that Marr would use them at some point.
Will Sergeant predictably used them in the 80's, not often but there is definitely some footage somewhere.

It is now a legacy design of course, repackaged, with its Surf connections long forgotten.
The reason it was reborn and became popular the first time, we must have discussed a thousand times.

Interesting to hear it is becomming popular in Country Music though, yet another twist in its history.

never knew Will Sergeant used them in the 80s (though not surprising if he used them in Electrafiction as they had a bit of a grunge influence), the whole country music thing is interesting.

A lot of early Indie/Alt bands were influenced by the 60's and Psychedelia, the era the Jag had been left behind at. Bands like the Happy Mondays, Spacemen 3 and MBV certainly took a lot of influence from that era and all used Jags in the mid to late 80's. Grunge came along after and made the model more desirable.

When I saw Electrafixion, Will was using a 335 type, not sure what it was.

he was probably playing his country gent he played that quite a bit during that period.

[sread92]

^^
When he joined Suede, he picked up the 355/335 to play Dog Man Star tracks. In recent times, he's had the lot out and has played a JM too.

Ahh that's interesting, I thought he already had a 355/335 because he was already a massive Bernard Butler wannabe (which is fair enough).
Did NOT know he owned a jazzmaster. Thinking about it, he might have had the Jaguar AND the Jazzmaster out. Personally I think his sound is much better through the fenders and acoustics he plays than the semis.
You seen them live recently?

As a side note, Dog Man Star is a great album

[speedfish]

So much bad wisdom about guitars in this thread. It's like someone shone a signal at the sky "n00bs assemble".

Aye... the ministry of misinformation.

Yup.

Anyone who remembers buying guitars in the late 80s and early 90s in the UK knows that you didn't buy Jags/Jazzmasters/Mustanges et al because you couldn't - there just weren't any around.

The first Jazzmaster I ever saw in person was the one I used in one of my teenage bands. And even then our bassist (who owned it) had gone to London to find it.

It wasn't all that cheap either - £500 for a new MIJ iirc when my Epi Les Paul Standard was about £300

^This. The Jaguar was manufactured for 13 years before Fender stopped production in 1975 and didn't start manufacturing them again until the late 1990's. I haven't been able to verify it, but my sources indicate 1999 as the year that Fender America returned to manufacturing Jaguars. Fender Japan made Jaguar and Jazzmaster reproductions in 1982, but the 80's were the years of the "super-strats" and pointy guitars.

[dezb1]

^^
When he joined Suede, he picked up the 355/335 to play Dog Man Star tracks. In recent times, he's had the lot out and has played a JM too.

Ahh that's interesting, I thought he already had a 355/335 because he was already a massive Bernard Butler wannabe (which is fair enough).
Did NOT know he owned a jazzmaster. Thinking about it, he might have had the Jaguar AND the Jazzmaster out. Personally I think his sound is much better through the fenders and acoustics he plays than the semis.
You seen them live recently?

As a side note, Dog Man Star is a great album

seen them last year and he had a pretty broad range of guitars... I remember reading at the time he joined Suede, that he auditioned using a Squier telecaster as it was the only guitar he owned.

[sread92]

^^
When he joined Suede, he picked up the 355/335 to play Dog Man Star tracks. In recent times, he's had the lot out and has played a JM too.

Ahh that's interesting, I thought he already had a 355/335 because he was already a massive Bernard Butler wannabe (which is fair enough).
Did NOT know he owned a jazzmaster. Thinking about it, he might have had the Jaguar AND the Jazzmaster out. Personally I think his sound is much better through the fenders and acoustics he plays than the semis.
You seen them live recently?

As a side note, Dog Man Star is a great album

seen them last year and he had a pretty broad range of guitars... I remember reading at the time he joined Suede, that he auditioned using a Squier telecaster as it was the only guitar he owned.

That's cool I saw them the year before last year at Hop Farm Festival and last year on their Bloodsports tour. Really awesome energy and guitar parts. That's interesting about his telecaster because that's about the third or fourth different conflicting thing I've read about what he was using when joining Suede. Either way top guitarist, few others would've been able to fill in BB's shoes and then go on to write the hit filled album known as Coming Up

[Fran]

Aye... the ministry of misinformation.

Yup.

Anyone who remembers buying guitars in the late 80s and early 90s in the UK knows that you didn't buy Jags/Jazzmasters/Mustanges et al because you couldn't - there just weren't any around.

The first Jazzmaster I ever saw in person was the one I used in one of my teenage bands. And even then our bassist (who owned it) had gone to London to find it.

It wasn't all that cheap either - £500 for a new MIJ iirc when my Epi Les Paul Standard was about £300

^This. The Jaguar was manufactured for 13 years before Fender stopped production in 1975 and didn't start manufacturing them again until the late 1990's. I haven't been able to verify it, but my sources indicate 1999 as the year that Fender America returned to manufacturing Jaguars. Fender Japan made Jaguar and Jazzmaster reproductions in 1982, but the 80's were the years of the "super-strats" and pointy guitars.

I remember wanting an Ibanez Talman because you just could not get a Jaguar and it seemed the closest thing.
Fernandes made something similar and Jackson did the Surfcaster but they weren't easy to find either.
It wasn't until around 96 I saw a Jaguar actually for sale in a shop and I was transfixed. The guitar all them cool bands used in the late 80's.
It still took me another five or so years to buy one though.

[dezb1]

Ahh that's interesting, I thought he already had a 355/335 because he was already a massive Bernard Butler wannabe (which is fair enough).
Did NOT know he owned a jazzmaster. Thinking about it, he might have had the Jaguar AND the Jazzmaster out. Personally I think his sound is much better through the fenders and acoustics he plays than the semis.
You seen them live recently?

As a side note, Dog Man Star is a great album

seen them last year and he had a pretty broad range of guitars... I remember reading at the time he joined Suede, that he auditioned using a Squier telecaster as it was the only guitar he owned.

That's cool I saw them the year before last year at Hop Farm Festival and last year on their Bloodsports tour. Really awesome energy and guitar parts. That's interesting about his telecaster because that's about the third or fourth different conflicting thing I've read about what he was using when joining Suede. Either way top guitarist, few others would've been able to fill in BB's shoes and then go on to write the hit filled album known as Coming Up

coming up is probably my favorite Suede album.

[dezb1]

Right enough about Suede, back on topic... I'll be 40 in 11 months so it's probably time I got a Jag are the Squier VM Jags a good representation of the breed? I fancy one in CAR ala Mr. Sergeant.

[meltedbuzzbox]

I I would say no. The necks are so square shouldered they are uncomfortable to play on the VM series. Unless you are happy wrecking the finish on them and to roll the edges?

I would go mij all the way

[HeartfeltDawn]

I'd say yes. I absolutely detest 7.25" radius necks and never ever felt comfortable with the MIJ Jags and JMs I bought. The VM Jag on the other hand felt more like the 335 necks I like. Flatter radius was better for me, playability was much better than MIJ, and I thought the VM stock pickups widdled on the MIJ pups from a great height.

[singlepup]

Really just a matter of personal preference. I prefer the neck profile on the Squier. I think the flatter radius works well with the Jag neck profile, which IMO is thicker than that of a JM or Mustang.

The Squiers sound great to me and I would definitely consider them proper Jags.

Both Mike and I have Squier Jag demos on Youtube. Have a listen!

[Josh]

that whole vm series are all winner winner chicken dinners. very solid.

that being said down the road I'd love a nicer jazzy though, cause of dem vintage specs. but for a player they're great guitars. awesome color options too. where else could you find a proper seafoam jag for cheap since the CIJ ones jumped in price. and the CP ones just arent the same.

love that finish on that 65 avri jazzy though, that gold looks nice with the dots and bound neck.