I hate Strats. I mean I really hate Strats, and here's why. Up until relatively recently if you had the misfortune to be born left-handed and wanted to buy an affordable guitar you had a few options: you could choose between a sunburst, black or red Strat copy and they were all usually junk unless you managed to get hold of a Squire (or so I'm told). It signified being marginalised. That's reason number one.
Reason number two, I hate that horrible clean sound that they make that was so prevalent in some 80's music. Urgh, revolting.
Reason three, if Dave Gilmore plays a Strat then there must be something wrong with me, right?
So, I needed a guitar with a whammy for one song and I actually really liked the look of the satin black with tortoise shell scratch plate, but was even happier that a humbucker sat next to the bridge, so I bought one.
The playability of this thing is great, I love the neck feel and that humbucker can really honk. I've gotten so many great, unexpected sounds out of this guitar I actually feel like a complete nimrod for dismissing Strats for so long. I bought it for one song, it's now been used on countless more and I grab it instead of the acoustic when I'm noodling of an evening. I'm still more a Tele/335/LP player, but it pains me to say how much I like this thing.
How much do musicians hate being proven wrong? Well, this guitar is no mistake to make. Just go right ahead and buy one.
Points only knocked off because the finish can mark easily, good coat of wax out of the box will help with that. And I'm afraid I cannot fully forgive the clean sound in parts, but that applies to all Strats.
