New Guitar!

It's a Gretsch Streamliner - I'm sure there's some numbers attached to that but I'll admit, I've been playing it constantly since I bought it on Saturday. I haven't looked up all the numbers or facts or anything. 

From the look of the serial number in the sound hole, I'm going to guess it was manufactured in 2005 - so about a 20 year old guitar. That puts it in the same vintage as my oldest fretless Fender Jazz bass. But it's in MUCH better condition. Actually, it's in excellent condition and I really think I got a great deal on this axe. It needs a case, some new strings, a bath and some setup but otherwise, this thing is pretty nice. It feels like one of those old classic cars that's been sittiing in a barn somewhere forgotten. 

I've been on the hunt for a good hollow-body guitar since I started playing live in in September. While I do like the acoustic, it doesn't have a good sound when it's plugged in to a PA. People bring their electrics in all the time and they sound so much better on stage. Plus now I can do some sound shaping with effects, maybe some reverb or distortion if I'm feeling spicy. 

It also makes playing so much easier. Especially for a finger-style player like me, having the ability to amplify what I'm doing makes my job a lot easier. In fact I wasn't sure just how much easier until I sat down on Sunday night and went through  my catalogue of songs. It made the jazzier songs swing more, the soft songs more expressive and the heavy songs more dynamic. It was like a layer of colourful paint was added to everything. 

I also adore that big chonky Bigsby whammy bar. I've played instruments that can glissando my entire music career. From trombone to fretless bass to even my favourite effect - wah - I've always had smooth movement in my repertoire. I call it my buttery sound. While not as versatile as the fretless, the Bigsby gives me a tool to put some glissandos in things. Notoriously, whammy puts a guitar out of tune. And this one is no exception. But I find even a light touch gets the effect across and avoids the guitar going out of tune too much. 

Tuning might be my one con with the guitar. As it's set up now,  I'm needing to retune after every song. I'm hoping that some new strings an a setup will extend that to 2 songs eventually. I've been spoiled by my fixed bridges and high quality machine heads. 

I need to buy the guitar a case (desperately, I need to protect this gem) and try to get in to a guitar store for some strings this week so I can get it cleaned up and set up. 
That's about it for now until I discover something new to report. I put together a video playing it yesterday to show off a bit. It's a song I haven't played out live for anyone yet or shown anyone. It's a bit jazzy in the verses and garage rock jangly in the choruses - a song I wrote for a guitar like this. Hope you enjoy!