Pete Stevens (a frequent contributor to the blog, both with his writing and excellent photography) has kindly put together this piece about The Clash and their guitars. It’s a great read – for both pedestrians, novice guitarists (my hand shoots up) and experienced musicians. Over to Pete!!

The very name Telecaster goes hand in hand with Joe Strummer. Joe’s most famous Telecaster was originally a standard sunburst model built in 1966, but had many modifications over the years. It’s more commonly known as the ‘Ignore Alien Orders’ guitar. There are images when it is still as a ‘sunburst’ colour during the latter days of the 101’ers. It was spray-painted with grey auto primer and matt black car paint very early on in Joe’s days with The Clash.

Pictures exist from Rehearsals Rehearsals of a five piece Clash, with Joe playing this Telecaster before it was sprayed, Mick Jones still with long hair and shades playing his double cutaway Les Paul Junior and Pablo LaBritain on drums. This is the same guitar which Joe was still playing a quarter of a century later with the Mescaleros. Mick had this particular Les Paul Junior at Davis Road in Acton in 1975.

There is an excellent summary of Joe’s ‘Ignore Alien Orders’ Telecaster here.

Pete's own tribute to Joe's IAO Telecaster using Fender's Artist Series 'Joe Strummer' model

Putting on my serious guitar anorak for a moment – the ‘Train In Vain’ clip has Joe playing his Fender Esquire. The Esquire has only ONE pickup on the bridge, but no neck pickup. The ’selector’ switch changes between different tone circuits on the Esquire. The essential body shape/design though is identical to the Telecaster. I’m fairly sure this particular Esquire probably dated from the mid-sixties. The most famous Esquire though belongs to Bruce Springsteen – from the cover of ‘Born to Run’ and now apparently has its own security guard when out on the road !

Thanks Tim for the nod towards George Fullerton though. I did cut and paste an article a little while ago just after he died. It’s thanks to people like George who made Leo Fender’s ideas work that we have the music we do. The Telecaster (initially named the Broadcaster) is just celebrating its 60^th anniversary, the original having been first manufactured in the autumn of 1949.

I ought to remind people that Mick’s guitar of choice is now a Telecaster too. He was playing a nice new USA tobacco sunburst model at the 100 Club the other week, but favours a 1972 black Thinline Telecaster with Fender Wide Range humbucker pickups…..The partially hollow body makes it very light and quite a unique sound, definitely not a typical Telecaster.

This is Mick’s wikipedia entry to which I added the final paragraph fairly recently….

“Jones’ first guitar was a double cutaway Gibson Les Paul Junior with its single P-90 pickup, which he bought since Johnny Thunders used one. The Junior was his main guitar up until late 1977 early 1978, and after that as a backup and studio-guitar. Around the same time he also owned another Les Paul Junior, all black (formerly red) with a black pickguard, which got smashed at a gig in 1977. He then switched to the regular Gibson Les Paul and later to Gibson Les Paul Customs.

“My favorites are still the Juniors,” he told Gibson.com in 2006. “I had a great Les Paul Standard, a sunburst one. And then I had a black Custom, and a white Custom. And then the big white hollowbody for London Calling. But I still play the Juniors today.”

He also occasionally played an Olympic White Fender Stratocaster – for live versions of ‘Straight to Hell’ – and several Bond Guitars that were donated to him by good friend Andrew Bond who made the guitars. For effects Jones mainly uses MXR pedals including a 100 Phaser, a Flanger, an Analog Delay and a Noisegate as well as a Roland chorus or Space Echo effect.[18] During the early times with The Clash, Jones used a Marshall Plexi amplifier and occasionally a Fender Twin with a 2×12 cabinet. He later changed to Mesa Boogie amplifier with two Marshall 4×12 cabinets that he used throughout the rest of his career with The Clash.[19][20]

Live, Jones still occasionally plays a Gibson Les Paul Junior guitar, but with his current band Carbon/Silicon favours a much lighter, black 1972 Fender Thinline Telecaster guitar with its original Fender Wide Range humbucker pickups. They are both played through a Fender Blues DeVille* re-issue valve amplifier. Additional overdrive is provided by an Ibanez Tube Screamer TS-9 overdrive guitar effect pedal.”

***Thanks as always Pete – part two will follow over the next few days!***

Tim