Guitar of the week #102: Eastwood Sidejack 300

Eastwood Guitars is known for making wacky guitars, but fortunately this one has a more conservative design to it.

The Sidejack 300 model seen above is a guitar Eastwood should be building more often. Priced nice (it truly is), styled right, and without a doubt it does look more ritzy that the standard Fender Telecaster.

You look at a Tele and you see just a plain old Tele. You see the Sidejack 300 and you don't think "plain old Tele". There's a lot more going on here, starting with that bound neck with a shape that slants at the heel next to the front side valco open humbucker. Then you see the 4-knob control layout, the very nicely placed selector switch on the bottom horn, the fact there's actually a truss rod cover (Telecasters don't have that), and yeah, this guitar is good.

Also, the scale length is 24.75" like a Les Paul and not a like Tele, which for many players is the preferred scale.

I only have 2 complaints about the guitar. I don't like the tuner buttons (I wish they were more squat and chrome) and I don't like the output jack on the front. For a Tele style body, the side-mounted jack is preferred. And yeah, this is called the Sidejack yet the output jack isn't on the side...? Weird.

Other than that, good guitar. Definitely not just another Tele copy.

Published 2017 Mar 29