if i were to design a signature squier...

There are those who believe I wield a Squier well enough to have a signature Squier Strat model. I guess this gives me all the more reason to get my release of songs ready sooner than later.

Anyway, I did give this some thought, and if Squier ever did approach me for a signature model, my goal would be to deliver something good at the same price point as a Squier J5 Telecaster - and I think that's very do-able.

The guitar would be a limited-run model and share a look similar to a Jeff Beck Stratocaster.

I would have it in Surf Green with white pick guard and rosewood fingerboard, however that's where the similarities end.

Why Surf Green? Because it's very difficult to get a Strat in that color. Fender makes them, obviously, but Squier doesn't even offer it. Mine would be the only Surf Green Squier in the lineup, which I think would be pretty frickin' cool.

My artist model would basically be a Squier Bullet Strat with some upgrades, but nothing too crazy. The body, neck, bridge and electronics would remain all stock.

The changes would be as follows:

Pickups would be upgraded to Seymour Duncans. All of them would be vintage 'growly' sounding and have off-white pickup covers. And yes, I'd keep the 60-cycle hum in there, because as far as I'm concerned, the hum is part of the Strat's character.

Pick guard would stay white but be changed from 1-ply to 3-ply so the black stripe is there.

Tuners would be upgraded to Grover Rotomatics. Whether chrome or nickel, I'd take whatever is cheaper to keep the per-unit cost of the guitar down.

Tremolo system would have two springs added for a total of 5. They normally come with 3. Does the guitar need them? No. But it gives you a nice feeling when you take off the back plate and see a company actually cared enough to deliver 5 springs on the block. It's little things like that which make the player feel like he bought something special.

Pegboard logo decal would use silver text with black outline, similar to the Squier II.

I'd insist on the silver text because I think the gold looks tacky and awful.

The last thing on the list is something which I don't know is possible or not. It would be that that on delivery to the USA (because it would be made in China), a tech personally inspects the guitar before shipping to the store. He checks for frets with sharp edges, and if any are found, he files them smooth. He adjusts the truss rod. He adjusts the saddles for intonation. In basic terms, he gives the guitar a proper setup. Once completed, he puts a sticker on the back plate that states "Set up in USA", then sends the guitar to be shipped.

First impressions are lasting ones, and I do know a guitar - even a Squier - that's been set up properly by a trained tech locally (keyword there) before delivery makes a ton of difference; it makes for a fine quality instrument when the player can sit down with the guitar, play and it feels right the first time.

I'm pretty sure my artist Squier Strat could match the price point of the J5 Tele even with all the stuff mentioned above.

As for the production run, I'd limit it to between 1,000 to 2,500 units because Surf Green Strats should not be a common guitar.

If Squier found the guitar to be a good seller and wanted to keep making it, that's fine and I don't have a problem with that, but guitar #2501 and beyond would have to have some changes made.

First, no Surf Green. I'd follow the Jeff Beck Strat specs again and have the "post-2500" color be Olympic White.

Second, no upgraded tuners. They'd go back to the stock ones Squier uses. Third, block springs would go back from 5 to 3. Fourth, no USA-tech setup. Fifth, stock Squier pegboard logo with "RM" (my initials) for the model, but no signature logo otherwise. The only upgrades left would be the pickups and 3-ply pick guard.

I would specifically request the post-2500 guitars done this way to keep the first Surf Green model special and meaningful.

There is one last thing I would do on the first-run Surf Green units. This is a bit of a wild idea but I think it would be really cool.

Special guitars come with something called a COA, Certificate Of Authenticity. What I'd do is have the first 27 guitars delivered direct to Fender in Scottsdale. I'd hop a flight out here, then sign out 27 COAs - however they would be little mini cards and placed under the pick guard, and stuck to the guard with an adhesive so it wouldn't mess with the electronics. Then I'd have the guitars delivered to random locations across the world. Some would stay in the USA and delivered to Guitar Center locations, a few would go to the UK, a few to Australia, a few to Germany, etc. I'd try to cover as many countries as I could where Squier has a presence.

After that, an announcement would be made that there are 27 special Menga Squier Strats in existence, but nobody would be told where.

This would be an awesome promo because people would be snapping up every single Menga Strat in search of one of the special 27.

I really like the idea that it would take a good long while before all 27 were found. It might take years to locate them all. Maybe even decades. I also like the idea that some people would buy this guitar without any idea at all that they just bought a super-rare instrument until one day years later they open up the pick guard, see the card, say, "Huh? What's this?" and then realize what they have.

Now of course I'd have to work with Fender to develop a mini card that would be very difficult to counterfeit, because you know once the first one is found there would be a whole bunch of idiots that would attempt to copy it and sell fakes on eBay. There would have to be something under the pick guard aside from the card and unique to the guitar that the counterfeiters wouldn't know to copy to ensure authenticity. Fender, fortunately, is really good at the COA thing so I'm sure they'd come up with something that would work well and thwart the counterfeiters.

Why bother with all this? Because guitar collectors love the hunt, and I'd love to give them something worth hunting for. Not only do they get a cool Surf Green Strat that plays and sounds great, but it also may contain a secret inside that instantly quadruples the guitar's value.

fear not the stratocaster

Anyone who follows me in music circles knows that I champion Stratocaster-style guitars. Even though I primarily play Squier brand, it is the traditional Fender Stratocaster configuration, as in what's known as the Fender double-cutaway "contour" body, 3 single-coil pickups controlled through a 5-way blade selector, 1 volume knob, 2 tone knobs, strings that rest on 6 individual saddles and a block tremolo system (even though I don't use the tremolo) and a 21-fret neck.

Oftentimes I'm asked how I get that sound out of a Squier Stratocaster guitar using nothing but stock configuration, as in from-the-factory hardware with no modifications. Does practicing a lot have something to do with it? Yeah, but what's more important to know is that I'm not afraid of the Stratocaster.

Strats whether made by Fender or Squier play loose and sound jangly, clacky, ridiculously "trebley" and twangy. In other words, the guitar is quirky by nature. That's not to say the guitar is bad, but rather that's just the way it is.

How does one become unafraid of the Stratocaster? You accept the quirks of a Strat and work with them.

My advice to anyone looking to wrangle tones out of a Squier like I do is to simply let go of the fear. Don't be afraid to bend a string hard to get that screaming solo note. Don't be afraid to rake the strings. Don't be afraid to pick hard. Just go for it. Break a few strings if you have to. I've broken plenty.

I'm not saying to beat the crap out of your Strat, but it is true that some of the best Strat players (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Yngwie Malmsteen) play real hard. That's not all showmanship, believe me. Playing a Strat hard is sometimes the best way to get that sound out of it.

friday night videos

In the early 1980s, MTV was big. Really big. Everyone wanted it, but the problem is that most people couldn't get cable TV. Logistics prevented many from getting cable more than anything else. In other words, unless you lived somewhere that was really close to the utility poles, you couldn't get cable.

The house I grew up in could not get cable. Well, that's not entirely true. When I asked my father about it, he said the cable company wanted to charge some ridiculous amount of money to run a line to the house. The house was situated somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 to 500 feet from the main road. Power and telephone were delivered via three utility poles literally in the middle of the woods. While the power and phone company didn't seem to have issue running poles and wires on their dime, the cable company did, so my father said "screw you" and never got cable.

Before continuing, later on as a teenager I lived in an apartment with my father where there was cable, and I watched so much MTV it was ridiculous. Anyway..

For those of us that didn't have cable such as yours truly, there was only one other way to watch music videos, and that was Friday Night Videos. This was a show that ran from 1983 to 2000. It was on every Friday night (obviously) at 12:30am. From '83 to '87 it was a 90-minute show. From '87 to 2000 it was cut down to 60 minutes.

I always found it weird that Friday was in the name of the show when technically it always aired on Saturday. Whatever.

On many Friday nights I stayed up until I could barely hold my eyes open just to watch FNV. For a 10-year-old of the 1980s, that was pretty much as exciting as a Friday night would get. Rarely did I make it from 12:30am all the way to 2am, so what I did is popped in a videocassette - a Betamax cassette, thank you very much - and started recording the show at 12:30am, watched for maybe a half-hour, then went to bed. The next day after Saturday morning cartoons I would watch what I missed.

FNV started getting really annoying when they kept playing the same crap over and over again each week. Out of all the videos they played, you maybe saw 3 that were cool - out of a 90-minute show.

The show was cut to 60 minutes in 1987 for a very specific reason: Late Night with David Letterman. Dave was getting better ratings than FNV, so the show was bumped from 12:30 to 1:30 to give the 12:30 spot to Letterman's show. This was a smart move on NBC's part because FNV at that point was getting really stale.

Up until I researched this I had absolutely no idea FNV had lasted until 2000.

Squier tuner replacements

After over 20 years of faithful service, the high-E tuner on my 1989 Squier II Stratocaster doesn't work anymore. The tuner button doesn't turn the post anymore because it simply wore out due to age.

Getting exact replacement tuners for a Squier Strat/Stratocaster isn't exactly easy. The Squier tuners mount via two small wood screws on the back of the pegboard while Fender tuners mount on the front of the pegboard via a single nut.

What this means is that you can't just walk into a guitar shop and buy exact-fit Squier tuners because they simply won't have them. Yes, you can buy exact-fit Fender tuners, but they won't fit the Squier.

My '89 Squier II Stratocaster is nearly identical to the Squier Bullet Strat, but something a lot of people don't know about my Squier II tuners is that they're plastic. The high-E has literally started to decay after years of use; this happens with any guitar that has plastic tuner buttons. Squiers all have metal tuner buttons these days, but back in the late 80s/early 90s there were Squier Stratocasters aplenty that donned the plastic buttons.

I can still tune the string by taking a pair of pliers and turning the post, but the tuner button itself won't turn the post at all because it's literally falling apart.

I measured the spacing of the posts and the screw hole spacing between the '89 and a 2010 Squier and they appear to be identical. If not identical, they're only off by maybe a millimeter or less, so they should fit.

When you look at the '89 and 2010 side by side, the tuners may look different, but they're not except for cover shape. The '89 has a hexagon cover shape while the 2010 has a square, but both of them at the plate are parallelogram-shaped and the screw holes appear to match up. The hexagon covers on the '89 actually gives the optical illusion that they're larger than the 2010's tuners, but they're not.

I was in luck as someone on eBay was selling Squier Bullet tuners that are exact-fit.

They're brand new and only cost me $12.90 with shipping included for a full set of 6.

I bought them today, so hopefully they'll arrive before the end of the week.

There is a slight possibility these tuners won't fit my '89. Even though the measurements check out, you can never be too sure with these things.

I see it this way - it's worth 13 bucks to find out whether this will work or not. If not, I have a complete spare set of tuners for my 2010 Squier.

The Lawnmower Man

The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 movie which unfortunately has not aged well. This is one of the "cyber" sci-fi movies of the 1990s, and the idea of what 'the computer world' was back then does not translate well now.

If I remember correctly, the reason I rented this movie is because Stephen King's name is on it. If you look at the movie poster, it does say "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man".

But does the movie have anything to do with King's The Lawnmower Man short story from 1975? Barely. King in fact sued the producers of the film for attaching his name to it, stating that the film had "virtually nothing to do" with his original short story. Did he win the lawsuit? Yes, but it took him two years to do it. The studio had to cough up 2.5 million in damages.

Anyway, the point is that if you were expecting The Lawnmower Man to be any good because of a King storyline, you'll be sorely disappointed as it's nothing but 1990s-flavor Hollywood sci-fi schlock.

Back when I watched this movie in the 90s, I loved it and thought it was really cool. When I tried watching it again recently, I couldn't even get halfway through the film.

Just about every 5 minutes I was wincing at Hollywood's idea of what "high tech" was. Here are two examples:

Almost every time the lead character does something on the computer, it talks to him. When he records a journal for example, the computer says "journal started" or something like that. And of course the computer's voice is a monotone female.

The "secret lab" the lead character works in has the worst lighting imaginable. Dark, subdued, cool blue lighting is all you ever see, what you see of it. Scientists in this movie never have to see what they're working on, apparently. And to note, this same crap is still practiced today in modern TV cop dramas. CSI in particular is notorious for this. The lab is ALWAYS dark. Yes, the one place where bright light is needed more than anywhere else, and it's dark - but it looks cool! Yeah, that's just ducky.

I got 47 minutes into the flick, could not stand the schlock any further and had to turn it off. Being I know a fair amount about computers now compared to the early 90s, what the movie tries to pass off as usable high tech is a complete joke now - almost as much as Bad Guy Brimley's fax machine. And heck, even if I didn't know jack squat about computers, I'd still think the tech is a joke in The Lawnmower Man.

Aside from the tech crapola, is the movie any good? Not really. Although you can follow along with what's going on easily - which is a plus - there's way too much filler and not enough story, so things are dragged out just to fill screen time.

I turned off the movie right before the movie goes into total CGI mode, where is where all the budget went; I know from that point forward it's not a film but basically a cartoon until the end.

Maybe someday when I'm in the mood for cartoony film CGI of the early 90s, I'll watch the rest of the movie.