What colour??? I never thought this could be THAT hard

[deleted] · 2009-07-31T07:53:40+00:00

Me again My new guitar parts from USA Custom are arriving next week, I am sorting out all the parts with Callaham at the moment... It is a Strat style, rosewood neck... But I am trying to think of what colour I could make it. When you have a basically infinite choice, it makes it so difficult!!!! >☹ What is YOUR favorite colour for a Strat? if you could choose anything? Post PICS ?

[deleted]

Tailon. wrote i know this doesn't help , once you have most of you parts , look at the guitar in it bare bones shape and let it tell you what color it wants to be , i know it sounds very arty farty and karma sutra like , but let your new baby speak to you .

now that i have finished my 60's haze i will return to reality

Makes sense... I am going to wait till everything is here and will more likely than not be the last thing I do...

AlanRatcliffe

Hard to go wrong with white or black. Mint green is a relatively subtle variation on white, so works well with most colour schemes ('cept blues - I hate mint green with blues). Aged colours like mint and parchment have a particular "vintage feel" to them, so many like them on the traditional sunbursts, candy reds, etc.. or similarly aged colours like cream.

First thing to decide is do you want contrast or not? I love contrast - the fretboard must contrast against the pickguard, the body against the pickguard, and sometimes even the pickup covers and knobs must contrast too. So if it's a dark fingerboard, I'll usually go for a light pickguard and darker finish to contrast, if it's a maple board, I'd go dark pickguard. Sometimes you want less contrast and then you'd go for your black on black or white on white, etc..

One thing I would say is get an idea (solid sdark colour, burst, etc), but don't make a final choice until you see the body - sometimes a particularly nice (or nasty) grain will make you change your mind at the last minute. Sometimes I find my ideas will change while I'm finishing it - just depending on what I see pop up while I'm busy.

MikeM

Tele is easy. Blonde / tv yellow - one of those, a little grain showing, black pickguard. The ultimate classic.

chris77

MikeM, +1 on the Tele! My dream design to the t. For a strat, tobaco burst with aged cream pickguard and controls. Has to be a maple neck though, so for the dark fingerboard I'll also vote blonde, with black pickguard and controls. Whatever you decide, I bet she'll be a beaut. Sterkte!

MikeM

Oooh... Imagine sisters!! A blonde tele and a blonde strat 8)

chris77

Aaagh no man, Mike! Now I'm gonna have rude thoughts all day about my dream gear. But if those are the dauhters, hell, imagine how hot the mother must be...

DonovanB

Have any of you seen George Harrisons Rosewood Tele?

AlanRatcliffe

MikeM wrote Oooh... Imagine sisters!! A blonde tele and a blonde strat 8)

My US photog friend did that with some Lentz guitars - he bought a "Mary Kay" Tele-style Lentz second hand. He liked it so much he had Scott build him a matching Strat. Called them the "Lentz sisters". Then he got a matching B-Kaster too (Tele with a P90 in the neck and two volumes, master tone). Sometimes I really don't like him...

Bob-Dubery

I like the cheesy colours on a strat - the ones that look like they were mixed up for spraying big-ass American cars with lots of tail lights and big fins.

So give me fiesta red (even better, that sort of salmon pink colour it fades to ) or foam green.

chris77

Googled that Rosewood Tele Fritz, and yup, she's a looker. Lovely body, but I reckon a maple neck would've lifted her to supermodel status. See G. G played her on Let it Be. I'll have to find a Beatles compilation so I can check out her voice. My uncle was of the persuasion that the Beatles were a bunch of woozies and that the Stones and the Kinks were the true musicians.(he also drinks a lot and swears like a sailor. Go figure..) Some of that however must have somehow rubbed of on me since, although I like their stuff, to this day I have never owned a Beatles album. Will have to do fix that soon I reckon.

[deleted]

MikeM wrote Oooh... Imagine sisters!! A blonde tele and a blonde strat 8)

This thread has just become EVIL!!!

I want to make the Tele white, that was my idea all along... That baby is going to be riddled with Glendale parts ? with Flame maple neck,,,, Enough enough.

Let me worry about what is on the way first!!! ?

[deleted]

Nigga please. The whole Rolling Stones ruse was just a carefully calculated scam begun by Andrew Loog Oldham to make them stand out. That famous Would you let your sister go with a Rolling Stone? article (which came out right after they'd appeared on TV wearing matching hounds-tooth jackets and looked less threatening than The Shadows), and the subsequent hype, could never mask the fact that The Beatles comfortably outmatched the Stones for talent, pound for pound. I need to have a word with your uncle. ?

/derail

Incidentally, George also had a very nice powder-blue Strat he used to record on some of John Lennon's solo stuff. I quite like that colour (maybe a bit darker).

[deleted]

i have to agree witht the talent...

But NO Beatle is as cool as KEEF 8)

chris77

Stratisfear, dude, we're gonna hijack the thread with this. I'll start a new one with this topic ... Meanwhile, Brent, go with your gut. Long after our opinions have melted into the ether, you will still have your baby to kiss goodnight. So close your eyes and imagine you tucking her in and gently stroking her body before you close the case. Now when you open your eyes, how did she look?

Bob-Dubery

Stratisfear wrote Nigga please. The whole Rolling Stones ruse was just a carefully calculated scam begun by Andrew Loog Oldham to make them stand out. That famous Would you let your sister go with a Rolling Stone? article (which came out right after they'd appeared on TV wearing matching hounds-tooth jackets and looked less threatening than The Shadows),

Not so. You've got to put that in the context of the times. The Stones were seriously worrying to parents at the time. Sure they wore the bum-freezer jackets etc but they had long hair and big sideburns, they looked serious and scowling, and (have the smelling salts handy) they moved around. Mick's little shimmies and his shaking the tambourine around was pretty extreme for the times - especially on TV. And they didn't bow at the end of the song like those good boys The Beatles did. Sure Oldham milked their reputation for all it was worth, but there was a reputation to milk.

IIRC The Stones even went as far as not wearing ties and having their collars unbuttoned. Scandalous.

Stratisfear wrote and the subsequent hype, could never mask the fact that The Beatles comfortably outmatched the Stones for talent, pound for pound.

As songwriters yes. As instrumentalists... that's less straightforward. Give me Charlie Watts over Ringo anytime. Brian Jones was one of those natural musicians who could pick anything up and get working with very quickly. The sitar on "Paint It Black" (didn't the Stones get a sitar down on record ahead of the moptops?), the marimba on "Under My Thumb". He added so much colour to the Stones. The interlocking guitars of Jones and Richards surpassed the Harrison/Lennon partnership. Harrison only started blooming as a guitarist late in the Beatles existence, and he was never in the same league as Jone's replacement Mick Taylor.

The one outstanding instrumental talent in the Beatles was McCartney. He was a ground-breaking bass player (though I've heard it argued on more than one occasion that he didn't have great technique on bass), was a better guitar player than was realised at the time, and had an almost unmatched gift for melody.

In both cases the bands were more than the sum of the individual talents.

[deleted]

That appearance in the matching jackets was a once-off very early on, and even the Rolling Stones members admitted that Oldham's influence allowed them to play up the rebellious role immediately after that. They wouldn't have worn those jackets if they weren't trying to be good boys to get the appearance in the first place. I don't think they'd always tried that (rebellious) slant. That The Beatles spent so much time surviving harsh, often violent crowds in Hamburg (while taking lots of speed to stay awake) is testament to the fact that they knew when to play along, and when not to - way before Altamont brought the violent-crowd issue into the Stones' sphere. I think both managers were incredibly important here. Both were really smart about the whole affair.

You may have a point about Watts (though I've always through Ringo extremely underrated - like the rest of his band, he did what was needed) and Harrison (who was the youngest in the band (16 when they blew up?) and did take time to step out more). It's hard not to make a strict appeal to numbers of records sold here, in terms of the talents that counted. Certainly in songwriting, I wouldn't call it a close contest. But that's probably just my taste.

EDIT: The Stones were much wiser with their money, though. ? If I'm remembering right, they kept their cash in offshore accounts in Spain, while the tax man annihilated the Beatles' earnings. Which would you rather have - a song called Taxman that ribs the Exchequer, or millions more in your bank account? Hmm...

[deleted]

I think bright pink goes well with mint green

Bob-Dubery

Stratisfear wrote EDIT: The Stones were much wiser with their money, though. ? If I'm remembering right, they kept their cash in offshore accounts in Spain, while the tax man annihilated the Beatles' earnings. Which would you rather have - a song called Taxman that ribs the Exchequer, or millions more in your bank account? Hmm...

It was not the done thing in those days to take your money offshore. Nothing illegal about it, but still not "done".

The Stones had other problems, notably Allen Klein who they singed with after they parted ways from Oldham. Klein also got 3 of the 4 Beatles signed up. The dissenter was McCartney. Initially it looked like Klein was doing a very good job for the Stones of auditing sales and recovering large amounts of unpaid royalties. And he was. And round about this time the Stones recommended Klein to the Beatles.

However a little later it became clear that whilst the record companies were paying out the royalties, the royalties were not getting to the Stones. Round about this time Jagger had a chat with McCartney and said something like "if you haven't signed with Klein yet then don't!".

Eventually the Stones had to hire a blue-blood merchant banker to try to sort their finances out. Things improved, but they did lose a lot of money. A major motivation for ditching Jones, hiring Taylor and then hitting the road in a big way was because they were nearly broke. They couldn't have done it with Jones on board. Not only was he liable to be too trashed to play properly, but he was also liable to get arrested or would not be granted visas for some countries.

[deleted]

Allen Klein needs to rot in a hot place. Funnily enough, he was almost solely responsible for schnaaing The Verve out of ALL royalties for Bittersweet Symphony because he claimed the hook was ripped off from a Stones song. Yeah, I remember all the fun and games around Apple/Klein from the Anthology book. Ah, the naivete of the music industry back then.

singemonkey

There's no winning this debate.

The Stones could never have written Don't Let Me Down or Please Please Me

The Beatles could never have written Brown Sugar or Honky Tonk Woman

And neither band would have done a great job of playing the others' songs either.

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