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Was the original Thurston Moore signature Jazzmaster a Warmoth?

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smjenkins

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As most of you probably know, Fender makes two Sonic Youth signature Jazzmasters.  One for Thurston and one for Lee. 

Specs are here:

Thurston Moore: http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-Thurston-Moore-Jazzmaster-Electric-Guitar?sku=620810
Lee Ranaldo: http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-Lee-Ranaldo-Jazzmaster-Electric-Guitar?sku=620809

I was surfing through the Warmoth gallery and stumbled upon this.  The Warmoth gallery image is dated 2007.  The Fender sig model was introduced in 2009. 

"Eric Baecht
Warmoth body, vintage 1964 Jazzmaster® style neck, Mastery Bridge, vintage pat pending tailpiece, Seymour Duncan Antiquity II pickups. Custom built for Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.'

greenjazz_full.JPG


Does anyone know more about this Warmoth?
 
Fender copying Warmoth, that's kinda delish, huh? Pretty obvious...

http://www.fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0119000700

Compound radius? Beveled neck heel? I wonder if they'll license the "Warmoth" sticker next.... :cool01:
 
Might have been the one Thurston showed to Fender when they did the endorsement deal, and said to Fender "Do this one". The Warmoth custom build might also be a replica of a guitar that is highly valued by the player, and he wanted to replicate so he can go out on the road with a similar guitar but not use the original.

Looking at the specs on the Fender page, there's no mention of compound radius neck and the radius is said to be 7.25", which Warmoth doesn't do with a compound radius (tho the neck spec'ced for the W guitar might have been a vintage replica instead of compound radius).

How can you establish the date of the Gallery photo, btw?  :icon_scratch:
 
thats awesome! i'm not a sonic youth fan, but i really like this guitar, and thinking that it could be (most likely is) a warmoth is extremely cool... kind of like wondering if the 5150 was a Boogie Bodies body :laughing7:

OzziePete said:
How can you establish the date of the Gallery photo, btw?  :icon_scratch:
Click to expand...

i think the person who wrote up the specs would have to put that in... i've seen a few where i wondered when they were made, but they don't say.
 
OzziePete said:
How can you establish the date of the Gallery photo, btw?  :icon_scratch:
Click to expand...

I downloaded the file to my computer and then looked at the properties of the image.  The date taken is metadata on the image.  This can very easily be tampered with, but I can't think of a reason why someone would change the taken date in this case. 
 
I also did a bit more digging and found this article about the Fender signature Jazzmasters:

http://musformation.com/2009/06/sonic-youths-lee-renaldo-and-thurston-moore-to-get-signature-series-fender-jazzmaster.html

"Lee and Thurston's guitars have mostly been handled by 4 crew techs since 1990, so the SY sound guy Aaron Mullan called techs Nic Close, Eric Baecht, Jim Vincent and Matt Zivich to ask about the evolution of their guitars over that time."
 
Sonic Youth has a pretty detailed archive of their guitars. To answer the question, yes the tech built it and Fender made the signature model based on a Warmoth build.

http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/eq/gtr123.html

From the source: "I guess not technically a 'Fender', but hey... Thurston's tech (Eric, I assume) built this for him. He used it for his main GDD# on the "Daydream" tour and beyond. Thurston's signature Fender model is basically a replica of this guitar."

Although they got it wrong and said Allparts body not Warmoth. Lol.
 
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