HELP! I love my Squier more than my Fender Stratocaster…


Monday Morning Rant.

I bought a Korean made Squier Stratocaster in the late 90’s as a bit of a joke. I was super into metal back then and owned a fair few shredder type guitars (black guitars, pointy shapes, humbuckers, floyd rose trems and thin necks etc.), but this thing was all cream and curvy, and to me at least, it was so damn ugly that I had to have it!

Fast forward a fair bit and I really grew to love the Squier. I love how it looks, how it feels, how it sounds. The guitar changed the music I listened to as well as the music I was playing. It became my main guitar.

For the past 15+ years I’ve dreamed of owning the real deal. IE: An American made Fender Stratocaster and earlier this month I finally bought one. A brand new Fender American Professional II Stratocaster.

Just owning the American Strat feels great. The satin finish on the back of the neck feels absolutely amazing. The unique Dark Night finish is beautiful…

BUT…

I still prefer playing my Squier.

The neck on the Squier is way thinner and way faster, I feel a lot more expressive on it. I’ve spent so much time over the past few weeks playing one, then instantly playing the other and damn, the Squier feels and sounds better EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!

The random stuff I come up with on the Squier just flows out so easily, but not so on the Fender.

The Fender doesn’t stay in tune anywhere near as well as my Squier as it has a floating bridge (my Squier’s tremolo is decked), and as much as I really didn’t want to modify the Fender at all I made the move to change out the strings to the same gauge as my Squier (8 gauge), decked the tremolo, tuned a whole step down to D (same as my Squier), drop the neck pickup to the same height as my Squier (almost flush with the pickguard) and since doing this it definitely does feel and sound a lot better but it still doesn’t sound or feel as good as my Squier.

HELP!

I do not at all regret buying the Fender. Maybe if I play it more I’ll love it more? Maybe the Fender is like owning a Ferrari, a car you love to look at, love to own, love to drive on weekends, but then prefer to be invisible in the Honda Civic when stuck in traffic and doing the groceries?!

Reddit Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/nddu3m/discussion_help_i_love_my_squier_more_than_my/

Posted in Music, Podcast | Leave a comment

Happy Birthday to Me!


46… Fuck!

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Feeling Grounded

E1PX-XVVcAIJnVP
Nature walk with these 2 babes!

Posted in Travel | Leave a comment

I sold the Dillion Phoenix!

Dillion_Phoenix_lefthanded_justinfox
Less is more, or just another justification to go out and buy another guitar?!

I’ve had the Dillion Phoenix up for sale for a few weeks now. I had a starting price of $600 and a buy it now at $800 because I didn’t really want to sell it. It’s a pretty guitar. I like the look of it and for the most part it’s just been on display in my lounge room since I bought it in 2016.

One of the main reasons why I put it up for sale though is the guitar isn’t so fun to play standing up as it’s got pretty bad neck dive (when you let go of the guitar the head of the guitar dives down so you have to hold the neck up to play it), which is quite common apparently on guitars with an offset shape. The guitar is the heaviest in my collection too and that’s not great as I play standing up, sometimes for hours at a time.

The listing was up for 3 weeks before someone reached out about it. This guy wanted to come over and inspect the guitar which is a fair call, but had me a little worried for some reason as he was pretty short in his messages and I couldn’t get a read on the guy and so I started to wonder whether it would be a safe thing or not to have some random come into my house to “test my guitar”.

End of the day he was an older guy who didn’t talk much, and when I tried to chat he just couldn’t hear what I was saying, so it didn’t take me long to realise he was pretty deaf! I showed him the guitar and plugged it in for him to play with and legit he just played chords for at least 15 minutes, maybe more. He might have had frail hands as he wasn’t quite able to hold the chords down on the fretboard, but he still strummed away anyways. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing; I’m not a guitar shop, and it only takes a few minutes to tell if an electric guitar works or not (and the guitar works perfectly fine!), but it seemed like he was just really trying to make sure he liked the guitar enough to buy it.

He ended up buying the Dillion. Turns out he’s got a huge collection of guitars, and when he saw my upside down Hendrix style Squier he scoffed at it and said he wanted to do the same but would never disrespect Jimi by using a Squier! Interesting guy and an interesting experience. I had been thinking (I mentioned it on a Monday Morning Rant a little while back) about guitarists who own a lot of guitars but can’t play well. Each to their own for sure, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about and not really a situation I want to get myself into. IE: Ultimately I respect (and envy!) a person who plays the one guitar really well, over a person who has a collection of amazing guitars and plays mediocre at best.

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Jam Night

drums_lights

drums

a href=”http://www.justinfox.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/drums4.jpg”>drums4

marshall

pedals

The few photos I took at at Jam Night at Spiro’s last Saturday. What a killer setup! Legit, felt like we were on stage!

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Shots in the shower with Abby on my Patreon this week!

cremolicious_justinfoxau_shower_43_censored

cremolicious_justinfoxau_shower_45_censored

cremolicious_justinfoxau_shower_48_censored

cremolicious_justinfoxau_shower_51_censored

cremolicious_justinfoxau_shower_52_censored

cremolicious_justinfoxau_shower_61_censored

This really hot set of photos with Abby will go live on my Patreon tomorrow! Visit/Support: https://www.patreon.com/justinfoxphoto

Posted in Photography | Leave a comment

Monday Morning Rant


I need a haircut aye?!

Posted in Music, Podcast | Leave a comment

Dark Night


The first thing that came out!

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Unboxing – Fender American Pro II Strat


OMG OMG OMG OMG.

strat_family
We are family.

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU!

stormtrooper_milkypixel
Happy Star Wars Day all!

Little feature up on ZEN Garage: http://www.zengarage.com.au/2021/05/may-the-4th-be-with-you/

PS: I posted this photo on the popular reddit ITAP (I Took A Picture) subreddit, it got almost 800 upvotes, made it to the front page, then was deleted as apparently it got reported too many times! One comment under the photo was “she looks young… :/” – Fucking LAME! #NSFW4LIFE

Posted in Photography | Leave a comment