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  • 2 days ago
The final batch of the late Gary Moore's guitars goes under the hammer at Bonhams on the 20th Nov 2025 and so Guitarist Magazine took the opportunity to invite Chris Buck up to the Fender A&R Centre in London's Covent Garden to play Gary's bitzer Telecaster. Drop-tuned and with a bridge pickup that could move mountains, the results really were quite astonishing.
Transcript
00:00I
00:35so second fender from gary's collection and he didn't play an awful lot of fenders so the ones
00:40he did uh you bet are going to be pretty special which is indeed the case with this so this
00:45is um
00:46uh a 63 but it's it's not completely original and gary bought it that way in the 80s
00:51um and i believe he called it his workhorse okay so and that kind of leaps out straight away doesn't
00:58it so perhaps you can tell us why why this one is fairly indicative of most telecasters um in my
01:03experience yeah i mean the the neck if nothing else is uh slab which would imply kind of early 62
01:09i
01:09guess at the very latest um it's amazing though uh i've fallen a little bit in love with this one
01:15um it's just shouty and loud in the nicest possible way it's like you pick up certain guitars and it
01:21feels like it's playing a piano everything's kind of equal every every note kind of leaps out to the
01:26kind of same extent you know which i guess you could interpret it as a negative you could
01:29interpret that as being kind of one-dimensional but there's just uh just a brilliance about it
01:34you know which everything kind of wants to leap off the fretboard and do most of the work for you
01:38um which is great because it means i have to do less work then but um it's just great i
01:42mean you
01:42know straight away you know before i plugged it in just just strummed it and it's alive it's kind
01:48of resonating and vibrating through body you know which is usually a pretty good sign
01:54yeah it's interesting this because uh when you when you play it in country you know back to back
01:59with the strat you notice that the bottom end is a lot looser it's it's it's louder it's more
02:03raucous in general it's a sort of wilder guitar altogether isn't it yeah i mean we're tuned down
02:07as well which i guess straight away kind of lends itself to sound a little bit more kind of swampy
02:12but what it is about finding guitars that seem to lend themselves so well to be down tuned i don't
02:16know but it seems to just open them up and you kind of get this extra just low-end response
02:22you know
02:23which is is not boomy it's not bellowy it's none of the kind of um pejorative b words apparently but
02:29just you know very um just open sounding and all this beautiful clarity so uh yeah very impressive
02:36guitar and much much as we were saying with the strat i mean the almost the outline of the guitar
02:42tells
02:42us almost nothing what it will sound like because this is not one of these shrill tellies it's not
02:46one of these these piano like tellies at all it's so it's it's kind of almost a you know dare
02:51i say it
02:52rather rather gibson humbuckery yeah in some respects yeah absolutely there's there's definitely
02:56an edge of that it's um i mean this you know relative to what we were talking about earlier
03:01in terms of it feeling like more of a gary guitar this would be the type of guitar that i
03:06would
03:06associate with with gary's style a little bit more you know it's kind of um a bit more forthright a
03:11bit more kind of strident and aggressive i guess you know it kind of but but still at the same
03:15time no
03:16no piercing highs that you can sometimes sometimes associate with the telly it's just um beautifully
03:22even throughout it's uh yeah gorgeous that instrument what do you look for in a telly because
03:26they again just like strats they can they can be all things to all people in in their variety so
03:32what kind of telly would you reach for were you using one good question um yeah i guess fundamentally
03:39you want it's obviously i guess versatility is a word that's sort of very commonly associated with
03:44the with the telecaster they can theoretically be that kind of all things to all men all of my
03:49favorite telecasters are um it's hard it's hard to kind of try and articulate it there's just a kind
03:56of like an openness to them where it like that kind of piano-esque response that i was just kind
04:01of
04:01describing um it feels like it's just a particularly open resonant uh wide sounding guitar appreciate
04:09none of those words makes particular sense when you're trying to describe the sound
04:14you know but um yeah it's it's hard to put into words it just it's one of those things that
04:19you
04:19kind of know the moment you pick it up if it feels like it's just going to ring and resonate
04:23for days
04:24and this you know is one of those guitars it's just a kind of like a loudness to it if
04:29nothing
04:29else you know you kind of play a chord and it's just
04:35yeah just rings like a bell i know exactly what you mean i think i'm glad you do because i
04:40don't
04:42i think when we've we've looked at sort of other other models guitar in the past and especially
04:46vintage ones i think what separates really nice guitars often electrics that is from um you know
04:52sort of so so ones is that instead of the note being like a kind of solid core and not
04:57much else
04:57around it these ones seem to have a lot more going on around the sort of yeah main kind of
05:01point of the
05:02note yeah all of these overtones and the tones um flying around it's uh i think that's probably
05:09something i would apply to most of the great guitars i played is you feel like you're getting
05:15all of these extra kind of beautiful rich harmonics flying around in addition to the
05:19the fundamental note that you're playing and it just lends itself to playing more musically or at least
05:25trying to anyway you know if you feel like it's drawing these extra notes out of you which you're
05:30not necessarily accustomed to hearing when you just play one note it's just such an inherently
05:34musical experience to that that um it just makes playing it more enjoyable which makes the music
05:40that you make hopefully more enjoyable you know it's um that's generally my approach to gear i guess
05:46is you know whether or not the person in the back row of the auditorium can you know differentiate
05:51between a ts808 or a ts9 is kind of irrelevant if it makes you play differently whatever that is whether
05:57it's an extra weetabix that morning or whether it's a guitar that's drawing that out of you
06:02that's what will translate that's what will transcend to that person in the back of the room you know
06:06and there's just certain guitars like this one which you pick up and are just a joy to play they
06:10just draw music out of you well we've talked um talked about how this guitar sounds let's hear a few
06:14of the pickup sounds uh one by one uh so neck pickup first and foremost
06:18and then we're going to play a little bit more
07:03Middle position.
07:27guitar solo
07:50Then, push back up.
08:27guitar solo
08:55That bridge pickup though, it's nuts.
08:58You think, that sounds nice, all the way through to the bridge, and you go, Jesus.
09:01Yeah, yeah, it takes your head off.
09:02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:34guitar solo
09:43guitar solo
09:55guitar solo
10:14I love how, you know, it's the simplest of guitars.
10:17It has three pickup sounds, a bridge that looks like an ashtray, and it's an orchestra.
10:26Bolt that to that bit and away you go.
10:28Yeah.
10:28There's something, I think, weirdly liberating around, like, not having too many options.
10:34That's always been, and far be it from me to criticize Leo in any way, shape or form, but
10:39like, there's almost too much on a strat sometimes in terms of, you know, options, which I appreciate
10:46maybe, you know, sacrilege to some people, I guess, where you want that versatility.
10:50You want all of those little extra different kind of nuances and stuff, but there's something
10:54strangely focusing about a guitar that doesn't offer all of that.
10:57It just focuses your mind solely on what you're meant to be doing.
11:00I mean, stick to three chords, don't make it too difficult, you know, just kind of, yeah,
11:06rock out and enjoy it.
11:06So, yeah, tally's the one, isn't it?
11:09Yeah.
11:10Nailed it first time.
11:11I'm going to be playing.
11:13I'm going to be playing.
11:29I'm going to be playing.
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