It’s been seventeen years since Kurt Cobain tragically passed away and while he is well remembered for his music few will remember the Jag-Stang, a mutant guitar he created from spare parts of other guitars.
Cobain’s personal Jag-Stang had a Fender Texas special pickup in the neck, a DiMarzio H-3 humbucker pickup in the bridge and the Mustang's "Dynamic Vibrato" bridge placed in the Fender Jaguar body.The neck of the guitar was a 24 inch short scale from a Fender Mustang.
The Fender Custom Shop built two left-handed prototypes for Kurt, only one of which he ever played.Kurt was not satisfied with the guitars and sent them back to Fender for revisions prior to the European leg of Nirvana's In Utero tour in 1994.One guitar was infrequently used on the tour and ultimately he was disappointed in the work Fender had done and he never completed his revisions to the ultimate design.
Shortly after Kurt’s death Fender went ahead with production of the guitars with a single coil pickup and one humbucker, each with its own toggle to switch from on, off or out-of-phase settings.The guitars were produced in Japan from 1995 to 2001 and later reissued from 2003 to 2006.The production was generally considered to be low quality and the guitars are more valued for their uniqueness than anything else.
Cobain's Jag-Stang was given to R.E.M.'s Peter Buck by Courtney Love after Cobain’s death and can be seen in the video for "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"
In these days of nearly instant communication when you can jump on the internet, post a video on Facebook and share music with friends that you’ve never met it’s hard to imagine a time when things were different.
But try to, just for a second…
In the early 60’s it was uncommon for a band from Europe to have success in the United States.Most music went from the United States out to the rest of the world.By 1963 the Beatles were a sensation in the U.K., their album, Please Please Me, was at #1 on the U.K. album chart, a position it would retain 30 weeks and you would think that bringing the Beatles to America would have been only an afterthought, but while EMI was enjoying the album sales in the UK, Capital Records in the U.S. was concerned that they would not have the same success and were hesitant to release the music in the U.S.
Brian Epstein, manager for the Beatles flew to the U.S. in November 1963 and met with the president of Capital Records and convinced him to release the single “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”The song was released on December 26th and had immediate success, selling a quarter million copies in the first three days.
On Feb7th, 1964 the Beatles finally landed in America.Their concerns for failure were unrealized as they were greeted by thousands of screaming fans at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and two days later performed for an audience of 74 million viewers on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Shortly after returning to the U.K. from America, on April 4th 1964, The Beatles held the top five places on Billboard’s U.S. singles chart with “Can’t By Me Love” (#1), “Love Me Do” (#2), “Roll Over Beethoven” (#3), “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (#4) and “Please Please Me” (#5).
