4.52am Issue: 025 16th March 2017 - The Kurt Cobain Nirvana Issue

FENDER JAGSTANG
Better By Design
If Kurt Cobain loved his Mustang and he
had dreamed of owning his Jaguar, the
Fender Jagstang was perhaps a sign of a
tortured mind, combining the top half of
one and the bottom of the other.
The design was all his own work of
course, and – ignoring the fact that I
keep saying ‘pragmatic’ – came about as
simply as possible when Kurt quite
literally ripped two photos in half of the
two guitars and stuck the top of one onto
the bottom of the other. This he passed
to Fender, suggesting that they make it.
Now, I have no doubt that Fender went
through all due process, market research
and everything else and that the man’s
extreme levels of fame and marketability
at the time had nothing to do with their
decision to do just that. In fact I have just
posted them my own mash-up between a
Starcaster and a mandolin which I’m sure
will be equally well received and when the
royalty cheques turn-up the drinks are on
me.
However, the guitar that resulted
probably confounded everybody’s
expectations when it turned out to be a
rock solid classic. Having owned a couple
myself, it is a quite beautiful guitar to play
and really does retain the simplicity of the
Mustang as well as the class of the
Jaguar. Sadly, it is another that is out
of production at the moment, and
selling for crazy high prices on the
second-hand market (although not
quite as much at the equivalent
Courtney Love model, the Venus,
oddly.)
Specification-wise, it was definitely of
it’s time with no-name pickups
(although the Strat neck pickup was
surprisingly good), though a Seymour
Duncan JB would again provide a sonic
upgrade to match the original. Body
was Basswood (which I would defy
anybody to identify if they didn’t know
– some great guitar makers use
basswood which I always feel is
unfairly ignored) and as you’d expect
we have a maple/rosewood neck with
22 vintage frets and a 7.25” radius.
One thing I loved about the Jagstang
was the neck profile which apparently
was copied from Cobain’s Jaguar. True
or not they had a wonderful played-in
feel to them that felt more custom shop
than something cheaper.
A lovely guitar, whatever its heritage.