Relics. The Real Story - Ask Zac 46

well hello
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friends and welcome to another Ask Zac
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today we are going to talk about
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relics we're going to talk a bit about
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the history
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and we're even going to do some
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myth busting and
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then I'm going to you know kind of talk
0:35
about my feelings about relicking
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so i think you probably know how i feel
0:39
to a degree
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so while you're thinking about it if
0:43
you've been enjoying the show please go
0:44
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0:46
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0:48
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0:51
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0:52
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0:56
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0:57
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0:59
what keeps the show
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going thank you all right so relic
1:07
so long you know at least a couple of
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years before the relics came out
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I witnessed relic
1:16
and I was in joe glazer's shop here in
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Nashville
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and he had a white strap pickup cover
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and he was beating it up and rubbing
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gunk into it and everything
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and I mean it just seemed insane
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I mean I just thought what is wrong with
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this guy
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I mean because again you know
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never seen anything like that done
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before
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and i asked him i said joe what are you
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doing
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and he said well Greg martin has a 55
1:48
strat
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and one of the original pickups was
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missing
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and so he's got a replacement pickup
1:55
that we're putting in there
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he said but i don't want it to stick out
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like a sore thumb so
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I'm just gently aging this
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cover so that it'll match with the rest
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of the guitar and so the guitar will
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still look like a complete guitar
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instead having one pickup cover that's
2:11
bright shiny white and two that are old
2:15
and so then I asked him further i said
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what made you you know kind of get into
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that and he said well
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had to do with studying the way art has
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been restored
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and just the way uh craftsmen
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have to do things in order in like in
2:30
Europe or
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you know with antique furniture or
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antique you know old homes you know
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where you have things that need to be
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repaired
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but you can't you know you don't want to
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refinish the whole thing and so you
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learn so they've you know these
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craftsmen have learned how
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to do repairs to old pieces of furniture
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without making it look obvious that it's
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been repaired
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so to restore things
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so that kind of started things you know
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going and then of course
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you know in the in the mid 90s you know
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fender came out
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with the the relic series and this is
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kind of where the myth busting
3:10
comes about all of a sudden this story
3:13
started being told
3:14
and it was the relics came about because
3:18
fender sent some guitars to Keith
3:21
Richards
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and he saw them and he said they look
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too new why don't you go beat them up
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and bring them back
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well according to fender and i spoke
3:31
with john
3:32
page who was the original head of the
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custom shop so from the mid
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80s through late 1998 he was the head of
3:39
the custom shop
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john page then jay black who was the guy
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that started the relic series and it was
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his idea
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and then also Vince Canetto who actually
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did the finishing
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and relicking of the relics that were
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made in the
3:55
up until about late 1998
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anyway they all said that that story was
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false
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and they said the best that they could
4:08
tell
4:09
is that they had a relationship with don
4:13
was who's of course a well-known record
4:16
executive record producer bass player
4:20
and apparently they did some work for
4:21
him where they either aged a base
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or they made some parts that had to be
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aged to match and then
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uh Keith Richards guitar tech and i
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never can't remember his name it's
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Pierre de Beauport I'm sorry if I say
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that wrong
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anyway he ended up asking for a uh
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a an aged guitar
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and then from that um john page and jay
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black got together
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and they decided to make a prototype
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no caster and a prototype Mary kay
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strat and they didn't tell anyone about
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it because they
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they thought that if they told anyone
5:01
higher up at fender
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the whole thing would just get shot down
5:06
so they uh they had these prototypes
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and they took them to the 1995 namm show
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and they had them in glass cases
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and with the other kind of high-end kind
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of artwork
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custom shop guitars and everyone kind of
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thought that they were
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you know vintage instruments that they
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were kind of spotlighting
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as like the heritage offender but no
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they would say
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no these are our new relics how many
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would you like and of course it went
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over like gangbusters
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and and then you know they they quickly
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found that they
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you know they weren't prepared to uh
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you know to really do all of the aging
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and so
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in non-customary fashion it was
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decided to have an outside
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you know you know an
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outside company do that for them and so
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they knew Vince Canetto
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and Vince Canetto had been doing some
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refinishing
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and making aged black guards and things
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like that and again this was about
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restoring guitars it wasn't about
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fooling people you know it was about
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taking your 53 telly that
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someone had you know removed the black
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guard and put a white guard with their
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name on it
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and you know just restoring it and
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so they they contacted Vince Canetto
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and Vince Canetto set up an operation
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outside of st louis Missouri
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and so they would send him bodies and
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necks and of course those
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necks had a lot of flame to him and that
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was because
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at the time that was seen as
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kind of a line of demarcation between
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the standard factory models and the
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custom shop guitars most the custom shop
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guitars got
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curly or flamey you know necks and so of
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course
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all of those relics all those bodies and
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necks that they were sending
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to uh to vents were you know
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heavily figured and so vince would
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finish them
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and he would age them hardware
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bodies necks and then he would label
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them and so if you have a Canetto
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era strat or talia or no caster which I
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had
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i don't have them anymore but i had a a
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diamond dealer
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strat which was it was gold with
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gold-plated parts
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white scratch plate and had a gold
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chevron right here with a diamond in it
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and it had a suede leather gig bag and a
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tweed
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a road case it was tweed but with metal
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corners and stuff I wish I still had it
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but anyway I had that I had a 51 no
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caster
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that were both kineto era and so if you
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take them apart you can find they have
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these white stickers on them with
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numbers and that's so that it lines up
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because
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he would match bodies to necks and then
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he would send all the hardware
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and screws and bodies and necks back to
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fender
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and then that's when it be you know made
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into an actual guitar
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and that was kind of the way it went and
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they did that from you know 95 through
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you know late 98 99 and
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of course one of the big marks is um
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if you look on the back of the headstock
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it will have one embossed
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you know uh fender custom shop logo
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where it's actually pressed into the
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wood
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and then when it went uh to uh
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you know fender doing it in house then
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it went to the uh
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you know the uh the black uh decal that
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you see on
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all the the current ones all the ones
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from 99 up until today
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so so that's kind of the story of uh of
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the relics
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and then how do I feel about them well
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I like relics I like them a lot I think
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uh frankly I think
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good relicking is it's art it's fine art
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i mean this is a a dano caster
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and you know this was made in 2019
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and I think his aging
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you know is amazing I mean I and I tend
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to go for lighter
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aging I don't really go for heavily aged
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most of the time
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and uh the reason for that is I think
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it's
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easier to make it look more realistic if
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you're doing light aging I think the
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heavier the aging
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the harder it is to do and I think
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to do it correctly you have to charge
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more for it
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and I think one of the few that does it
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well is uh
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I mean I think dan does a great job of
9:33
it I think nacho
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I don't you know I don't know who's
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doing it if he's doing it himself or
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you know he has other people you know
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working for him doing it but uh
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i think as far as heavily aged he does a
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good job
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I will say that uh fender
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made a really cool run of what was
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called
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heavy relic telecasters they made 1953
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heavy relic telecasters in 2011 and
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2012.
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and I have to say they are some of the
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most convincing
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looking you know kind of post Conetto
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you know relics and i know that duke
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Levine
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plays one a lot a lot of times when you
10:15
think it's his original black guard he's
10:16
actually playing a
10:19
2011 heavy relic and you know you won't
10:21
be able to tell until he
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turns and you see the decal on the back
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of the headstock
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but those are really cool guitars um
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of course I love Jeff sims aging I love
10:32
dan strains aging
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and then you know even though he's not
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really
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known for it bill crook does great aging
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and so this is the
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paisley telly that he did that he uh you
10:46
know of course
10:47
added toner you know and and relict
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the sides and the and the neck and
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everything and he does great work
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the reason I like relics is it just kind
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of the guitar already feels kind of
11:00
comfortable and
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if they've rolled the fingerboard edges
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i mean that's a big part of it to me but
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i think also it takes the curse off
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of what i call you know the first ding
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and when a guitar already has some
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relic on it and stuff I just feel like I
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can go take it and do whatever I want
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with it I still want to be careful with
11:19
it
11:20
but uh I don't feel the uh i don't feel
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so
11:24
scared about something you know
11:26
happening to it
11:28
so I really like the I like the relics I
11:30
think it I think it's a cool thing
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uh and again as long as it's done well
11:35
um i don't want to get into like a
11:38
bashing thing but I will say
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you know a lot of guys don't do it well
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just because they haven't looked at old
11:43
guitars
11:44
i mean if you want to do good relics
11:47
you need to have either owned old
11:49
guitars or you need to own a lot of
11:51
really good books
11:52
and dan strain does good work because
11:54
he's owned a lot of old guitars and he
11:56
has a huge library
11:59
of uh of books you know on old guitars
12:02
and
12:02
you know he's constantly looking at
12:03
pictures dan strain and I
12:06
went to songbirds museum which just
12:09
closed
12:10
down in Chattanooga we went there a
12:12
couple of weeks ago right before they
12:13
closed
12:15
and of course you know we had to wear
12:16
masks and everything and
12:18
it was great getting to go through there
12:20
with him because he's really looking at
12:22
the wear
12:23
and sometimes you'd be disappointed when
12:24
he saw an old guitar that was in mint
12:26
condition
12:27
because he would rather see one with
12:30
some
12:30
checking in the finish and stuff so that
12:32
he could pick up you know
12:33
new ideas and so a ton of respect for
12:36
that
12:37
yeah and Vince Canetto as a friend
12:40
and uh really enjoyed getting to hang
12:42
out with him at namm shows and things
12:44
like that and
12:46
and uh you know he's a real artist you
12:48
know
12:49
you look at you looked at those Conetto
12:51
you know strats and teles and uh
12:54
yeah he really put a lot of himself in
12:55
those and uh
12:57
i think that's the difference some of
12:58
the there's some road warns that uh that
13:01
you know of course fender made of course
13:03
it's not an ex a horribly expensive
13:04
instrument and i think you can save
13:06
those by
13:07
doing you know kind of touching up some
13:09
things on them
13:11
but uh some of them just look hideous
13:13
and there are some fender custom shock
13:14
guitars which I'm not gonna
13:16
bash them but you know I said nice
13:18
things about the heavy relic series but
13:20
there's
13:21
there's some that just look so fake and
13:23
stuff but
13:24
everyone has it's it's really hard to do
13:26
well
13:27
and uh yeah so there's kind of
13:31
the relic story and i hope you've
13:33
enjoyed it
13:35
and it's just for for giggles
13:39
because I haven't played the whole video
13:42
I'm gonna do
13:42
uh one one lick for you just to end on
13:46
and uh and this is what what i would
13:48
call kind of like a
13:50
an old school hot lick and I've heard
13:53
James burton do this lick
13:55
I've heard Chet Atkins merle Travis uh
13:59
the ventures and it's fun and it's one
14:03
that's really good for picking fingers
14:05
so this is good picking fingers exercise
14:06
so here it is
14:08
[Music]
14:11
so it's
14:20
that's fun uh it's fun to play like on
14:23
working man blues you know
14:30
[Music]
14:36
you can kind of tail off like that and
14:38
go
14:39
so anyway little lick for you to end
14:43
on a uh on a fun playing note so but
14:46
thanks for watching and I'll see you
14:47
next time bye