🎸 Stray Of The Day 🎸

🍊 Meet Clementine! 🍊

Squier Affinity Telecaster • 2012 • Butterscotch Blonde • Indonesian-Made

There are certain guitars that look as though they should come with a cowboy hat, a pair of well-worn boots and at least one extremely complicated relationship with somebody called Jolene.

Clementine is one of them.

She’s arrived wearing a glorious Butterscotch Blonde finish, looking like she’s just stepped out of a Nashville recording studio, and appears to have absolutely no intention of explaining why there’s a horse tied up outside.

Which is particularly impressive, considering she’s never actually been to Nashville.

🏷️ Adoption Fee: £195 🏷️

Meet Clementine, our lovely 2012 Squier Affinity Telecaster, a wonderfully traditional little six-string with all the familiar Telecaster character and none of the terrifying price tag that can sometimes accompany it.

And Clementine is a little different from our usual rescues, because she’s actually one of Damian’s personal guitars.

Which brings us rather neatly to something we’ve been doing deliberately this week.

You may have noticed that several of our recent Strays have been rather more affordable than some of the elaborate, expensive and occasionally frankly ridiculous instruments we usually drag home.

And there’s a reason for that.

We’re approaching the dreaded C-word.

Christmas.

There. We’ve said it. In October.

We apologise to everybody who has just instinctively checked whether the shops have started playing Mariah Carey.

But the reality is that Christmas can be an expensive time of year, and we know there will be people looking for guitars for children, partners, family members or even themselves who simply can’t justify spending several hundred pounds.

So we’ve deliberately made a point of offering some lovely, affordable instruments this week.

Not cheap guitars that somebody will struggle to play, but properly prepared, thoroughly checked instruments that we’d be happy to put into the hands of somebody we care about.

And given that Clementine has actually belonged to Damian, we think she rather proves the point.

Anyway, back to the lady herself.

The Telecaster has been around since the early 1950s, and while the world has spent the intervening decades inventing increasingly elaborate ways to make guitars, the original formula remains remarkably difficult to improve upon.

A solid body, two pickups, a comfortable neck and a handful of controls.

That’s essentially it.

And somehow, more than seventy years later, it still works beautifully.

Clementine was manufactured in Indonesia in 2012, and comes from Squier’s Affinity Series, designed to bring that classic Fender-inspired experience within reach of players who would rather spend their money on actually making music.

Or, in our case, acquiring more guitars.

We’re not especially good at resisting those.

Her Butterscotch Blonde finish is an absolute classic, allowing the grain beneath to show through its warm golden colour. The black pickguard provides a lovely contrast, while the chrome hardware and familiar single-cutaway body give her that unmistakable Telecaster appearance.

It’s a combination that has barely needed changing in decades.

Which must be rather frustrating for guitar designers who keep trying to reinvent things.

Running through the middle is a maple neck with a matching maple fingerboard, complete with 21 frets and simple black dot position markers. The traditional 25.5-inch scale offers that familiar Fender feel, while the bolt-on construction keeps everything reassuringly straightforward.

There’s even a dark skunk stripe running down the back of the neck, which we’re particularly fond of.

Not because it makes the guitar sound any different, but because it’s a lovely little detail on an instrument that isn’t particularly interested in showing off.

Although she has chosen to be bright yellow, so clearly there are limits to her modesty.

Clementine’s voice comes courtesy of two Telecaster-style single-coil pickups, with a three-way selector allowing you to choose between the warmer, rounder sounds of the neck pickup, the brighter bite of the bridge, or a combination of the two.

And if you’ve ever wondered why people make such a fuss about Telecasters, that bridge pickup is a fairly good place to start.

There’s something wonderfully immediate about the sound, with plenty of clarity, attack and that unmistakable Telecaster twang.

Country? Obviously.

Blues? Absolutely.

Indie, pop, classic rock, punk, or something involving considerably more distortion than Leo Fender probably had in mind?

Clementine is perfectly willing to have a go.

The master volume and tone controls allow you to shape things without having to negotiate your way through a complicated switching system, making her a lovely instrument for newer players and a refreshingly straightforward option for those who have been playing for years.

Underneath all that golden paintwork sits another particularly nice feature: a six-saddle string-through-body bridge.

Unlike the top-loading bridges found on some earlier Affinity Telecasters, Clementine’s strings pass through the body and anchor at the rear, while the individually adjustable saddles allow each string’s height and intonation to be set independently.

It’s a practical, sensible arrangement.

And since this is a Telecaster, practicality is rather the point.

As always, Clementine has received our usual workshop attention, including a thorough clean, fret levelling, crowning and polishing, and a complete setup to make sure she’s ready for her next adventure.

She’s a previously loved guitar, and there are some light cosmetic signs of her fourteen years of existence, particularly the sort of surface marks you’d expect from an instrument that’s actually been played.

But she presents beautifully, with that gorgeous Butterscotch Blonde finish looking especially lovely against the black pickguard.

And this is really what we enjoy about guitars like Clementine.

She isn’t rare, she isn’t particularly complicated, and she isn’t pretending to be something she isn’t.

She’s a proper little Telecaster, with a comfortable neck, a wonderfully versatile pair of pickups and a design that’s been making people happy for generations.

She’s affordable enough to make a fantastic first electric guitar, but there’s absolutely no reason an experienced player couldn’t have just as much fun with her.

Because the wonderful thing about a Telecaster is that it doesn’t really care how long you’ve been playing.

It just wants you to plug it in.

And if Clementine does happen to find herself wrapped up under somebody’s Christmas tree in a couple of months, we’d be rather pleased about that.

Although we’d recommend checking the dimensions before buying the wrapping paper.

Clementine may look as though she’s about to perform a gentle country ballad about losing her sweetheart, but give her a little encouragement and she’ll happily make enough noise to frighten the livestock.

And really, isn’t that what rock and roll is all about?

She’s golden, she’s uncomplicated, and she’s ready for somebody to give her a whole new collection of stories.

Preferably ones that don’t involve actual horses.

We haven’t got anywhere to keep them.

🏡 Could you offer Clementine her forever home?

🎸 The Stray Chord 🎸

Rescue • Restore • Rehome

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