A far-flung despatch indeed this week. The sleepy postseason grandeur of that jewel in God's Own County, Scarborough provides the backdrop to our guitar gathering exploits.
The guitar itself is a truly fabulous thing, to the extent that it's an honour to provide space for it in the shop. To my mind, Yorkshire will now not only be known for Boycott, serial killers and puddings. Into that heady mix now comes the Fender American Vintage '65 Jaguar Reissue "Thin Skin". Every bit as good as it is a mouthful, this guitar provided the yin to my trip.
The yang is a hearty circular shlep across the North York Moors, beginning and ending at the ancient town of Helmsley and taking in a delicious and bracing draught of the South Western moorland.
The Axe:
2015 Fender Jaguar '65 American Vintage 'Thin Skin' in Sonic Blue
There are two clear points of reference for this article. On the one side we have the Jaguar itself, its history, context & cultural significance. On the other, we must delve into the particulars of this particular iteration, Fender's '65 Reissue.
Let's begin at the beginning. The Jaguar was born in 1962 as an upstart sibling of the similarly offset (slanted) Jazzmaster. Whereas the Jazzmaster featured a finger straining 25.5" scale length and two feedback-heavy 'soap bar' single coil pickups, the Jaguar boasted a civilised 24" scale and two less boisterous pickups. This refinement was seen as an upgrade by Fender and was consequently posited as a competitor to Gibson's comparatively 'high end' woodwork.
For thirteen years it ploughed a lonely furrow in the shadow of its famous cousins, the Strat & the Tele. It seems that in those summers of love, the counter cultural youth weren't quite loosened enough in their gourds to embrace the striking italicised offset styling and trippy circuitry.
It took until the 1980s when these guitars were lying dusty and unloved in the dark recesses of pawn shops, for the Jaguar to emerge again blinking into the light. Teenage alt-rock kids, effete, poetic and skint, dusted these guitars off and set them to work making some of the most interesting and vital music of the century. Tom Verlaine of Television was a devotee, along with arguably the most iconic Jag-player Johnny Marr of The Smiths whose crisp, vibrato laden jangle screams pure Jaguar on How Soon is Now.
The 90s cemented the Jag's cultural cache with Kurt Cobain and the grunge kids picking up the offset baton. Nowadays there are few guitars that command such a devoted following. Having just written the latest Roar At The Meteor riffs on this guitar, I can safely say your humble scribe is a card-carrying member of the club.
2015 Fender Jaguar '65 American Vintage 'Thin Skin' in Sonic Blue
This 2015 '65 reissue is exceptionally faithful to the vintage originals. The woodwork consists of an alder body, mid 60's profile satin maple neck, and a bound Indian rosewood fingerboard. These classic tonewoods yield a clear, resonant natural acoustic tone when unplugged.
The 'Thin Skin' designation refers to the thinner than standard coating of nitrocellulose lacquer applied to these guitars. The effect of this artfully designed finish is that it wears beautifully under natural fluctuations of temperature. This example demonstrates this ageing beautifully. Subtle crazing lines run the length of the body.
Upon the 7.25" radius fretboard are 21 vintage style medium frets that yield a silken feel. There's a classic American vintage bridge and floating tremolo with the quirky addition of a lock button, lashings of chrome over the hardware, and deluxe vintage style tuners.
Plugged in, this Jag does everything a good Fender should, offering plenty of snap and sparkle in the top end. Overdriven it produces an aggressive chime and snarl that sets this model apart (Hello Mr Marr). The AV65 single coils are widely seen as snappier, brighter, and more vintage-correct than previous Jaguar reissue pickup winds, and the guitar offers a balanced sound and great clarity for strummed passages and shimmering lead lines. Engage the Rhythm Circuit for even darker, meatier tones (great for use with fuzz pedals) or click on the "strangle" switch in the Lead Circuit for even thinner tic-tac sounds.
This iteration of the Jag is simply brilliant. It exemplifies all that's great about the iconic machine. Top-end Fender components and workmanship, combined with that offset design; ahead of its time then, and still turning heads now.
On sale in the shop for £1675.00
The Tracks:
Walk: North York Moors Circular 24.43km
County: Yorkshire
Difficulty: Strenuous: Total elevation climb: 582m
Time: 4:30 - 5hr
Route: This walk took in the varied and engrossing landscape of the North Yorkshire moors, beginning and ending at the ancient town of Helmsley twenty-five miles north of York. The route initially follows The Three Feathers path, joining the river Rye at the Norman village of Rievaulx with its magnificent ruined abbey. Walking upstream and crossing at Bow Bridge the route offers beautiful views of the valley and to the north, the bald summits of Bilsdale West Moor and Loosehow Hill. Beyond the wonderfully named Shaken Farm, I crossed the river again, steadily ascending the wooded valleyside on the road heading back south, eventually emerging onto the B1257. Whereupon I sharply turned back on myself to take the first right and arrow through the byways of Oscar Park Farm, sitting squatly among fields at the top of the hill. From here, I continued in a westerly direction through a wonderful coniferous plantation crisscrossed by moto-cross motorbike tracks, eventually traversing a deep cleft in the landscape, before rejoining the Three Feathers Walk on its steady descent into Helmsley along a spectacular dry river bed lined by towering fir trees.
After a furiously wet and blustery day by the sea in Scarborough, Helmsley was bathed in crisp autumn sunshine on my arrival. Positioned as a gateway to the Moors this market town has roots running back to the rugged settlers that alighted upon this riverside spot amenable to their agricultural needs 3000 BC. Positioned on an ancient road (now the A170), Helmsley was a point of commerce and rest on the way between Scarborough to the East and Thirsk to the West. The market is still very much alive and well, recently earning the seemingly prestigious award for 'Best Market Town' in the Great British High Street awards.
Despite the lure of this lauded institution, I headed west from Carlton Lane, crossing the stream on Church St and heading down a broad public footpath beside fields, skirting woodland to the left, the brisk wind flinging the early fallen sycamore leaves horizontally across my eyeline. Descending through this strip of woodland, views of the wide river valley are glimpsed through the trees to the left. The path leaves the trees and joins a road, Ingdale Howl crossing the floodplain and reaching a junction at a stone bridge with the river running hurriedly beneath. I took my lunch beneath one of the stone arches with the river running under my dangling feet. Sunlit leaves twisting in slow-motion through the deep.
At this junction, I took the road to the right before the bridge itself, leaving the Three Feathers Walk and continuing along The Inn Way with the river to my left towards the Norman village of Rievaulx and its magnificent Abbey. Following the ascent of Henry VIII, in 1538 the twenty three remaining Cistercian monks were evicted from their glorious five hundred year old citadel, and the abbey left to crumble on its lonely vigil over the village. The haunting splendour of this place now is a testament to the capriciousness of politics and the Ozymandian power of time and entropy.
Following the River Rye upstream the Inn Way joins Arden Lane and crosses the river to the western side, climbing the valleyside. I left the IW here at Lambert Hag Wood and continued northward following the broad curve of the river as far as Barnclose Farm, through the courtyard of which, a public footpath plots a course through a sheep field, up the sheer side of a hill. At the summit, I was rewarded with clear views over the stark and imposing moorland pates of Bilsdale West Moor and Loosehow Hill. These summits carpeted in morland scrub, glowing ochre in the afternoon sun.
Descending the hill, two magnificent ash trees on either side of the path framed the distant hills as I sunk into the chilly shade and crossed the river once more, Shaken Bridge the apex of the day's circuit. On the other side, I followed the road as it climbed southward through the densely wooded valleyside, emerging on the B1257, which I turned a hairpin left upon and took the next right along the farm tracks of Oscar Park Farm. Beyond the farmyard, the path winds its way into an area of dense conifer plantation in which only odd patches of sunlight forced their way through the dense needle canopy. The forest was lulled by a ghostly, somnolent calm. Ranks of vertical trunks fading into muted dark. Hairy wood ant nests are strewn over the forest floor like a contagion, bulbous waist high mounds artfully placed and shaped to soak up the heat of the scant sunlight.
Along narrow paths, crossed at intervals by the rutted muddy channels of motocross racing tracks, the way eventually brought me down the side of a steep ravine into the bed of a dormant waterway and up the other side. Following the course of this dry stream, at a crossroads I aimed right and across two fields thronging with pheasants before reaching a wide, straight tree-lined thoroughfare that gently descended into Helmsley.
Jaguar…there must be a god after all.
PS. This is clearly becoming a book; launch at Toppings, interview at a packed Bath Forum, 5 star Guardian review, bestseller lists, it’s inevitable.