Here's some very nerdy info about the guitars that were on display last night. They aren't just bits of wood and metal, they're literally pieces of music history.





From left to right (pic from Instagram):


Rickenbacker 330/6 Jetglo (black): that's the iconic Marr guitar in my opinion. He bought in 1983 in Manchester and he's used it throughout his career. You can hear it in the main riffs of 'What Difference Does It Make' and 'Reel Around The Fountain', and you can see it in most of the early Smiths live performances (love this one) or in the 'Charming Man' videoclip (link). The jangly-melodic Rickenbacker tone is in my opinion the main ingredient of Johnny's signature sound.


Griffin Custom Telecaster (green): used on 'Heaven Knows...' and throughout the 'Strangeways Here We Come' album. It hadn't been used since then and it was recently brought back into life by Johnny's guitar tech. It's also the guitar played in this famous 'Nowhere Fast' footage (link), in which Johnny is smoking a cig while rocking out his riffs!


Gibson ES-355 (cherry red): Oasis fans will be familiar with this one, since Noel's main guitar is exactly the same model, color and year. The background story of the 355 is quite interesting and it gets brilliantly told by the man himself here:



This very guitar was featured in the TOTP performance (video here) that inspired Noel in the early '80s:
"I remember seeing The Smiths on Top Of The Pops, and I don’t mean this in a sycophantic way, but I wanted to be Johnny Marr. He had the Brian Jones haircut, the turtleneck, and the big red semi-acoustic guitar and he was cool as fuck." [link]


Gretsch Duo Jet (red): I'm not sure of the exact model here. It was used on all the Smiths early demos, played during early gigs and on the studio version of 'Hand in Glove'.


Fender Jaguar (black with stickers): the Jaguars are Johnny's go-to guitars nowadays. Fender has also made a special "signature" model which is an exact replica of the ones he plays, with all the modifications he made.
This black one was given to Johnny by the Modest Mouse lead singer, who didn't like it. Johnny fixed it, made some mods and used it to compose Dashboard (great song, link) and he played it during the tour. One day he went to Walmart and bought a load of stickers. Some of them (specifically the A, N and S letters) are the names of his wife and sons (Angie, Nile and Sonny) as mimmihopps said


Fender Jaguar (white): it’s a '62 body with a '65 neck, with pickups custom-made to Johnny's specifications. This was the basis for for the signature Fender Jaguar that you can buy in shops.



By the way, most of this info comes from Johnny's official website and from an excellent article on the May 1995 issue of Total Guitar magazine.

Nice ones mimmihopps!

In all of your pics Johnny is playing various incarnations of the Fender Jaguar, the guitar which he has played almost exclusively since 2007. You can actually buy an exact replica of the black and the green ones, with Johnny's signature printed on the headstock. I'd love to have one but I have to save money for the Rickenbacker first

Sorry to annoy you folks again, but I can't stop watching those clips. This is the last post, I promise!

Two more from Instagram, "Last Night I Dreamt..." (love it) and "Heaven Knows..."

http://instagram.com/p/BMqgepiAuLS

http://instagram.com/p/BMpr9GWgURl

Mr. Postman has just rang my door and he had a small packet for me

And yes, it's my signed copy of Set The Boy Free! It also came with a bonus copy of Dynamic, Johnny's fanbase magazine.

Can't wait to read it, mimmihopps

It will be my bedtime reading for a few days, that's for sure. I'm usually a book-devourer so It will be finished soon

For now I have only skimmed quickly through the photo inserts, there are some really nice pics from Johnny's childhood and teenage years.

Meat Is Murder was released 32 years ago on this very day.

Some of my favorite Smiths songs (The Headmaster Ritual, That Joke..., Nowhere Fast) are on there.


By the way, Johnny's guitar playing is on fire here:

Hello, I'm new to this forum.. as a fellow johnny marr fan were you satisfied with his autobiography ? I much prefered it to morrissey's book.. mozza didnt really give any insight into the songwriting process of the smiths or explain how he put words and melodies to marrs music and i was dissapointed with that..

One of the best autobiography's I've read, it's the first time I've really read Johnny's take on the split of The Smiths and you see how well thought of he is in the music industry. He's a guy that just seems so content in life. He played a show last year in Wakefield last year and was one of the best gig's I've been to, you don't see someone like that in such a small venue all the time.

I've yet to finish Moz's, but being Moz i'm finding it a difficult read, Johnny's was just so easy to read and you can relate to him.

I'm currently on Modest Mouse years and I haven't been disappointed with his book. Really interesting stuff and he seems so cool. He's so nice person but also has that "bad boy" side as well.

Btw, I laughed when I read that "Fucking fish" line from Liam Mr. Haircut...

The thing that always leaves me speechless about Johnny is that when The Smiths disbanded he wasn't even 24!

Twenty-fucking-four years old. Unbelievable.

For a guy so young at the time, he seemed to know so much about the recording process and how to produce and mix albums, a lot of the skills you get from recording and producing comes with experience but for someone like him to pick it up so quickly just makes you realise how good of a musician he is and why he is trusted on some bands albums.

If anyone hasn't heard it yet, i'd recommend having a listen to his son Nile's album with his band Man Made, was very impressed with this and one of them albums I liked straight away.