Today let's talk about Japanese "Lawsuit" guitars...
A friend and fellow musician once said to me, "Life's too short to play poor quality guitars. If you need to save up money for a long time to get something that's plays well and sounds really good, just do it." He made this comment right after I had been raving about how great my $400 Chinese made Epiphone Dot with Gibson 57's pickups sounded. After years of using nothing but USA made Fender Strats and Teles with Fender tube amps, I thought I had stumbled upon a secret treasure. I had fixed up two entry level guitars with proper top of the line electronics and given them a good setup.
The first was the mentioned Epi Dot. It did and still does sound great, sort of like a Gibson 335 but rough around the edges sound wise. I've had more than one guy at JJs Blues here in San Jose come up to compliment the tone, then discover in shock it's an Epiphone. Very good sound, but plays just OK.
The second guitar was a bottom of the barrel Fender Squier Bullet, made in Indonesia. This thing was an absolute piece. I could literally hold the neck up by the headstock and bend the guitar back and forth. And the electronics were just plain harsh sounding. But I was on a mission to make a cheapo sound as good as my American Standard from the 90s. So I threw Lindy Fralin Blue pickups in it(left off the base plate) and WOW, what a huge improvement. But the thin neck still had major tuning and intonation problems. New tuners did not help. So I acquired a Mexi neck from craigslist.org. After all this, I had just a classic sounding strat. But I soon realized the tremolo was even less usable than the USA strats. But tightened into a hard tail, it was very functional blues and country strat. The sound was full, round, and rich...but still a bit modern for my tastes.
So up to this point, my experiences with Asian made guitars were mixed at best. I looked at them as budget players that could achieve great things with enough money thrown at them.
And then one day I was at a friend's house whose dad is a guitarist. In fact, the guy has quite the "guitarsenal." So he's showing me around proudly giving me the history of each of his treasured axes and then he comes to his vintage strat. But it's not a Fender. It's an early Tokai from the 1980s. He tells me the Japanese were making these copies back in his day and that they actually sound really good. With major skepticism and a little guilt for betraying Fender, I strap on the abomination and plug it into his Fender Blues Deville. With shock I hear the best strat tone ever to grace my ears. At first I can't understand or believe my ears. I keep playing. And keep playing. And keep...you get it. It sounded like amazing! And not just on the neck pickup and the in-between 4th position. Every position sounded playable! More than playable! They all sounded really good! Bell-like tone, strat "quack," almost compressed, and like all the classic rock recordings of vintage strats I had grown up with.
This experience stuck with me for a few years. I started putting 80s Japan made Tokai's in my watch list on ebay, or fee-bay, or flee-bay, depending on you feeling about the company. I saw many Tokai Goldstar and Silverstar Sound strats go for under $500. I then noticed they also made Gibson Les Paul knockoffs called "Les Paul Reborn" and "Love Rock." Cheesy right? But people claimed online in places like Harmony Central and some of the forums these were every bit as good as Gibson Les Pauls, especially some of the higher models like LS80s and above. The higher models being nitro finished and the lesser LS50s and 60s being poly finished.
Around this time I noticed other Japanese brands of the same era that had cloned major US guitar brands like Greco, Burny, Fernandes, Bauchus, etc. They all looked like Fenders, Gibsons, Gretschs, Rickenbackers, and Danelectros. Even their logos would use font and funny shaped lettering to look like the real thing from far away.
These are the infamous "Lawsuit" guitars you read so much about. Although it seems some of the legal action supposedly taken has been hyped by dealers. The best story I've been able to glean was that Gibson sent cease and desist letters to one or more of the Japanese manufactures and Fender bought Greco's strat making arm making it "Fender Japan." Feel free to fill in any details below in the comments that I've missed.
After much research, saving, and deliberation, I finally settled on a 1979 Greco EG900 Les Paul which I picked up for around $650 after shipping from Japan and a 1980 SE800 Strat which was about $1000. EG850s and higher supposedly had nitro finishes, solid bodies, and good pickups. The EG900 came with stock USA Dimarzio PAF pickups which have largely been panned as poor quality and muddy. I think this helped in the low bid price. The SE800 Strat was pretty expensive in my book...but it did have great reviews, good sounding youtube demos, and a beautiful sunburst in nitro finish. So I pulled the trigger.
Let me tell you...I have played many $5000 custom shop Gibson and Fenders and even a true vintage 1958 Fender Strat, and I would put these two guitars right up in sound and playability. I know that's a big claim and some will roll their eyes. But I challenge anyone to do it. I've had some of the JJ's Blues old timers come up to me after an open jam and tell me the Les Paul is THE SOUND, then look at the headstock and get this awkward look on their face and say "Greco?" I did swap in some Japanese made Dry Z and PU2 pickups for a try in the Les Paul, but have always gone back to the Dimarzio's. They were doing something special in the 70s apparently.
The Greco SE800 Strat I will admit was a little dark for my tastes. It sounded great with the stock Excel pickups, but I put in some 80s Tokai pickups to brighten things up just a big. I can honestly say I would take this Strat over anything Fenders custom shop is putting out these days. I have A/B'd this guitar with quite a few custom shop strats though old Fender Tweeds, Silverface Deluxes, and an old Vox AC30 in the vintage room at Guitar Showcase and the Greco is right there in tone and playability. And even if the custom shop guitars do edge it out a little in those categories, we are talking about spending $1000 and getting true vintage aged wood versus $5000 or more for a new "relic'd" guitar. Just a note, the SE800 does have a pretty hard V neck however. So if that's not your thing, go for the SE600 or SE1000 which I believe are more C shaped necks. But trust me, these 70s and 80s Greco strats sound like Eric Clapton in Derek and the Dominos playing Lay Down Sally in spades...something I could never achieve with my 90s USA Fender Strat.
So the moral of the story - In the 80s, not only were the Japanese kicking out butts in car manufacturing, they were killing Fender and Gibson in guitar building as well. My advice is to do some research first and pick up a Japanese clone from this era. It will probably become your go-to.
For more information on "Lawsuit" era Japanese guitars, check out the Tokai Forum: http://www.tokaiforum.com/
The first was the mentioned Epi Dot. It did and still does sound great, sort of like a Gibson 335 but rough around the edges sound wise. I've had more than one guy at JJs Blues here in San Jose come up to compliment the tone, then discover in shock it's an Epiphone. Very good sound, but plays just OK.
The second guitar was a bottom of the barrel Fender Squier Bullet, made in Indonesia. This thing was an absolute piece. I could literally hold the neck up by the headstock and bend the guitar back and forth. And the electronics were just plain harsh sounding. But I was on a mission to make a cheapo sound as good as my American Standard from the 90s. So I threw Lindy Fralin Blue pickups in it(left off the base plate) and WOW, what a huge improvement. But the thin neck still had major tuning and intonation problems. New tuners did not help. So I acquired a Mexi neck from craigslist.org. After all this, I had just a classic sounding strat. But I soon realized the tremolo was even less usable than the USA strats. But tightened into a hard tail, it was very functional blues and country strat. The sound was full, round, and rich...but still a bit modern for my tastes.
So up to this point, my experiences with Asian made guitars were mixed at best. I looked at them as budget players that could achieve great things with enough money thrown at them.
And then one day I was at a friend's house whose dad is a guitarist. In fact, the guy has quite the "guitarsenal." So he's showing me around proudly giving me the history of each of his treasured axes and then he comes to his vintage strat. But it's not a Fender. It's an early Tokai from the 1980s. He tells me the Japanese were making these copies back in his day and that they actually sound really good. With major skepticism and a little guilt for betraying Fender, I strap on the abomination and plug it into his Fender Blues Deville. With shock I hear the best strat tone ever to grace my ears. At first I can't understand or believe my ears. I keep playing. And keep playing. And keep...you get it. It sounded like amazing! And not just on the neck pickup and the in-between 4th position. Every position sounded playable! More than playable! They all sounded really good! Bell-like tone, strat "quack," almost compressed, and like all the classic rock recordings of vintage strats I had grown up with.
This experience stuck with me for a few years. I started putting 80s Japan made Tokai's in my watch list on ebay, or fee-bay, or flee-bay, depending on you feeling about the company. I saw many Tokai Goldstar and Silverstar Sound strats go for under $500. I then noticed they also made Gibson Les Paul knockoffs called "Les Paul Reborn" and "Love Rock." Cheesy right? But people claimed online in places like Harmony Central and some of the forums these were every bit as good as Gibson Les Pauls, especially some of the higher models like LS80s and above. The higher models being nitro finished and the lesser LS50s and 60s being poly finished.
Around this time I noticed other Japanese brands of the same era that had cloned major US guitar brands like Greco, Burny, Fernandes, Bauchus, etc. They all looked like Fenders, Gibsons, Gretschs, Rickenbackers, and Danelectros. Even their logos would use font and funny shaped lettering to look like the real thing from far away.
These are the infamous "Lawsuit" guitars you read so much about. Although it seems some of the legal action supposedly taken has been hyped by dealers. The best story I've been able to glean was that Gibson sent cease and desist letters to one or more of the Japanese manufactures and Fender bought Greco's strat making arm making it "Fender Japan." Feel free to fill in any details below in the comments that I've missed.
After much research, saving, and deliberation, I finally settled on a 1979 Greco EG900 Les Paul which I picked up for around $650 after shipping from Japan and a 1980 SE800 Strat which was about $1000. EG850s and higher supposedly had nitro finishes, solid bodies, and good pickups. The EG900 came with stock USA Dimarzio PAF pickups which have largely been panned as poor quality and muddy. I think this helped in the low bid price. The SE800 Strat was pretty expensive in my book...but it did have great reviews, good sounding youtube demos, and a beautiful sunburst in nitro finish. So I pulled the trigger.Let me tell you...I have played many $5000 custom shop Gibson and Fenders and even a true vintage 1958 Fender Strat, and I would put these two guitars right up in sound and playability. I know that's a big claim and some will roll their eyes. But I challenge anyone to do it. I've had some of the JJ's Blues old timers come up to me after an open jam and tell me the Les Paul is THE SOUND, then look at the headstock and get this awkward look on their face and say "Greco?" I did swap in some Japanese made Dry Z and PU2 pickups for a try in the Les Paul, but have always gone back to the Dimarzio's. They were doing something special in the 70s apparently.
The Greco SE800 Strat I will admit was a little dark for my tastes. It sounded great with the stock Excel pickups, but I put in some 80s Tokai pickups to brighten things up just a big. I can honestly say I would take this Strat over anything Fenders custom shop is putting out these days. I have A/B'd this guitar with quite a few custom shop strats though old Fender Tweeds, Silverface Deluxes, and an old Vox AC30 in the vintage room at Guitar Showcase and the Greco is right there in tone and playability. And even if the custom shop guitars do edge it out a little in those categories, we are talking about spending $1000 and getting true vintage aged wood versus $5000 or more for a new "relic'd" guitar. Just a note, the SE800 does have a pretty hard V neck however. So if that's not your thing, go for the SE600 or SE1000 which I believe are more C shaped necks. But trust me, these 70s and 80s Greco strats sound like Eric Clapton in Derek and the Dominos playing Lay Down Sally in spades...something I could never achieve with my 90s USA Fender Strat.
So the moral of the story - In the 80s, not only were the Japanese kicking out butts in car manufacturing, they were killing Fender and Gibson in guitar building as well. My advice is to do some research first and pick up a Japanese clone from this era. It will probably become your go-to.
For more information on "Lawsuit" era Japanese guitars, check out the Tokai Forum: http://www.tokaiforum.com/
www.japanguitars.co.uk
ReplyDeleteI have written an article on Japanese guitars in the early 80's, its on the site above..
markf
Nice!
DeleteAre the 1970s Fernandes any good? I know Mark wrote that the 1980 - 81 Burnys are really good. But if there is, say, a 1978 Fernandes, for sale? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI've heard great things about Fernandes in general. I've got a Memphis from the mid 70s that plays and sounds like a 70s Fender. I'd say if it's made in Japan and from the late 70s on it's going to at least be decent. If it's not too much I would give it a shot.
Delete