Neville's AdvocAte

This month Nev confesses to buying another strat while trying to convince himself of the many valid reasons to do so

- Neville Marten

As this column is largely about gear, and the many vagaries surrounding it, I thought I’d discuss that age-old problem of ‘Do I really need another guitar?’ More specifically, ‘Do I really need another one of those guitars?’

I know many Guitarist readers are avid collectors and diggers who own a plethora of instruments (and many others that think it’s all but obscene), but when I ordered my red Strat from the Custom Shop it was everything I could have expected. The Strat I had at the time was what I refer to as a ‘Buddy Holly’ – that is, Two-Tone Sunburst, ash body, maple neck, and so on. I loved that guitar (it had Abigail Ybarra hand-wound pickups) but felt I couldn’t justify two, so it went. I regretted it almost the instant I sold it, and have quietly been hankering for something similar ever since. And just this week I found it.