Dethkaster

My first guitar was a Japanese-made Squier Telecaster purchased in 1987 — love at first sight. Minimalist appointments, piano-black gloss finish, impeccably constructed in the way those imports were back then. Versatile and quietly unique.

I smashed it in half. Not in the heat of a live performance, not in any Pete Townshend sense of rock theatre. At a rehearsal with Wept.

That’s how Wept rolled. Practice was a sacred ritual — latecomers got whipped with the heavy-duty extension cord we plugged our amps into, and any divergence from the chosen path risked an epic war. One sunny afternoon during the Exit sessions, a conceptual argument about volume and tone reached critical mass. Rage ensued. The Tele hit the suburban carpet with an anti-heroic thud and split in two.

The following week came ritualized forgiveness: the guitar was glued back together — neck and body bonded into a single rigid piece — sanded of its gloss finish, and handed around for each band member to carve runes of reconciliation into the body. The Dethkaster was born.

The resurrection improved it. The glue made it more percussive than before, which on an already bright Telecaster borders on the obscene. Swapping the lipstick neck pickup for a second bridge pickup turned it into a feedback machine. Scraping off the thick polyurethane freed the resonant tone of the wood — a discovery that would inform following guitar mods. Erik Carlson aka area C later installed a humbucker from my SG, and the Dethkaster ended up in his hands permanently, appearing on several 16:16 recordings from 1991.

As first loves go, I adored this guitar and the era it represents. As first heartbreaks go, I never want to see it again.