2.23.2010

Courtney < 3 Telecaster Neck







Fender Telecaster Neck

This neck was once attached to Kurt's Japanese made Telecaster. Kurt had painted the front of the guitar's body with blue latex paint and etched out "Courtney" and the shape of a heart. The neck is now part of Recordmecca's impressive collection.

From Jeff of Recordmecca
"This broken neck is from Kurt Cobain's blue telecaster from the Sao Paulo "Hollywood Rock Festival." I obtained it from Louie Mathieu, who was the Red Hot Chili Peppers' road manager (the Chili Peppers co-headlined the festival with Nirvana, and Louie picked up the neck off the stage when Kurt threw it towards the audience--obviously it didn't make it.) As you can see, it has bits of the blue paint Kurt used to paint the Tele on the sides. Anthony Kiedis of the Chili Peppers talks about Kurt smashing the guitar at the festival and Louie coming away with the neck in his book, "Scar Tissue."

From Louie of the RHCP
"As far as the body of the guitar goes I can't really recall think it was either snatched by the crowd as he threw it out there or remained strewn about the stage? He threw the neck out to the crowd as well but it landed kinda lamely in the no-man's land between the crowd and the stage. I jumped off stage to retrieve it and as I got back up on stage Courtney Love was walking by and I said "Hey, you forgot this" so as not to appear like an over-eager souvenir scavenger. She reached out for it and went "ugh, thanks". Cut to years later I'm at a show and I run into Jennifer from L7 and we're reminiscing about that time and those shows. I mention how much I regretted not having held onto that neck.
She turns to me and says: "I have it"
I say, "What are you kidding me!?!"
She says, "Not at all! Courtney left it in the corner of the dressing room and after taking it to Kurt's tech and determining that it was beyond repair; I took it home."
She then said I could have it back seeing as if it hadn't been for me it would have never been rescued."




Jeff from Recordmecca was awesome enough to provide numerous close ups of the neck. You can check out the collection of photographs here. Recordmecca also owns "Sky Stang III" which is on public display at the RRHOF in Cleveland. Thanks to Jeff, a revised entry for Sky Stang III is in the works!

Louie deserves a special thanks for sharing his story and placing the neck in proper hands. He also sent in photographs of the neck. You can check out Lou's photos here.

Below is the video of Kurt jabbing the Telecaster into the amplifier during Scentless Apprentice @ 3:37.


Sidenote
Video also shows Kurt splitting the black Stratocaster body @ 2:39.

Sources
Louie
nirvanaguide.com

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:42 PM

    The neck is now on ebay for $39K

    http://cgi.ebay.com/KURT-COBAIN-Smashed-Guitar-Neck-NIRVANA-Authenticated-/370465165675?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item564171d16b#ht_14849wt_1139

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  2. Anonymous7:09 PM

    The top pic looks like there are a bunch of "dicks" floating around and under kurts face

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6:33 AM

    This guitar is still around not sure who owns it but it was used in a recent episode of Californication and has a new blank neck on it.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:26 AM

      That guitar used in the series is not the original one. It was painted blue on the back, Kurts wasnt.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous10:17 PM

    pssssttt...I have a magic trick for you:
    http://www.nirvanaguide.com/images/1993/011693.38.jpg

    Put on a new neck and take that blue paint off and... tada:
    http://kurtsguitarsnow.blogspot.com/2009/02/1993-fender-telecaster-custom.html

    guitar neck is broken 1-16-93 but 'new' guitar (or new neck from fender japan) reappears around 11-10-93 - these are super rare 1984-1989 guitars so either it's the same recycled guitar, just like the strats, or someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to track another down (unlikely) - guitar first showed up around the LA days just before the CAYA video (guitar is in the video before the paint job...) - seems likely it's the same guitar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nirvana-Timeline/148199391980254

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous2:10 AM

    http://fuckyeahcourtneylove.com/post/122922151668/this-guitar-of-kurts-first-appeared-at-hordern

    ReplyDelete