Fender Big Apple Strat (Shoreline Gold Metallic)
Fender Guitars Homepage
(click for large stock photo)
I looked up the correct colours for the guitars. Fender claims the blue guitar is teal green... but I don't - so I call it blue. These guitars were successors to his vintage '79 model. Ed used that model more for its classic Strat sounds which was a little thin. He seems to prefer this model for it's thicker humbucker sound. It gives a much fuller sound for distorted songs like Old Apartment, and still gives a nice strat sound for songs like A or Grade 9.
In the Stunt era he used a Strat as one of his main electrics (he also had a PRS archtop for a different type of sound, and the Gent for the jazzy sound). I've seen the blue one from that era, though the gold may have been around as well. Back then the blue seems to have been more common. He went more with the gold at one point around Disc One touring, but seems to have the blue model back in his primary tour package. The gold has been in his secondary pack. Nowadays, the Fanos have taken over much of the duties of the solidbody electric.
This model was produced from 1997 until it was renamed in Mid-2000 as the American Double Fat Strat... 'or so the legend goes...' My understanding is that the renamed guitar was still identical to the Big Apple, until it was discontinued in Late-2004. (The gold could be a Double Fat - I didn't see it first until after 2000, but it's not clear). Ed's guitars seem to have two string trees, which the Big Apples and American Double Fats had only one. I'm not sure what the reason for that discrepancy is, but it could just be that Ed prefers two trees, or that some were made with two trees unlike the bulk of those models. The guitar came in a hardtail model (no tremelo). I've never seen Ed use the trem bar, but even so, both guitars are the trem model. He simply doesn't attach the bar.
