I was at a Guitar Center yesterday and I saw one of those Joe Strummer teles. It looks like what I expected: the body is matte with all the gloss gone, lots of wear on the front, on the back, and almost the whole length of the neck, the saddles and knobs are all rusted out. In looks it is fairly authentic.

My rant is this though. The neck is not on straight; up at the 22nd fret the high e is far away from the edge of the neck, and the low E is almost at the edge of the neck. At the saddle the strings are VERY unevenly spaced. This is a $900 guitar as a tribute to a magnificent songwriter/musician, but this guitar as I found it would have been almost unplayable for me. Incidentally this guitar sits up high on a shelf and anyone would need assistance to get to try it out, so it is not as if some punk kid (or irresponsible old guy) had messed it up. In any case, the neck must have come from the factory not installed straight. After all, this is a GC, so I hope this is not typical of the Joe Strummer tele.

I want to state that I'm not a foe of Fender. I actually own a 1975 Strat which is an excellent sounding guitar, one that I am very unlikely to ever get rid of.