"The players at the vanguard of the first wave of punk in the '70s may have seemed to care little about musicianship, but the more one delves into the artistic statements made by bands such as the Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash, the more one realizes that to dismiss their musical output as "tuneless noise" is like dismissing a Warhol painting because it portrays a can of soup. Art comes in many shapes and sizes, and sometimes it does a damn fine job of camouflaging itself.

     So the idea of an artist inspired guitar dedicated to a punk rocker may seem somewhat ironic at first, but the Joe Strummer Telecaster is a fine example of a wolf in black sheep's clothing. The aggressive nature of their performances meant that the punks weren't as interested in the iconic possibilities of a guitar, to them the instruments were tools of the trade, and they valued solid reliability over fancy inlays and flamed maple tops. Joe Strummer was certainly no exception to this mindset. His 1966 Telecaster endured many an on-stage battle, had the scars to prove it, and kept coming back for more.