May Birthdays 
I cant really play guitar well. But Im trying to pick it up again, after many years away. Ive started looking around at new guitars and amps. There is one shop here in my small town. I stopped by the other day and tried out a few strats and teles. And, surprisingly, they had a J Mascis Jazzmaster on the wall. I played it for just a little while and thought Id post some impressions here. Keep in mind Im not really a guitar player yet. So you may be able to come up with the exact opposite thoughts if you had the same guitar in your hands. 
The color:
Its the first thing you notice, before you even get within 3 yards of the thing. It draws you in: Oooooooo shiny object... And I have to say that I quite like it. The purple is really unique. I like the sparkles and the high gloss. Id probably get sick of looking at it after some months. But the first impression is that this odd color is actually quite fun.
The sound:
I first played it unplugged. And, relative to the strats and teles, it does seem to have a little more twang to it. Kind of neat, really. Not a huge difference but it seemed to be there, to me at least. Then I tried it out with an amp (Fender white Hot Rod Deluxe). And then it pretty much sounded like the strats and teles that I also played. No big difference. Ive never played a Jazzmaster before, so I dont know what all the switches and knobs do. And I didnt have much time to try too many settings. So that could be part of it sounding similar to the other guitars. But the strats and teles also sounded about the same on that amp, for whatever thats worth.
The neck:
The frets are really large. They are the jumbo variety. It made the neck feel quite thick. But when I looked it up later, the neck is no thicker than that of a regular strat. For what its worth, Im finding the thin frets on the 62 reissue strats to be too thin for my meat hooks. And the medium jumbo frets on an American Standard to be just right. Id say the jumbo frets of this JM are not bad and better than the thin vintage ones, but not exactly what Id want.
The tremelo:
Wow, I was impressed by the tremelo. It seems much nicer than that of the strats. The JM tremelo just seemed like you had more control over small changes. The strat tremelo, by comparison, seemed like it was more all down or nothing. The JM tremelo felt like it had much better control and subtlety that youd want for surf tunes.
Overall its definitely a fun and somewhat unique guitar. Its not the one for me. But I liked it. Just some thoughts if they help anyone out there.
-Jon
