No Regerts (and no I'm not eating a Milky Way)

No Regerts

I’ll be honest, in the years I’ve been a guitar player, I bought A LOT of gear. Too much. A lot of it has since moved on to other people, and I’ve settled on what I have now out of necessity and not gluttony. But back in the day I used to put my then ample tax return to treat myself to something special. Usually it wasn’t a lot of money but one year it was just enough to cover the cost of a new guitar. A Reverend Rocco.

Reverend was started by Joe Naylor of Naylor amps fame. It was a cool design concept; a Single block of wood in the middle to anchor the neck and bridge together, a plastic edge, and a phenolic top and back. They looked very retro, almost danelectro-ish, with a bit more art deco/streamliner era to the overall look. The Rocco model had 2 humbuckers, each splittable with their own mini toggle, and a 3 way switch. There were other models, that had the same overall design, but the big difference was the pickup configuration between them all. One had a tele configuration, another a pair of p90’s, you get the idea.

I got mine for $690-ish. Black with a white edge, Rosewood fingerboard and Locking tuners. They were starting to get popular, due to their price, and the features. When “my” guitar arrived at the store, it didn’t have locking tuners. The dealer asked me if it would be ok, if I would overlook this. I stood my ground and said to him “It’s not what I wanted, I’ll wait for the one I ordered” he was kind of bummed, but didn’t press it with me. I don’t remember that guitar being in his store for long anyway. He did offer to install some sperzels for free. I knew that the difference between the tuners would mean some extra holes in the headstock, and I didn’t want to deal with that so I opted out on that as well.

(The image above isn't my actual guitar, mine had uncovered zebra pickups)

When you order something, and it doesn’t arrive as promised, you have a right to refuse. I know every time I would have picked up the guitar, the fact it wasn’t how I wanted it, would gnaw at me. More than likely I would probably not reach for that guitar as much, knowing it would bum me out.

So when mine came in a few weeks later, I was beyond pleased. It played great, with an amazing neck that was really vintage-ish. The pickups were amazing. I loved the individual mini toggles that allowed the humbuckers to be split. For cleans I’d split them both, for a bit more spank, Leave the bridge full on, and split the neck. It was ultra light as well, and really resonated nicely. I did a recording session at a high end studio that had a few notable clients, and the producer suggested I use one of his Les Paul Classic’s for it. When the engineer and I were dialing in sounds, we were really happy with the Reverend, and spent the day tracking with it, no problems. When the producer showed up again he heard the tracks, and said "Aren't you glad you used my Les Paul?" When we told him it was the Reverend, he was kind of shocked. When I showed him it, he was blown away, on first glance he thought it was a Danelectro.

So why part with it? Money. My band at the time was working on our CD, and to cover some of the expenses, I parted ways with it. Back then I wasn’t too bummed tho, as I got what I paid for it. Besides I made the decision after getting my PRS back from a partial re-fret, Im sure that swayed me. In later years I did regret parting ways with the Rocco, and by that time Reverend had moved beyond their oddball construction to traditional wood bodies. Now even worse, those older ones, like mine, have gone up a bit more in value. I do kinda kick myself on the butt for this one.

(me and my rocco back in the day)

A friend of mine and I used to have a list of pipe dream guitars; in most cases they were guitars we liked, but never got super attached to, and would like to re-acquire. This is one of mine, maybe some day another one will come across my door, and I'll pull the trigger.