New guitar features an alder body, birds-eye maple neck and Custom Shop ’54 pickups.
Fender has introduced the new Rarities Flame Ash Top Stratocaster, part of the company’s Rarities Collection, which combines exotic tonewoods with premium pickups and appointments.
The new model boasts a two-piece alder body with a flame ash top in a Plasma Red Burst nitrocellulose lacquer finish. There’s also a "60s C”-shaped birds-eye maple neck and fretboard.
Pickups are a trio of Custom Shop '54 Strat single coils, with master volume, two tone controls and a five-way blade switch. Other features include a Pure Vintage 6-Saddle Synchronized Tremolo, Pure Vintage Single Line "Fender Deluxe" tuners, narrow tall frets and a three-ply black/white/black pickguard. The guitar comes in a brown hardshell case.
Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.