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Guitar World
Guitar World
Entertainment
Matt Owen

“He took the lighter fluid, squirted it on the guitar and set it on fire. That might be the first relic’d guitar – and you can thank Seymour Duncan for that”: That time Adrian Belew DIY aged his Strat with a screwdriver, spray paint and motor oil

Adrian Belew of King Crimson, portrait, at Tent, Olympisch Stadion, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 6th September 1982.

Adrian Belew is known for playing an array of Fender Stratocasters, but one of his most notable examples is a heavily relic’d brown sunburst model.

The beaten-and-busted Strat – which once featured on the cover of Guitar World magazine – was purchased in the late 1970s by Belew, who was in need of a new axe ahead of an upcoming tour he was set to undertake as part of Frank Zappa’s band.

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