Kurt's Fender Telecaster

Kurt's Fender Telecaster

This neck was once attached to Kurt's Japanese made Telecaster. Kurt had painted the front of the guitar's body with blue latex paint and etched out "Courtney" and the shape of a heart. The neck is now part of Recordmecca's impressive collection.

"This broken neck is from Kurt Cobain's blue telecaster from the Sao Paulo "Hollywood Rock Festival." I obtained it from Louie Mathieu, who was the Red Hot Chili Peppers' road manager (the Chili Peppers co-headlined the festival with Nirvana, and Louie picked up the neck off the stage when Kurt threw it towards the audience--obviously it didn't make it.) As you can see, it has bits of the blue paint Kurt used to paint the Tele on the sides. Anthony Kiedis of the Chili Peppers talks about Kurt smashing the guitar at the festival and Louie coming away with the neck in his book, "Scar Tissue."

From Louie of the RHCP

"As far as the body of the guitar goes I can't really recall think it was either snatched by the crowd as he threw it out there or remained strewn about the stage? He threw the neck out to the crowd as well but it landed kinda lamely in the no-man's land between the crowd and the stage. I jumped off stage to retrieve it and as I got back up on stage Courtney Love was walking by and I said "Hey, you forgot this" so as not to appear like an over-eager souvenir scavenger. She reached out for it and went "ugh, thanks". Cut to years later I'm at a show and I run into Jennifer from L7 and we're reminiscing about that time and those shows. I mention how much I regretted not having held onto that neck.

She turns to me and says: "I have it"

I say, "What are you kidding me!?!"

She says, "Not at all! Courtney left it in the corner of the dressing room and after taking it to Kurt's tech and determining that it was beyond repair; I took it home."

She then said I could have it back seeing as if it hadn't been for me it would have never been rescued."