The Wilco frontman’s ’90s pawn shop raids are paying off decades later.Back in September, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy released his fifth solo album, Twilight Override. The triple album, recorded at the band’s Chicago studio, the Loft, features 30 tracks total. Tweedy set out across the U.S. this fall to celebrate the monumental release.On October 29, he performed at the Caverns in Grundy County, Tennessee, and welcomed PG’s Nashville correspondent John Bohlinger to the bat cave to check out a ripping collection of pawn-shop specials.Brought to you by D’Addario. Pawn Shop PrizeTweedy has had this heavily modded Jaguar for a very long time—he bought it at a pawn shop when they were still cheap. He guesses it’s a 1964, and it’s been modded to run only on its Seymour Duncan Antiquity bridge humbucker.Root of All EvilTweedy got this Fender Jazzmaster at a pawn shop in Chicago for around $500. With its Mastery bridge, he tunes it with bass strings for some of Wilco’s heavier, lower-tuned material like “Dawned On Me.” Half Moon FunRic Ocasek is one of the few other well-known guitarists to play one of these Kawai MoonSaults, a Japan-made guitar from the 1980s with a scorching-hot preamp wired into it. Tweedy has a soft spot for them, and has collected six or seven of the oddities. He strings this one with flatwounds.Everyman’s SGTweedy didn’t like the feeling of being handed his $20,000 Gibson SG onstage. He wanted to model some more reasonably priced instruments to his fans, so he started bringing out this early-’80s-built Greco SG copy. It features PAF-style Maxon Dry Z pickups.Tele: Fully LoadedFender didn’t make many of these Telecasters with top-loaded strings, and Tweedy loves the sound of this one’s snarl into his Fender Deluxe. It was purchased at New York’s RetroFret Vintage Guitars and lives in open-G tuning.Tweedy’s TweedTweedy bought this 1954 Fender Deluxe in 1994 for just a couple hundred bucks. This wide-panel, 10-watt 5D3 model still has its original speaker and transformer.Jeff Tweedy’s PedalboardsOne of Tweedy’s boards is dedicated almost entirely to pedals by Fairfield Circuitry, based in Hull, Quebec. In addition to a TC Electronic Polytune 3 Noir, Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail, and Black Mountain volume pedal, there are seven Fairfield units: the Accountant compressor, Barbershop overdrive, ~900 fuzz, Randy’s Revenge ring modulator, Shallow Water k-field modulator, and two Meet Maude analog delays.On a second board for his acoustics, Tweedy runs another Holy Grail, Polytune 3 Noir, and three more Black Mountain volume pedals, plus a Radial Shotgun splitter and buffer and three Rupert Neve RNDI-M direct interface boxes.Fender TelecasterFender JaguarFender JazzmasterSeymour Duncan Antiquity Bridge HumbuckerMartin D-18EMartin D-28ETC Electronic PolyTune 3 NoirElectro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano Reverb PedalRadial Shotgun Splitter and BufferRupert Neve RNDI-M
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