Mike Landau’s 1959 Strat is now the basis of a new signature model. He tells Jamie Dickson about the mods (and magic) of the original
If anyone deserves the title‘session legend’ it’s Michael Landau. He’s recorded with everyone from Miles Davis to Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. He’s admired as the quintessential taste-and-chops player by fellow guitarists, such as his friend and fellow LA session ace Steve Lukather, and he also enjoys a reputation as a bit of a tone-guru too. Based on this association, the many mods Landau made to what was, for many years, his number-one guitar – the infamous 1959‘Coma Strat’ – are inevitably of interest.And even more so now that Fender has launched a new signature model based on the Coma Strat, which forms part of its Stories Collection of guitars based on real-life instruments with a rich backstory. Before we get into the details, however, I ask Mike how the Coma Strat got that rather striking moniker?
“We’d have regular poker games at my house in the 80s,” Mike recalls.“There were all the‘one-name’ rock stars – Sting and Bono and Flea and Edge and Prince… and we were having [a party] one night and I just told everyone I was changing my name to‘Coma’. I was being a bit of a smartass,” Mike chuckles.“And, yeah, they laughed and told me to shut up and we went on. But I think I wrote it on the guitar a few days later. I just started scribbling – because there was already a bunch of writing on the guitar.And then the guitar, of course, became Coma. I just returned to regular old Mike.”
Like many Strats that are played day-in day-out by a busy pro, the original Coma Strat saw numerous mods (and mod-reversals) made to it over time.“Well, definitely the pickups have changed and it once had a Floyd Rose – I put that in in the late 80s,”Mike says.“It’s had a few different necks on it, too.At one point, I had a Jim Tyler neck on it because he was my main repairman for many years.”
Interestingly, a large cavity in the guitar’s top, which originally housed the now-removed Floyd Rose vibrato, has been replicated on the new signature model despite the fact it comes fitted with a conventional Strat trem. Was that just for honouring the looks of the original Coma Strat or does the rout have an ongoing purpose? “Well that’s exactly it – this is a‘Stories’ guitar [that includes quirky details from the original Coma Strat]. But I also wanted to leave it in for a couple of other reasons,” Mike says.“There is some kind of a sonic difference to have that wood gone right around the bridge there. There’s more hollowness. And we also replicated the battery rout for the mid-boost that was in there.And then the neck pickup [cavity, hidden by the pick
