Subway Guitars Fatdog Tele

In addition to being a guitarist, I'm also a computer geek and synth tinkerer -- so my goal was to get myself a decent utilitarian guitar that could also serve as a MIDI controller. This is usually a pricey feature, but Subway's website said they'd sold some MIDIfied guitars at really reasonable prices ($700, or about what it would cost me to put MIDI stuff into one of my pre-existing guitars).
When I called FatDog at Subway Guitars in June 2003, I was planning to have them put MIDI hardware into pretty much any old guitar in their inventory; or take one that already had it, if any were available. It was actually Fatdog who talked me into having them build me a guitar from scratch (well, actually from stock parts, I think he has old Yamaha tele bodies and necks), which meant I would have a Tele-like guitar except with 22 frets. I also asked him to put a humbucker in the neck, mostly because it's the major category of pickup I don't have yet, and I like those '72 custom - looking teles.

All these features would be fine and dandy (heck, completely different features would've been fine too), if the guitar had ever actually been shipped. But no, even after months and months (June '03 to May '04 - do the math!) of placing very calm and genial phone calls (details below under 'customer service'), after repeated deadlines and promises were broken, I've still got no guitar, and therefore no features. I have no way of knowing if they've even made the thing, as I can no longer trust anything FatDog or Dave K says, having been given so many empty guarantees as to when the guitar would be shipped.

This was mainly intended to be a MIDI guitar, meaning the sound is up to the synths, not to the controller. Although of course I appreciate a good guitar sound, and figure that my tele would sound fine. If I actually had it, of course.

I can't even press the strings down! Why? Because the action was set way too high? Nope, because there are no strings -- because there's no guitar!

Well, here is the subject on which I'm actually qualified to give an opinion; and it isn't good. Dave K and FatDog seem like perfectly reasonable people on the phone. I love the Subway website, I love their functionality-over-consumer-glitz 'guitars for the proletariat' mentality and their politics, and all the retro and nonconformist guitars they sell. Reading FatDog's comments on tone actually convinced me to buy a hollowbody with P-90s, which is now my favorite guitar.

BUT.

The hard truth of my experience is that the Subway people are such recidivist liars that they really ought to be working for George W. Bush.

In January, *6 months after ordering the guitar* and placing my $400 deposit, I was told "the guitar will definitely ship this month."
That promise was broken - Strike One.
In February it hadn't so I called again and was told they'd ship it "probably in the next 2 weeks."
That promise was broken - Strike Two.
In March, they hadn't, so I called again and was told "we'll ship it this month." I pointed out, in good humor, that they were moving backwards...
That promise was broken - Strike Three.
First week of April, still no guitar, so I called again and was told - by FatDog Himself (cue fanfare) - that the guitar "will ship this week." I was also promised a phone call.
That the phone call never materialized (yes I've got an answering machine) would be strike four. That we're now five weeks since the phone call and still no guitar... well, maybe he sent it Parcel Post which could take 4-6, but I'm not exactly out in the boondocks here...

It amazes me that I had to start calling and asking for deadlines after I'd already waited six months, especially when having them build a new guitar *was actually their idea.* It further amazes me that they would give me deadlines and then casually, repeatedly break them. But I am beyond amazement at the fact that after all this time, after the 11 months they've had to sit on my $400 deposit, they can't spare me a single phone call. I can only conclude they don't want to talk about when I'm going to get my guitar. I really don't know whether to believe they ever even made me one.

Subway claims to offer "guitars for the proletariat." Well, I am the proletariat. I pay dues to a labor union and work for a crappy hourly wage that I can live on, but pretty much condemns me to bachelorhood. (I was clearly a fool to think I could afford to join the world of MIDI.) When somebody takes $400 of my money and then won't give me anything, it really means something -- none of the other 3 guitars I've accumulated in 10 years of playing has even cost $400.
I really don't know what action I can take to get my money back, but I do know how to write a review for everyone else. Caveat emptor, folks.