It’s been six months since I started learning to play acoustic guitar with my trusty Yamaha FS720S. I’ve mostly been led by my guitar teacher towards the blues and funk orientated music from the likes of the Chili’s, so when it came to buying an electric guitar I wanted to get something that had that character and versatility of tone that could cover those styles.

With my sensible hat on, I set myself a budget (cue laughter here) of around £300 for an electric guitar, and popped down to the local guitar shop with my teacher. First of all I tried out a crimson red Tokai ES60 335 Semi-Acoustic, then a Squier Standard Telecaster, a Vintage VSA 575, and probably a handful of others as well, including a Stratocaster (you just have to).

My favorite of the bunch was the Tokai, a Gibson reproduction with a fairly unique sound that had a lot more depth than the other guitars, also some good flexibility, unlike the Vintage which had very strong jazz tones.

Then everything got thrown to the fire, as my guitar teacher pulled an axe off of the racks that didn’t have a price tag on it, the Fender Classic 72 Telecaster Deluxe. It has two wide-range humbucker pick-ups which give an amazing blues tone, a body made of alder, neck made of maple with a stratocaster style head, 3 bolt with micro adjustment for the neck, bullet style truss rod, and in Sunburst Maple it looks as beautiful as it sounds.

So gave it a run through with the same old songs I’d played on the other guitars and basically that was that, it blew all of the other guitars away, I walked out paying £625 including a Line 6 Microspider amp, and a cable to get me started.

I seriously have barely put it down since I got it home. I’m new to electric so I can’t preach about all the different tones, but just playing switching between the pick-ups, and adding a little reverb on the amp has given me days of fun so far and I can see this being a long term companion on my musical exploration!

For those that aren’t already part of the revolution in discovering music that is Last.fm, it’s the flagship product from the same team in the UK that first brought us the AudioScrobbler music engine.

AudioScrobbler builds a music profile based on the artists and tracks that you listen to using either the Last.fm Player or via a plug-in for your favorite audio player.

Last.fm uses the data collected by AudioScrobbler and adds features such as social networking, tagging, forums and also journals to the mix, offering many ways for you to share your musical tastes with friends, view similar artists to the ones built up in your music profile, listen to samples of your recommended artists and much more.

Some of the most interesting features that I use most often are the ability to read about an artist that I am passionate about, and then view similar artists and explore their musical offerings.

Tag based exploration is also a favorite feature of mine, along with tag based radio allowing users to listen to randomized tracks belonging to a particular genre.

The new offering from Last.fm now includes a shiny new dashboard element that breaks down into the following sections:

• My friends online – a summary of which of your linked friends are currently listening with Last.fm and the most recent songs that they’ve been rocking their feet to.
• Last.fm Recommended Artists – a short list of artists that you might be interested in based on your previous listening habits, and also a collection of free songs that you can listen to in full.
• My Weekly Neighbours Online – other Last.fm users who have similar music profiles, and the last track that they listened to.
• Recommended Recent Journal Entries – journals written by other Last.fm users that have been linked to artists that match your music profile, or from groups that you have joined in the forums.

Overall the new features provide even faster access to exploring new music that is matched to your listening habits, and the new design which is still being tweaked with shows a lot of promise of being more appealing to less technically minded users.