I dig the blocks/binding Japanese models, and the quality on them is way more consistently high than on many of the actual CBS vintage models.
As far as Sonic Youth--glad your son can see past the Artist thing. The entire foundation of Sonic Youth's art and mission is expression, creativity, and being unique. They played old Jazzmasters because they were cheap, and very few people were playing them when they started in the early 80s. Modifying old guitars to suit their (often bizzare) musical vision was part of their creativity-----no "artist model" off the shelf will either make somebody sound like Sonic Youth, or gain street cred for being "like Sonic Youth," and I think nobody knows that more than Lee and Thurston themselves (laughing all the way to the bank though...!).
