i dunno, i'm quite used to him by now

Okay thanks! So I should save and buy everything seperately? More general question, what should I start with, Fender, Gibson, Dean? There's a sexy Dave Mustaine Dean V guitar for around 230 bucks.

i went with Ibanez and haven't regretted it

You dont even have to buy separately. Just look for a package deal on Craigslist or even ebay.

I'm back here after a brief respite 'cuz I need a bit of advice.

I'm in the market for a new guitar to compliment my amp (a Vox AC-30CC2) and I'm pretty much lost in the direction I want to go. I want to have a full sound with a warm, well-balanced tone so I've been looking almost exclusively at hollowbody and semi-hollowbody electrics. The issue is that almost all of them worth looking at are priced well beyond my reach (ex. Gibson ES-335, Gretsch Falcon, Rickenbacker 360). Which leaves me in a bit of a dilemma...

I can either: a) settle for a lower quality Gretsch, Epiphone Sheridan, Ibanez or 2) feck it all and end up getting something quirky (read: easily induced feedback) on the solid body side like a Jaguar/Jazzmaster, Danelectro or the like. Neither decision really appeals to me at this point, so I was hoping for some direction from the wise members here on possible compromises I could make. I'm not averse to looking at unusual makes or models; I've even been strongly considering a Vox hollowbody. Budget of $1500.

The general guitar sound I'm looking for lies somewhere between the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Spacemen 3, if that makes any sense.

^^I think there's an Epiphone version of the ES-335 that retails for around $400

i'm not sure how it sounds like, though, never tried it

My roommate owned an Epiphone Sheraton that I played for a few months, it really wasn't anything special (heavy as a sack of bricks), so I can't imagine the Dot to be any better. Of course, I never played it through anything better than a Fender Deluxe with a broken gain channel, so I may not have a full appreciation for Epiphone's uses...

What about a solid body Vox (Series 33, 55 or 77) w/ switchable Humbucker/P-90s? I've only seen them in mags and youtude but I think they look sharp and I would get them over a Gibson if I was in the market for buying a guitar.

The Classic Player Jazzmaster Special seems like a decent guitar, what I like about this is that it has a tune-o-matic bridge, if you get a regular Jazzmaster with the oringal bridge it rattles apart. One way of getting around that is using nail polish on the hex screws to set them in place but that seem like a lot of time spent tweeking just to set up your guitar. Another choice if you think you might like a Jazzmaster is Thurston Moore's it has the soap bar pick-ups (by Seymore Duncan) and it also has a tune-o-matic bridge but the guitar doesn't have a tone knob, you can get around that and warm up the sound of your guitar lowering the volume.

You might also want check out some some stomp boxes too like Death by Audio (Fuzz War) or Home Brew Electronics (HBE Germania).

I suppose I should have been more explicit in my original post. I'm not really looking for anything with humbucking pickups, or any solid body guitar which has a predilection to arrest feedback. Which is kinda why I was straying towards a hollowbody in the first place. And even if I had the money for a Gibson, I wouldn't buy one.

I'm very familiar with Jazzmasters and I'm aware of most of the idiosyncracies they possess. For instance, the Tune-O-Matic bridge which you made reference to is an early noughties creation, but people have been retrofitting Mustang bridges on Jazzmasters for decades to avoid the "string pop" issue they are prone to. Additionally the Custom-In-Japan (CIJ) models don't have quite the same soapbar pickups and are generally lower in quality than American models, resulting in an atypical 'buzz' rather than the typical 'hum' that is the traditional Jazzmaster sound, but the Made-In-Japan (MIJ) models are actually superior to many American Jazzmasters, as they weren't manufactured for export. The AVRI Jazzmaster is an attempt to reconcile those initial issues while retaining the classic sound that graced the originals, which is what I'd be aiming for if I actually decided to buy one.

I plan on getting a fuzz box (most likely a Big Muff) and a compression pedal in due time, but for now I just want an electric guitar.

But thanks very much for the input. :)

i used to have an Epiphone Strat - it was pretty competent, i had to change the pickups, though - too microphoney