[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by mikemo6string

...I'm interested in getting myself an electric and an amp...I don't want anything too heavy (the Tele is a little too heavy, though I do like it). Semi hollow, or even hollow body, perhaps. I play mostly bluesy, funkier stuff...Any thoughts on guitars out there? I'd like to keep the budget between 500-1000...

I know my way around guitars pretty well, but not amps. That Music Man amp that I'm using is way too heavy for me, and I'd like a relatively small amp that I can experiment with...

Since you know your way around guitars, I'll offer my suggestions in that light:

• Plan on upping your budget - possibly substantially, depending on exactly what you're hearing in your head; what the previous posters neglected to mention (perhaps assuming as experienced players) is that your amp is a major (if not the major) determinant of your final tone. Simply put, a great amp can make a mediocre guitar sound better but not vice versa; while the aforementioned modeling rigs make a nice tonal smorgasbord for a beginner, the fact that you zeroed in on that Princeton Reverb tells me that you know what the real deal is - and since you'll probably wind up with something similar in the long run, as an experienced player I'd say think in terms of something in that vein in the immediate. I swear by my Bugera V22 - as do a few other satisfied users here on the Electric forum - but before you settle on a final choice you might want to look at similarly powered/sized offerings from Vox, Marshall (the new updated DSL and Origin combos look interesting), Blackstar, Egnater, et al., as well as Fender's own Blues Junior/Deluxe models; if you're really on a shoestring, a lot of the guys over on TDPRI use these as backup amps and/or mod platforms:
  
  https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_...iABEgKpz_D_BwE
  
  - and at $179 on sale you almost can't afford not to own one...
  
  
• You're looking for "a crisp hot sound, with a little grit added in there" in a lightweight package, and you're OK with a semi or hollowbody. Frank recommends one of the new Korean-made Gretsch Electromatics (5400/5600-Series), and as a happy owner I'll agree - more versatile than you'd expect, gets the funk thing done, and the full-hollow 5400's often come in under the seven-pound mark; plan on spending $750+ for a new one, though - quality doesn't come cheap, but for what you're getting (QC/playability/tone are on a par with the MIJ Professional Series at three/four times the price, and superior to many of the vintage Brooklyn originals) it's worth every penny, and used ones rarely come up for sale (with good reason). If you want even more dirt and raunch - especially through a tube amp - something with a set of P-90's will get it done; the Loar LH-302 (think George Thorogood's ES-125TDC) and Epiphone Casino come in around the $500-600 range - they have a very different feel, and I'd suggest doing a side-by-side if possible to find the one that's right for you. Finally, if you're OK with blowing the full $1K on the guitar alone (and borrowing an amp for a while) the Godin CW II - a full-hollow twin P-90 archtop in the mold of the early-50's ES-175/Epiphone Zephyr - will deliver the goods for anything short of death metal; they get a lot of love over on the Archtop forum (TMK Tony Bennett's guitarist has been using one on tour for a couple years now), you're not going to get that much tone in as light a package from any other maker - mine scales in at just over five pounds (about the same weight as the comparably-sized Seagull mini-jumbos), and if you've been exclusively an acoustic player for the last 25 years you'll find a lot to like since they handle very much like the Seagull acoustics...

Good luck...