It’s been a lot of fun and hard to pick, but NZM’s judging panel have named Clinton Keating as the lucky winner of our Show Us Your Strat! competition which featured on the back cover of the May/June issue of NZ Musician magazine and subsequently on the NZM socials.

Indeed, it was the photo Clinton submitted of himself surrounded by several years of NZM copies that swung the brand new Fender Player Stratocaster into his enthusiastic arms – we do appreciate regular NZM readers!

“Ohh, that’s awesome,” was Clinton’s immediate response when we phoned with the good news, catching him in the middle of a walk on Greymouth’s beach. Turns out he’s a very productive musician who regularly makes his music available via Spotify and is already plenty familiar with the Fender Player Series Stratocasters – he has one that’s fitted with a Fender Custom Shop SRV Texas Special pick-up set.

“I’d like to have another Player Series Strat to do something more ’50s spec, so this is an awesome prize to win for me. I’m working on some stuff at the moment actually, and a new guitar might well have some songs in it for that project!”

Of course, there could only be one winner and NZM is extremely grateful to NZ’s Fender distributors Direct Imports for the opportunity to add our enthusiastic support to local ‘The Year Of The Strat’ promotions.

We would like to thank all the musicians who entered our Show Us Your Strat! competition and especially the group of finalists who were also challenged to turn the judges’ heads with social media support. Good on you.