I recognize that most posts here are about gear, but I'd like to draw your attention to two recent releases by great Strat-wielding players who make the most of the instrument's versatility.

First, Timothy Young: Young's "Gravitational Lensing," sounds like a hellbent blast from his youth. (He's 41.) Dinosaur riffs, space trips and heavy stoner blues dominate, lightened with intervals of Renaissance pluck, horse-drawn folk and punk jazz, and shaded with an artful palette of fuzzy to shivery guitar tones. Check it out out wherever you can find it (I can't find a link to post).
You can read a great article on the release party here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culture ... er-27.html

Second, Ethan Miller: Ethan Miller's band Howlin Rain just released there new disc: The Russian Wilds. This disc should get a lot more attention due to its creativity and instrumentalisation. Crafted over a period of four years with extensive guidance from Rick Rubin, the San Francisco quintet's latest full-length has all the tropes of a record-as-game-changer-- it's moody and duende-soaked, meticulously crafted, and sprawling in its ambition. But The Russian Wilds is not the neo-jam-band classic it might have been. A conscious stab at classic album-making-- with all of the madness, obsession, and studio overtime that allegedly entails-- The Russian Wilds strives for timelessness. Again, you can read a great article about it here: http://www.jambands.com/reviews/cds/201 ... sian-wilds

I hope you dig these works from our Strat playin' brethren as I do.