Nina made me do it..........
Well, here we are. Full circle. Back from whence we came. Was the search worth it or all a waste of time and energy? It doesn't matter because here we are once again, and it is glorious.
"Dude, isn't this about G.A.S. and guitars or something?"
Yes, what did you think I was referring to, something deep?
I have long been a sucker for something that promises to be better or an improvement over the current model, and by circumstance was able to fully indulge that "quest" for a step up the ladder in the form of good credit and too much time on my hands. The advent of Ebay was a huge step in my development as a consumer, and led to me becoming somewhat of an "expert" on all things guitar by way of spending endless hours looking at page after page of items offered for sale and by managing to have a significant number of these arrive at my door for closer examination.
You see, I have long fancied myself a "musician", which of course would require one to have the use of an instrument of some sort. Learning of all the various subtle shades of tone and color available through different woods, pickups, construction techniques, mojo, etc.., led me to believe that in order to be able to be a complete "player", I needed a full array of tools at my disposal so that anytime I felt a certain hue was needed it was simply a matter of picking up the appropriate brush, in this case "brush" being a particular guitar or bass (or mandolin or lyre or......you get the idea). The possibilities are nearly endless, but that just meant the search for more was on in full swing.
I found that it was true that a Fender Stratocaster with a maple fingerboard was a slightly different animal than one with a rosewood 'board, so of course, I needed both! This extended to acoustic instruments and then into amplifiers as well. Yes, a Marshall with el34's was different than one with KT66's, and the Fenders and Voxes all had their own little spice to add to the mix, so why not stock up?
As a result, and I say this with more shame than pride, I have owned over 300 guitars in the past 15 years, and close to 100 amplifiers, while never having a record deal or going on tour anywhere beyond the dive bars of the outskirts of my hometown. Friends and bandmates would inquire about the latest "score", and one even suggested that I had joined the "Guitar Of the Month Club". I have had vintage stuff and imported stuff and a few pieces custom-built for rock stars pass through my hands, but the search never yielded that perfect end that would allow me to say "enough".
What else had caused this seemingly endless search for "The One" that might do it all, or that would allow me to finally have my own unique voice as a player? Why was I literally scouring the globe in search of that elusive piece that would finally fill the void and allow me to feel whole again? Well, I had somehow managed to get by with a single instrument for years, and never felt I was lacking anything, until I wore out my faithful plank and fell into the trap of being a poser rather than a player. Sure, I played my new axes, but if I had spent even a fraction of the time and energy lost to surfing and buying and selling, I would no doubt be a much better player, and would have arrived at this place much sooner. I learned a lot, and even made a fair amount of money buying stuff cheap and selling at a profit as the result of my good fortune and deep insight (heh), but on the whole it was a miserable experience that became an addiction plain and simple.
Let me back up for a moment, back to the beginning. Like most novices, I went out and bought my first instrument from a big store (paying full retail, natch) and fought to make it into something it could never be - a viable piece of gear. It was cheap, hard to play, would not stay in tune, and sounded pretty lousy, but I didn't care much. It looked the part, and that was enough to keep me coming back until I could afford a "real" guitar.
That second guitar was to be my identity for many of my teen years. It was a '60's Gibson SG that had been stripped and modified somewhat, but it was a real Gibson and that was all that mattered (my first was a Japanese copy of the SG). I was firmly a "Gibson Guy" and derided all others as inferior and beneath me. I would rather be forced to play an accordion than consider going over to the dark side and be seen with a Fender over my shoulder, even though many of my idols were seen with Strats and Teles, until fate intervened.
At one point, I found myself entertaining a young lady at my home with my musical brilliance, and after a suitable period of aural seduction, I leaned that SG up against the amp and moved in for my reward. For some reason, she had not fully succumbed to my charms and moved suddenly to escape my advance, sending the guitar tumbling to the floor and shearing the headstock neatly in 2. This was to be the one and only time any of my instruments would suffer such a fate, and it sent me in a direction that only now begins to reveal itself fully.
After some glue and clampage, my faithful friend was restored, but was never to be whole again. I kept it for years after, but had to consider that I needed to find a replacement since the magic had left, and what was to come next was a surprise then and is again today.
I was working at a cabinet shop and also at my family's bar/restaurant, butchering wood by day and tending by night, and upon receiving my paychecks one friday in the early/mid '80's, was off to the bar to hang with some friends and do what any 18 year old would do in such an environment - hit on girls. When that proved to be non-starter, I decided to head on over to my local Mom and Pop music store (Torp's Music - R.I.P) and see what might be hanging on the wall that was of interest. This was at a time when Fender had opted to begin importing Strats and Teles from a manufacturer in Japan, and the first of the new "Squier" series was literally fresh off the boat. Having been accustomed to bashing Fenders for years, I had to sample one of these "cheap copies" myself to confirm that were, in fact, far beneath me and worthy of even more intense scorn. I grabbed the Olympic White demo off the counter, plugged it in, and sat here for a couple hours trying to find a reason to dismiss this budget model "copy" as the piece of junk it surely must have been.
You probably know where this ends, so I'll skip forward about 20 years. After blaming the tequila and denying my infatuation with this new friend for a couple weeks, I began to come into my own as a player. I played that guitar hard for 2 decades, both live and in recording sessions, and it became an extension of my soul. When Stevie Ray died, I took a knife to it and carved his initials on the back so I would always remember what he did for me. It was the guitar I left behind with my future wife when I visited her in Las Vegas, vowing to return to collect it and her since they were certainly the 2 most important things in my life. My father bought me a wonderful Les Paul soon after that I kept until early this year, but I probably honestly played that guitar less than 20 hours in all those years. I had become a "Strat Cat" through and through, and all was right with my gear world, pickup changes and replaced snapped tremolo arms notwithstanding.
Sometime in the mid '90's, it became clear that things were not as they once were between me and my trusty axe, and eventually it was clear that I had worn this thing out. I didn't care about the way it looked, but I had been forced to replace the electronics, the bridge twice, had the frets dressed a bunch of times, until finally, it would no longer stay in tune due to the pivot screws that held the trem bridge down stripping out the holes in the soft Basswood that it was made of. It was one good pull of the bar away from destruction. My faithful friend was toast, so I retired it and began searching for the next "One".
I detailed this process earlier, and now know that the whole "palette" thing was a ruse - justification for something that replaced my love for the craft with a love for the tools. It became obvious when I realized that no matter what variety of guitar I was playing, it always wound up sounding like "me". I found "The One" countless times, but like many love affairs the intensity fell off quickly and the eyes began to wander in that old familiar way again. What was I going to do? Where would I find happiness?
I had became friends with a local repairman and mentioned the issues I had with "Pearly". He said he would love to take a look at it and so I dropped it off for inspection. After a quick inspection, he said "No problem" and I told him to go for it. After a couple weeks, I got the call that it was done, and went to meet him for the unveiling.
"What did you do to this thing?" was his first question. "I dunno, played it vigorously for 20 years?" Turns out the area around the screw holes was "crushed" but the damage had been hidden by the finish. What he figured would be an easy repair turned out to be quite a restoration, Requiring the removal of a bunch of wood and the insertion od a new hardwood base for the pivot screws, but there she was, once again whole and awaiting my embrace.
It was like putting on that perfectly worn pair of jeans, or as Eric Clapton once said about picking up his famous "Blackie", like "slipping into a pool of warm water". I had come back to the thing that first gave me my voice, endured my dalliances and infidelity, and waited patiently for my return. It illustrated a lesson that takes on greater meaning with each passing day in my life.
It has been shown that quite often when seeking to fill avoid within us, no matter how far we extend the search - even to all corners of the world - what we seek may be hiding in plain sight, and is likely much closer than we could ever imagine. Such foolish games we play with ourselves.
O.K., I'm off to crank it up and do a little joyous wailing. I know Pearly will be waiting faithfully, as ever, and welcome my embrace with loving vibration.
