First blog ever!
A message to everyone that finds the time to come on over and check this out, first I want to say that although I have been playing a Fender Strat for quite some time now, I haven’t always, my first electric guitar was one that I bought when I was 15, I worked at this horrible restaurant in a mall at my hometown and saved enough to buy a Ibanez version of a Gibson Les Paul from a Pawn Shop, man was that guitar nice.
I couldn’t afford an amp but I had this boom box kind of portable stereo and I could plug it in and play it that way, I use to play that thing sometimes for 12 hours straight, (U can do this when UR a kid!) I had this best friend at school that was one of the best drummers I had every heard, we would be at his house or at his uncle’s house and jam for hours, he was so into the 60’s type music and that was a big influence on my style forever, we actually won a talent contest we entered in high school at our senior year, it was awesome, at least to us, I dressed up like Gene Simmons from Kiss, I made the costume myself, and he looked like Ian Paice from Deep Purple.
He covered his drum skins with a cloth, and underneath was a bunch of glitter, so every time he would hit it, glitter flew every where! Our song was “Day Tripper” from the Beatles, the people loved it, although my “solo” was something other than what the Beatles would have preferred. We were able to borrow a Marshal amp from a friend, and man I just let ‘er rip! I don’t know, just a great moment in time.
Anyway, I had to join the Navy when I was 19, I brought my guitar with me, somehow I lost my little acoustic one that my mom had bought me years ago, well, my fault, one night when my buds and me were partying in Tokyo Japan, I left my guitar on my bed, and I came back the next morning and it was gone! Damn I was heart broken, but my first wife at that time bought me a 1968 Fender Strat, because she knew that Jimi Hendrix was my all time guitar hero, that’s when I fell in love with the strat, it felt so “right” in my hands and I loved the purity of it’s sound with those passive pickups, if I wanted a truly “clean” channel I could get it with that guitar.
I lost that guitar also, I might tell that story one day too! Never the less I also picked up at that time during the 80’s, a Martin 12 string guitar, and loved the hell out of it, I experimented with different tunings and combining 10 or 8 string arrangements, I use to play at the “Officers” club in Japan for 40 us dollars a night when we were in port, but I got kicked out one night when I played the Star Spangled Banner on my Fender Strat, it was still cool though, I always like doing what I want!
Well, now I love my new Yamaha FG-512 12 string guitar, (my wife Rhonda got it for me for Xmas in 2007.) and I love to go to the river and play along with the natural sounds that accompany me there, I play what I am feeling at the time, to me music is void of any real meaning, if one cannot become what you are trying to express, no matter what style of music one plays. I will post more on this later, it’s late but I wanted to post something that might interest you tonight, have a good one!
Add comment December 22, 2008
