Guitar Stories
Details Guitar: Ibanez ST-55 (may have been a ST-50) Year Purchased: 1981 Price Paid: $250.00 ($711.80 in 2021 dollars) Notes: Used Made in Japan Living in a tiny town in the 1980s greatly limited my access to guitar shops. Every now and again my friends and I would take road trips to bigger cities to
Guitar Stories
Details Guitar: Vantage Avenger Year Purchased: 1981 Price Paid: $300.00 ($854.16 in 2021 dollars) Notes: Brand new Made in Japan This slightly pointy-horned Strat style guitar was around $300.00 from a music store in Midland, MI. I sold my Cortez for 150.00 to a friend and paid cash for the balance. It came with a
Guitar Stories
Details Guitar: Cortez LP Copy Year Purchased: 1980 (or so) Price Paid: not sure Notes: Late 70s Made in Japan LP Style In hindsight this was a bit of a downgrade from the Epiphone ET-270 that I traded in. I reckon I was just a little sick of the Epiphone and was gassing for something
Guitar Stories
Details Guitar: Epiphone ET-270 Year Purchased: 1977 (or so) Price Paid: $150.00 ($640.62 in 2021 dollars) Notes: 1970s Made in Japan 2 pickup offset Farrow’s Music on 44th street in Wyoming, Michigan was the first music store I ever visited regularly. They were a small mom and pop affair with a friendly staff who were
Guitar Stories
Details Guitar: Teisco EP-something? Year Purchased: 1976 (or so) Price Paid: $20.00 ($90.97 in 2021 dollars) Notes: 1960s Made in Japan 2 pickup, semi-hollow sunburst It must have been 8th grade when the wanting for a guitar reached peak want. A kid in my class mentioned in passing that there was a guitar in the
Pedals
In the late 90s a friend lent me a Roland 201 Space echo. I had it in my possession for quite some time. Maybe 8 months or so. I was doing a lot of home recording back then and got to know it quite well. When I returned it I replaced it with a BOSS
Pedals
The other day a Facebook memory came down my feed. It was a photo from a tour one of my old bands did in the very early 2000s. It was a shot of me futzing with my pedals on stage at Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It was a nice warm fuzzy memory as I
Guitars
I’ve worked my way through 3 Telecasters in my playing career. One made in Mexico model from ’92 or so, a ’93 American Standard and this here 1990 USA 52 Reissue. In 1996 I started working in a vintage guitar shop. It was a dream gig for someone who couldn’t stop rambling on about guitars.
Pedals
Phase shifting is one of my favorite guitar effects. You would never know it by watching me play live or by listening to records/recordings I’ve played on. I hardly ever use a phaser in the music I play. Still, I LOVE phase shifters and spend a good deal of time plugged into them while dicking
Amps
This here is a Marshall model 1974x 18 Watt head built from a Mojotone kit by an old friend and bandmate, Ben. Ben was a great pedal steel/guitar player and kindred vintage gear nut. He passed away a few years ago and left me this amp. It is one of my most cherished possessions. When
Amps
Some time in 1997 I lined up 3 Fender Bassman heads and this Sovtek Mig 50 in a large room in the vintage guitar shop I was working at. I had a 1964 Fender Princeton and needed a larger amp for larger venues. I was a huge fan of the blackface/silverface Bassman heads. I still
Amps
While we’re talking amps, this here is a 5f1 Champ I built. The transformers came from an early 60s Silvertone organ I rescued from a Goodwill for $12.00. Whenever I mention this folks say: “that Silvertone organ must have been pretty cool”. It was not that cool, I assure you. The organ component was a
Amps
Today we have a super clean 1986 Marshall Lead 12 (5005) amplifier. It is styled liked its JCM800 series brother’s and sisters and is quite a handsome little unit. I remember these fondly from way back when they first appeared in the early 80s. Back then I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with
Amps
This is my 1964 transitional Princeton amp. It’s one of the smartest purchases I ever made and the only pre-CBS Fender piece I own. I picked this up in 1997 or so while working at a vintage guitar shop. I recall the shop was asking around $450.00 for this. I traded some stuff plus a
Recording
In 1990 I moved to Seattle from Michigan. Outside of one good work friend and a few work acquaintances I knew no one here. It was far from a lonely time though because I was in love with my new city and…I bought a 4-track cassette recorder. It was a Fostex X-18 and while it
Guitars
I love the Youtube “rabbit porthole” that appears on the right hand side of the screen when watching a video. This showed up there and grabbed my attention. I hadn’t given tuning or intonation much thought in awhile but this excellent video had me thinking enough about them to want to explore them in a
Guitars
My first (and only) eBay guitar purchase was a made in Japan Gibson Les Paul Knockoff. Sometime in 2005 I became “re-obsessed” with the music that I obsessed over in my youth – bands like Mott the Hoople, Thin Lizzy, David Bowie and UFO. I was playing in a country/roots rock band and writing country/roots
Pedals
One of the greatest struggles for a teenage guitarist coming up in the late 70s was procuring an amplifier capable of getting you heard above a drummer (or a room full of other teenage guitarists coming up in the late 70s). It’s easy to take for granted the sheer number of affordable, medium to high
Pedals
I currently own and use 2 Tube Screamers. One 90s reissue TS-9 and one 80s TS-10. I use them both often. I picked up the TS-9 in ’96 or so and put it on my live board. It’s been on there ever since. It’s also been engaged the entire time. I am an “always on”
Amps
I was in no real hurry to enter the work force after high school graduation. I also had no plans for college since I assumed college was just a more self-disciplined version of high school and I really hated high school (and self-discipline). All I really wanted to do was play rock and roll guitar.