Lately,
however, I have given in to my singer/songwriter jones and have been doing my
part to increase the amount of modulated sounds, or noise, being sent out into
the ether. To do this I had to retrieve my collection of instruments from their
cases in the crawlspace. Remarkably, 15 or so years in hibernation did them not
real damage. I also felt the need to subscribe to a few guitar magazines, one
electric; one acoustic, so that I could become hip to the times, if you know
what I mean. Amazingly, little has changed overall. A lot of the same old bands
get covered, still, and there are many, many bands and players I know nothing
about, and won’t if I try to find them on the radio. Fortunately there’s
Spotify, but I’ve whined about that before. As for guitars, there is no lack of
interest in that. Vintage. Faux vintage. Knockoffs. Cheaper Asian versions.
Cheaper Mexican versions. Oddballs. Very expensive luthier grade one offs. From
a mere mental sampling, I believe there are about a thousand different Strat
version from Fender alone. Amps galore, and an incomprehensible number of stomp
boxes to do what about 5 used to do in the old days when we cursed analog tube
powered crap that had to be babied, but is now viewed as like really cool and
stuff.
The
process by which I acquired my beloved collection of non-Fenders, Martins, and
Gibsons is a tale told by need proffered by economic reality. It’s not that I
didn’t want a Fender or a Gibson, I was either too poor or too cheap to pony up
the requisite dough. I started playing young and had 2 seriously cheap guitars,
one a Mosrite knockoff; which is a cheap version of a cheap guitar, and a cheap
acoustic. Both buzzed, had high action, and sounded tinny. Fortunately, I
marshaled on despite these afflicted instruments. However, when I was shipped
off to Hawaii ( Navy days ), I got rid of the terrible two and vowed to never
buy another cheap crappy guitar. This led me to the world of good, sometimes
great non-Fenders, Martins, and Gibsons. I have a Peavey, a Takamine, a Ibanez,
an Ovation, a Dobro, a Godin, a Fender Squire bass, a Mexican Martin ( so yes,
I have a few name, though non-US made, instruments ), Nancy’s Yamaha, a banjo,
and a homemade Strat made with the guts of a guitar I inadvertently ruined. I
think that’s all of them.
They
were all bought to do, or produce different sounds. So you have the Peavey,
which is like a Telecaster, good rhythm guitar, bright sound. The homemade
Strat, with the guts of an old Vantage guitar, has a thicker blues/lead sound.
The Ibanez, a semi hollow body has that fat twangy sound. The acoustics are
pretty straight forward, the Takamine is an excellent Martin copy, the Ovation
a 12 string, the Dobro is a resonator, the Yamaha a classical, the banjo’s a
banjo, and the Godin is the mutant nylon electric which can be used with a
guitar synth. The bass is a bass, and the Mexican Martin is for performing as I
couldn’t bring myself to drill holes in the Takamine. All are well made and
serve a different purpose.
I
don’t know exactly where I’m going with all this, other than to say that I have
a lot of guitars that are exactly what I needed them to be: playable and
affordable, and that there’s a world of them out there for those so interested.
The only problem is actually finding time to play them all, because I know
that, though they are inanimate objects, like dogs, they are people too and
long for human contact. So I do what I can. Now I just have to figure out how
to work all of the new digital recording stuff. Fortunately, it’s all sort of the same.
Wish
me luck.
