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Junior Member
 
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 13/03/2008 22:53:38
Posts: 50, Visits: 144 |
| Hello forum devotees, I know it's long but please persevere - as the bishop said to the actress...
Other than being a paying Imuso customer with too much time on his hands, I am wondering why unregistered guests and forum members are so shy? Come on guys and gals, don't be so modest (oh blimey, I've gone all Jimmy Saville for a brief moment!). Download a picture of yourself or your favourite instrument as an identifying avatar to place alongside your posts (use edit avatar in control panel). The avatar picture is not an ego building device. It makes the page visually attractive and quickly identifies who has posted what.
I have exempted the Man in the Jar from this necessity because his encyclopaedic knowledge of guitar related stuff makes him God. As such, no-one knows what God looks like. Oh dear, I appear to have added blasphemy to my long list of crimes!
Guests, please become full members as the forum would appreciate your input. I've been playing for over 40 years and I still have important questions to ask: When am I going to get paid? Why am I such a patronising old git? When am I going to shut up?
Question: Have you ever made a complete fool of yourself?
Back in 1966, during a school lunch break, I pedalled from Epsom to the nationally famous but now defunct Bell Music Showroom in Surbiton, Surrey. Excitedly, I burst through the double doors claiming to the spotty youth in a suit and tie behind the counter that I had a guitar just like the one I had seen Jimi Hendrix playing on Top of the Pops the previous evening. "Then bring it in," he said. "I reckon over a hundred quid for a second-hand Strat." A hundred pounds for just one guitar! That was six months wages for my dad - wow!
I made my way to Bell's again the following day after school, this time cradling the precious Strat in its torn canvas case and accompanied by three mates. Genuflecting with great reverence and with both arms outstretched, I solemnly laid the sorry case containing the sacred guitar on the high altar that was Bell's glass topped sales counter. Jack Larkin, the shop's no-nonsense Lancastrian proprietor served me. A very rare occurence. He was more accustomed to be found bossing the staff about in his other shop in Blackburn. I imagine my experience felt similar to someone being seved personally by Brian Epstein in his record shop days. "What do you want then, son?"
"The guy yesterday promised me over one hundred pounds for this guitar," I replied, confidently removing it from its tatty case. I had never seen Jack laugh before or afterwards. I was somewhat taken aback. "But it's the same as the one Jimi Hendrix plays but upside down," I assured Mr Larkin.
"No, no, no son! It may be the same colour, got a tremelo arm and a similar shaped headstock but this is a cheap Japanese import - a Teisco Top Twenty. The inlays are rectangular instead of dots and it only has two pick-ups. The scratch plate is aluminium and the swithches and knobs are all wrong. How much did you pay for it?"
Humiliated in front of my sniggering school mates, I tried to salvage something form the desperate situation. I mumbled "Fourteen pounds from a junk shop in Streatham."
"Seeing you've come all this way," said Jack reverting to his stern business manner, "I'll give you five pounds in part exchange for something a bit better on the wall behind you."
Crestfallen and chided by my mates, we left on the long bus journey home. Even if it wasn't a true Strat, I loved that guitar but wrecked it as most kids do. I gave it away to Joby Harris. I have included a pre-wrecked picture of me and that guitar (dated 16/08/1966) in its pre-distressed condition. I hold out a forlorn hope I'll find an exact replacement on e-bay one day.
Register as a member and tell us about your first guitar or the day you made an utter tit of yourself - whatever age. I'll post more info later concerning the Teisco guitar manufacturing history.
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Uke Man - "Man Overboard!" |
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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 22/07/2008 18:16:39
Posts: 40, Visits: 694 |
| I once (recently) sold a fiveteen year old ibanez RG i had brought second hand for £75. When I bought it, the guitar needed work, i needed a new floyd rose bridge, a complete rewire and was covered in dents and scratches, the maple neck was beautifully aged, and had become luxouriously smooth as the finish had worn off. the rosewood fretboard had become dry and cracked.
So my journey with the guitar began. First was taking it home removing the rusty strings, and gently restoring the fretboard with lemon oil. Then until funds arrived (i was a student at the time) i restrung it at put up with the faults. I fell in love with the guitar and poored money in to it, buying a new floyd rose bridge, paying to get it rewired, I loved the stock pickups, they were amazing, but the neck humbucker i found unuseable, i loved the middle single coil and the all out rock of the bridge humbucker. (by the way all this work and setup i did myself except for the electrics) so i invested in a DiMarzio virtual PAF for the neck for the beautiful clarity of the pickup.
So you are probably getting the picture by now, here is a guitar i have poured hours in to, and plays beautifully, and i have customised entirely around myself, aside from a few dents this is pretty much my dream guitar, and i sold it for slightly more than i paid for it as i brought a new Godin xtSA guitar, which is amazing, but just doesnt give me the same feeling of warmth and comfort the ibanez used to give... its like i sold part of me...
So if you have a battered guitar, that feels like part of you, whatever you do, do not sell it or you will feel as foolish as me...
(by the way technically in everyway aside from this mysterious unmeasurable feel the godin is much better than the battered ibanez, but the feel is irreplaceable.)
Drew |
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Junior Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 13/03/2008 22:53:38
Posts: 50, Visits: 144 |
| Apologies for the unprofessional spelling mistakes in my previous post but I was rushing to get it out. Oh, and the edit faciltiy doesn't work on the first post of a new thread: swithches = switches and form = from.
Great story Drew and I'm sure we all feel your pain. Do you have a photo of the Ibanez? If so send it to the MIJ to post for you. And you could use the Ibanez photo for the avatar byline picture?
Teisco, the Japanese manufacturer of the guitar I'm pictured with, were busy little oriental bees. They produced more models of electric guitars in more variety of shapes and sizes through the 1950s 60s and 70s than anyone would imagine possible. No two guitars bearing a Teisco label appear to be the same.
For old time's sake, because it's up for grabs relatively local, I've actually bid £20.00 for a battered and corroded old Teisco Spectrum on e-bay (a sort of strat headstock come Burns body horns design - I'll post pictures if and when I get it). It's not the same as the Top Twenty Model I'm pictured with (no two are, remember) but it has a pretty scratchplate. Depending on the condition/grain of the body wood under the "traumatised" sunburst finish, I may strip it down to natural (probably plywood) but I have to keep the electrics original if possible. Of course, it may sound like poop and play like a dog...
Good to hear from you Drew. Stay in tune!
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Uke Man - "Man Overboard!" |
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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 22/07/2008 18:16:39
Posts: 40, Visits: 694 |
| What I now i have as my avatar is the closest to a pic of the guitar as i think i have, its me with the guitar at an open mic night two years ago (and a dodgy hat...) however, the guitar is hardly shown in this pic 
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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 22/07/2008 18:16:39
Posts: 40, Visits: 694 |
| | oops, i lie, thats my friends guitar which is an older ibanez... i shll have to find the actual one... |
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Junior Member
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 13/03/2008 22:53:38
Posts: 50, Visits: 144 |
| Send more pictures of the hat!
Whoo! Serious top horn on that guitar, man!
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Uke Man - "Man Overboard!" |
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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 05/08/2008 07:04:57
Posts: 49, Visits: 113 |
| Hey, Uke Man
To encourage people to add an avatar, perhaps you could mention how to actually add an avatar on this forum. I had a quick look round and couldn't see anything obvious. I've got a pic lined up - a Burns guitar because to Ian at iMuso I've been known as 'Mr Burns' ever since I was the first person to buy a Bison bass and want a hard case for it. At that moment Ian realised their normal bass guitar cases are too small for the Bison - hence the note on the site about using a Gibson Thunderbird case.
My avatar won't be the Bison bass, however. It'll be my first Burns, an 'Artist' model bought in 1963 from Potters Music Shop in South Croydon. No embarassing story, though. I just saw it in the shop, went in with my hard-earned cash and had to have it. Only just in time. Another assistant came in to that part of the shop saying "Have you got the Burns, there's someone interested". "Sorry"' said my assistant, "It's just been sold". Whew!
This was one of the earliest guitars that Jim Burns made after he left the partnership with Henry Weill in 1959. It had all the 'early Burns' features such as the Offset Contour Neck (if you ain't played one of these you ain't lived!), 23 3/8" scale neck with 24 frets, and 1/8" jack socket instead of a normal 1/4".
At that time Jim Burns hadn't invented his own tremolo unit (that only came with the later Vibra Artist model) so this (uniquely) had a Bigsby fitted from new which makes it a bit special. I still have the guitar and it features (along with my five other 'Burns family'* guitars) on the latest album about to be issued by my band, The Secrets.
Like you, I have fond memories of Bell Music, my starting point being the 1961 catalogue (which I still have) where the Burns Artist shines out like a beacon among things like the 'Framus Farringdon' and 'Genuine Russion Guitar 5 Gns'.
If you still live in the Epsom area we are near neighbours - I live in Carshalton.
*'Burns Family' - Burns, Baldwin, Hayman, Shergold.
Ray |
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iMuso Guitar Guy
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 25/08/2008 11:41:27
Posts: 661, Visits: 1,480 |
| | Click CONTROL PANEL on the top of this page and look for EDIT AVATAR down the left hand side. I remember drooling over Bell music catalogues when I was a nipper. I love to see it Ray, or pay for a photocopy? (then I'd take back the Vanker comments...  )
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The Man in the Jar |
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