[Brent Hutto]

Michael Daves has a double album from 2016 called "Orchids and Violence" where he does both acoustic (bluegrass) and electric versions of a bunch of bluegrass and old time tunes. Like the same tune done both ways (hence the double album concept). It's not the kind of thing I want to listen to every day but some of the sounds were pretty neat.

So even though I have pretty much only every played acoustic guitar I decided to see what kind of sounds I could get from an electric. After a few days of online shopping and YouTube video reviews I went to the local Guitar Center to pick up a Squier Bullet Stratocaster HT (hardtail) and a Fender Champion 40 modeling amp with a full-size 12" speaker. I figured that was sufficient gear to dip my toe in the water without diving in the deep end, so to speak.

Good news was they had a floor model Champion 50XL for a bit less than the retail price of Champion 40. So I grabbed that. Better news was the Bullet strat didn't seem to have any of the stereotypical issues you hear of with entry-level guitars. No fret sprout, my fret rocker and string height gauge indicated everything was playable, even the nut slots were cut at a decent height.

So problem solved, in and out in 20 minutes. Except I stupidly pulled down a dozen or so other guitars off the wall out of curiosity. Never been in a Guitar Center before so I figured I'd look around a bit.

Impluse purchase time. Instead of the Bullet strat I came home with a Schecter C-6 Elite with a rather garish blue "burst" finish (printed on, not real quilted maple) and with a pair of hot, heavy-metal-ready Schecter Diamond Plus humbuckers. It seems kind of crazy given that I don't even listen to Metal much less intend on playing it.

The reasons I liked it was the shape of the neck, the flattish (14" radius) rosewood fretboard, the wonderfully polished super jumbo frets and just the overall fit and finish which were far nicer than any other $300 guitar they had (and nicer than some Epiphones that were twice that expensive).

So am I crazy to make that big a change of plans on the spur of the moment? Will I be able to coax a variety of interesting sounds on those pickups? And basically what's a 60-something year old fiddle tune playing acoustic guitar junkie doing with a pointy, bright blue guitar built for grinding out distorted power chords?