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  #91  
Old 06-26-2020, 06:13 AM
Picking Moose Picking Moose is offline
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Originally Posted by whvick View Post
Great story!
And do you like soundports?
I love soundports. They do make a difference to the player although the amount of "boost" much depends on the guitar shape and construction. Have them on all my guitars excluding the Guild.
I thought it best to keep it in it's original state, after all, it's a vintage 43 years old guitar. The guitar of the story (a Bill Dinsdale 1982 one-off custom order) didn't have a soundport originally.
A trusted luther did it for me some 10 years ago.
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  #92  
Old 06-26-2020, 07:27 AM
jschmitz54 jschmitz54 is offline
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Originally Posted by Picking Moose View Post
I collected my dream handmade guitar only a few months before, it's beginning of June and I must leave the country for 4 months. I cannot take the guitar with me and don't want to leave it at home at the mercy of thieves for such a long time.
I ask my good buddy guitarist Mike to look after it for me and he agrees. He's left handed so there is even little chance he will actually play the guitar.
I leave the country and 4 months later, when I come back, Mike returns the guitar to me, safe and sound.

All good then... or?

Few months pass and one evening, after a good jam as we usually do at night he looks at me and tells me he must come out clean on something.

While I was away, one day he decided to swap strings on my guitar so that he could play it. That is fine with me.. he is a really good guitarist.
One evening he's invited to a party and takes my guitar with him. At the party there is music and booze... lots of booze....

Next morning Mike wakes up at at another friend's home... he can't remember how he got there and, worst of all, the guitar isn't there!!!

PANIC!!!

He phones to the party holder of the night before... hopefully the guitar is still there but nope. Nothing. The guitar is gone. No traces of it.
Mike then spends most part of the day trying to remember who was at the party, get their phone numbers and calling them all 1 by one.
Surely (hopefully) Mike had left the guitar at the party and someone took it home.
Eventually, when all seems lost, one of them says:

"ah yes.. I've got the guitar here! Last night I left the party a little after you were gone and walking by the bus stop I noticed a guitar case on the sidewalk that looked like the one you had at the party so I took it home with me."

Basically my friend got drunk, at around 2am went to the bus stop, got on the bus and left the guitar on the sidewalk!
On the bloody sidewalk! At 2am!!!

This is the guitar.Still with me, 40 years later

OMG, your friend and you are lucky or charmed. Quite a story.
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  #93  
Old 06-26-2020, 07:45 AM
Picking Moose Picking Moose is offline
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Originally Posted by jschmitz54 View Post
OMG, your friend and you are lucky or charmed. Quite a story.
Imagine how I felt when he revealed the whole thing to me.
For a few moments I didn't know if I wanted to cry of joy or anger. Hug him relieved for the happy ending or punch him for what he did.
In the end we cheered, had a laugh and kept on jamming
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Ibanez Ragtime 460
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H. Godvinez
Fender Dobro
HB Resonator
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  #94  
Old 08-10-2020, 03:43 PM
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tinnitus tinnitus is offline
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Default So This Must Be B...

Don't need any picks (thanks), but I thought of this thread when I had a pleasing guitar "instructor" moment yesterday.

I've been showing my brother-in-law some guitar basics to supplement the online videos he's using to learn chords to Sweet Home Alabama and a couple CCRs. Cowboy chords only so far, and nothing about scales yet. But if I holler "CC GG DD AA EEEE EEEE," out comes Hey Joe (he has a good ear and he's 60 so many songs are embedded like DNA in the soundtrack of his teens - which I think helps anyone learning to play).

So yesterday, he became interested in rock chords and I started showing him how E- and A-shaped barre chords become whatever you need depending on where you fret them. Still a bit in the fog with it, I had him play me 3 different versions of G. Then 3 different versions of C, and D, etc., explaining, "You can move all your fingers up/down 5 frets or just over one string." The light was flickering but coming on when I went to refill our adult beverages.

As I walked away, he mumbled, "So, this must be B..." and it was!

BINGO!!!

Last edited by tinnitus; 05-06-2021 at 07:46 PM.
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  #95  
Old 05-06-2021, 07:14 PM
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tinnitus tinnitus is offline
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Sorry to see this thread go silent, I enjoyed all the stories here so far. Anyway, Here's another one from me:

All my relatives called me “Tom Bomb” when I was a kid, or just “Bomber.” Actually, they still do.

About year 2000 or so, I got a Gibson Les Paul Studio. Nice player but nothing special to look at. The truss rod cover plate on the headstock said “XR1” (I think - forget the actual number). Anyhow, just for grins, I got a blank cover and had it engraved with “Bomber” like you see below. That guitar is long gone now, but I kept my nameplate.

About the same time I got the truss rod cover, I was selling another one of my electrics on Craigslist, a slick Ibanez shred sled with a flimsy neck I got cheap and decided not to keep. When I gave a buyer my address to come look, he stridently warned me... “Listen, before I waste a trip over there, you need to understand that I’m a detective and I can spot BS a mile away. I know guitars, so don’t you dare try to pull a fast one on me because I’m nobody’s fool.

I chuckled to myself and told him “Okaaaay.”

He showed up and we went to my room with 3-4 guitars on stands along one wall. He walked down the line, commenting on each one, “Stratocaster, nice guitar! Larrivee, never heard of those, is that French or something? There’s the Ibanez. And a Les Paul – WOW!!! Where did you find this ‘Bomber’ model? These are super rare!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him just how rare it actually was.

Back to the Ibanez, I would’ve been willing to drop the price to $175 (which was more than I paid). But I decided to let him pay the full $200 I was asking.


Last edited by tinnitus; 05-06-2021 at 09:54 PM.
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  #96  
Old 05-06-2021, 08:35 PM
whvick whvick is offline
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Default I’m bored—tell me a good guitar story and I will mail you a pick

Quote:
Originally Posted by tinnitus View Post
Sorry to see this thread go silent, I enjoyed all the stories here so far. Anyway, Here's another one from me:



All my relatives called me “Tom Bomb” when I was a kid, or just “Bomber.” Actually, they still do.



About year 2000 or so, I got a Gibson Les Paul Studio. Nice player but nothing special to look at. The truss rod cover plate on the headstock said “XR1” (I think - forget the actual number). Anyhow, just for grins, I got a blank cover and had it engraved with “Bomber” like you see below. That guitar is long gone, but I kept my nameplate.



About the same time I got the truss rod cover, I was selling another one of my electrics on Craigslist, a slick Ibanez shred sled with a flimsy neck I got cheap and decided not to keep. When I gave a buyer my address to come look, he stridently warned me... “Listen, before I waste a trip over there, you need to understand that I’m a detective and I can spot BS a mile away. I know guitars, so don’t you dare try to pull a fast one on me because I’m nobody’s fool.



I chuckled to myself and told him “Okaaaay.”



He showed up and we went to my room with 3-4 guitars on stands along one wall. He walked down the line, commenting on each one, “Stratocaster, nice guitar! Larrivee, never heard of those, is that French or something? There’s the Ibanez. And a Les Paul – WOW!!! Where did you find this ‘Bomber’ model? These are super rare!”



I didn’t have the heart to tell him just how rare it actually was.



Back to the Ibanez, I would’ve been willing to drop the price to $175 (which was more than I paid). But I decided to let him pay the full $200 I was asking.





Good one
Thanks
Don’t forget to message me your address so I can send a couple picks. I just had 300 printed and no good stories in few days

Last edited by whvick; 05-06-2021 at 08:42 PM.
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  #97  
Old 05-06-2021, 09:58 PM
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tinnitus tinnitus is offline
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Originally Posted by whvick View Post
Good one
Thanks
Don’t forget to message me your address so I can send a couple picks. I just had 300 printed and no good stories in few days
Thanks, I'm good on picks. Got married a few years ago and my new in-laws gave "us" a bag of 200-300 medium gauge picks (my favorite) with our first names and the special date on each one. I'm teaching my BIL to play guitar and making ukulele chord charts for his wife.
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  #98  
Old 05-06-2021, 10:27 PM
Zexxor Zexxor is offline
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Originally Posted by whvick View Post
It is hard to do exams through masks, so I am not getting guitar stories. In #58 of my guitar pick stories I asked about stories of your favorite junker and got several good stories. Check it out.
So post some good guitar stories, and I will send a pick for the good ones!
Thanks
Whvick
You won't believe this story.
I was stationed in Bremerton at the Naval Hospital for almost 4 years. Through my church I was assigned a certain family to do visiting with. They did not go to church, but we developed a close friendship.
One day I found out that the daughter in this family had been involved in a motorcycle accident and was now paraplegic. When I was young one of my aunts, who was like an older sister to me was also in a motorcycle accident, so this story hit home for me.
I had a 1930s F Hole Gibson 12 string that I had traded a 1979 Goldtop Gibson Custom LP for. Worst trade I ever made, but it was a nice guitar in very good condition.
I took it over to their house after talking to her father and asked her if she would like to learn to play the guitar. She said yes. I gave her the guitar and since I was unable to provide lessons I gave her some guidance on how to go about getting lessons. I have lost contact with them so I don't know what happened, I just hope it helped.
Don't need a pick though, I can't use them.
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  #99  
Old 05-07-2021, 06:24 AM
beatcomber beatcomber is offline
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Originally Posted by tinnitus View Post
And a Les Paul – WOW!!! Where did you find this ‘Bomber’ model? These are super rare!”
To be fair, he wasn't exactly wrong...
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  #100  
Old 05-07-2021, 06:43 AM
ewalling ewalling is offline
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When I was 26, I went to work as an English language teacher at what was called the 'Folk University of Sweden,' which was like a community ed branch of Swedish universities. I was dispatched to a lovely little fishing town on the south-east coast called Karlskrona.

Some months into the contract, my boss, who had heard I played the guitar, volunteered me to play in front of an assembled group of dignitaries from Volvo, one of our clients, at a banquet in their honour. I was to play after another guy who seemed to be a kind of half-teacher, half-pro musician. His name was Peter.

So, Peter went on first and was clearly experienced at that sort of thing. He sang and played and chatted between songs. He played this magnificent-looking beast, which he told me was an 'Ovation.' I had an old Yammy FG180 that looked as though it had been used to clean out the rabbit enclosure!

When it came to my turn, I took my chair and launched into the first fingerpicking number - something I'd learnt by ear from Ry Cooder's Jazz album. Only trouble was, my fingers were shaking! I'd never played fingerstyle in front of people before, and I realized that to play like this, your hands have to be in 'playing condition'. That means they can't be in a cold sweat, and they can't be shaking or you miss the strings.

That first number was so bad I broke down in the middle and had to confess I was really nervous and couldn't properly control my fingers. Somehow, though, I soldiered on by playing some less difficult pieces. But it was a sobering lesson in performance. What we can play in comfort and isolation of our bedrooms is a very different thing from what we can do before an unfamiliar and unsmiling audience!
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  #101  
Old 05-07-2021, 07:17 AM
alnico5 alnico5 is offline
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In late 1985 I placed a special order with Carvin for a DC-125. This was their one humbucker "Van Halen shredder model". I ordered mine with an added neck PU, a tone control, a phase switch, and no whammy bar. The color was Deep Pearl Blue.

Some time later I got a phone call from Carvin. They had mistakenly added a Kahler bar, and offered to sell it to me at cost, but I wanted a hard tail. They rebuilt a guitar for for me.

In the next Carvin catalog there was a picture of Vicki Peterson of the Bangles playing a blue two-pickup Carvin DC-125 with a whammy bar and added tone control. Since my model was special ordered and did not exist in the regular Carvin line up, I am sure she ended up with the DC-125 originally built for me.

It can be seen in the "Hazy Shade of Winter" Bangles video. Ms. Peterson later auctioned it off to raise $$ for HIV research. I think it went for $6K.

I still have my Carvin.
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  #102  
Old 05-07-2021, 07:49 AM
TOPDOGJIM TOPDOGJIM is offline
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About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with an illness (since recovered) but forced into early retirement. Also forced to sell my only Martin guitar an OM-18A to pay the mortgage. Leaving me with my tag sale Ovation. Someone on the Martin forum (also from CT) contacted me and asked me to visit for a jam. He had read about my illness and sale of my Martin. After my visit he presented me with a
Martin 000-18GE and said I shouldn’t be without a Martin. It took some convincing but I eventually paid him about half of what it was worth. (Which is all he would take) All of these years later I still visit him once a month and jam. Covid has stopped that but we restart this month. I’ve got two new guitars to show him and some new songs I learned.
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  #103  
Old 05-07-2021, 10:14 AM
fenderball fenderball is offline
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middle of first song in second set of a show once, a bird crapped right on my Les Paul...missed my hand by a smidge and landed right on one of the pickups...hilarious! after the tune i did what i could to wipe it off....!!
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  #104  
Old 05-07-2021, 02:16 PM
DCCougar DCCougar is offline
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Always love the stories (and postings) you relate, whvick! And unlike so many others, I need a pick! I do a little fingerpicking but lately mostly flatpicking, and frankly, I don't understand the various threads about various picks and various preferences. Maybe a whvick pick will help me understand a little about what all the commotion is about.

But as one of the early baby boomers and after so many years and experiences, what story to tell?

The experimental/acid band I was in that played the Topanga Canyon Festival with the crazy violin player's 2-year-old daughter as our "lead singer"?

The cross-country whirlwind tour all packed in the big RV with Brian Ray, Jean Ray, et al., as the backing band for Bobby 'Boris' Pickett of Monster Mash fame?

No, I'll go with a more GASeous tale of the vagaries of my guitar acquisitions and de-acquisitions. Which starts out with my dad, who always played swing-style this beat up old 1939 Epiphone Zenith with awful action and near-awful tone. Ten years or so ago, he nearly died from some intestinal problem, but after a major operation, he pulled through. I figured he'd need something to help him through his convalescence, so I got him a Gibson Les Paul Studio and my brother got him a little Fender amp, and man, he really loved that setup. He's still going and playing at age 99!

Well, the story doesn't end there. My research and purchase of that Les Paul got me hooked on getting myself a guitar, too. I first got a new cherry Epiphone Dot/ES-335. A gorgeous guitar! which I still have. Before long, though, I "returned to my roots" and started buying acoustics, which I had some experience with back in high school. I joined the Gibson guitar forum, with its Epiphone subforum, and started buying non-cutaway Epiphone Masterbilts. I had five of them with different tonewoods and sizes at one point.

Eventually, I decided to sell some of the Masterbilts to fund my dream-at-the-time Gibson J-45 Standard. About the same time, Gibson came out with their walnut-backed J-15, which guys were going crazy about. I loved the J-15's abalone rosette, but I wanted a burst, which Bozeman put out only rarely. So as recommended on the forum, I contacted Music Villa in Bozeman, which had an "in" with Gibson. Music Villa was great and said they'd get me the next J-15 burst Gibson produced.

About that time I had also joined letstalkguild since I was also interested in a 12-string, and of course Guilds are the tops in 12-strings. As luck would have it, TX at the Guild forum clued me in on a used-but-mint-condition 6-string jumbo New Hartford-built F-50R burst that was up on reverb. I noticed the seller had dropped the price a couple of times just in the past week, so I put in an offer, which was really an astounding deal for that guitar, and which was not much more than the price for a new J-15. To my surprise, the offer was accepted. A day later Music Villa notified me to say a burst J-15 had come in. I had to call and thank them but tell them I'd gone with a jumbo Guild. They said no hard feelings and they'd have no problem selling the burst J-15.

Well, I never looked back. The jumbo Guild F-50R is breathtaking, and it's currently my only acoustic 6-string as I figure it's the only 6-string I need, though I've since acquired several 12-strings. To top things off, the F-50R came with inlaid emeralds on the bridge pins and tuning posts! Never seen that before! This is one very happy-ending story!

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  #105  
Old 05-07-2021, 02:44 PM
Marcury Marcury is offline
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Not my story but one I was involved in.

Living in NYC back in the 80's the guitar player in my band (I was playing bass) had his car broken into. He had a beautiful Guild acoustic in the trunk. it was stolen and needless to say he was bereft.

Fast forward a few months, we went up to 48th street (which we always referred to as "The Den of Thieves"), to look at what else... Guitars.

We walked into one of the dealers in used gear and he spies a Guild and asks to see it: as the guy behind the counter is taking it down he says "I had a guitar just like that stolen out of my car, maybe I can replace it". He starts playing it. "This is exactly like mine...

"Wait a minute...", noticing some defining scratches and dings.. "this is my guitar!" Guy behind the counter looks at him and says yeah sure it is.

Now on one level this isn't a completely irrational response, but the way it was said was completely dismissive and off putting. Of course in those days most of the guys who worked on the street had that attitude towards everyone and everything if you weren't famous or flashing cash.

My friend say "No seriously. How long ago did you get this." The counter guy grabs it back and tells us to leave the store.

Well My friend had filed a police report on the theft including serial number (although in those day it also wasn't required that stores that bought used goods report anything to the police and there was a lot of hot items on 48th st.

Long story short my friend called the police in the precinct where the guitar had been stolen. They called the police in the precinct uptown and in very short order he had the guitar back.
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