I’m bored—tell me a good guitar story and I will mail you a pick

[whvick]

Originally Posted by wisedennis

I’m bored—tell me a good pick story and I will mail you a guitar

LOL
An old eye doctor, who plays finger style guitar, and can’t get the hang of a thumb pick, decides to print up some promotional guitar picks. He forgets about them and one day finds them in a desk drawer.
So instead of a promotional devise, he uses them as a conversation starter when asking patients about their visual tasks and hobbies and such.
“So what keeps you busy? Sports, fishing, knitting, reading, guitar playing?.” People are always glad to tell about their hobbies, but the guitar guys love to tell about THEIR guitar.
So he starts giving a pick to the guitar guys and saying, “Here is a pick, and in return you have to tell me a story about you and your guitar.”
that was a year ago, and since then he has had to reorder picks twice!
Thus the birth of the guitar pick stories and this is the start of the Pick- guitar stories.
Message me for that shipping address![emoji847]

[whvick]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

Another tale from back before the Crusades .... late '60s (ok, 1960s) I had worked my way up from a £16 el cheapo, to a £32 el cheapo, to a Harmony H1265, to a Gibson j50, to a Guild D40, which was nearly new and in really good condition.



My good friend, Chris, a luthier to the stars, used to hold parties, and I took my D40 along to one hoping to impress some sweet young thing with my singing (catcalling) and playing (string mangling).



Enter Don Partridge - pop hero of the moment .. [YOUTUBE]4AL4rDP8ZMU/YOUTUBE]



However, he had neglected to bring along a guitar.



"Oh Don" cried all the sweet young things, "play us a song, please!"



He looked around, and grabbed my Guild ... Don was an ex busker, and rather hard on guitars ... and he was very hard on my Guild scratching it badly above and below the sound hole.



I was a little vexed.





Some time and a couple of hit singles later, Don gave Chris (the luthier) his ('50s?) Gibson SJ200, which he'd thoroughly mistreated, to be repaired and refinished, and then left the UK without a forwarding address (for tax reasons?)



Chris effectually rebuilt the guitar and refinished it with a plain top rather than the demolished sunburst ... and he really needed the money!



Months passed and Chris was getting desperate; he offered me Don's guitar for the price of the repairs. By then (early '70s) I'd got a corporate job and had triple my income - I bought the Gibson.



I kept it for a while and traded it. (That's another story!)



2001 ish, A mutual friend (Richard Durrant) ran a great folk club and my band (Panhandle Conspiacy) and Don Partridge were booked as double headers.



I reminded Don of his SJ200 and his eyes lit up - "Have you got it? - I'll pay anything to get that guitar back!"



"No Don, I traded it for a vintage Gibson L3, and a Martin 2-17!" His face fell... I didn't mention my scratched up Guild.



Reverb tells me that that Gibson might fetch between £9k and £15k now.

Don passed away in 2010.

I knew you would have a story. Thanks.

[whvick]

Great stories guys
Message me your address and i really will send a pick
Thanks

[Rudy4]

No pick needed, but here's my favorite guitar story.

I was in my early teens and not driving yet, but my mom would shuffle me and one of my friends to practices we did with our early rock n' roll band.

When we dropped my friend off there was a huge pile of trash from the house across the street being cleaned out. The pile was ready to be picked up and hauled to the dump. I saw an old guitar case sticking out of the pile so I grabbed it and took it home thinking I might find a use for the old case.

When I got home I popped it open to discover a very nice and totally playable Epiphone Triumph archtop dating from the late 40's. (I did have to put new strings on it...) It had a beautiful carved spruce top and the body and sides were birdseye maple. There was "case candy" including National finger picks and a DeArmond "Monkey on a stick" pickup.

I played it for several years until purchasing a new Ovation Balladeer as my "good guitar". I knew it really needed to go to a jazz player so I took it in to a reputable shop in exchange for around $1000 in store credit, which was more than fair at the time.

It always made me happy to know that it got a second chance when I found it and I knew it was going to end up doing what it was meant to do.

[whvick]

Originally Posted by jklotz

No need for a pick, but I'll tell you a story.



A few years back, I did an internship with a luthier. A guy walks in and asks if we can do some string changes. As we always did, we said sure, gave him a price but offered to show him how to do it so he wouln't have to pay every time he needed one. The guy said he knew how to change strings, but this job was too big for him, and could we help him bring in the guitars.



So we all head out to his van. There are 37 guitars piled in there, most with with strings poking out of the cases. Turns out his wife/girlfriend/whatever got mad at him and took a set of wire clippers to his entire collection!

LOL
That deserves two picks!

[ribsareyummy]

My best guitar story is, alas, an electric guitar story. Way back in 1996 I was 16 and started my first job. I used one of my first paychecks to get a brand new Epiphone Les Paul off the wall of a Guitar Center.

Flash forward about 15 years or so. I went to a Sam Ash looking to buy something or other, brought my Epi Les Paul along to trade in, since I hadn't touched it in years. They are evaluating it, and then call me over and tell me they can't take it because it's a counterfeit, and pointed out all the different ways they could tell.

Suddenly all the years of people telling me, "Wow, this is a really slim neck for a Les Paul..." and the weird mismatched wiring on the pick-up selector came back to my memory.

Anyway, makes for an interesting story, I guess.

[whvick]

Originally Posted by ahorsewithnonam

Uh, what kind of pick?

Why the highly sought after Barbourville vision center pick of course!

IMG_7090.jpg

[jschmitz54]

Originally Posted by RP

Don't know if you like legal twists and turns, but here goes....

On March 23, 1994, a medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency because of his failed musical career.)

As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would most likely not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this.

Ordinarily, a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even if the mechanism might not be what they intended, is defined as having committed suicide. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands.

Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat regarding the new Somogyi guitar he'd just purchased and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident.

That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support [and he was unable to buy a new guitar and go to Nashville to launch his musical career], and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son, Ronald Opus himself, had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide, and it was indeed, Roland's Last Opus...

This is fiction. Nice story but it never happened according to Snopes and Wikipedia.

[TBman]

I play finger style and don't need any picks, but here's a story anyway.

My wife and I met in 1992. My wife has two children from a previous marriage. Her 19 year old daughter had a boyfriend who told us his younger brother played guitar. I had an Ovation (yes, but a black Legend, not bad), my Guild D-55 and a Yamaha 12 string (solid top, lam sides I think) that I no longer played.

I had played that 12 string as a 12 string for years as a teen well into my 20s, taking it with me all over. (How many years did I play Stairway on that 12!)

Finally I got tired of the 12 string and just strung it as a 6. I was so tired of the jangle even tuned down 2 steps as was the norm back then. When I got my Guild, the Yamaha sat unplayed for years.

The boyfriend's brother played looking for a new guitar as his was on its way out, but being a kid he didn't have a lot of money. I went out and got new strings for the 12, strung it up and we arranged for him to come over for a visit with his brother. I asked him, "Gee we hear you play guitar" and he looked at me and before he could say anything I took the case out of the closet and said, open this, its yours. I can't take the 12 strings anymore and laughed. Well we thought he was going to cry right there.

I'll never forget the look of joy on that kid's face.

[Ozzy the dog]

Originally Posted by llew

Great story...especially finishing up on the 100th anniversary of her sinking. Can you share a finished picture? I'd love to see the final product!

This is how it looked when it was first finished. I have however, recently ripped the back off and removed and replaced the soundboard bracing to a more conventional pattern. As such, it now has a traditional pinned bridge instead of the anchor tail piece.

[RP]

Originally Posted by jschmitz54

This is fiction. Nice story but it never happened according to Snopes and Wikipedia.

I didn't realize that the stories had to be true...

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by Ozzy the dog

This is how it looked when it was first finished. I have however, recently ripped the back off and removed and replaced the soundboard bracing to a more conventional pattern. As such, it now has a traditional pinned bridge instead of the anchor tail piece.

Your workmanship is astounding! Thanks for sharing!

[Silly Moustache]

I was passing by a pawn shop, in the older part of town
Something caught my eye, and I stopped and turned around
I stepped inside and there I spied, in the middle of it all
a beat up old guitar, hanging on the wall

"What do you want for that piece of junk?" I asked the old man
He just smiled and took it down, and put it in my hand
He said "you tell me what it's worth - seems you're the one who wants it"
"Tune it up, play a song - let's just see what haunts it

So I hit a couple of chords - in my old country way of strumming
... my fingers turned to lightning, Man.. I never heard it coming
It was like I always knew it, just don't know where I learned it
It wasn't nothin' but the truth, so I just reared back and burned it

Well I lost all track of time - there was nothing I couldn't pick
Up and down the neck, man I never missed a lick
The guitar almost played itself - there was nothing I could do
but it was getting hard to figure out just who was playing who

When I finally put it down - I could not catch my breath
My hands were shaking - and I was scared to death
The old man finally got up and said "where the Hell you been?"
"I've been waiting all these years - for you to stumble in!"

Then he took down an old dusty case - said "go on and pack it up"
"You don't owe me nothing" and then he said ..... "good luck!"
There was something spooky in his voice, something strange in his face
and when he shut the lid - I saw my name was on the case

=========================

Ok, that didn't quite happen to me -although it got close with a '28 Nick Lucas.

Here's how it should sound :

and here's my humble version :

[rmp]

back in the early 80s, I had joined a new band with a drummer/bass player I'd worked with before.

We were rehearsing in the garage where a real estate broker had their office (Key players Girl Friends dad was the broker) It was winter and the garage wasn't heated, so we had a propane heater on to warm the place up before we started to rehearse.

While we're waiting for the temps to get warm enough to play, the door to this garage opens, and three guys walk in. I knew one, he was the other guitar player, Bob's best friend, (Jack). While I knew Jack, thru Bob, I'd known Bob for a long time, this was our first band together, I did not know the other two. All I really recall is they were big dudes, and none of them looked all that happy to be there.

I look over at Bob, with a "What is going on?" expression, he shrugs, clearly doesn't seem to know or he's playing dumb.

Bob's friend Jack walks up to the Bass player, Rudy, and flat out accuses him of stealing his guitar. (A custom shop Dean Explorer which set the guy back quite a bit of dough) Apparently this happened some months prior to this evening.

So Rudy of course denies it, says he has no idea what he's talking about.

Jack's not buying it, points his finger at all of us and says "if any of you a-holes are in on this, or know something about it, you better come clean, or we'll be talking with ALL of you."

Jack looks back at Rudy and says "We're not done here, I want my axe back." and they all walk out.

Since I had a history with Rudy that wen back a good 10 years, for a previous band, so I tell him "Be straight with us,... did you do this?"

"No way, I'd never do anything like that"...

The next day, I call the local music store, the owner was someone I knew very well, had done business with that same store since I was in Jr high and took lessons there bought ALL my gear from him.

So I tell Paul (The store owner) why I'm calling, "I'm just concerned here,
birds of a feather you know? I don't want to be associated and working with guys who would do this"

Turns out, he knew of the exact guitar in question.

It was he who placed to order for Jack. His store was the only authorized Dean dealer in the area at the time.

He says "I shouldn't say anything, but you're a long standing great customer of ours and since you are now involved with this guy you probably need to know this, Rudy came in the store a days ago. He was trying to get me to sell a guitar on consignment, or buy it out right. He'd stripped the finish, and repainted it, but I know that guitar, it's for sure Jacks..."

Paul told me had called to Local PD to report it, and he said they would be looking for Rudy to ask him about it.

The story continues, there was a Fender P-Bass and an Ampeg Bass Head missing from the same location and same day the guitar was stolen.

At that point it's obvious to me, I'm in a band with a thief. I waited for everyone to get home from work and made 4 phone calls, dissolving my involvement. Met the Key player that night at the place we were rehearsing, and collected all my gear.

As far as I know, Jack never got his axe back.

[whvick]

Originally Posted by TBman

I play finger style and don't need any picks, but here's a story anyway.

My wife and I met in 1992. My wife has two children from a previous marriage. Her 19 year old daughter had a boyfriend who told us his younger brother played guitar. I had an Ovation (yes, but a black Legend, not bad), my Guild D-55 and a Yamaha 12 string (solid top, lam sides I think) that I no longer played.

I had played that 12 string as a 12 string for years as a teen well into my 20s, taking it with me all over. (How many years did I play Stairway on that 12!)

Finally I got tired of the 12 string and just strung it as a 6. I was so tired of the jangle even tuned down 2 steps as was the norm back then. When I got my Guild, the Yamaha sat unplayed for years.

The boyfriend's brother played looking for a new guitar as his was on its way out, but being a kid he didn't have a lot of money. I went out and got new strings for the 12, strung it up and we arranged for him to come over for a visit with his brother. I asked him, "Gee we hear you play guitar" and he looked at me and before he could say anything I took the case out of the closet and said, open this, its yours. I can't take the 12 strings anymore and laughed. Well we thought he was going to cry right there.

I'll never forget the look of joy on that kid's face.

So good to give!
And how was it playing a 12 as a 6? Did you like the extra sting spacing ?