Life is full of too many
“What was I thinking?”
moments to chronicle on a single
magazine page—and, doubtless,
they’d be far too personal
and/or incriminating for mass
consumption. But tales of guitar-gear
regret? I think we could all
go on for hours about those.
I’ve recently been thinking
about my own gear goofs over
the years. In some cases, the
screwups were pretty innocuous—I was new to guitardom
and didn’t know any better—but
some are pretty cringe-inducing
and depressing. As you’ll see,
left to my own devices growing
up in a town with practically
no music scene, I didn’t always
make the greatest choices. Here
are some of the lowlights.
Tubes? Cut the crap, Mr.
Salesman.
I was 13, I’d been
playing for a year, and I’d saved
enough money to buy my first
electric. Not knowing anyone
else who played guitar (except
my classically trained nazi of an
instructor, who practically spat
in my face when he learned of
my plans to buy a solidbody),
I was at the mercy of my mom
and the salesman at the big
annual sale at Herger Music
in Provo, Utah. I settled on a
sunburst 1983 Fender Strat.
Naturally, I needed an amp,
too, but when the salesperson
said a lot of players prefer amps
with vacuum tubes, mom saw
red flags and her mother-bear
instincts kicked in: How dare
that weasel try to pass off yesterday’s
technology on her innocent
little son?! We’ll take the solid-state
Peavey Backstage Plus,
thank you. In the end, I couldn’t
complain too much:—I won the
door prize at the end of the sale:
a Marshall Master Lead Combo,
which I kept in lieu of the
Peavey. Mom must’ve breathed
two sighs of relief. A) It was
free, and B) it didn’t have any of
those pesky glowing bottles.
Homemade Guitar Spandex.
By age 15, I’d read enough about
Eddie Van Halen to be convinced
I’d never be happy without
a bridge-position humbucker
and a Floyd Rose. I saved up and
bought a top-of-the-line Kramer
Stagemaster Custom with a
Floyd and Duncan pickups—a
JB and two Vintage Staggered
single-coils. It was “flip-flop red,”
and I was stoked. But within
a year or so, some odd mix of
inspiration from Steve Vai’s
adventurous use of solder, coins,
and denim, as well as Jennifer
Batten’s green Axesak—basically,
guitar spandex —inspired me to
buy a psychedelic polyester shirt
from a thrift store and try to figure
out how to fit it around my
guitar. Fortunately, I never did.
Dry-Ice Dumbassery.
Fifteen-year-olds . . . band
practice . . . dry ice in a bowl
of water for some Spinal Tap-style
fun . . . not a good mix. I
spilled some into my DigiTech
PDS 1550 Programmable
Distortion pedal and then
nearly pooped my pants trying
to figure out how I’d explain
that one to mom. Luckily, it
worked again after drying out
for a couple of days.
ADA MP-1 into a JC-120.
I eventually graduated from
the PDS 1550 and solid-state
Marshall to a 128-preset rackmount
unit plugged into the
squeaky-cleanest amp on earth.
I thought those little 12AX7s
were magical at the time. I had
a lot to learn about tubes.
Refinishing? How Hard
Could That Be?
By college, I’d
gotten over my Floyd addiction
and lusted after Eric Johnson’s
vintage Strats and plexi
Marshall (I’d already replaced
my JC-120 with a ’65 Twin
Reverb reissue—half of EJ’s
Ah
Via Musicom-era amp rig). But
I had zero money for another
guitar. Eager to tame the
Kramer’s iridescence, I decided
a quick trip to Home Depot
was the key to giving the guitar
a more classic look. Sandpaper?
Check. Blue tape? Check.
Orange-ish-brown stain? Check.
Horribly botched finish? Check.
Fortunately, a couple years later
I found a guy online who was
willing to trade for a VHT
Pittbull combo. Poor guy.
StrapLok Horror.
A bit
after the botched finish job, I
lined up enough cash for a PRS
Custom 24. Intent on protecting
my $2200, black-cherry
10 top, I purchased a set of
StrapLoks. The instructions
said something about drilling
out the holes, but I figured,
“Hey, it already has holes—just
screw ’em in.” I ended up with
a stripped screw head and a
half-tightened StrapLok that
spun around its axis. No big
deal, right? Just hacksaw it,
unscrew the stripped part with
pliers, drill out the hole, and
start over. Yeah, that worked,
but the hacksaw scrape on the
upper horn wasn’t quite what
I’d envisioned.
Twin-Reverb Overdrive.
Long ago, I’d read a lot about
the tonal juju imparted by
power tubes, which is why I got
my reissue Twin. But I still had a
thing or two to learn. For example,
a cranked Twin does not
produce that legendary power-tube
overdrive. It blows 6L6s.
Selling a Rare Matchless.
Burned by my cranked-Twin
experience, I set my sights
on acquiring an EL84-
driven Matchless. By sheer
luck, I found a very rare
Skyliner Reverb combo on
musiciansfriend.com and bought
it. According to Matchless reps,
fewer than 10 of these partial
PC-board amps were made
before the company went out
of business for a bit. Despite
what purist snobs may say, the
amp ruled—and I finally owned
something that could give me
that power-tube glory. I’m still
kicking myself for selling it a
couple of years later to finance a
hard-disk recording setup that is
probably now rotting in a pawnshop
somewhere.
I could go on, of course,
but I’m out of space. I have
to admit, this trip down bad-memory
lane was pretty fun,
though. If there’s a single lesson
here, I’d say it’s that you
should always find an experienced
mentor to guide you into
unfamiliar gear territory. Good
guitar journalism like what PG
strives to offer is a start, but you
should also supplement that
with real-time dialogue with a
trusted mentor.
We’d love to hear your
tales of guitar-gear regret. So
send them via email to me at
shawn@premierguitar.com or
comment on this article below.