Our Weirdest Craigslist Gear-Buying Tales

Danny Lee Blackwell [Night Beats]

A: One time I replied to an ad for a keyboard (Vox Continental) on Craigslist in Fort Worth, Texas. He wanted to meet in the parking lot of a Whataburger, which sounded strange but I agreed. I didn't know how we were going to test out the keyboard, because how were we going to plug it in, right? Either way, I meet up with him and he has a van with a built-in power supply and full moving workshop.

Vox Continental

He ended up being awesome and invited me back to his place to check out more of his gear. After a little deliberation, I said, "Why not?" We ended up playing music in his home for a few hours. I got on drums and played simple kraut-style beats on his drum kit while he tinkered around with organs and keys. Nice guy.

Current Obsession:

I've been a fan of Mdou Moctar since we opened for him in New Orleans a couple years ago. There's something about the inclusivity of his music that's so refreshing. I'm always coming back to my favorites though ... Smokey Robinson, Barbara Lynn, Selda Bağcan, Bill Withers. Lee Moses' Time and Place might never leave my head. He was the guitarist for the legendary Atlanta R&B artist, the Mighty Hannibal. That solo on Lee Moses' "Adorable One" is one of my favorite guitar phrases of all time: It's so simple and powerful, but ties the rest of the guitar work of the song together so beautifully.

Tyler Wells [Reader of the Month]

A: This happened last week ... I traded a Fender reissue '62 Strat for a fake John Mayer Stratocaster. The guy wouldn't trade back after I figured it out. It ended up costing me around $2K in value. On a happier note, I ended up trading the fake guitar for a Mexico-made Tele, which I traded my way up to an American Deluxe Strat. Almost back to where I started!

Current Obsession:

Spotify playlists! I'm loving how new music is curated to fit your musical taste while throwing old favorites into the mix. If you haven't experimented on Spotify playlists, you're missing out on some amazing music that you normally wouldn't listen to. I've been loving "Dionne" by Bon Iver/Japanese House, "Anyone" by Justin Bieber, and doing a throwback to some of the Black Keys' earlier albums.

Shawn Hammond [Chief Content Officer]

A: I've got two. #1: The weirdest was in a dream I had just last night. I lived in the same place I lived 25 years ago and I was using my 2021 iPhone to navigate my long-gone '93 Nissan Pathfinder to meet some Craigslist guy and sell him my Deluxe Reverb. My dream self was very dumb and agreed to meet him out in the boonies at the foot of massive, very ominous-looking mountains. Suddenly my GPS stopped working, I was badly lost, night was falling, and my phone wouldn't exit out of the current app to the home screen. I was so mad I bent the phone in half—and then immediately freaked out about it.

#2: In real life, a guy wanted to meet me at Wendy's and buy all three pedals in my ad. Once we were at the late Dave Thomas' place, the buyer just handed me the money without even opening the boxes. The next week, all of the pedals were for sale again on Craisglist, and from then on I periodically noticed ads for entire batches of pedals for sale from the same guy.

Shawn Hammond

Current Obsession:

Current Obsession:

I'm still obsessed with recording!

Tessa Jeffers [Managing Editor]

A: I only have one Craigslist story because of what happened to me in 2011. I'd just moved to Iowa to start an exciting new job at PG. I needed a couch, so my brother, who helped me move, suggested I grab a cheap one off Craigslist. We found one quickly for $50 and picked it up. That evening, I saw a bug crawling on the arm of the couch, a curious type of insect I'd never seen before. I captured the bug in a Ziploc, Google ID'd it, and then immediately shoved the couch off my apartment balcony to the dumpster below. It was a bed bug. The couch was definitely the source because I called an exterminator ASAP and no other bugs were found. NEVER again!!!

Current Obsession:

Live concerts, because it's been two years, summer of 2019, since we enjoyed a full concert season. Reminiscing about special ones I saw during that time: Anderson .Paak, Raconteurs, Lana Del Rey, Tame Impala, the 1975, and Foo Fighters.