Guitarists Anonymous
They say "you can never have too many guitars", but we've all seen the tragic effects of having too many guitars on people's lives. The broken marriages, the lack of money, the wasted hours spent hanging about in music shops, the obsessive interest in other people's guitars.
But here at Guitarists Anonymous, we understand your problem, and can give you the chance to meet with others who share and can relate to your problems. You don't have to deal with things on your own; our support network is here to help. Here are a few of our members' stories.
Bruce Is First To Confront His Problem
Hello. My name is Bruce, and I'm a guitarist. I've been a guitarist for many years now, but it's only recently I've been able to admit it to myself.
At first, and it was many years ago, I had a guitar just to be like all the other kids. It seemed to make it easier to mix with other people, and make me feel important. With a guitar in my hand, I was suddenly everybody's pal.
I used to have just one guitar, now and again. Sometimes I could go for ages without having a guitar. But you know how it is; I'd say to myself, "I think I need a guitar." Then later it would be, "I'll just have one more guitar. I know when I've had enough. I can stop any time I like." I thought I could take it or leave it.
But now I realise that the guitar is controlling my life. I seem to be spending more and more of my time hanging around with other guitarists. If I don't have a guitar in my hand, I'm thinking about guitars. If someone has left a guitar unattended, it's all I can do not to have a little try of it while no one is looking. I go away for whole weekends at a time to play guitars, then come back as if nothing had happened.
I had a look the other day, and was shocked to see how many guitars I have. I feel so ashamed but I just can't seem to help getting more. So far I have:-
Electric guitars 3; acoustic guitars 4; resonator guitars 4; lap steel guitars 1; pedal steel guitars 2; bass guitar 1. Oh, and a 5-string banjo too, which shows how low I've sunk.
And it's not just guitars either; I like shorts too, which include:-
fiddles 3; mandolin 1; ukelele 1; whistles 1; concertina 1; and yes, a set of bagpipes! Oh shame!
Progress report - Feb 2013
Sadly, Bruce's condition has worsened. In mid 2012, he claimed to have been "given" 2 guitars from his friend David Findlay-Brown (now sadly deceased), and in September of that year commissioned a fiddle from a fiddle maker in Tipperary, despite his obvious inability to handle it. Things got worse in February of 2013, when, under the illusion he was along to help a friend (see Jim, below) select a guitar (or two) in Edinburgh's GUITAR GUITAR shop, somehow ended up buying two resonator guitars of very dubious pedigree.
Progress report - Aug 2017
Despite the passage of time, there has been little improvement, and now there are 5 electrics, 6 resonators (the latest acquired only this month, although he claims it was a gift from his wife), and 3 ukuleles.
Jim Comes Clean
My name is Jim and yes, I too have fallen victim to that affliction, the obsession with guitar and all other associated Stringed Things, well maybe not banjos (Ok so I do have an old one hidden in the garage). I suffer badly from GAS, no not that, although after a couple of pints of Guinness and a vindaloo, it has been known. No this is Guitar Acquisition Syndrome and I am also a victim of the even more serious variant MAS, mandolin acquisition syndrome. Mandolins are smaller, easier to sneak into the house and hide. When they are discovered you can plead that they are little and don’t take up much space. I have shelves full of books about stringed instruments, large colourful coffee table books, full of wonderful colour photos of guitars and mandolins, what a friend of mine refers to as “guitar porn”. I bore people to death talking about them, saying things like “ Look he’s playing a vintage Martin D 45 with snowflake inlay, wow ! “. I knew I was beyond redemption when I looked at a magazine cover of an attractive young blonde draped round a guitar and I said “ What a beautiful National Style O”.
This is an addiction that has only really hit me in my later years, sure like all youngsters I dabbled, just the odd strummed G chord maybe the occasional experiment with fingerpicking, but I put it aside for the sake of my growing family. Then I found the Guitar Club, nights spent playing guitars, talking about music, drinking, even singing, drinking, listening to other people playing, oh and did I mention, drinking. When I think about it I wish I had discovered the guitar addiction sooner, I love it.
I will admit to 5 guitars, 3 mandolins, an octave mandolin (that’s like a mandolin on steroids), a fiddle, a ukulele and assorted bits of instruments in the garage……… oh and that banjo, but that was given to me so it doesn’t really count and neither do 3 of the others as I made them……..so exactly how much is that nice little tenor guitar ?
Derek Finds It Hard To Admit His Addiction
Hi my name is Derek and I’m not a guitarist.
Sure I play guitar, but doesn’t everybody.
I can handle it see.
I only play guitar socially.
I’m not addicted to playing guitar or nothing not like those other losers.
I just do it cause I like the sound of it and it relaxes me after a hard day at work.
Actually I’m cutting down at the minute, not cause I have to or anything, just cause I wanted to.
I used to have four guitars. I’ve only got three now and ukulele and a keyboard but they don’t count.
I sold the other one just to show that I can control it.
I only go out playing guitar twice a week, three at the most, and I can always remember it the next day.
Doctors think a little strum now and again is actually good for you so where’s the harm in it eh.?
I never touch heavy metal or anything just little bit of light folk or pop.
I could give up playing guitar any time I wanted to I did before years ago and I could do it again know but I just don’t want to.
So if I turn up at a guitar session and play a few tunes before any one else, it’s not because I’ve got a problem, I just like to get in tune and warm up that’s all.
I can go a whole day without even playing guitar. How many guitarists can say that eh.?
Anyway must dash there’s this new lick I want to learn and it’s guitar club tonight and I wouldn’t want to be late It would be rude wouldn’t it?
Gill's Tale Of Woe
Hello, my name is Gill and I'm a guitarist......well I say guitarist, I'm not really like all these boys that are owning up to owning umpteen guitars and several mandolins...I mean for goodness sake, I am a girl after all and above all the sordid, 'guitar porn' that some of the boys are confessing to have lurking in dark corners of their homes. I do have a couple of guitar videos but those are purely instructional and I never ever watch them just for pleasure..it's all in the name of research, I don't really enjoy watching them at all and I didn't buy them, an old boyfriend made me watch them and then left them behind.
I have things completely under control and never, and I mean never, let my guitar addiction control me....ever!! Well...there was the time that I got some money together to buy one new guitar and ended up buying two but Jim and Tom were partly to blame as their addicti....I mean enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I just couldn't help myself.
I will admit to actually owning 6 guitars...(OMG I have 6??!! - how'd that happen??) ...but you could say 4 of those don't count as 2 are babies and 2 are classicals that I've outgrown. I have a bass and a banjo/mandolin on loan but you can't count them at all because they don't actually belong to me. I do have a balalaika but you can't count that either because.....well just because. I enjoy meeting other addic...hrrmph.. enthusiasts on a Wednesday night in Paddy's but I only really go there to socialise, I only take the guitar to fit in with everyone else. I mean if they're all doing it in public, so it must be alright!
P.S. Did I mention I was coerced into buying a lap steel guitar recently, but in my defence I was simply doing a favour for a friend so you can't say I did it purely for my own pleasure
Judy's Sad Story
Hi my name is Judy and can’t admit to an addiction at all as I got my first guitar 37 years ago and only managed 3 chords for 3 years and never touched the thing again until 33 years later. Can’t call that an addiction can you?I must admit now I have 4 guitars, one a Back Packers guitar so I can take it everywhere I go. (Even allowed as an extra piece of hand luggage on a plane and it can pretend to be a shot gun hidden behind the back seat of my Land Rover. That’s not an addiction is it? ) 2 Guitars spend their time in the lounge, the other 2 in the study, If I had a problem I would have one in the loo and the bedroom wouldn’t I? My husband has a Sudoko addiction and he has a sudoko book in the loo and bedroom!!! put any of my guitars to one side and never play them but it is amazing how much house work get done because my favourite guitar gets in the way of the hoover!!!! ( Well would you rather do house work when you could pick up the guitar?)I actually think it is the alcohol I go to the pub sessions for on a Wednesday and Friday night, oops sometimes Thursday night too, those who actually know me know what my tipple is so it must be true!!
S.A.G.( Serious Addiction ) my tennis elbow ( which the doctor said was from playing too many bar chords without playing scales first) would have been called guitar elbow wouldn’t it? Same thing for my poor ‘trigger thumb’ that would have been called Guitar thumb!I know I don’t have S.A.G. ‘cos if you have read all the previous entries all those other Sad SAG B - - - - - ds have other stringed instruments too, I don’t but you never know what might appear in Santa’s sack!!
Gordon's Confession
"Hi, my name is Gordon and I have to confess to being an acoustic guitar geek. This is a fairly recent state of affairs. I’d been playing the same old second-hand, battered acoustic for over twenty years without even the slightest urge to get another one. Then a couple of years ago came my 40th birthday and the kind offer from my relatives of some money towards a new guitar. "That'd be nice", I thought. I started to do a wee bit of research and I quickly discovered that you could get many different kinds of acoustic guitars in all sorts of shapes and sizes. This revelation obviously awakened the inner acoustic guitar nerd in me because I spent the next few months avidly reading reviews and trying out different acoustics in shops before I finally brought home a nice new one. It looked lovely, it sounded great... heck it even smelled fantastic! You'd think that that would've been it, but unfortunately I found that I was still spending a lot of time reading about guitars and trying them out in shops. I had become obsessed! Then I started going to the Loanhead Guitar Club… bad move! Associating with those similarly afflicted caused my condition to deteriorate rapidly and pretty soon I could reel off Martin model numbers with the best of ‘em. I even discovered what "purfling" was (trust me, you don't want to know). It wasn't long before I'd come up with several seemingly valid reasons why I needed to get yet another acoustic guitar. So I've currently got three acoustics and you’d think I’d be satisfied, but the nagging wee voice in my head keeps telling me that I definitely need at least another one (my wife still requires some convincing). So remember kids, if anyone ever suggests that you get a new guitar for your birthday, please heed this sad tale… do yourself a favour and ask for a power-drill instead."
Red's Tale (real name ?)
Hello, my name is Red, (that's my real name, honest), and I'm here to warn you of the perils of getting involved with guitars. It is just not worth it. Sure you see all these smiling happy faces, whole roomfuls sometimes, of people enjoying their guitars, but there's always a price to pay for all that seemingly innocent fun. Don't get sucked in. It may look easy enough but behind that quick riff those in the know understand the hours of excessive indulgence it has taken to reach that stage. And just don't talk to me about slide guitar, it's not called that for nothing, Bruce. There's always strings attached. It all began by admiring role models in my youth and following their example, well it's all part of the glamorous rock n roll lifestyle that any teenager wanted to be part of, growing up in the '70's. It couldn't do any harm, all my friends were doing it, why not give it a try....Someone popped a plectrum in my hand, from the lefthand side, then I experimented with an Eko Ranger at first ( I'm sure that brings back a few memories to the old gits reading this). Ah, but it wasn't long until I began hanging about with others, forming bands and going electric, discovering Gibson and Fender and other names I'm too embarrassed to mention. Seriously embarrassed to mention, looking back.
The crazy thing is I managed to stop before getting in too deep, whether it was my growing (bad) reputation or the fact that I got married and with family impending I decided that I should get out while I could, sold all my gear, settled down, got my hair cut - yes got my HAIR CUT! Started wearing suits, concentrated on my job, can't believe it now reading this back - I was there.
About 10 years later I was passing a shop in Stafford Street, yes, it's no longer there, but you know the one. Gordon made me buy that guitar as soon as I stepped through the door, the second - hand Yamaha. He knew a weak reversionary fool when he saw one. Yeah, I know it is a big word and this is a bit long winded, but stick with me, it's about guitars, and what else have you got to do? I didn't play it, it sat in the corner for years, but I knew it was there, just in case you understand. I didn't even hide it from my wife, and besides, it looked good - " yeah, I play guitar man".
Roll on or rock on, 20 or so years and a lot of dust later, and my good friend ( or so I thought ), George spies it in the corner and before you know what's happened you're having regular sessions at home, but you can handle it....Then there's the getting up in the middle of the night 'cos you can't sleep - I'll just have a quick strum, we've all been there.
Fingerpicking rapidly overtook the relatively safe strumming. Then he introduced me to a club, well they were all at it there, every week. It quickly snowballed from there, I went to another club, then another club. These people at Nitten/Dalkeith/Loanhead ( there I've named them ), would indulge every week, unashamedly egging each other on to experiment with new songs, go on learn another one, then another. Not only that but they mixed genres - folk to begin with, a little Country,progressing from soft rock to hard rock, and yes I have to admit to it, eventually BLUES. If my mother could see me now! There could only be one outcome - rockbottom - I started writing my own songs, things couldn't get any worse (you've heard my songs then).... I got so carried away in the euphoria that I even took part in the local music festival. Entered the songwriting competition a few times, oh! when I thought about it the next morning...
You still here? Well you see these lost souls at Paddy's that have cajoled me to 'come out', have been at me for years to admit that I have a serious affliction : GAS. I'm assured it is quite common, ask my doctor friend Ian, or my neighbours, George or Ian. They've also been asking me to come out and play, but I know I can get more songs in if I stay at home on my own and play. Alone, solitary playing, how sad am I?
It all started when I fell for my first Martin, yeah, you heard right, my first Martin - one is more than enough for any (normal) guitarist. Proves my point really. Anyho', the guy that wouldn't get anymore guitars also would never have a computer. The combination of course is potentially lethal. An overstatement I hear you exclaim. I'm married remember.....You see the web, as you know, brings the world to your door, from Blue G in Japan to G base in the States, from tab sites to forums. And the tuition videos, will I never take a break? Talking of which I now keep a guitar in Spain - I don't even go on holiday without one!
Twenty - odd guitars later, you should see my warehouse, I mean house! Seriously hooked. CD's, tuition DVD's, shedloads of guitar tab books, vintage guitar price guides, libraries of magazines, tuners, capos, stands, amplifiers - no I don't play electric now, these three are for investment purposes only. This week I bought six sets of Elixirs, I remember when one would satisfy me.
I now whisper huddled in corners with my mate Jim, peering over our shoulders, we exchange secret words like Zemaitis, Lowden, Avalon, Santa Cruz, Bourgeois, Olsen, Ryan, D' Angelico and declare " it's quality man ". Backing each other up on our predilections. Now you have to admit it takes a lot of years of degradation to arrive at such like. Do guitar police exist? One day soon I suspect. Me, I'm hoping the government will take the 'victim' route and offer counselling. I blame the advertisements, they are so irresistible.
I should have noted those little warnings - are you the guy from Scotland that bought the... says the guy in the New York store, forays into Canada, even England. The invite from Sean to the GuitarGuitar staff Christmas party should have been enough. Anyway, chatting to Patrick Eggle the other day about what I'd said to Stefan Sobell, reminded me that I should really submit this article to warn others. And the guitars - what have I got? I DON'T want to talk about it . You understand. Don't you.....
Oh and if you see the wife, tell her I won't change my mind about guitars, I'm happy with the one I've got!
Anyway, must go there's a guitar on ebay and the auction's about to close....
But here at Guitarists Anonymous, we understand your problem, and can give you the chance to meet with others who share and can relate to your problems. You don't have to deal with things on your own; our support network is here to help. Here are a few of our members' stories.
Bruce Is First To Confront His Problem
Hello. My name is Bruce, and I'm a guitarist. I've been a guitarist for many years now, but it's only recently I've been able to admit it to myself.
At first, and it was many years ago, I had a guitar just to be like all the other kids. It seemed to make it easier to mix with other people, and make me feel important. With a guitar in my hand, I was suddenly everybody's pal.
I used to have just one guitar, now and again. Sometimes I could go for ages without having a guitar. But you know how it is; I'd say to myself, "I think I need a guitar." Then later it would be, "I'll just have one more guitar. I know when I've had enough. I can stop any time I like." I thought I could take it or leave it.
But now I realise that the guitar is controlling my life. I seem to be spending more and more of my time hanging around with other guitarists. If I don't have a guitar in my hand, I'm thinking about guitars. If someone has left a guitar unattended, it's all I can do not to have a little try of it while no one is looking. I go away for whole weekends at a time to play guitars, then come back as if nothing had happened.
I had a look the other day, and was shocked to see how many guitars I have. I feel so ashamed but I just can't seem to help getting more. So far I have:-
Electric guitars 3; acoustic guitars 4; resonator guitars 4; lap steel guitars 1; pedal steel guitars 2; bass guitar 1. Oh, and a 5-string banjo too, which shows how low I've sunk.
And it's not just guitars either; I like shorts too, which include:-
fiddles 3; mandolin 1; ukelele 1; whistles 1; concertina 1; and yes, a set of bagpipes! Oh shame!
Progress report - Feb 2013
Sadly, Bruce's condition has worsened. In mid 2012, he claimed to have been "given" 2 guitars from his friend David Findlay-Brown (now sadly deceased), and in September of that year commissioned a fiddle from a fiddle maker in Tipperary, despite his obvious inability to handle it. Things got worse in February of 2013, when, under the illusion he was along to help a friend (see Jim, below) select a guitar (or two) in Edinburgh's GUITAR GUITAR shop, somehow ended up buying two resonator guitars of very dubious pedigree.
Progress report - Aug 2017
Despite the passage of time, there has been little improvement, and now there are 5 electrics, 6 resonators (the latest acquired only this month, although he claims it was a gift from his wife), and 3 ukuleles.
Jim Comes Clean
My name is Jim and yes, I too have fallen victim to that affliction, the obsession with guitar and all other associated Stringed Things, well maybe not banjos (Ok so I do have an old one hidden in the garage). I suffer badly from GAS, no not that, although after a couple of pints of Guinness and a vindaloo, it has been known. No this is Guitar Acquisition Syndrome and I am also a victim of the even more serious variant MAS, mandolin acquisition syndrome. Mandolins are smaller, easier to sneak into the house and hide. When they are discovered you can plead that they are little and don’t take up much space. I have shelves full of books about stringed instruments, large colourful coffee table books, full of wonderful colour photos of guitars and mandolins, what a friend of mine refers to as “guitar porn”. I bore people to death talking about them, saying things like “ Look he’s playing a vintage Martin D 45 with snowflake inlay, wow ! “. I knew I was beyond redemption when I looked at a magazine cover of an attractive young blonde draped round a guitar and I said “ What a beautiful National Style O”.
This is an addiction that has only really hit me in my later years, sure like all youngsters I dabbled, just the odd strummed G chord maybe the occasional experiment with fingerpicking, but I put it aside for the sake of my growing family. Then I found the Guitar Club, nights spent playing guitars, talking about music, drinking, even singing, drinking, listening to other people playing, oh and did I mention, drinking. When I think about it I wish I had discovered the guitar addiction sooner, I love it.
I will admit to 5 guitars, 3 mandolins, an octave mandolin (that’s like a mandolin on steroids), a fiddle, a ukulele and assorted bits of instruments in the garage……… oh and that banjo, but that was given to me so it doesn’t really count and neither do 3 of the others as I made them……..so exactly how much is that nice little tenor guitar ?
Derek Finds It Hard To Admit His Addiction
Hi my name is Derek and I’m not a guitarist.
Sure I play guitar, but doesn’t everybody.
I can handle it see.
I only play guitar socially.
I’m not addicted to playing guitar or nothing not like those other losers.
I just do it cause I like the sound of it and it relaxes me after a hard day at work.
Actually I’m cutting down at the minute, not cause I have to or anything, just cause I wanted to.
I used to have four guitars. I’ve only got three now and ukulele and a keyboard but they don’t count.
I sold the other one just to show that I can control it.
I only go out playing guitar twice a week, three at the most, and I can always remember it the next day.
Doctors think a little strum now and again is actually good for you so where’s the harm in it eh.?
I never touch heavy metal or anything just little bit of light folk or pop.
I could give up playing guitar any time I wanted to I did before years ago and I could do it again know but I just don’t want to.
So if I turn up at a guitar session and play a few tunes before any one else, it’s not because I’ve got a problem, I just like to get in tune and warm up that’s all.
I can go a whole day without even playing guitar. How many guitarists can say that eh.?
Anyway must dash there’s this new lick I want to learn and it’s guitar club tonight and I wouldn’t want to be late It would be rude wouldn’t it?
Gill's Tale Of Woe
Hello, my name is Gill and I'm a guitarist......well I say guitarist, I'm not really like all these boys that are owning up to owning umpteen guitars and several mandolins...I mean for goodness sake, I am a girl after all and above all the sordid, 'guitar porn' that some of the boys are confessing to have lurking in dark corners of their homes. I do have a couple of guitar videos but those are purely instructional and I never ever watch them just for pleasure..it's all in the name of research, I don't really enjoy watching them at all and I didn't buy them, an old boyfriend made me watch them and then left them behind.
I have things completely under control and never, and I mean never, let my guitar addiction control me....ever!! Well...there was the time that I got some money together to buy one new guitar and ended up buying two but Jim and Tom were partly to blame as their addicti....I mean enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I just couldn't help myself.
I will admit to actually owning 6 guitars...(OMG I have 6??!! - how'd that happen??) ...but you could say 4 of those don't count as 2 are babies and 2 are classicals that I've outgrown. I have a bass and a banjo/mandolin on loan but you can't count them at all because they don't actually belong to me. I do have a balalaika but you can't count that either because.....well just because. I enjoy meeting other addic...hrrmph.. enthusiasts on a Wednesday night in Paddy's but I only really go there to socialise, I only take the guitar to fit in with everyone else. I mean if they're all doing it in public, so it must be alright!
P.S. Did I mention I was coerced into buying a lap steel guitar recently, but in my defence I was simply doing a favour for a friend so you can't say I did it purely for my own pleasure
Judy's Sad Story
Hi my name is Judy and can’t admit to an addiction at all as I got my first guitar 37 years ago and only managed 3 chords for 3 years and never touched the thing again until 33 years later. Can’t call that an addiction can you?I must admit now I have 4 guitars, one a Back Packers guitar so I can take it everywhere I go. (Even allowed as an extra piece of hand luggage on a plane and it can pretend to be a shot gun hidden behind the back seat of my Land Rover. That’s not an addiction is it? ) 2 Guitars spend their time in the lounge, the other 2 in the study, If I had a problem I would have one in the loo and the bedroom wouldn’t I? My husband has a Sudoko addiction and he has a sudoko book in the loo and bedroom!!! put any of my guitars to one side and never play them but it is amazing how much house work get done because my favourite guitar gets in the way of the hoover!!!! ( Well would you rather do house work when you could pick up the guitar?)I actually think it is the alcohol I go to the pub sessions for on a Wednesday and Friday night, oops sometimes Thursday night too, those who actually know me know what my tipple is so it must be true!!
S.A.G.( Serious Addiction ) my tennis elbow ( which the doctor said was from playing too many bar chords without playing scales first) would have been called guitar elbow wouldn’t it? Same thing for my poor ‘trigger thumb’ that would have been called Guitar thumb!I know I don’t have S.A.G. ‘cos if you have read all the previous entries all those other Sad SAG B - - - - - ds have other stringed instruments too, I don’t but you never know what might appear in Santa’s sack!!
Gordon's Confession
"Hi, my name is Gordon and I have to confess to being an acoustic guitar geek. This is a fairly recent state of affairs. I’d been playing the same old second-hand, battered acoustic for over twenty years without even the slightest urge to get another one. Then a couple of years ago came my 40th birthday and the kind offer from my relatives of some money towards a new guitar. "That'd be nice", I thought. I started to do a wee bit of research and I quickly discovered that you could get many different kinds of acoustic guitars in all sorts of shapes and sizes. This revelation obviously awakened the inner acoustic guitar nerd in me because I spent the next few months avidly reading reviews and trying out different acoustics in shops before I finally brought home a nice new one. It looked lovely, it sounded great... heck it even smelled fantastic! You'd think that that would've been it, but unfortunately I found that I was still spending a lot of time reading about guitars and trying them out in shops. I had become obsessed! Then I started going to the Loanhead Guitar Club… bad move! Associating with those similarly afflicted caused my condition to deteriorate rapidly and pretty soon I could reel off Martin model numbers with the best of ‘em. I even discovered what "purfling" was (trust me, you don't want to know). It wasn't long before I'd come up with several seemingly valid reasons why I needed to get yet another acoustic guitar. So I've currently got three acoustics and you’d think I’d be satisfied, but the nagging wee voice in my head keeps telling me that I definitely need at least another one (my wife still requires some convincing). So remember kids, if anyone ever suggests that you get a new guitar for your birthday, please heed this sad tale… do yourself a favour and ask for a power-drill instead."
Red's Tale (real name ?)
Hello, my name is Red, (that's my real name, honest), and I'm here to warn you of the perils of getting involved with guitars. It is just not worth it. Sure you see all these smiling happy faces, whole roomfuls sometimes, of people enjoying their guitars, but there's always a price to pay for all that seemingly innocent fun. Don't get sucked in. It may look easy enough but behind that quick riff those in the know understand the hours of excessive indulgence it has taken to reach that stage. And just don't talk to me about slide guitar, it's not called that for nothing, Bruce. There's always strings attached. It all began by admiring role models in my youth and following their example, well it's all part of the glamorous rock n roll lifestyle that any teenager wanted to be part of, growing up in the '70's. It couldn't do any harm, all my friends were doing it, why not give it a try....Someone popped a plectrum in my hand, from the lefthand side, then I experimented with an Eko Ranger at first ( I'm sure that brings back a few memories to the old gits reading this). Ah, but it wasn't long until I began hanging about with others, forming bands and going electric, discovering Gibson and Fender and other names I'm too embarrassed to mention. Seriously embarrassed to mention, looking back.
The crazy thing is I managed to stop before getting in too deep, whether it was my growing (bad) reputation or the fact that I got married and with family impending I decided that I should get out while I could, sold all my gear, settled down, got my hair cut - yes got my HAIR CUT! Started wearing suits, concentrated on my job, can't believe it now reading this back - I was there.
About 10 years later I was passing a shop in Stafford Street, yes, it's no longer there, but you know the one. Gordon made me buy that guitar as soon as I stepped through the door, the second - hand Yamaha. He knew a weak reversionary fool when he saw one. Yeah, I know it is a big word and this is a bit long winded, but stick with me, it's about guitars, and what else have you got to do? I didn't play it, it sat in the corner for years, but I knew it was there, just in case you understand. I didn't even hide it from my wife, and besides, it looked good - " yeah, I play guitar man".
Roll on or rock on, 20 or so years and a lot of dust later, and my good friend ( or so I thought ), George spies it in the corner and before you know what's happened you're having regular sessions at home, but you can handle it....Then there's the getting up in the middle of the night 'cos you can't sleep - I'll just have a quick strum, we've all been there.
Fingerpicking rapidly overtook the relatively safe strumming. Then he introduced me to a club, well they were all at it there, every week. It quickly snowballed from there, I went to another club, then another club. These people at Nitten/Dalkeith/Loanhead ( there I've named them ), would indulge every week, unashamedly egging each other on to experiment with new songs, go on learn another one, then another. Not only that but they mixed genres - folk to begin with, a little Country,progressing from soft rock to hard rock, and yes I have to admit to it, eventually BLUES. If my mother could see me now! There could only be one outcome - rockbottom - I started writing my own songs, things couldn't get any worse (you've heard my songs then).... I got so carried away in the euphoria that I even took part in the local music festival. Entered the songwriting competition a few times, oh! when I thought about it the next morning...
You still here? Well you see these lost souls at Paddy's that have cajoled me to 'come out', have been at me for years to admit that I have a serious affliction : GAS. I'm assured it is quite common, ask my doctor friend Ian, or my neighbours, George or Ian. They've also been asking me to come out and play, but I know I can get more songs in if I stay at home on my own and play. Alone, solitary playing, how sad am I?
It all started when I fell for my first Martin, yeah, you heard right, my first Martin - one is more than enough for any (normal) guitarist. Proves my point really. Anyho', the guy that wouldn't get anymore guitars also would never have a computer. The combination of course is potentially lethal. An overstatement I hear you exclaim. I'm married remember.....You see the web, as you know, brings the world to your door, from Blue G in Japan to G base in the States, from tab sites to forums. And the tuition videos, will I never take a break? Talking of which I now keep a guitar in Spain - I don't even go on holiday without one!
Twenty - odd guitars later, you should see my warehouse, I mean house! Seriously hooked. CD's, tuition DVD's, shedloads of guitar tab books, vintage guitar price guides, libraries of magazines, tuners, capos, stands, amplifiers - no I don't play electric now, these three are for investment purposes only. This week I bought six sets of Elixirs, I remember when one would satisfy me.
I now whisper huddled in corners with my mate Jim, peering over our shoulders, we exchange secret words like Zemaitis, Lowden, Avalon, Santa Cruz, Bourgeois, Olsen, Ryan, D' Angelico and declare " it's quality man ". Backing each other up on our predilections. Now you have to admit it takes a lot of years of degradation to arrive at such like. Do guitar police exist? One day soon I suspect. Me, I'm hoping the government will take the 'victim' route and offer counselling. I blame the advertisements, they are so irresistible.
I should have noted those little warnings - are you the guy from Scotland that bought the... says the guy in the New York store, forays into Canada, even England. The invite from Sean to the GuitarGuitar staff Christmas party should have been enough. Anyway, chatting to Patrick Eggle the other day about what I'd said to Stefan Sobell, reminded me that I should really submit this article to warn others. And the guitars - what have I got? I DON'T want to talk about it . You understand. Don't you.....
Oh and if you see the wife, tell her I won't change my mind about guitars, I'm happy with the one I've got!
Anyway, must go there's a guitar on ebay and the auction's about to close....
