Like most people, the musician has processions that are precious to them. However; none are more precious than their instrument of choice, in my case my guitars.
Every guitar I have ever owned demands a place of affection in my heart, with the possible exception of the two twelve string acoustics I owned as a teenager, which were subsequently the only two guitars I ever got shot of.
I still have the 20 quid classical acoustic guitar that my parents bought me for my failed guitar lessons at school (my teacher did not like rock music, considering them to be sub level musicians and rock was the whole point of learning as far as I was concerned).
It may be battered, cracked to be exact, when a teenage girl I had been teasing took acceptation at one of my stupid adolescent remarks and endeavoured to kick me in the shin sadly putting a thumping great hole in my guitar instead. It wouldn’t be the last time a guitar would get between me and a girl that’s for sure. It is also pretty grubby and now lives in the loft, but I still own it. And strum it from time to time.
I have my first electric guitar, purchased for me with great love and affection by my then girlfriend, now wife. Boy has she learnt to regret that decision as she became a ‘band widow’ at a very early age and to add insult to injury Aaron, our son and Mudheads guitarist cranked out his first power chords on that thing. It now lives in his living room and it is this that he drives his fiancée nuts with as he strums away of an evening.
Each guitar for me has a story, a history a special place in my memory and heart. I would no sooner get rid of one of them than I would one of my own children.
So it was with great empathy that I stood beside Aaron at our last acoustic gig when in a fit of haste he dropped the lid of his acoustic case down onto the body of his pristine and much loved acoustic guitar and catching the body with the lids catch leaving a four inch scratch right across the front. It will be a constant reminder to him that these things apart from being extremely expensive are also fragile.
It brought memories flooding back of the two occasions (other than the kicked classical) I managed to damage guitars and that sick feeling you are left with in your gut.
The first occasion was not my fault and I had to fight the urge to separate somebody’s breath from their bodies when they knocked my bass guitar over and snapped the head stock clean off on a drum riser.
The next time was doubly sickening as in a fit of ill humour brought about by having to perform at a gig I REALLY did not want to do I snatched up my acoustic guitar not realising that I had not put the catches down on the case.
It was with that slow motion look of horror that is brought about by the inevitable disaster that is unravelling before you that painted my face as my acoustic flew out of the case, sailed across the living room and came into sharp contact with the corner of the dining table leaving a hole the size of a 50 pence piece in it. It did nothing to improve my mood that was for sure.
I have always marvelled and perhaps envied those rock guitarists that can lift their hallowed axes aloft and then smash the living daylights out of them for the edification of their audiences without bursting into tears or falling to their knees in sickening realisation of the heinous act they have just committed.
I always remember a public school boy of mine pontificating at length about how Jimi Hendrix would pour light fuel over his guitar and set fire to it out of frustration that he could not extract that perfection he so desired and sought from it.
I think probably more cynically that he realised early on that the audience were mad for it, knowledge that has forged the need for guitarists like Ritchie Blackmore taking a dedicated guitar tech on the road with him in order to reassemble the guitar he would smash every night.
However; I think I am definitely too sentimental to take such drastic action upon any of my beloved guitars and will, along with my son and heir, observe a two minute silence in recognition of the terrible scarring his guitar suffered for the sake of rock & roll.
“For those about to be scratched, we salute you”.
2 comments:
What! You didn't like those 12-string guitars? Those tinny jangling chords banging out 'Seek ye first' and 'A New Commandment' form part of the sound track of my youth.
I always suspected that The Who and others had an alternative set of 'Argos' guitars that were switched to be smashed on stage. I know that is what I'd do.
As a matter of interest, these rich guitarist types either swap the guitar for an Argos special just before they pummel the stage with it, as Quick Sketch mentioned, or before a tour they buy one guitar for each gig and break it as a climax to the set (this is what Pete Townsend, the original guitar slayer does).
You will never see Pete or one of his contemporaries breaking their beloved axes, only some work-a-day, bought buy the dozen Stratocasters.
...so now you know...
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