Lunch Report for Monday October 31st - Halloween!

[Lefty]

I'm a little pressed for time today so lunch will be Bacon & Eggs with a little salsa!

~~~~~

My 4 year old Fender Hot Rod DeVille amp started blowing fuses yesterday. So, this morning I have to pack it up and drop it off for service. It's still under warranty so there shouldn't be any costs involved but I reckon I'll be without an amp for a week or two. Maybe I should buy another amp?

~~~~~

This is my first time as Lunch Reporter. I decided to try something a little different and chronicle how I started playing guitar and where it has gone since then, so here goes:

I started playing guitar when I was about 13 years old. Coming from a economically challenged family, I learned to play someone else's right handed guitar... left handed. Yes, I learned to play it upside down.

The first guitar I owned was a inexpensive Silvertone (Danelectro) from Sears. http://www.vintagesilvertones.com/galle ... opper.html

Here is a old photo of me with that guitar:


Seems like just yesterday!! Later on I bought a Candy Apple Red 1963 Fender Strat and a Burgundy Gretsch Country Gentleman. I played in a Country band from the age of 15-18 or so. As I tried to advance, I found that some chords were impossible to play upside down. Learning to play the guitar backward was a mistake!

How did you all start playing?

~~~~~

My first G&L guitar is a Butterscotch Blonde ASAT Classic.



I purchased it from Don DePaola, who I consider to be a good guitarist. Here he is in a You Tube video, playing my first G&L guitar shortly before I bought it:

performing Spring Street, an original composition, on ASAT Classic:

[youtube]8q6Y0BW6OO4[/youtube]

It is one of my favorite guitars.

That's all for Today folks!! Happy Halloween!!

[Dave_P]

Great photo Lefty!

How I started: I remember one of my sister's boyfriends leaving his strat at my house while they went out on a date. That was my first real experience with a guitar (though I'm not sure how old I was, probably 10-12) I eventually got an Epiphone strat copy for Christmas when I was 12 or 13.

Lunch: I had a tuna melt with some salad and a little mac & cheese

Beautiful asat! I just missed out on a Bluesboy the other day, same color combo, man I wanted that guitar, price was too good it sold within the same day it was listed on CL. If I hadn't just bought a new acoustic I'd have snagged it the moment I saw it.

-Dave

[darwinohm]

Welcome Lefty. It sounds like our beginnings were very similar. I grew up in northern Minnesota, economically challenged for sure. We were happy to say the least and never suspected any different. My first was a Harmony archtop,when I was 7 or 8. You owned some pretty cool guitars back them. Great picture with the Sears. They were popular back then. A friend of mine bought an early Sears Acoustic (early 60s) and it had a baseball bat neck. It is still like the day he bought it and he just passed away last month.

Your Asat is awesome. You probably could have salvaged your Hot Rod but a tech will get it right. I uusually pull the tubes and see if it still blows a fuse. If not, I put them in one a time and when she blows the fuse, that tube is suspect.I have a tendency to nurse things along. It is amazing sometimes what a fresh set of tubes can do. Great start.-- Darwin

[sickbutnottired]

I was always fascinated with electric guitar. I got a ukelele when I was about 5. My mom made me practice; I rebelled and spent all my time pretending to be jimi hendrix on ukelele and dreaming about a six string. Got my first electric--a 3/4 size, whatever that is, Peavey when I was about 11 or 12. I still wasn't a quick study, but I could get fuzz out of my Gorilla amp! It was on!

Edit: tried to make post coherent.

[Lefty]

Welcome Lefty. It sounds like our beginnings were very similar. I grew up in northern Minnesota, economically challenged for sure. We were happy to say the least and never suspected any different. My first was a Harmony archtop,when I was 7 or 8. You owned some pretty cool guitars back them. Great picture with the Sears. They were popular back then. A friend of mine bought an early Sears Acoustic (early 60s) and it had a baseball bat neck. It is still like the day he bought it and he just passed away last month.

Your Asat is awesome. You probably could have salvaged your Hot Rod but a tech will get it right. I uusually pull the tubes and see if it still blows a fuse. If not, I put them in one a time and when she blows the fuse, that tube is suspect.I have a tendency to nurse things along. It is amazing sometimes what a fresh set of tubes can do. Great start.-- Darwin

Darwin,

I grew up in southern Minnesota..

About my Hot Rod amp - I'm still waiting to hear that the repair has been approved. This is an extended warranty thing, so who knows how that will go. Before I decided to part with it, I did remove all the tubes, replaced the fuse, power on OK, switch from Standby to On - It blows the fuse. Disconnected the speakers, same effect. Circuit boards look okay.. I think a tech will need to fix it!

[darwinohm]

Lefty, Another Minnesotan, great. I forgot that you had the extended warranty. It may have a bad x-former or a shorted cap. Hopefully Fender will fix it.-- Darwin

[blargfromouterspace]

That old photo is great - love the hairdo!

Dons videos are great - he's a member here but doesn't post much.

Best of luck with the amp!

[zapcosongs]

Great start. Great youthful photo (with great hair to boot!). Beautiful ASAT. Enjoyed the video too.

I started playing guitar at about the same age as you. Except I never got any good.

I had played piano previously, having started lessons at age four. I quit at age 13 or so because I was so sick of practicing and was being taught only classical stuff. I had had enough. My first real guitar was a Yamaha FG-170, which I still have. I played the hell out of that for years. It's my boy's guitar now. Really ought to get the frets refreshed.... Anyhow, a couple of years after I started playing, I bought a refinished '66 Fender Jaguar from my math teacher, who also gave me a few guitar lessons. When that one got stolen during my High School jazz band days, I had to get replacement quickly, and I only had a hundred dollars to spend. I purchased a crappy LP copy made by Bradley. What a POS, but it was black and bound and I thought it looked good with our performance tuxedos. Eventually replaced that with a Japanese Charvelle (SP?) - which I've since passed on to a cousin. Nice guitar actually, but it wasn't me. Eventually found G&L and after trying out a lot of acoustic instruments, my wife bought me a nice RI Guild as a wedding gift. I have since picked up a couple of great Leo-era bass guitars, even though I don't play bass....

What was I saying? Oh, hope you get your amp back just the way you want it. Have a spooky evening! - ed

[Philby]

Hi Lefty,

As others have said, that's a great photo of your youthful self.

I learned to play guitar on my Dad's Yamaha FG series acoustic. It wasn't a bad guitar but had a horrible set up. No one in my town knew how to do guitar setups so poor actions were a recurring theme in my early playing days. I blame poor setups for being a worse player than I should have been for all the practice I did.

My first electric was a 1985 Westone Concord, a Japanese strat copy. I still have it in its case with the purchase receipt for $520. That was a lot of money back in 1985. It took me a whole summer to earn it. It's a great guitar from the famed Matsumoko factory, but it was blighted by a poor set up too. I kept buying new guitars thinking there was something wrong with it. Once I finally got it properly set up in 2005 I realised what I could have been playing all those years.

[zapcosongs]

Philby - your post just make a light go on in my head: Maybe all my wife requires is a good set-up!

Anybody interested ;+) Ha! - ed

[meowmix]

Nice vintage picture of yourself Lefty.

Being Halloween we need to be careful of thieves and vandals.
Take me, for example, I stole this guitar from BoggieBill's pad.
Careful! This is one scary guitar. Meet Dorothy.
"There is no place like home"




Stainless steel frets to boot. Push pull knob instead of the lame toggle switch.

My first guitar was acoustic, I was 15 at the time, I think.
My first electric was a Fender Cort? (low end strat).

[zapcosongs]

Congratulations. Wow!

Clearly, we're not in Kansas anymore..... - ed

[jwebsmall]

Meowmix, that red sparkle looks pretty enough to be a birthday cake in
the shape of a guitar! Tastes as good as it sounds!

[darwinohm]

Meowmix, you have good taste. By law, everyone should be required to own a sparkle finish. Only thing grandfathered in would be a bass boat!. Nice guitar. now you got me thinkin' about what comes next.

Ed, your wife has had the perfect setup. She picked you out of a field of millions!!!!!!!! Now, you could at least impress her with some more fine guitars.-- Darwin

I also have a question. I am sitting her lusting over my Mayer Strat with the straight neck and will probably have a cold one too boot. Guitars are like marriage. The question is does she straighten you out or replace you?????

[Boogie Bill]

The Red Sparkle is awesome--totally drool inducing--even for Miss Leslie!

I learned when I was about 14-15, too. We had an old Stella 4-string tenor guitar around the house, with strings about 3/8" off the fingerboard, and that's what I started on, with the "Fun With The Tenor Guitar" book by Mel Bay. Repeated those lessons in the 6-string book, after my sister got me a Lyle Classic guitar for Xmas. My first good guitars were a Fender Duo-Sonic (with Kalamazoo Model Two amp!) and a Harmony Sovereign Jumbo.

The Duo-Sonic, in Desert Tan with a RW board, was about a 1960--I bought it around 1966 from a pawnshop; I think mom paid $85.00 plus tax for it. That was a lot of money, for my folks back then. I sold it to a girl when I was in college for $110. The Harmony Sovereign, my Telecaster Thinline and my first good amp--a Fender Bandmaster, were stolen from my can in 1972. I never got the amp or the Bandmaster back.

One of my friends in high-school had a three pickup DanElectro/Silvertone. It was a double cutaway model, in kind of a green sparkleburst. It had this nasty awful distorted tone, not the clean beautiful chime of the Duo-Sonic--and man, I wish I had that old Silvertone! I would have been perfect for rock guitar slide tones.

The Butterscotch Blonde ASAT Classic is beautiful, even if it it is "backwards". I have a Legacy Special in BSB, with an ebony fingerboard and a pearl guard; it's one of my favorites of all my G&Ls. The BSB is a great finish.

Bill

[Michael-GnL-Michael]

Great photo and speaking of Sears... When I was growing up we did not have money either. My mother used to walk several miles in high heels to work at Montgomery Ward. My dad worked for the railroad. He was part of the department that distributed train cars. In those days most cross country shipping went by train and there were not nearly as many trucks hauling freight as there are now. He worked on the actual freight trains as a flagman when they went on strike. He was due a one-off bonus and planned to share it with everyone. I must have been about 11 at the time and locked in on a Strat type of guitar Sears was selling. But his bonus was a lot less than he had anticipated so I did not get a guitar for another 4 years when I was 15-16.

Looks like I was lucky compared to everyone so far. I learned guitar on a Les Paul copy. It did not have a brand anywhere but the store had carried something like it that had "Univox" on the headstock. I do not know if this was also a Univox but that model also solicited the same comments from people who tried it in the store. The fretboard was the easiest to play on. Everyone loved it. I learned to play guitar on it. My brother-in-law used it to learn on and then a friend of his who I eventually let keep it also learned with it. I have not found an easier neck to play.

My 2nd guitar was a Les Paul Custom. A friend of mine convinced me that I should get what I want and not hold back. He was good at that. Everyone should have someone like this in their life to help you step outside your box or safe zone once in a while. I ended up having a great time with that Les Paul Custom. I stopped playing guitar for many years until recently when I bought my first G&L, a Legacy. That was May 2011 and I have another G&L, an ASAT Classic, arriving tomorrow Tuesday.

[Sean Clavin]

Love the Dan-o! Very cool pic and the ASAT isn't too shabby either. I started out in grade school playing snare drum, then one day I saw a high school guy sitting under a tree playing guitar with a few girls sitting around him and I said "THAT'S THE INSTRUMENT I WANT TO PLAY!!!" My first electric was a Chess King that I won from a friend of my older brother. We bet on one of the Super Bowls I think. My next guitar was a no-name Fender knock-off of a Tele.

[jwebsmall]

Guitars like marriage? I hope not - that would mean I could only have one at a time!
And look but don't touch doesn't work either!

[louis cyfer]

Guitars like marriage? I hope not - that would mean I could only have one at a time!
And look but don't touch doesn't work either!

why would that be. i have 4 wives right now. and i certainly touch
it is not illegal btw, they all have a different husband