) I had a pretty cathartic experience this week, and I wanted to share, because it reminds me a lot about why I do what I do.
So, I've spent the vast majority of my professional life around guitars. Since my first serious 9-5 working behind the counter at K'Rd Rockshop and the career that spawned, through to spending the last 17 years on stage pretty much every Friday/Saturday night (and assorted other nights) playing the damn things... it's been a good life spent around guitars, and certainly one borne of passion.
It's had a side-effect though. It's fair to say that I've become somewhat laissez-faire about guitars. I mean I still love guitars, but I'm just not that precious about them anymore. I treat them like tools and don't have the same sort of emotions I used to have about them, like the time I was a kid and threw down a lot of hard earned cash for my first DECENT guitar and couldn't sleep that night. I still like having them, but it's like the drug addict who used to get a massive high from his first hit of smack, and now just has to have some to feel normal every day. It's got a little like that for me, I go through phases of buying guitars, but even though they are all good guitars (I don't buy shitty guitars
, there are only a couple in the collection that have a degree of emotional attachment, most of them were bought for a tangible purpose. And not just that.....because I spend my whole day around guitars, I see a LOT of them, and I see all their flaws and limitations as much as their sexiness. It's probably like a guy that works as a bouncer in a strip bar or something. After a while you see so many naked chicks that you stop getting turned on, and you're like "yeah, I guess she's hot, but her roots are showing after her bad dye job" or something like that. You become somewhat immune to that whole thing that keeps the customers there in the first place.
Anyway, so I had a NGD today, courtesy of a stolen guitar that got recovered thanks to you guys on NZG. It's a green PRS Singlecut, that was pretty damn old stock for us - probably due to the fact that of all the colours, GREEN is the hardest to sell. In fact we'd had this guitar in stock so long, it was dead set one of the oldest stock guitars we had in the whole company (top 3 for sure). I was actually well familiar with this guitar as I had seen it many many times in my travels around the stores, mostly because I used to think "damn that guitar is ugly, why the hell did they buy that" (it was purchased by a previous buyer on one of my hiatuses from RS).
Yup, this guitar was ugly in my eyes. I always saw it as a LP wannabe, and although I've always been hip to PRS' unarguably superior build quality, to me an LP is an LP and anything else is just playing second best. I'll even confess to being slightly relieved when I heard that THIS guitar was one of the stolen ones...I was happy to see the backside of it since it seemed no mug was gonna buy it.
But if there's one thing I abhor, it's criminals - so once the guitar had been located (thanks to the fair crowd here at NZG), I figured we'd best recall the damn thing. The guitar was recovered by our staff and I ordered it back to my office so it could be turned into the insurance company. Once it arrived back, it was in less than ideal condition. It had picked up a couple of scratches and dings, the strings were starting to corrode, and it was coated in a layer of what we affectionately call in the industry "bogan-juice" - (named after sweaty kids who walk into our stores jam on a guitar for half an hour, then put it back on the shelf with a greasy layer of filth over it).
As fate would have it, I had a new boost pedal in my office I wanted to check out which really could have benefitted from a Humbucker guitar, and as the only other thing in close reaching distance was a Telecaster, I figured I'd plug the PRS in to give it a whirl. At this stage I'm pretty sure what to expect, I'm pretty familiar with PRS guitars. Plugged in the PRS, adjusted the amp the way I like it, flicked the standby switch, played a chord and......
FFRRAAAAAAAANNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!
This thing sounds BITCHIN'. "Ooooh I like this pedal" I think. Then I look down and see the pedal isn't even ON!!!! Oh, that's the guitar?!?!?!
FRRAAAAAAAAAANNNNNG CHG CHG CHG CHG KACHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNG!!!!!
Holy crap! This thing sounds like a Les Paul WISHES it sounded like. This when I start to notice how good the neck feels, and how good the fret job is. My interest is piqued now, so I give it a few fast runs, ready for the quasi baseball-bat neck to turn me off once I start my shred licks. This thing eats up my chops like appetizers and begs for more. Feels great, natural to play and just sounds as FAT as a plate of pork rinds, yet still with some lovely precision and definition. The thing sustains for africa too.
Knowing that this guitar doesn't have the coil-splitting trickery of other PRS models, I start thinking that it must be a one-trick rock pony, and as sublime as the bridge pickup is sounding, I figure it'll all fall apart to mush (like my LP does) once I go to the neck pickup and roll the volume back a little to clean it up for a decent neck rhythm sound. Craziness.....the neck pickup LOVES to have a little taken off the volume knob. It keeps it's definition and delivers a sweet, sweet tone that chimes OR purrs and completely stays together with fingers or a pick and just begs to be played.
It's a long time since I've been this impressed by a guitar right out of the gate. I'm pretty familiar with "the PRS thing". I've had a lot of experience with them, and owned a couple too. They're always objectively beautiful guitars, but I just hadn't had any of them really scratch an itch like this before. This green monstrosity has got SOUL, and it's got ATTITUDE....it's a freakin' raucous rock machine, and it's really got me excited!
So now I'm looking at this guitar thinking "actually it's not so ugly", in actual fact it almost starts looking attractive, and I start picturing myself wearing this guitar for an upcoming gig. I start wondering what it'll sound like with this rig and that, and that's when I know that i've been hooked. For the first time in years I've been wooed.... by this decidely average looking guitar (that now I sort of start to see the beauty in) that just knows how to talk to me in all the right ways.
So a bit of correspondence with the insurance company, some money changes hands and now I have a new guitar.... but not just any guitar. A guitar that has invigorated me, inspired me, makes me wanna play (I've been playing it much of this evening after i gave it a good cleanup) and a guitar that reminds me that guitars transcend their purpose as a tool. They are objects of mystery and magic, and when a guitar connects with a player, it's a bit like love. It can't be accounted for, but it's visceral and real and one of the greatest things ever.
So that's my super long NGD story. Can't WAIT to get this thing to a gig (It might have to wait a week till after Easter) and really put it through it's paces. I think it's gonna do just fine though. Most importantly though, it's jolted this salty sea-dog back into the reality of just how great these wood and steel objects of our desire really are. Gonna make a personal pact not to ever buy another guitar that doesn't move me in a similar way.
To those of you still left reading after this somewhat hefty post, thanks for sharing my joy....and I hope this inspired you to go out find your guitar soulmate (if you haven't already)
