Fiesta Red
Well-Known Member
*This is a long read, so if you’re not into that, skip down to the pictures like the illiterate savage you are (just kidding…mostly…note the use of Sarcasm Font)
Summer of 1989. I was 19.
I bought my first two guitars and first amp within two months of each other, all three from the same guy and two of those three times when he had written a hot check and needed fast cash to cover the shortage. The seller was a friend of mine at the time, but that friendship was (and is) complicated; it eventually became strained to the point that we are now civil to one another, but not much more than that. He is only friendly with people on his own (somewhat abusive) terms. We no longer associate musically, and only rarely socially. I’ll call him Jon, because that’s his name.
The first guitar he sold me was a Korean-made 1986 Fender F250 acoustic.
Jon, in the throes of hair metal and shred-osity, had to have a white Kramer Ferrington acoustic, because that was going to be the tool that propelled him to happiness and stardom.
When he came out of the pawnshop with equal measures of elation (new guitar) and panic (because he had written a hot check), I offered to take his much-more-sensible dreadnought off his hands for a reasonable price. He quickly agreed, and we went to my house (after stopping by his house and picking up my newly-purchased guitar and it’s pasteboard case) in order for him to teach me some chords.
Within an hour I was passably playing (while singing) my first song. Being good Christian boys, the first song he taught me was the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Four chords, and he taught three of them to me incorrectly...in fact, to this day, I play those three chords wrong. The next day he taught me a fifth chord (also incorrectly).
Ah, who cares? It sounds right.
He also discovered that his super-Strat-shaped, thin-bodied Ferrington was not very loud, acoustically...as in “almost inaudible,” acoustically... especially when compared to his (former) dreadnought, which was now my second-most-treasured possession (after my 1964 Ford Falcon Futura).
He tried to trade instruments with me; I asked him if he seriously thought I would ever play such an instrument as the Ferrington, except on a lark. After considering my personal style choices (I was more James Dean than Mick Marrs), he realized that wasn’t going to happen, so he then tried to buy the F-250 back, promising to pay me “the following Friday.”
I declined his generous offer.
I’ve kept this instrument over the years, through all the equipment purges and tight times...it plays and sounds well above it’s pedigree.
Approximately a month later, the same scenario happened again. He wrote a hot check at the Arlington (TX) Guitar Show, this time for another white shredder-ific instrument...a G&L which was equipped with an HSS pickup configuration and a Kahler vibrato...I think it was an Invader(?).
Again, the conflicting elation (new guitar) and panic (hot check) set in, so I (again) offered to assist him by buying the 1980 G&L F-100 series II guitar he’d been letting me play on occasion. I gave him everything I had in my wallet, which I recall being less than $200...(gimme a break, it’s been well over 30 years and I can’t remember).
It has a rare set of specs/features for an F-100.
It’s an early serial number and it’s from the first year of the brand, so it’s a very early G&L.
It has a Series II neck (12” radius, thinner front-to-back) with a rosewood fretboard; early on, I was told by a couple of people that the fretboard is ebony, but the grain and feel is more like rosewood, so I’ll stick with that…
Most F-100’s have the Series I neck (7.25” radius, vintage Fender neck feel) and a maple fretboard.
It has a sunburst finish over a pretty piece of mahogany; many/most F-100’s have opaque solid finishes.
It has a chrome control plate and neck plate—many have the black “crinkle paint” finish.
And it’s got the G&L Saddle Lock hard-tail bridge…most of the F-100’s have the first-generation G&L Vibrato/Tremolo/Whatever.
This one has the passive electronics (not rare or unique) with two coil- and phase-tapped G&L Magnetic Field Design (MFD) humbuckers. A lot of people don’t like those, not because they sound bad, but because they don’t sound like PAF’s, or (in the days they were first made, early/mid ‘80’s) didn’t sound like some SuperBucker DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan or BC Rich shred machine…thus, a lot of F-100’s were butchered up to make the hotter humbuckers fit…so the fact that mine is intact and unmolested all these years later makes it even more rare.
Again, the following week, he realized that he’d made a mistake in selling the instrument and wanted to buy back the F-100.
No dice, man...I’m already hooked.
At least this time he had a usable guitar in the Invader, (as opposed to the Ferrington)…I found out years later he gave or sold or swapped the Invader to Brother #3, whose wife stole it when she left him.
Jon and two of his guitar-playing brothers have tried to buy that F-100 from me multiple times over the years...yet, it’s still in my possession, so you can tell they’ve been unsuccessful in their quest.
The next evening I was happily strumming my new electric guitar, and I had the realization, “Well, crap. I don’t have an amp.”
That weekend, Jon and I started scouring the pawn shops and guitar stores looking for a suitable amplifier...now remember, I had just given him all the cash I had the previous week. All I had was $25 and a six-pack of Miller Lite.
After failing to secure anything suitable, Jon said, “Hey! I got an old amp I can sell you for $25...gimme the beer, too!”
We celebrated this transaction by drinking the beer...so I paid $25 and 3 beers for an early 70’s solid-state Gibson G-20 amp, which had a checkered history...
Jon’s father had the lucrative-but-redneck-leaning job of Mobile Home Repossessor—you wouldn’t think so, but he made an amazing amount of money doing this. When they repossessed said mobile homes, anything they found within was fair game.
Sometime in the mid/late 80’s, this amp was found in the closet of one of the trailers; it was passed down through four (of the six) sons, with some “reconditioning” being done by son # 3 (the one who ended up with the G&L Invader). #3 stripped off the Tolex, lacquered the cabinet and (inexplicably) added a 20’ power cord, using a 14-gauge extension cord.
It eventually ended up in Jon’s (son # 5) possession, and since he’d moved on to a giant Music Man combo tube amp with (IIRC) either a 4x10 or a 2x12 speaker cabinet, he’d been neglecting the little Gibson amp.
It wasn’t/isn’t very loud (it could keep up at a small jam session, but not really play a gig un-mic’d) the reverb tank didn’t work and it looked weird…but…
It is loud enough to make a parent yell at you…and it has a really nice clean, spanky tone that could cut through the mix…and it has one of the two benchmarks I hold in my mind/heart/ears for what a tremolo effect should sound like (the other benchmark is the labeled-Vibrato-but-actually-Tremolo effect in my ‘63-reissue Vibroverb).
No joke, the little G-20 has a fantabulous tremolo. For a sonic reference, with a medium/heavy overdrive pedal and the tremolo set to “slowed down helicopter”, I can nail the sound of the REM song “Crush With Eyeliner” dead-to-rights (a great song with awesome use of that effect, IMO). It also does the Dwight Yoakum “What I Don’t Know” tremolo thang very well. It was my only amp for a couple of years, and I used the crap out of it as I started learning to play.
Since it came into my possession, I had the reverb fixed, and had the giant electrical cord replaced with a normal power cable. I also added a few stickers and branded the top of it with an armadillo, in honor of my band, the Screamin’ Armadillos.
In spite of all the financial turmoil in my life, I’ve managed to keep a hold of my first acoustic, first electric and first amp—partially because they weren’t/aren’t very marketable/desirable/valuable as instruments at the time(s) I’ve needed money, and partially because they were great, kinda rare/weird/hard-to-find instruments that I know I couldn’t replace, but mostly because of sentimentality.
So there’s the story of my first two guitars and first amplifier.
Summer of 1989. I was 19.
I bought my first two guitars and first amp within two months of each other, all three from the same guy and two of those three times when he had written a hot check and needed fast cash to cover the shortage. The seller was a friend of mine at the time, but that friendship was (and is) complicated; it eventually became strained to the point that we are now civil to one another, but not much more than that. He is only friendly with people on his own (somewhat abusive) terms. We no longer associate musically, and only rarely socially. I’ll call him Jon, because that’s his name.
The first guitar he sold me was a Korean-made 1986 Fender F250 acoustic.
Jon, in the throes of hair metal and shred-osity, had to have a white Kramer Ferrington acoustic, because that was going to be the tool that propelled him to happiness and stardom.
When he came out of the pawnshop with equal measures of elation (new guitar) and panic (because he had written a hot check), I offered to take his much-more-sensible dreadnought off his hands for a reasonable price. He quickly agreed, and we went to my house (after stopping by his house and picking up my newly-purchased guitar and it’s pasteboard case) in order for him to teach me some chords.
Within an hour I was passably playing (while singing) my first song. Being good Christian boys, the first song he taught me was the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Four chords, and he taught three of them to me incorrectly...in fact, to this day, I play those three chords wrong. The next day he taught me a fifth chord (also incorrectly).
Ah, who cares? It sounds right.
He also discovered that his super-Strat-shaped, thin-bodied Ferrington was not very loud, acoustically...as in “almost inaudible,” acoustically... especially when compared to his (former) dreadnought, which was now my second-most-treasured possession (after my 1964 Ford Falcon Futura).
He tried to trade instruments with me; I asked him if he seriously thought I would ever play such an instrument as the Ferrington, except on a lark. After considering my personal style choices (I was more James Dean than Mick Marrs), he realized that wasn’t going to happen, so he then tried to buy the F-250 back, promising to pay me “the following Friday.”
I declined his generous offer.
I’ve kept this instrument over the years, through all the equipment purges and tight times...it plays and sounds well above it’s pedigree.
Approximately a month later, the same scenario happened again. He wrote a hot check at the Arlington (TX) Guitar Show, this time for another white shredder-ific instrument...a G&L which was equipped with an HSS pickup configuration and a Kahler vibrato...I think it was an Invader(?).
Again, the conflicting elation (new guitar) and panic (hot check) set in, so I (again) offered to assist him by buying the 1980 G&L F-100 series II guitar he’d been letting me play on occasion. I gave him everything I had in my wallet, which I recall being less than $200...(gimme a break, it’s been well over 30 years and I can’t remember).
It has a rare set of specs/features for an F-100.
It’s an early serial number and it’s from the first year of the brand, so it’s a very early G&L.
It has a Series II neck (12” radius, thinner front-to-back) with a rosewood fretboard; early on, I was told by a couple of people that the fretboard is ebony, but the grain and feel is more like rosewood, so I’ll stick with that…
Most F-100’s have the Series I neck (7.25” radius, vintage Fender neck feel) and a maple fretboard.
It has a sunburst finish over a pretty piece of mahogany; many/most F-100’s have opaque solid finishes.
It has a chrome control plate and neck plate—many have the black “crinkle paint” finish.
And it’s got the G&L Saddle Lock hard-tail bridge…most of the F-100’s have the first-generation G&L Vibrato/Tremolo/Whatever.
This one has the passive electronics (not rare or unique) with two coil- and phase-tapped G&L Magnetic Field Design (MFD) humbuckers. A lot of people don’t like those, not because they sound bad, but because they don’t sound like PAF’s, or (in the days they were first made, early/mid ‘80’s) didn’t sound like some SuperBucker DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan or BC Rich shred machine…thus, a lot of F-100’s were butchered up to make the hotter humbuckers fit…so the fact that mine is intact and unmolested all these years later makes it even more rare.
Again, the following week, he realized that he’d made a mistake in selling the instrument and wanted to buy back the F-100.
No dice, man...I’m already hooked.
At least this time he had a usable guitar in the Invader, (as opposed to the Ferrington)…I found out years later he gave or sold or swapped the Invader to Brother #3, whose wife stole it when she left him.
Jon and two of his guitar-playing brothers have tried to buy that F-100 from me multiple times over the years...yet, it’s still in my possession, so you can tell they’ve been unsuccessful in their quest.
The next evening I was happily strumming my new electric guitar, and I had the realization, “Well, crap. I don’t have an amp.”
That weekend, Jon and I started scouring the pawn shops and guitar stores looking for a suitable amplifier...now remember, I had just given him all the cash I had the previous week. All I had was $25 and a six-pack of Miller Lite.
After failing to secure anything suitable, Jon said, “Hey! I got an old amp I can sell you for $25...gimme the beer, too!”
We celebrated this transaction by drinking the beer...so I paid $25 and 3 beers for an early 70’s solid-state Gibson G-20 amp, which had a checkered history...
Jon’s father had the lucrative-but-redneck-leaning job of Mobile Home Repossessor—you wouldn’t think so, but he made an amazing amount of money doing this. When they repossessed said mobile homes, anything they found within was fair game.
Sometime in the mid/late 80’s, this amp was found in the closet of one of the trailers; it was passed down through four (of the six) sons, with some “reconditioning” being done by son # 3 (the one who ended up with the G&L Invader). #3 stripped off the Tolex, lacquered the cabinet and (inexplicably) added a 20’ power cord, using a 14-gauge extension cord.
It eventually ended up in Jon’s (son # 5) possession, and since he’d moved on to a giant Music Man combo tube amp with (IIRC) either a 4x10 or a 2x12 speaker cabinet, he’d been neglecting the little Gibson amp.
It wasn’t/isn’t very loud (it could keep up at a small jam session, but not really play a gig un-mic’d) the reverb tank didn’t work and it looked weird…but…
It is loud enough to make a parent yell at you…and it has a really nice clean, spanky tone that could cut through the mix…and it has one of the two benchmarks I hold in my mind/heart/ears for what a tremolo effect should sound like (the other benchmark is the labeled-Vibrato-but-actually-Tremolo effect in my ‘63-reissue Vibroverb).
No joke, the little G-20 has a fantabulous tremolo. For a sonic reference, with a medium/heavy overdrive pedal and the tremolo set to “slowed down helicopter”, I can nail the sound of the REM song “Crush With Eyeliner” dead-to-rights (a great song with awesome use of that effect, IMO). It also does the Dwight Yoakum “What I Don’t Know” tremolo thang very well. It was my only amp for a couple of years, and I used the crap out of it as I started learning to play.
Since it came into my possession, I had the reverb fixed, and had the giant electrical cord replaced with a normal power cable. I also added a few stickers and branded the top of it with an armadillo, in honor of my band, the Screamin’ Armadillos.
In spite of all the financial turmoil in my life, I’ve managed to keep a hold of my first acoustic, first electric and first amp—partially because they weren’t/aren’t very marketable/desirable/valuable as instruments at the time(s) I’ve needed money, and partially because they were great, kinda rare/weird/hard-to-find instruments that I know I couldn’t replace, but mostly because of sentimentality.
So there’s the story of my first two guitars and first amplifier.
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