I was watching a YouTube interview with Wisconsin Guitar Whiz Greg Koch today and listened as he remembered the history of his youth. How his older brother had turned him on to Cream, Jimi Hendrix,Yes and Led Zeppelin. Koch began listing his first guitars and how he traded up over time as his skill grew and it resonated with me, just as it resonated with millions of young boys. Something about the combination of glossy wood and metal, melodic tones over the thumping of animal skins stretched over buckets, the sheer freedom of creativity, done mostly with friends, and ultimately the adoration of females as a reward. How could this be more attractive? Getting paid for it with huge sums of money is one way, and for some its about hero worship.
Greg 'Mansquatch' Koch - Not right in the headbone
In my preteen years, after the affection of girls, my friends sought fashion and sports skills as a way to break out of averageness. Paisley shirts and baggy jeans (or tight ones if you were a 'tough') the ability to sling a baseball or football a long ways or, for the less gregarious kids like me, a guitar. Granted, the ability to play a guitar is hardly akin to a sport skill like smacking a homerun , at least in the physical sense, but it is terrifically satisfying to learn how to form your first chords, then a series of them and then, along with your buddies, reproduce a well-loved song; that's a Grand Slam. I was about 9 or 10 when my mom came downstairs one summer making melodic tones, and I came around the corner to see her playing a Melodica, which is a sort of short keyboard powered by your own breath.
What a revelation.
A piano you could hold in your hands. Not as confusing as a harmonica, it had the familiar keyboard of the upright Grand nearly every family kept in the basement, but it ran on the force of your breath. A mouth powered accordion. Wow. Mom was a skilled piano player, could actually read music and I remember sitting with her on the piano bench (I still have it!) while she directed my hands to the right keys to form a chord. This too was revelatory, to hear a gorgeous combination of notes she played, and then to hear those same notes ring from under my own hands. It still feels wondrous today, 50 years later. The keyboard being my first introduction to music, it was relatively easy to learn simple songs with triad chords. But this blog is about guitars, right? By the time I had been forced, at 12 years old, to take piano lessons (which I disliked a great deal) I discovered a beat up guitar case shoved under a couch at the family beach cabin. I pulled the flimsy case onto the coffee table and found a heavy, worn looking Harmony Six String inside.
No matter that it only had four stings left, that first meeting, with the cutaway on the bottom over my skinny leg and the wide heavy neck in my left hand, the first notes reverberated from the dusty bass strings, the challenge of twisting the tuners into some harmonic connection that wasn't jarring to the ear...that is nearly primal to the experience. My eldest brother Mike owned the guitar and had left it there, and I remember distinctly the day he played it in front of the family for the first time, along with his friends. A folk group of four boys and one girl, they stood in the living room against the tv wall and, after some excited anticipation they played a folk song, which I think was 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine' by The Weavers. Lots of people covered this song, like Peter, Paul and Mary and the sweet melody, the jangle of that guitar...my brother's fine voice hovering over it all..it was etched into me indelibly.
After seeing me plunking away on the cracked, neglected old Harmony, my own folks must've pitied the sight, because on my 13th birthday, they presented me with my first real instrument. A brand new Lyle Six String, with a case, a book of chords and couple of pics. A guitar with all of the strings intact! What a huge sound it made, the G Chord, The E chord, the easiest to form for a neophyte, rang out like a church bell. I was hooked.
Young Scott Robinson - age 12ish
Brother Pat also loved to sing, and he wrote lyrics and poetry, and along with his friend Carl, they wrote songs and recorded them at the local stereo store which had a small studio in back with cheap rates.
Country Carl Larson Jr.
As Pat grew in his musical path, I kept practicing my guitar and also the upright grand piano still in our basement, all of Moms music books under the lid of the antique bench with ornate, glass ball feet. Though piano lessons were abhorrent to me, and I worked at dodging them every Wednesday at 4pm, I preferred the guitar and noticing this, my Dad arranged a lesson with the local music store owner Johnny Kerns. Kerns was a trombone player in the late 40s who opened his first music shop in the ground floor of the historic Showbox Theater in Seattle. Kerns was known then as Jumpin' Johnny Kerns and he sold instruments to all the musicians who passed through, including Quincy Jones. At his store in Burien, Wa. Kerns brought me into the back behind a screened partition and handed me a gigantic Gretsch Country Gentleman. He plugged it into a small amplifier, turning the volume down to 2 and walked away. No instruction, no book, just me and the huge white guitar for the next 30 minutes. Back in the car on the way home, Dad asked me how it went and after I complained, we never went back. But that guitar was so beautiful and it sounded so powerful that it was then I realized that my acoustic guitar back home wasn't quite enough.
Gretsch Country Gentleman
I went through a phase over the next four years where I spent most of my free musical time on the piano. I plinked away at Chicago's 'Color My World' and Elton's 'Your Song' and bought music books in town for the guitar chords. I could never grok musical notation, it didn't allow me the satisfaction that chords provided. By the time I was in high school, Yellow Brick Road had overtaken the radio and I bought the songbook. That summer, the summer after my first mother passed away, was pivotal. My other brother,Pat, who had the bedroom next to mine and who was just four years older, was also a music fan.
In the rift caused by the loss our own mom, Pat sought solace in his tape deck. A 7" reel to reel Ampex, Pat had All the best music of the day on tape, including Cream, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel,Chicago Transit Authority,Vanilla Fudge, Blood Sweat and Tears and The Mamas and The Papas. Music from 1963 through 1973, played through great quality speaker monitors, it boomed from his room every weekend and was impossible to ignore. Together we marveled at Clapton tearing up 'Crossroads' and the crystalline harmonies that soared from the voices of Mama Cass and Mama Michelle, Papas John and Denny. We worked at deciphering the meaning behind Beatles songs, wondering if Paul really was dead. The shrill blat of BST's unbelievable horn section, punctuating David Clayton Thomas's powerful throat, these sounds too worked thier way into my brain.
Realistic 8 Track - Hours of Headphone UseWhile Pat had the high end system in his room, I decided to spend my yard work money on my own stereo and and at the Radio Shack store in town, Dad let me pick out a Realistic Tuner with built in 8 track, headphones and a turntable. My OWN music system and I worked it hard with the gifts that my brothers gave me, including Paul Simons 72 album that had 'Peace Like a River' and Papa Hobo on it. My first vinyl lp was Jethro Tull's 'Benefit' which was just amazing, followed by Jimi Hendrix's 'Rainbow Bridge' and Santana's 'Abaraxas'. I also had Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild' and Iron Butterfly's 'Ball'. Songs from all these years still ring in my brain, as I frequently fell asleep in bed with my headphones on listening, dreaming. The slap in the face of adulthood tore me away from the lure of my guitar and piano, as I had to work. High school was over and for amusement, I listened to whatever was on the radio or stereo at whatever house I was in at the time. Joe Walsh amazed me with The Bomber and Funk 49.
1928 Model A - 'Won't Get Fooled Agaaaaaa'
My Dad and I partially restored a 1928 Ford Model A during my last year of high school and I managed to stuff an 8 track tape player into the package tray behind the seat. Since the car had a 6 Volt battery, I also had to put a 12 Volt in the floor of the rumble seat to make the tape deck run. I never bothered to hook it into the alternator so, when I drove around town with The Who's 'Bargain' blaring from the crappy, single Craig speaker, the battery would eventually run down, ' We wonnnt geeett fooooooled agaaauhauhaaa.' After a dismal 3 month stint of living in Ketchikan, Alaska trying to get a job, I flew back to Seattle and my Dad helped me get a job at a local printing plant. It was the beginning of my adult life, at age 18 and now a wage earner, I could afford things like rent, car insurance and, finally, entertainment stuff like musical gear.
Kawai Spinet - really nice
My first purchase was not a guitar, though. It was a piano. I found a place in West Seattle that would rent me a Kawai K-400 spinet in a gorgeous satin black finish for an unbelievable $15 a month. It had a wonderful, rich sound and I put it in the kitchen of the old log cabin I was renting with my brother. Hours of mucking with old Elton John books, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen and even Foreigner (Cold As Ice has that iconic sharp piano sound). Later, I saved up and put money down on a Fender Rhodes Electric Piano, with Travel Case. I had seen and played one at the community college I attended for a semester and loved the bell-like tones and weighted keys.
Fender Rhodes Suitcase Piano
(I later sold it so I could rebuild a volkswagon bus motor in my garage.)
I took this photo, that's my 63 bus in the background.
Making decent money at the pressroom now, I also financed a TEAC 3340S 7" Reel to Reel tape deck with Simul-Sync.
TEAC 3340S with Simul-Sync, circa 1979
What a revelation that was, to be able to actually record tracks and rewind to record over it with a new track. I still have a few of those old magnetic tapes in the basement. Hours of incomprehensible noodling on piano and guitar, mixed with a few rough song ideas. That house had nearly a cavalcade of short term roomates and one of them, Phil Pompeo, owned a big white Lyle Bass Guitar, along with a bass amp. He barely played it when he moved out, he offered to sell it to me,again, for monthly payments. $10 bucks a month, which is cheap, but I ended up paying him about $250 total before I truly owned it.
Not a Lyle, but nearly identical
I plunked at it, enjoyed the deep resonance, but without friends to play with, it got boring pretty quickly. I hung on to it for quite a while, though and one day, while on my way to work riding my Honda 750, with the Bass strapped to the sissy bar, I was involved in an incredible near miss traffic accident.
A flatbed truck cut across two lanes in front of me, and at over 45 mph, I swerved to avoid hitting the huge, heavy iron bed and then blacked out. When I came too, I was sliding on my back, helmet bumping along the pavement, my bike slid past me, cars on either side whizzing by. I came to a stop, leapt to my feet as traffic halted. I saw the truck driving away down a side street as I reefed the bike back upright and pushed it off the highway into a gas station. I dropped the kick stand and turned to see my bass guitar laying in the middle of the highway, out of the case. I ran out, traffic in the lane stopped to watch, and popped it back in the case, carrying it back to my bike. A State Patrolman pulled up, bystanders and motorists came up to me, one said 'Wow, you're bike flipped at least THREE times!' Another told the Patrolman which way the flatbed had gone and the next thing I knew, I was in the backseat of his car and pulling up behind the truck, which had pulled into a driveway nearby. In the end, the truck driver was cited for negligent driving and I got a check for $1200 to cover damage to my bike, which had bent crash bars, both mirrors folded like clamshells and a slight scrape across the plexiglas wind screen. The bike had flipped at least once, and after declining an ambulance, I still rode it to the emergency room for xrays, the Bass guitar strapped in place as before. I only suffered scrapes to my lower back and elbows (My helmet had deep gouges and had clearly saved my life) and most surprisingly my big white Lyle Bass Guitar only had a small gouge in the head stock, a small scrape on the bottom edge. Angels in attendance? No question about it.
1976 CB750
Look close, you can see the grind marks on the fairing.
Back at work my friends at the printing plant began to reintroduce me to harder rock and their love of guitars.
One friend, Dale Harms, was instrumental (pardon the pun) in ushering me into a deep appreciation of the great variety of coolness in these pieces of useable art. I met Dale one day while driving down the road on my way home. Sitting on a porch near the street, Dale was playing an unplugged electric guitar. I stopped, backed up and walked up to him and struck up a conversation. Dale had long, dirty blonde hair, skinny and not very tall, and when he laughed he flashed a gold tooth in front. I liked him immediately. He was playing a weird looking guitar with three pickup and lots of switches.
A Strat-style body in a dark red burst finish, I later learned it was a Hagstrom III, and while not terrifically rare, was really cool looking.
Dale Harms - with a Teisco - RIP - 2001
Dale and I hung out, worked together for the next 12 years or so, jamming, recording, always on the edge of being good enough to form a band. At one point, we hooked up with a kid named Lorne who was the brother of Dale's neighbor. Lorne was 19 years old and an absolute terror on guitar. He played fast and intricately and he had friends. So, along with a drummer named Dave, Dale, me, our flute playing friend Johnny and Lorne began practicing at Dale's house until we had a few original songs. I played piano and sang a little, Dale on guitar, Lorne on lead, and, even though I actually still owned that Lyle bass, for some reason we lacked a bass player.
A Tangent Roadway Animal - circa 1979
L to R
Dave, Me, Dale, Johnny,Lorne
Note: You can click on any photo and make it larger.
Lorne decided that we should be called 'A Tangent Roadway Animal' and somehow got us booked into the studio at American Music in Fremont. I had written two songs with Dale and those tracks were featured on the recordings, 'Another Woman' and 'Please Don't Go', the first a song about a man losing his girl to another girl, and the second, about a relationship with, let's say, a very young female. Though I had written the lyrics to fit with Dales guitar composition, bizarrely, on the day we were supposed to record, I got sick. Consequently, Lorne called his friend Cindi to come song lead vocals and with Dale on a borrowed bass, they cut four original songs. With a woman singing lead, it made the gender of the songs seem weird, since they were written from a male perspective, but it was no big deal, the show must go on, and Cindi, it turned out, is a very good singer.
Lorne 'Max' Renshaw - He's kind of a big deal.
A period of time passed when I forsook music stuff and played with a new dirt bike I had got on the cheap. But it wasn't long before Dale showed up at my house with a Gibson Explorer in Tobacco burst and told me I could buy it for $80. Wow, what a weird looking guitar, now matter that the name on the headstock said 'Epiphone' instead of Gibson, I had no idea of the difference, and though the neck had a crack and it wouldn't stay in tune, I scraped up the cheddar.
70's Epi Explorer - Mine was not good.
I traded it (that's what you do with crappy guitars) along with my Lyle Bass, for a much nicer, Rickenbacker 4001 Stereo Bass in Fireglo. This machine, a piece of art really, was so pretty and so smooth to play that I actually began to improve my skills.
My 1973 Rickenbacker 4001s Stereo Bass
My brother Let's friend Carl, who began stopping by with a very nice Martin Acoustic, would sit on our couch and play songs that he and Pat had written a few years previously. A few of them were quite good and two in particular became the subject of a grand scheme to record it with refreshed lyrics and try to sell it to....somebody.
The title of the first song was 'The New Depression Blues', and the second was a country-feel ballad called 'Riding The Ridge. The year was 1982 and brother Pat was the idea man first and he pressed me into service as the singer. We scraped up about $200 and booked time in a local studio called 'The Music Source' that Pat and Carl had used to record song ideas in previously.
Dave Raynor - Briar Patch Studio - 1999
The engineer, Dave Raynor, did everything except play drums. A superb guitarist, bassist and fine singer, Dave ran the 24 track board effortlessly, starting with a bouncy piano track that I played on a huge Kawai Grand Piano.
Me, playing Dave Raynor's Martin, Signed by Macca
Beau Robinson - Music Source - 1981
9' Kawai Grand Piano
Finishing with his guitar, his bass,his backing vocals and some smatterings of help from Pat and harmonica player and drummer, all onto 2" magnetic tape, Dave meticulously spliced and inserted the proper segments by hand, with a razor blade and adhesive tape until we had a rather bitching couple of songs completed. Total time, maybe 30 hours over four visits, total cost, under $500!
Carl Larson and Pat Robinson - Songwriting Duo
Now, Pat took over and began pitching to song around town. He got a radio and TV airtime, even a stint on KISW's 'Smash or Trash' segment hosted by Mr. Seattle Radio, Steve Slayton.
Short story, we got trashed, but it was great exposure and good fun.
While that side of my musical efforts floated around town I was still jamming with my friends and one night Dale introduced me to a couple of his friends, Mike Curtis and Pete Elmberg. Mike was (still is) a very diligent lead guitar player and Pete was a seasoned drummer. Both guys had been in bands together since the late 60s and had gigged around town regularly. By this time I was getting better at bass guitar and still played rythym guitar, though I didn't even own one.
Friend Carl lent me his brothers beautiful 71 Gibson ES330 and together with Mike and Pete, Carl playing bass, we formed a shitty group called 'The Notemashers'
The Notemashers - circa 1982
L to R
Beau Robinson, Mike Curtis, Pete Elmberg, Carl Larson
Through that summer of 1983, we practiced in Carls mildewy basement, Mike tearing up his beat up Stratocaster, Pete pinning down and driving us with his solid, multiple band experience, Carl barely managing to work a new Vantage Bass he bought and me, trying to sing and play that 330 the best I could.
Gawdamnit it was fun when it came together and I still have the beer-soaked cassette recordings of covers like Nick Lowe's 'Heart of The City', U2's 'I Will Follow' and 'REM's 'Radio Free Europe's.
The Notemashers - 1982 at a Party in FW.
L-R
Carl Larson, Beau Robinson, Jack, Pete Elmberg, Mike Curtis
We had different names for different gigs
We got pretty good, playing parties and even a Four by Four Swap Meet (we made about $40 each) and I loved singing songs like 'White Wedding' and 'Hey Bulldog.' Maybe the highlight of this 18 month experience was a party we played at Mike's house on Halloween. We had gotten reasonably tight and were doing songs like Joe Jackson's 'Throw it Away', Bowie's 'Blue Jean' and The Pretender's fantastic 'Tattooed Love Boy's. In this permutation of The Notemashers,
The Notemashers/Beau Robinson Band at The Enumclaw State Fairgrounds.
Note: Dale Harms (L) playing my Ricky Bass, Me- Playing his 72 Wine Red Les Paul.
Such a pretty guitar
I had dropped the guitar for the Bass again, working my 4001 hard and singing and Mike's sister Patty would sit in on songs like 'Mystery Achievement' and The Divinyls 'Boys In Town' Beer flowed, weed glowed and one guy brought a tank full of nitrous oxide, with which he filled balloons and passed them to willing inebriates who huffed the contents and staggered away. Back at home, I kept fiddling with my tape deck and one day a friend at work told me he had a guitar. He brought it over to Dales place and popped open the worn, cardboard case. Inside was a short scale hardbody with a single pickup, a wide neck and a telecaster-type body finished in what looked like that white undercoating they paint inside car trunks. I picked it up and strummed a few chords...easy, nice light action, I loved the lightness and short neck, and asked him if he'd sell it to me. 'Nah...I just bought it....$40 bucks at that pawnshop in Allentown. It took me three weeks of bugging to get Mark to let me have it. He took $40 and I still have it and play it nearly daily.
1963 Alamo Fiesta
I looked it up a few years ago to learn that it is an 1963 Alamo Fiesta. The factory was in San Antonio, Texas and Alamo made amplifiers first, then pedal steel guitars before branching out into formal six strings. About five years ago, I dropped it and bent a tuning peg. I took it to my luthier Joe Riggio in Tacoma and Joe fixed it flawlessly with new peg, replaced the 'b' fret and put in a new volume pot and installed a used Lollar pickup that he had 'laying around'. What a difference...its such a hot little guitar now that it gets far more use than my others. One day, when I was short on rent, I foolishly sold my Rickenbacker. I knew I'd regret it, but lied to myself that I could always buy another one later. $450 and some dude I didn't know walked away with it.
The Notemashers only lasted about a year, and by 1985 I was shifting focus to females and in 86 met my future wife. I still played some piano but lost track of my musical buddies when I got engaged and married in 87/88. I bought a Teac Porta-studio around that time and used the cassette-based 4 track to record songs with my Alamo and a crappy Panasonic Synth that had strings and piano.
A decade passed with not much created music but finally, after moving, changing jobs and setting up a music room in my basement, I started looking at guitars again. I did have my friend's 72 Strat just sitting in the case (which now, I realize is sad, since it was really a nice guitar) and after he requested it back I went on craigslist with $100 dollar limit in mind. I found a pretty cool list of guitars in the south sound, including a Floyd Rose Discovery III Speedloader. I drove over, strummed on it. I seemed ok, if slightly dull sounding. I figured I could restring it and make it sweet, so I slipped the guy $100 and brought it home. The special thing about this strat-style guitar, as the double-locking tremelo that Floyd Rose designed in the mid 70s. Floyd was a Seattle guitarist then in a band called 'C.O.R.E.' and tired of his guitars going out of tune whenever he worked the whammy bar, he tinkered with the bridge until he perfected a locking system that became so popular the Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai became early adopters.
Floyd Rose Discovery III Speedloader -
The name was cool, the style was cool, but it sucked.
My Floyd Rose guitar, however, was hopeless. I could NOT keep in in tune, even without working the tremelo and I soon found out that you could buy one of these guitars NEW for $199.
I sold it a few weeks later for what I had into it at $125 ( new strings) and went back to Craigslist.
A friend of mine, GT, told me about a guitar he had stowed under a bed for years. I asked him to bring it over and it was a Yamaha FG340II, a pretty nice six string acoustic. I restrung it, then forgot to call him to come pick it up. I had it for over a year before I remembered it and dug it out of my closet. I called GT and asked him to come over. He appreciated the tune-up, but said he wasnt sure guitar is the best instrument for him, so I offered him $100 for it. He took and I still have it, signed by myself...it's a collector now!
Yamaha FG340II
signed by Beau Robinson
Dean - PP Acoustic Electric
built-in tuner. Nice!
Now that I had a decent acoustic for recording, I still wanted a newer electric than my old Alamo.
I made some good money on a construction job and went down to Guitar Center in Tukwila.
They have the usual long row of gorgeous axes hung all over the walls and after drooling for few minutes, I selected an Ibanez R6 and jacked it into an amp. Nice...responsive, a pretty green color.
I took it home for $599 cash WITH a softshell case thrown in. At home, I practiced with it, it felt ok, but sounded so metallic that I started thinking about whether Joe could soften it with a setup.
Then, I went back online and read reviews and saw that others with this guitar had similar feelings.
On the Guitar Center website, I saw some really pretty Les Pauls and since it had only been about a week, I took the R6 back down to the store to trade it in. On the wall was an Epiphone Les Paul Goldtop 1956 Reissue for the same price I paid for the Ibanez. They did a straight swap with him, but wouldn't give me a case, so I kept the softshell, Roadrunner case and bought a new Epiphone Hardshell for an additional $89 bucks. Smokin deal.
I took it directly to Joe Riggio and Joe redressed the frets, restrung it with 9's ( the 8's on it felt heavy to me) and charged me $120 again. Awesome. Now, this guitar just rings....stays in tune beautfully, is fast and has wonderful grunt with the gain turned up on my amp. Sweet Goldtop!
Epiphone Les Paul Goldtop '56 Reissue
2014
I went to see Robin Trower in 2015 and listened as he worked his magic, a master of his craft, there's nobody else quite like him, even though Trower is always comparted to Jimi Hendrix...to be honest, Jimi is long gone and Trower is still here, still making great music.
I read quote from Robin about the time he was on tour with Jethro Tull and was on stage getting his gear organized before the show. He spotted Martin Barre's Stratocaster sitting on a stand, plugged in and went over and hung it over his neck. He played a few chords and said, 'This is something else!'
Years of forging his sound with Procol Harum and his iconic Les Paul went by the wayside as he dug into the light, responsive Stratocaster and the next day he went out and bought one.
I remembered the 72 I had for over a decade and never really understood it, but that quote stuck with me so I started looking around on Craigslist again, $100 limit in mind.
I saw lots of Strats, Made in Mexico's were pretty cheap at $400, and the American Standards were going for $650 used, so I keep digging and found a Squire Affinity Stratocaster in Black finish, Rosewood neck. The guy wanted $130 for it so I called him.
Turns out, he had gone through it with fresh pots, strings, fret dressing and intonation and it played really great. I thought about Trower as I ran up the neck, lightly strung, bright sounding. I bought it right there and brought it home.
2001 Squire Affinity Stratocaster with Tremelo
I do comparison tests between it and my Goldtop and they're both on par with each other for playability, subtle differences in weight and neck thickness, but both guitars ring beautfully, especially when I pump up the gain on my Line 6. $130 bucks for a Strat!
Somewhere in the confusion of guitar selling and buying, I got onto the Cigar Box Guitar deal and bought one off of Ebay. It too was less than useful, not able to stay in tune, so I sold it and found another on on Etsy and had it made by a guy in Texas. A four string electric, it's tuned to Open G and sounds really cool with a glass slide and the gain turned up on my amp.
Custom Made 4 String Cigar Box
I have a few pieces of other gear that I make music with, including a Line 6 Amp ($200 on CL) a Harmonica kit with case (it was only $25 new!) and a BR1200 Digital Recorder (it's amazingly useful with built-in drums and bass.)
Yamaha P-120 (has a great string patch)
Line 6 with built-in Practice Tracks -Fun!!
BR1200 Digital Recorder - Great Sound
Ok, so was watching Dave Grohl on YouTube playing a Pelham Blue DG-335 and was knocked out about how gorgeous it was. Reminded me of the borrowed ES330 I played back in the day, so I ran up to Guitar Center in Tacoma and played a couple of them. Right next to the 330 was a brand new ES-339. The difference is, the 339 is slightly smaller and had the output Jack in the rear heel position instead of in the lower front area. I played it, felt good. Gave the sales dude $499 and also ordered a hardshell case for $89 more. I took it right to Joe and he set it up saying 'It didn't need much!' Joe put D Addario 9's on it and it holds tune pretty nicely is fast and sounds bright!
2019 Epiphone ES-339
And my addiction to cool guitars isn't over with either. I'd love to have a 12 string, been looking at Telecasters and maybe a lap steel would be fun! I will come back here and post some music next.
Keep Rocking!
Awesome memories my bruthuh! I wouldn't changs nuthin, 'cept seein' ya at Trower... love you!
ReplyDeletefantastic, your other bruthah!
ReplyDelete