You know you’re in trouble when you spend more time looking at your gear than beating three chords and the truth from it. Too much reverence is leaving good instruments under-employed. It’s time to kick over the pedestal. As Frank Zappa once said: ‘Shut up and play yer guitar.’ And only polish the thing if you really have to. Words: Ed Mitchell.
There was a time when guitar heroes would plunder pawnshops in sleepy American hamlets and have it away on their toes with armfuls of future classics. It was a perk of the job, a reward for living out of a suitcase for months on end.
You know you’re in trouble when you spend more time looking at your gear than beating three chords and the truth from it. Too much reverence is leaving good instruments under-employed. It’s time to kick over the pedestal. As Frank Zappa once said: ‘Shut up and play yer guitar.’ And only polish the thing if you really have to. Words: Ed Mitchell.
There was a time when guitar heroes would plunder pawnshops in sleepy American hamlets and have it away on their toes with armfuls of future classics. It was a perk of the job, a reward for living out of a suitcase for months on end. Picking up a ’56 Strat for what we’d have to pay for a round of drinks in a London pub these days, well, it was something you did when you got bored of vandalising your room at the local Holiday Inn.
Some of these cheaply acquired guitars were squirreled away; countless more were traded for, ahem, recreational materials. Others were brutalised, chiselled beyond recognition. It was a tough break for any old guitar that found itself ‘round Eddie Van Halen’s gaff when he was in a Dr. Frankenstein frame of mind. It was bleedin’ carnage, mate… sawdust and bicycle paint everywhere.
Of course, a number of these illustrious planks in the making were living on borrowed time. What… you don’t wince when you see Pete Townshend of The Who decimating enough vintage Strats, Teles, Rickenbackers and Gibson SGs to stock a respectable chunk of Denmark St? If ever there was a Freddie Krueger of a guitar’s nightmares it was Pete. He even wasted his Quadrophenia-era Gretsch 6120. Think I cried myself to sleep over that one…
All this wanton auto-destruction was tolerated nay even encouraged, when these instruments were worth next to nowt. Which brings me to the real meat of this opinion piece. At some point in time [historians that I just made up estimate around the mid-80s] we all got a bit emotionally involved. It’s gone too far the other way. For many of us, the gear has become more important than the art.
Now, I have to admit the editor of Power-On got a bit nervous about this topic when I suggested it. Understandable given that making gear is what Roland do. And they do it bloody well, if I can just write that in so the editor doesn’t have to. Nevertheless, what I’m banging on about is not people purchasing the equipment they need to realise their musical ambitions… the complete opposite in fact.
Instruments are made to be played. That’s their job. Yet, it’s not just vintage guitars, amps and stomp boxes that are being molly-coddled into disuse nowadays. I know so many people who handle new electric guitars like their some kind of priceless Fabergé egg. These instruments will likely never become vintage classics – there are just too many on the market for rarity value to ever become a factor.
If you’re so worried about getting a scratch on your pride and joy’s flame maple top you’re not going to get the full experience of playing the thing.
All is not lost. There are still those heroic souls willing to unleash the fury on a defenceless, likely over-priced slab of rock ‘n’ roll history. Step forward Mr Yngwie J. Malmsteen. Ok, the Swedish wonder may be living off his 80s glory years, and that Hendrix-style military jacket could do with letting out a few inches these days. But when it comes to using vintage guitars in the manner they were built for [you know, playing stuff on them] then Malmsteen is the boss.
Yngwie couldn’t be any meaner to his guitars if he gave them a wedgie, dissed their Mums as ‘chunky’ and nicked their lunch money. The floor of the guitar room in his house [the one with all the Ferraris parked outside; it’s on YouTube] looks like some hellish game of KerPlunk with [beautifully patinated] vintage bodies piled upon bodies and necks sticking out in all directions. He even scallops their fingerboards for goodness sake. He doesn’t care, does he?
Then there are blues aces like Joe Bonamassa and Philip Sayce. Joe Bo regularly takes his ’59 Les Paul Standards on tour despite the fact that he reduced his savings account to the tune of £250,000 or so a piece for them. Meanwhile, Philip Sayce’s ’63 Strat ‘Mother’ has lost so much paint since he bought it in LA the guitar looks like Wolverine and Edward Scissorhands have been playing catch with it, blindfolded. It still sounds great of course, and that’s why he takes it on the road. And all power to you, Phil.
What if guys like Malmsteen didn’t exist? Say Eddie had never satisfied his curiosity at what a Gibson PAF would sound like in rammed into a Strat body. The guitar landscape would look very different and some of the guitars that made the 80s and beyond so much fun wouldn’t exist.
I’m not saying you should catch your guitars a-flame like Jimi Hendrix. Or beat it hard like the ever-wonderful Wilko Johnson. We just need to remember why we craved these instruments in the first place. Yes, they look the business but more importantly, it’s the sound they produce that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. And they can’t make that sound if they’re behind glass or hidden in a case under your bed.
You might be thinking, ‘who the hell are you to judge?’ Well… you make a convincing point. I once had a ’65 Fender Mustang restored to better than its former glory. Cost me a fortune. The results were stunning. I sold it soon after because I was scared to play it in case I ruined its good looks. Daft…
I also confess that I have one guitar in my current collection that is vigorously protected, Nigel Tufnel-style [‘don’t even point at it…’]. It’s a Rickenbacker 325 Rose Morris [aka the 1996; aka the John Lennon guitar]. Born in 2008, it still doesn’t have so much as a plectrum mark or a fly’s footprints on it. Am I scared to play it? Yep, but I still do when the immediate area is cleared of all obstructions and sharp edges.
I keep this guitar in good nick by transferring my aggression elsewhere. The Rickenbacker sits protected in its silver Tolex case while a Telecaster takes the brunt of my plectrum-fuelled jabs, ever aging like some six-string Picture Of Dorian Grey.
So, I’m not casting the first stone. You can call me a hypocrite if you wanna – oh, you already did – but I actually wish the guitar had picked up some noble bruises through the years. I know when it gets its first scratch or finish chip I’ll relax – after a bit of a cry – and start playing it more. I won’t let Yngwie or Eddie anywhere near it though. What they do with their own gear is up to them.
