Should you be featured on #GuitarHoarders? 🎸


Narrator: “Up next on Guitar Hoarders; Jim, 48, a self-professed ‘Blues Lawyer’ from Oaklahoma is going through a divorce due to his recent failure to remove 27 partscasters from his bathroom, leaving his soon-to-be-ex-wife to do her business in the rose bushes out back.”

Narrator: “Jim’s wife, Tonya, thought the rented apartment two towns over was for another woman, but it was way worse than she could have imagined. It was full of Chibsons and falsely advertised ‘Lawsuit Era’ LP copies that were actually nothing of the sort.”

Tonya: “I wish his browser history had said PornHub or RedTube, but no… it was all Reverb, eBay, ShopGoodwill, Craigslist, and the lowest of the low… local & national guitar forums on Facebook!

Don’t even get me started on LetGo and OfferUp. I wish I had found Tinder or even Grinder. That, I could deal with.”

Narrator: “Tonya did at least see a bright side to all of the madness.”

Tonya: “I mean, I guess at least it wasn’t Reddit.”

Jim: “I guess I don’t need that many guitars. I mean, I don’t get to play as often as I like. Most of my time is spent online explaining to n00bz how tone wood makes a huge difference, why I think Gibson is overrated and how they have gone downhill, the best types of wood for a fretboard, you know… the important stuff. There are some real idiots out there. How can you have fun if you’re not getting the best possible tone from your fingers?”

Narrator: “Jim is seemingly unaware that he has a problem.”

Jim: “GAS? No, never heard of it. Wait, is that the psychobilly jam-band that plays every open stage night at Free Beer Tomorrow over in Tulsa? No?

Anyway, did you know that Slash’s Les Paul that he used on Appetite for Destruction wasn’t even a Gibson?  And now they endorse him?  I mean.  If you don’t know that, you shouldn’t even be allowed to play Guitar Hero.”

Tonya: “I’m currently living with my sister.  Her husband plays the bass, so he can’t afford to have a hoarding problem.”

Jim: “That guy?  He doesn’t even know the difference between active and passive pickups.  Heh.”

Narrator: “At this time, Jim refuses counseling.  He thinks they can work it out.”

Jim: “I was teaching her how to play, but Mel Bay is so dumb.  We re-started with a ‘Top 50 riffs of all time’article form an old guitar magazine out of my pile.  I mean, there are only 8 notes, right?  Or is it 12?

I was trying to tell these guys at the county fair that they were playing the riff for ‘Lay Down Sally’ wrong, but you just can’t tell some people things.  I have a tabographic memory.  That’s where you can instantly remember every guitar tab that you have ever seen.”

🎸

TLC, I have another TV show for you.  This is a comment from a guitar group gone awry because I amuse myself way too much.  Who wants to do a YouTube sketch comedy show for a very specific audience?

Guitar Collection 2017

Guitars & Rock N’ Roll


I like guitars.  I blog about a bunch of stuff, but I can’t believe I neglected adding a guitar category before now.  Perhaps because I’m back to rocking out again, I’ve been more aware of guitars and music in general.

I have always loved music from an early age, and the guitar has always been my favorite instrument.  Of course I wanted to learn how to play.  I took a class in school because I needed 2 music electives one year.  We did the Mel Bay “Marry Had a Little Lamb” crap and I skimmed through only sort-of learning to read music while I bought guitar magazines and learned my favorite riffs by tab at home or from the kids in the guitar class who already knew how to play & were taking it for an easy A.

I was also learning at church camp… the minister in charge used to play campfire standards & hymns for the sing-alongs, and taught me how to play chords to a whole song instead of the riffs that I was used to half-assedly piecing together.  I think through this is where I first felt comfortable singing & playing at the same time.  I remember that being a huge obstacle at one point, but now it almost seems ridiculous.

I took lessons at a music store for a while, and it was cool… but basically I learned 1 scale and how to play by ear.  It wasn’t very structured, and I wasn’t a great student.  I just wanted to rock… not learn.

Around the same time, I re-discovered punk rock.  I had always been a fan of pop rock, punk rock, metal, & more… but when I learned that I could pop in the Misfits or Ramones and play along to the whole record, something just clicked.  I fell into a three-chord way of life… and discovered that I didn’t need to be a great guitar player.  Sure, there’s always room to improve, but I’m not trying to be Yngwie Malmsteen or Jimi Hendrix or anything.

With the punk re-awakening that I had, I wanted to write songs and be in a band.  Playing the guitar was the means to that end.  Luckily this was happening at the same time for me as some other good friends & eventually AiXeLsyD was born.  I’ve played on & off in a handful of bands & projects since then and been part of a few different scenes.  I’m very thankful for being introduced all the people that I’ve met through those endeavors.  There’s a weird bond with other people in bands that you just don’t get if you’re not part of the whole thing.  It’s like a weird brotherhood or religion or secret club… even within that I guess there are still more than a few who still don’t get it once they’re in it, but that’s a whole other blog.

This went a different direction than I intended, but you’ll have that.  Maybe I’ll blog more about the band experience… I’ve had a few standard rants about bands over the years that I’ll have to rehash here.

My original intent was just to say that I was going to start blogging about guitars.  I love guitars.  I like to play all kinds, I’d love to own them all.  I like normal guitars, but I gravitate toward the weird ones.  I’ll blog about all of them here.  Hopefully it’ll spark some discussions, awe, and ire.