All about famous guitars
I’d like my character to have owns a lot of guitars over his lifetime. He named them, he broke them, some were stolen, he finally has to hock them to eat? Or he has one that is signed by everyone he ever headlined with–keeps it in a plexi-glass case. Finally, he may donate it at the fundraiser. His “daughter” buys it and presents it back to him in the final scene?.
from Steve Vai:
“Although Evo is just made out of wire and wood, I’m afraid of how much emotional investment I have in her. I think when you play an instrument long enough it becomes an extension of yourself in ways that run deeper than anyone may understand but you. It moulds and shapes to your body and style or you mould and shape to it. It is the tool an artist uses to express his or her deepest emotional expressions and secrets. For me, Evo has been the voice of my heart and has seen the depth of my most depressed emotional frames of mind to my most euphoric moments of joy and divine love, and she usually gets the brunt of it all. I have cried, screamed, prayed and bled through that instrument, and like I said, although she is only wire and wood, there is an emotional investment in her. I’m afraid at how much I love her but I know that she is only on loan to me for a short time and will one day be dust. But for now, there’s still quite a bit we have to say together.”
Jack White speaks about his main guitar:
“I got my first one from Jack Oblivian. Jack Yarber is his name, and he’s in a band called the Oblivians, from Memphis. He was playing in Detroit, and I went backstage. He said, “Hey, look at this guitar that I got.” And he opened the case, and I was like, “Oh, man! That’s amazing! That’s……my color!” And it’s plastic. I love it so much!” And he said, “It’s for sale. I wanna get an Airline with three pickups.” I had, like, 200 bucks or something. [laughs] Can’t get ’em for 200 bucks anymore.
Playing that guitar makes me feel like I have to take something that’s broken and make it work. It’s hollow, it’s made of plastic, and it feels like it’s going to fall apart. The front pickup is broken, but the treble pickup has an amazing bite. I’ve never had it refretted or anything. It’s pretty much the way I found it, except for new tuners.”
It’s work to play it, but I like that. I had a Silvertone guitar that never stayed in tune, but when it went out of tune I would just work with it. If I wanted to play it safe I’d go out and get a brand new Stratocaster or something like that. But I don’t like to play it safe; I like it when things are get messed up. It’s like when things get messed up onstage: it forces me to figure something out now, because no one else can save me. With a guitar like the Airline, my mind is always working. I’m not just “phoning it in.”
For guitars, you just have to go to junk shops. You won’t be able to find something like the Airline at a pawn shop very often. I don’t think you should buy brand new instruments because they haven’t proven themselves. You can buy an old guitar and it’s already got soul inside of it; it’s gone through a battle. A new guitar – yeah, it stays in tune, it’s perfect and it will never crap out on you or anything. But it doesn’t have any soul to it; it’s just another piece of plastic coming out of a factory. I’ve never been able to relate to that.”
about G. Harrison’s famous guitar:
“The fabled red Les Paul was stolen from under the bed of George Harrison’s Beverly Hills home during a burglary in the early ’70s. Eventually it ended up at the Guitar Center in Hollywood, where a musician from Mexico purchased the instrument for $650. After a complex set of negotiations involving a third party and a trip to Mexico, ‘Lucy’ was eventually returned to Harrison in exchange for a ’58 sunburst Les Paul and a Precision bass.
“[‘Lucy’] got kidnapped and taken to Guadalajara,” George would later muse, “and I had to buy this Mexican guy a Les Paul to get it back.” His beloved ‘Lucy’ Les Paul would remain a prized part of George Harrison’s collection until his death in 2001.”
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