What is the MOST trouble or effort you ever went through to get a guitar.

I’ve wanted an SJ 200 for awhile. Saw one at a shop in Maine in February. Sold 4 guitars in 30 days to come up with the scratch and had to drive to Maine in the pandemic to pick it up. Well worth all the effort.

 

Kept a guy on the phone for 40 minutes+ as I sped to his house to buy an old Martin he put on Craigslist.

White knuckling and speeding wrecklessly the entire time.

Trying to say anything to keep the conversation rolling.

Just as he was finally saying “well , I really gotta wrap this up...when are you coming to see it ?”

I said , “I’m here ! Black F-150 ...”

“Oh yeah , I see you , just pull up in the driveway...”

He said he heard people trying to call the whole time we were on the phone. I thought to myself – man I’m glad I didn’t know that or I probably would’ve run off the road.

Shoved the cash in his hand and said thanks gotta run !

I was back on the road in four minutes.

Went home and took a two-hour nap out of nervous exhaustion.

His phone number popped up on my caller ID when I got a call later that afternoon.

I did not answer.

 

I drove to Portland and back for my 12-string. Craigslist. I kept calling the guy to make sure he still had it. 400 miles round-trip. I still have it.

 

Geez. Some of y’all are really dedicated to the mission. I usually just grab mine off the wall at the music store, or order them online. The hardest part is handing over the money.

Who am I kidding? I could never even attempt to hold onto money.

 

"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."


Or do you mean you're close to finishing the project?




I took more than a year to find the perfect Les Paul. I've owned several, and all were a compromise, e.g., great sound but too heavy, perfect weight but thin neck, etc. In my 15-month search across several states, I probably played 400-500 Les Pauls. And I found the one that checks all the boxes...even some boxes I never knew were boxes. It really is a holy grail Les Paul for me.

 

Working Five Seasons of Graveyard at a Canery to make the Money.

 

That place looks awesome!

I couldn’t go in there....you’re stronger than I
I’d be broke before I hit the second floor

I don’t know a way to say it without sounding how can I say...American

But in a country close to the source of chibsons, are there any suspect instruments you’ve seen there?

 

Other than my wife , no trouble a at all. They just show up at my door.

 

My wife gave me a guitar as a wedding present....does that count?

 

I

Was young, just a teenager. I got this tele second hand ( 5th hand maybe ). Well it crapped out on me right away. I then took it to a drunk guitar tech at my local shop. He said he would give me a discount, and do it on his own time. That must have been 9 months. When I did get it back, he told me that the body and its' parts were not fender. He did do a cool job for me . Tele pick up in the bridge, strat in the middle, and a humbucker in the neck. I spent more on that thing than it was worth. I played it for a good 10 years, and finally got a new Tele. It became my first new guitar. 1988, my journey to the first new guitar.

 

Nothing wrong with sounding, looking or being American my friend. Absolutely agree with you on the need to be extra diligent in shopping for an American brand in Asia in general because the close proximity to the source of chibson etc, I felt I was safe with an Epi 339. Truth of the matter is the Korean stuff is SO GOOD that is generally what I am after. Moolon guitars and pedals are top tier stuff. Yes you have to really struggle to barter a good price because they do see dollar signs with westerners. I never fail to disappoint them. Politely saying ‘thank you for your time’ and walking away is the great equalizer. They wont let you get far. They are exceedingly polite people and super good folks in general. That store is amazing and you cant even come close to seeing everything in a weekend. Andrew White started a factory just north east of Seoul and it is tiny. About the size of an Olive Garden. Killer craftsmanship in Korea. I could not buy the guitar at the factory.

 

Wow!!!

 

One time I clicked on the 'Buy Now' button....
and a week later it turned up on my doorstep.

Mabe I'm just very lazy.
.

 

Traveled a grand total of almost 1,000 miles to get my Ibanez semiacoustic. Found the ad when I was on a work trip to Copenhagen, drove back to Stockholm the same day, then the next day I took busses and trains to get to the other side of Sweden (Göteborg) and more trains to bring it back. Came back around 9pm but man was it worth it.

 

I've driven all the way to far-flung locales like Bay Ridge, Westchester, and Staten Island for gear.

 

Back in ‘71 I was hitchhiking from L.A. back to Michigan and I decided to stop in Minneapolis to see a buddy that had moved there. After I had been there a couple of days we went to check out some local guitar stores.

We walked into a store in Bloomington, MN and there it was... the ‘61 Les Paul Custom I had been looking for the last couple years, it was gorgeous.

Long story short... I traded in the Guild D-35 that I’d been traveling with but that still left a pretty good chunk of money owed. I got a job working in a plastics factory to come up with the rest of the money.

I played that LPC for about 18 months before finally deciding the neck was just too thin for me. My buddy eventually wound up with that guitar and it became his #1. He literally wore that thing out, he played it till he passed in 2018.

 

I flew 2,500 miles to reclaim my avatar guitar.
It got sold, along with most of my stuff to pay my divorce lawyer, about 18 years ago.
I moved back to Austin after living in Pr. George, BC.
It was great to have it back.
I was without it for a couple of years.