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Needs saving stories

Peter Squire

Peter Squire

Aug 22, 2004
2,376
9
56
Adelaide, Australia
www.theantics.net
#1
Ok, so the guys from work decide to throw a belated xmas party, due to everyone working all over the holidays.

most of the guys have had some beers, and one suggests that everyone come back to his place to keep drinking. one of the young guys says "cool, i'll grab my guitar - and hey, pete, why not grab ur bass and we can jam"

so i think, ok, go home and grab my stuff and head over to the party house. anyway, when the young guy arrives, i'm knocked out when he pulls out a LEFTY Fender Strat MIA (he's only about 19). :eek:

anyway, he proceeds to tell me that he can't play anything, tunes it to whatever sounds good to his ears, and then decides he wants to go into town - leaving his strat at the house of a guy he barely knows. :rollno:

im even more amazed when I pick up his strat, only to find that the neck is bowed, the action has been lowered so far that it sits on the frets and the guitar is totally out of tune. Next time I saw him i asked if he wanted to sell me his strat, not because i like strats but because i couldn't bear to think how this instrument was being treated. :(

anyone else have any experiences where they came across an instrument that was just crying out to be saved?
 
#3
My friend's MIM Fender Jazz. The string are a bright orange from the rust, the strings are resting on the neck, intonation is ALL screwed up, the neck looks like a skateboard ramp. I offered to buy it off him but he refused. He doesn't even play it. :scowl: With a little TLC, I think it would make a pretty nice bass.
 
#4
Unfortunately I don't really know any other bass players. My best friend though, owns about 60 guitars (seriously, he's counted recently). Most of them are old acoustics, though, that have been purchased from flea markets and things of that nature. He is planning to get rid of over 40 of them, which is probably good because someone may as well get some use out of them. Oh well...it's not like a lot of them are old Martins or anything like that...they're the usual stuff that people got from Sears and JC Penney in the 50s and 60s, I guess.
 
#5
I love old guitars.

Old guitars are history you interact with. Pick up a beat 46 year old Les Paul Special and you never know, hundreds or thousands of people may have played that guitar before you, and dozens of may have owned it before you and dozens may own it after you.

Here you get into a dichotomy of "owning" something. After you pay for it, it's yours to do with as you wish. But after you're dead and gone- chances are that guitar will go on to another owner who will have to deal with anything you've done to the guitar. Case- I own a '65 Jazz bass. I think it used to be Fiesta Red, but I'm not sure because somebody thought it would be a good idea to strip the finish off it, stain the wood and brush on a frickin' inch of polyurothane. He was kind enough to sign and date it in the neck pocket. His name was Doug and he did it in 1972. I have a great playing and great sounding bass- it just looks like a 6th grader who flunked woodshop did the finish, so it won't be 'collectable' in the forseeable future.

It still might be a big thing, but a few years back for some reason it was considered by many to take 1952-1956 'soapbar' pickup goldtop Les Pauls, strip the finish, put on a 'flamey' veneer, paint it sunburst and rout out for full size humbuckers. A lot of those guys referred to those guitars as (for example) a "55/59 conversion." Seeing as a 59 Les Paul will run around $100K on the low end, and a 55 was concievably available for around $20K, these guys would convince themselves they got a 59 Les Paul because they 'converted' an old LP to a 59. :confused: That leaves one less 55 LP for the future.

That's, of course, not taking into acount "basket cases," guitars that are boogered to begin with.

Yes, if you own a guitar you can do what you want with it. Even if you want to smash it into little pieces and use the splinters for toothpicks. It doesn't make putting a Kahler into a 62 Strat a good idea though.
 
#6
Just before last Thanksgiving, I walked into a pawn shop in Oak Cliff (south of the trinity river, Dallas = the Hood) and saw a burgandy bass. I tried it and really liked it, Bartolini Pickups, 5 strings, really good shape - had just a little paint worn down at the bridge were I guess someone rested their hand while picking.

They said it was an Obieron. I never heard of it but there was somthing really familiar about that "R" on the headstock. They were asking 250 but I got them down to 200 + tax so I put it in layaway (figuring it would be a good bass to drag around town and not feel guilty if I wrecked it.) I went home to find out anything about Obieron basses on the Net. I got side tracked and started looking at all of those dream basses Warrior's, MTD's, Alemic's, Fodera's- and when I finally made it to the Roscoe site - IT KNOCKED ME ON MY @$$ !!

I went back to the shop and double checked, and sure enough, it was a for real Roscoe. I looked into them when I arrived in Dallas about 3 years ago, but since I wasn't giging out here yet, I could put the money to better use and keep my Tobias at church. But now here was a Roscoe just waiting for me - for 200 bucks. I put another 30 bucks in it and left. I told my family about the three thousand dollar bass I was getting for two hundred - they told me to get it before the pawnshop finds out what they did and sells it on E-Bay. The old "Whoops, we sold it by accident, here is your money back!" First thing the next day, I went and paid the balance. They must have thought I was crazy, three lay away payments in less than 72 hours. But I got my Roscoe and didn't even let them in on the secret - Now I'm waiting for when I get rescue a six string Obieron from them. -LOL!
:bassist: :bassist: :bassist: :bassist: :bassist:
 
#9
first off, i must say that the fact that im lefty plays a GRRRRRRRRREAAAAT beal in this! one of my friends dad just picked up a a fender P-bass. i didnt think much of it and so me and some of my freinds went over to his house to check it out. im the only one that plays bass, one of them plays guitar and the other sings. when we got there i immeaditly went looking for it. i asked my friends dad where it was and he pointed to his sons room. i go in there to find it and i see my friends looking at the guy playing it. i look at it and i realize that its about a 65 or 60. it looks fantastic and sounds orgasmic, the paint is just a bit gritty on the back side but still fine. the fret board is maple i think and looks really good. its just f**king awsome!!!

that was a couple of years ago, and over the years it has just been sitting in the corner and the only time its played is when i go over to atempt to try to teach him. it is right handed and im left handed,"D'oh". now the neck is bowed, not inward but OUTWARD. MOTHERF**KER!!!!!! the strings havent been changed since he got it and hasnt been cleaned since befor that. but thats the price that you pay for being uniqe.


SCIENTIFIC FACT #9385-294: left handed people are more creative then right handed people
 

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