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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Here’s another thread for the memory lane. Can you recall how you totally trashed a previously owned guitar as a result of some stupid act? Back in my desert racing days (mid-1970's), I had a beautiful mid-priced Yamaha 12-string that I inadvertently left leaning on a chair near the campfire one evening. One six-pack later, we hopped on the bikes for some night scrambling (with no lights, of course). Thereafter, somebody inadvertently knocked the guitar to the ground and, well, I guess we got to jumping a little too close to the fire. The next morning, we were pulling these odd little wires out of the sprockets of at least two of the bikes, and probably a few more. It wasn’t until somebody walked up with a wound E string that I remembered not seeing the guitar in the camper. Turns out that whatever didn’t get demolished under the bikes was probably mistaken for kindling and tossed into the fire. That was my worst dirt-bike injury! |
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November 2005
Posts: 111
Location: Southern California | My experience is not as bad as The Professors, but...
I was heading to a friend's house with my first electric guitar (a medium blue Teisco brand Vox knock-off with a faux woodgrain pick guard). Being too young to drive, transportation was via my trusty bright yellow Huffy 10-speed. The guitar had no case, and was therefore strapped around my neck.
Long story short, ten-speed + guitar strapped around neck + turning through a gutter full of water at a faster than prudent speed = wipe out. The bike came out OK, but both me and the guitar suffered major strawberries, the guitar's more major than mine.
My strawberries got covered up with bandages. The guitar's got covered up with a liberal dose of spectrum tape... which then had to be applied all over the guitar in order to look right, right? I mean, if you go for a cover-up, go whole hog, and spectrum tape was the height of cool.
Years later, the remorse built up for what I had done. The wipe-out damage was bad enough, but spectrum tape? So, I peeled off the tape and refinished the guitar in basic black (basic black being the Anti-Spectrum Tape). |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Pretty much every time I attempt fingerpicking on my Lowden.... |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | We played baseball using guitars for bats and rocks for the balls. We were at the dump and were told not to return with the guitars or leave them in playable or fixable condition. We didn't. |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | At the Taylor factory, Bill?? |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | Then there's always the field goal that Templeman made (and nearly beaned me in the head with as is sailed by) last Spring . . .
Wankers - 1
Celebrities - nill |
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July 2004
Posts: 812
Location: Hicksville, NY | I'm not sure if I would call this a thrashng story, but it sure was a tragic one.
Remember the Gibson knockoff that I acquired from my aunt that I posted in another thread? Well, I placed it on top of the coffee table (I didn't have a stand then), to take a break from playing and took a shower. We had problems with the water pressure at that time. Somehow, the second floor runs out of water when someone turns on the faucet in the first floor of the house. I happened to be in the middle of taking a shower in the second floor. To my dismay, I put on my bath robe, and hurried down to the first floor bathroom to finish my bath, but I didn't realized that there was still soap all over my body. To make a long story short, I slipped and slammed right on the guitar! The rest, of course is history ... |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | OUCH!!! |
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June 2002
Posts: 863
Location: Central Florida | In 1972, I got a brand new Glen Campbell 1127. I had scrimped and saved every penny I could get my hands on for two years to afford that guitar. As my birthday present that year, and as a reward for my diligence in saving, my parents made up the difference and bought me the guitar. Owning that guitar was the absolute pinnacle for me... It was beautiful!
Fast forward now three years... I brought it to school one day for a Jr. High band rehearsal. Rather than put it back in the case when practice was over, I just leaned it agaisnt a file cabinet in the band director's office. Bet you can tell where this is going... When I went back to retrieve it at the end of the day, I found it still leaning against the file cabinet, but now the neck heel was about 80% out of it's socket and the guitar was in a quasi jack knife position.
To this day, I don't know how it happened, who was responsible for it (besides me for being so careless), or if it was an act of vandalism or merely an acident. But it sure taught me a lesson (in addition to breaking my heart) about the value of cases. That was 31 years ago, and I haven't left a guitar out of its case when unattended since.
PS: Knowing what I know today, I'm sure that guitar could've been fully repaired. But back then I assumed if the neck broke on a guitar it was nothing more than kindling at that point. |
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December 2003
Posts: 13996
Location: Upper Left USA | "We played baseball using guitars for bats and rocks for the balls."
Cut to Today:
As we join Bill Kaman at the 14th of the Marsh Bog Open we see a tough lie. Will he reach for the 12th fret for this one or will he let loose with the longneck... |
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Joined:
November 2004
Posts: 37
Location: Warwick, RI | I didn't trash this guitar, but it is a sad trash story. I wandered into a junk store in Dayton, Ohio 20 years ago and saw a beat Martin 00018. Picked it up and saw where the owner of the shop had cut half the back out, up to the heel, so he could fill the bottom bout with dirt and use the guit as a planter, with the flowers coming out the soundhole. He had abandoned the project, and I bought the piece for $2.50 and gave it to the area authorized Martin service guy who checked the serial number and dated the box as made in the 30's. |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I was at a bluegrass/old time jam, and watched as Les Thompson picked up his custom Olson in the case after handing it off to someone else (not me) to play. The fella he lent it to put the guitar back in the case and shut it without without latching it...
as we're closing down and packing up, Lee picked up the case and it fell open...the guitar fell out, face down on to the concrete floor. It made that horrible <<<>>> as it hit the floor. The whole place just got dead silent...
Cracked sound board, fucked up binding .... |
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October 2005
Posts: 5331
Location: Cicero, NY | Oooo. Has the maroon recovered from the beating yet? |
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December 2004
Posts: 370
Location: Isle of Man, UK | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
Cracked sound board, fucked up binding .... Weaser - I would guess not if he had injuries like that! :D
JB |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I gotta say, Les handled the situation with a great deal of aplomb.
Had it been mine, sound right after <<<>>>
whudda be WHACK....
....followed by months of infintile sobbing |
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Joined:
July 2004
Posts: 812
Location: Hicksville, NY | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
Had it been mine, sound right after <<<>>>
whudda be WHACK....
....followed by months of infintile sobbing I would feel the same way too, considering, the waiting list and asking price for Olson guitars these days. |
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Joined:
March 2003
Posts: 195
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado | Back in the days when refinishing an old guitar wasn't a mortal sin, I had a custom car painter refinish my old Jazz Bass from a very worn out sunburst to a beautiful black with platinum pearl finish and ghost flames. It was incredible! A couple of weeks later I was playing a pickup gig for some country singer when he tells me his brother/cousin/uncle/ wants to play bass on just one song. I let him use my Jazz and damned if he didn't have one of those rodeo belt buckles that took most of my prized finish off the back in the time it takes to play Silver Wings. I was sick. They were drunk. and I was really outnumbered. I finished the gig and got paid my $50.00. and left pissed as can be. To this day, I will never let anyone near one of my axes unless I know the guy personally. In the end I had the bass refinished again in just plain black. It has seen many gigs since then and gotten beat a little but I don't care as much about the finish. There's always more black paint.
Cc |
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Got a good guitar trashing story?
