Joined:
February 2016
Posts: 1869
Location: When?? | Patch mentioned in another thread about how he had a damaged 1537 that went back to the factory for a rebuild.. which caused me to ponder back at some of my own bleak disasters. I don't recall ever seeing an OFC thread of guitar mishaps and misdeeds, so I thought there may be some here who would like to cry in their beer. I will furnish one of my favorites, of which, forgive me, I may have mentioned at some distant past point of electric guitar convo-- albeit is still quick to come to mind and tell::
Circa late 80's, my stoked-up niece had a party at my house. I was not there. Some of her guests were jammers for the evening's entertainment, including herself, for which she helped herself to my Breadwinner to take part. Along about the time the keg ran dry, and everyone had either passed out or departed the scene, someone tossed the Breadwinner into the pool-- likely during the duress of an anti-Ovation fit. Apparently unnoticed.. at least by anyone who cared.. it stayed there until shortly after sunrise when I arrived home to find it floating tail down heavy with a headstock slightly into breathing air and screaming for Daddy's rescue.
The ration of hell that I laid upon said niece awakened most of the northern hemisphere. The remainder of her hungover cohorts were also aroused and quick to depart the wrath, with myself never knowing for certain who exactly made the toss. She attempted the "it must have been an accident" diversion, which fizzled into worthless. Worse yet, it was hot when it went into the pool-- electronics completely cooked before the amp breaker had finally tripped.. and once dried, water damage to the fretboard and neck were unacceptable to my further appreciation of the guitar.
She worked at a grocery store.. whereas I immediately owned half of her paycheck-- and it was around eight weeks or so before she became the not-so-proud owner of the guitar-- which she soon sold for a fraction of the cost. Then we made up.. then we took a road trip to visit a dealer friend in my old home town.. where I purchased another Breadwinner (a red "Partridge Family" edition).. then we ate some pizza and lived happily ever after. The End.
Anyone else?? |
Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4073
Location: Utah | Man, what a story. I got nothin' like that!
Back in high school in the 1970's, I had just spent my life savings from working as a janitor in a hospital on a new 12 string. I was paid minimum wage plus all the hospital food I could eat. For a 16 yr old, the food was a big bonus! Anyhow, I'd wanted to buy an Ovation but the shop wouldn't deal at all. That was Rondo Music on the ugliest road in America, Rt 22 in NJ. So my dad drove me up the road to another store, the name I forget. There I found a really nice Alvarez 12 string that they were willing to deal on. As an aside, a few years later that shop turned into an adult bookstore. And then Rondo closed their doors. They were ahead of the trend in the loss of mom & pop music stores.
I played that guitar in the pit band for the school musical. One afternoon after rehearsal I put the guitar in the case, and left it on the stage. Someone pushed it off, and it landed right on the headstock end of the case. Put a nice dent in the case, but zero damage to the guitar. I learned a strong lesson to always protect against idiots, including myself.
Another event that comes to mind is losing some hearing in my left ear. I was in a high school garage band, and of course we sucked. Anyhow, the other guitarist decided to prank me. He turned up his amp, then said something about only hearing hiss, no guitar signal. He lured me into getting close to the speaker and then he dug into a full volume chord. That cost me a lot of high frequencies in that ear. I never heard rain or similar soft high frequencies again in that ear.
As to self inflicted damage, I burnt out an Op Pro Studio preamp with phantom power. One guitar had the factory VIP with XLR, and that did take phantom power. Another guitar had the Studio with XLR, so I tried using phantom power on it. However, the experiment freed the magic smoke from inside the Studio. Stupid!
Edited by FlySig 2025-09-10 10:01 AM
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Oh, the agony....
