Instruments1st Guitar:
Kay Les Paul copy, (don't know any other details about it.)
I started playing guitar about seven years ago although I got my first guitar quite a while before that when I found a Kay Les Paul copy in a robot-technician's junkyad. It only had two strings so i learned my first guitar pieces on a busted rusty two-stringed electric. The guitar has had a rough life and although I've fixed it up a bit it's still pretty bad. I plan to actually put some real work ito it at some stage and get it good as new again. i know Kays are't great guitars but it's for senimental reasons.
2nd Guitar
Peavy Predator
Before this was mine it was my sisters, before that my cousin's, before that some guy's. I bought it off my sister when I decided I wanted to form a band with some friends. The Kay, although I had done it up significantly by that stage, wasn't enough - also my friend forming the band with me didn't have his own electric. This was when I started getting serious about playin the guitar. I remember playing it for hours on end, my fingernails filed down and my hand bleeding over the pick-guard - awesome! Aside from a few issues this guitar has served me well. Is also due a bit of a fix-up when I get the chance.
3rd Guitar.
Framus Acoustic.
This one isn't really mine it's my Dad's, however even before I got my hands on the Kay I had picked this one up and made some noises. This guitar's about as twice as old as I am and it looks it. Still has a wonderful sound. The fretboard is quite narrow and the strings are very close to it which alters the sound a bit, makes it tricky at times to play but means you can get some wicked harmonics out of it.
4th Guitar
Maton EM325c
I bought this about two years ago, a Maton electro-acoustic. I researched for about two years on what guitar I wanted before making the plunge with this one, cost me $2.5K. Never looked back. Well worth it, this guitar is made of fantastic. Fantastic sound, looks wonderful and is beautiful to play. This is a finely crafted guitar. I altered it a bit by moving the action closer to the fretboad to give it the same benefits the Framus has regarding harmonics, also to make it more comfortable with my style of playing.
BandsI've been in three bands. First two were school rock bands when I was 11/12. I can't remember what they were called but I played drums in the first and keyboards in the second. It was a shitload of fun dispite the awful songs we played, (we played them well but the songs were mostly old and modern-day pop songs. Our greatest hit was a cover of Britney's "Crazy".)
The third band was one I set up with friends at high school. I played guitar and I sang, the others were Rob on lead guitar, Carl on Bass and Sam on Drums. Sam was good but uncomfortable, he often forgot what he was meant to play I think he has ADD. Rob was good and cetainly keen but fairly sloppy. Carl wasn't all that confident due to us forcing him to be the bass player, (he learned from scratch,) but he got pretty good and was definitely the best performer. Meanwhile I was a control freak. My playing was okay, not great, my singing was pretty poor. We practiced at Sam's house whenever we could which wasn't a lot because we prety much lived in four differnt corners of the region and none of us had full licenses. We covered a couple of songs, (Shihad and Foo Fighters,) and wrote a few of our own. We only performed once and it went terribly due to the fact that it wasn't set up for us - the sound guy didn't turn up. Basically all we could do was throw a few amps together and try our best - it sounded awful but we were pretty tight.
After school was over we just went our separate ways. I catch up with Rob sometimes and we've done some acoustic playing together, I have no idea what happened to Carl and I saw Sam a few months back. He works at a cafe in Wellington, lives in a pretty sweet apartment above another cafe in central Wellington and drums for a couple of bands. Living the indie-kid dream although he was always more drawn to metal drumming.
I'd like to get back into band playing at some point but guitarists are dime-a-dozen. For now I just stick to acoustic fingerstyle playing which is pretty cool.
