spychocyco
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2008
- Messages
- 800
I've been lurking for a little while and made a few posts here and there in the last few days, so it's probably past time for the obligatory intro post.
I've been playing for a little more than 20 years ... closer to 25 if you count banging on my grandfather's guitar when I was 10. For the most part I'm self taught. Never had lessons until recently for various reasons (parents didn't have the money for it when I was a kid, then I ran into a couple of teachers that took a look at my short stubby fingers and told me I'd never be able to play.) In college, I played in a few three-chord bands where I handled the three chords and let someone else do the heavy lifting. I'll admit I'm a pretty lousy guitarist for someone who's been playing that long, but I'm now getting better quickly.
I'm a fairly recent convert to EBMM (other than using EB strings forever). Started about two years ago. I own about a half-dozen pawn shop guitars, and I decided then that I was at a point in my life where I could afford a nice guitar and I was going to get one. I'd had my eye on a leftover Peavey Wolfgang at a local music shop. They'd had it forever and kept dropping the price on it. I finally decided to pull the trigger ... they sold it. The guy in the store recommended that I try out an Axis Sport they were also trying to clear out. I fell in love with the neck. It was $799, which was at the very top end of my budget, and beyond the neck, I wasn't crazy about it. It had MM90s and a hardtail, not what I was looking for in a metal guitar, and it was a silver sparkle finish that I didn't care for. I decided to pass.
I looked into getting an Axis at that point, and though I played a few and loved them, with a one-year-old crawling around, I had to stop at the price tag. A few months later, OLP put out an MM1 with a Floyd, and I bought that instead. It was OK for a few months, but I was quickly dissatisfied again, having just added another cheap guitar to my cheap guitar collection.
In early 2007, I started to look at guitars again, but couldn't find one that thrilled me in our limited selection of music stores. My wife and I always exchange Christmas ideas early in the year so that we can save to buy them. As a joke, I told her exactly what I wanted -- a Pacific Blue Burst Axis with matching headstock -- just in case we won the lottery at some point in the year. I was pretty sure that I was going to get a guitar, since I've been griping about it for a long time, and over the course of the year, I picked out a few in a more accessible price range, and I figured I was going to get a Strat that I had picked out at a nearby GC. (I'd wanted a Strat since I was a teenager.)
But I staggered out of the bedroom bleary-eyed after my son woke me up on Christmas morning, and sitting on the couch was a case that said Music Man. I've got to tell you, for a guy that's had nothing but beat-up, el cheapo pawn shop guitars all his life, there was something special about opening that bag and being the first person to touch my Axis since it left the factory. It sounds corny, but I honestly believe I became a better player the second I lifted it out of the case. It's inspired me to play a lot more than I have in years, and even to give lessons a try again. The result is that I've improved more in the last month and a half than probably the previous 10 years of plunking out the same riffs over and over. I'll never be a virtuoso, but I just might be able to play in public without embarrassing myself one day.
Oh, and I'm long-winded, too. Sorry about the novel.
I've been playing for a little more than 20 years ... closer to 25 if you count banging on my grandfather's guitar when I was 10. For the most part I'm self taught. Never had lessons until recently for various reasons (parents didn't have the money for it when I was a kid, then I ran into a couple of teachers that took a look at my short stubby fingers and told me I'd never be able to play.) In college, I played in a few three-chord bands where I handled the three chords and let someone else do the heavy lifting. I'll admit I'm a pretty lousy guitarist for someone who's been playing that long, but I'm now getting better quickly.
I'm a fairly recent convert to EBMM (other than using EB strings forever). Started about two years ago. I own about a half-dozen pawn shop guitars, and I decided then that I was at a point in my life where I could afford a nice guitar and I was going to get one. I'd had my eye on a leftover Peavey Wolfgang at a local music shop. They'd had it forever and kept dropping the price on it. I finally decided to pull the trigger ... they sold it. The guy in the store recommended that I try out an Axis Sport they were also trying to clear out. I fell in love with the neck. It was $799, which was at the very top end of my budget, and beyond the neck, I wasn't crazy about it. It had MM90s and a hardtail, not what I was looking for in a metal guitar, and it was a silver sparkle finish that I didn't care for. I decided to pass.
I looked into getting an Axis at that point, and though I played a few and loved them, with a one-year-old crawling around, I had to stop at the price tag. A few months later, OLP put out an MM1 with a Floyd, and I bought that instead. It was OK for a few months, but I was quickly dissatisfied again, having just added another cheap guitar to my cheap guitar collection.
In early 2007, I started to look at guitars again, but couldn't find one that thrilled me in our limited selection of music stores. My wife and I always exchange Christmas ideas early in the year so that we can save to buy them. As a joke, I told her exactly what I wanted -- a Pacific Blue Burst Axis with matching headstock -- just in case we won the lottery at some point in the year. I was pretty sure that I was going to get a guitar, since I've been griping about it for a long time, and over the course of the year, I picked out a few in a more accessible price range, and I figured I was going to get a Strat that I had picked out at a nearby GC. (I'd wanted a Strat since I was a teenager.)
But I staggered out of the bedroom bleary-eyed after my son woke me up on Christmas morning, and sitting on the couch was a case that said Music Man. I've got to tell you, for a guy that's had nothing but beat-up, el cheapo pawn shop guitars all his life, there was something special about opening that bag and being the first person to touch my Axis since it left the factory. It sounds corny, but I honestly believe I became a better player the second I lifted it out of the case. It's inspired me to play a lot more than I have in years, and even to give lessons a try again. The result is that I've improved more in the last month and a half than probably the previous 10 years of plunking out the same riffs over and over. I'll never be a virtuoso, but I just might be able to play in public without embarrassing myself one day.
Oh, and I'm long-winded, too. Sorry about the novel.
