The One That Got Away (And Then To Mock Me, Came Back)

In 2007 we went to Tucson for Thanksgiving. I love Tucson. Ever since I started playing guitar I've only been satisfied with the amount of guitar stores (or at least quality at A guitar store) on Oahu, Hawaii and in Tucson, Arizona. I started playing in Hawaii and was into Gibson Les Pauls and Ibanez guitars and lo and behold, one shop in Honolulu had a ton of Ibanez guitars to play and it was there in that shop's amp room that I first played with gain. My dad, who was there with me, said I couldn't stop smiling at the sound.

There was another shop that specialized in Les Pauls. Honestly, I don't think they stocked anything else and they had a TON of them, even a seven string model (which threw me for a loop considering that I thought Ibanez was the only seven string manufacturer at the time).

Then I moved to Biloxi where there was a guitar store hat was decent but run by a guy who wasn't so nice to customers with a guitar tech that you were never entirely comfortable with handing your guitar to. I once handed in my Peavey Pradator to get a set up and it came back with a different neck plate. I didn't mind, I prefered the black so I kept my mouth shut, but still thought the chrome to black (including screws) was a little odd.

Anyway, I moved places and theey didn't have very many quality guitar stores. I think they're a breed that's going away, but that's the topic of another potential blog.

Today I'm talking about Rainbow Guitars in Tucson.

When I lived there with my wife the first time, before I joined the AF, I was waiting for a call from them saying I'm good to go and this is when to report and here is where to report, etc. To fill the time and pay the bills we worked at Target in the nighttime. It was an easy job, but working at night really took it out of me. I literally ate, slept, worked, ate and slept. There was no going out. There were no fun activities. On days off you fought the rhythm you had put your body in to maybe go outside and see the sun for once.

I did fight it though, that evil rhythm, and went to A guitar store down the road from me. It was an adventure to say the least. The windows were covered with ads and the parking lot was next to a busy street so Kim was worried that the car was going to get stolen. I saw a Squier X-155 and it became the first hollowbody I ever plugged in.

Scary. That's the only word to describe it. The salesman wanted to know if I wanted to plug it in and I did. He asked what kind of amp I wanted to play and I said I didn't know, I'm very new to hollowbodies, though all of my heroes seem to have a very vintage vibe going on, even if they're doing modern things.

"Oh well, if you want vintage there's only one brand and that's Fender. Right this way."

He proceeded to turn on an amp, plug in the guitar, sit me about a foot away from the amp (directly facing it, by the way) and he turned up the amp. It was ridiculously loud and I was scared stiff. I had never had so much feedback in my life and I'm not kidding, I was so stunned I could only hold the strings and try to wrap my body around the guitar in an effort to make it shut up. I asked my wife to turn the amp down but she couldn't find the volume knob. I figured out which knob on the guitar was the volume and backed it off to almost nothing. It didn't matter though because even with the feedback gone I was still traumatized by the experience and vowed to never buy a hollowbody.

I was really sad at my promise and wondered how all of my heroes weren't doing the same fighting with THEIR guitars. I had to figure it out.

And eventually with help I did and when I finally did get my hollowbody I was prepared for any feedback that might occur and now I've grown to love it to a degree. I love it when it can be controlled and is musical. Up until I had started playing hollows I said there was no such thing.

My how things have changed.

Though looking back, I never wanted to play another one then and frankly, never wanted to go to another guitar store there again. The whole thing was a pain, from Kim constantly checking to see if the car was still there, to the salesman who was probably spitting coffee out of his nose at the ruckus I was making to a deep, deep dissatisfaction in my playing, especially on an amp so loud.

Anyway, I joined the AF and moved here to Georgia where there are two shops locally, one that just expanded to showcase their sweet amount of empty space between their selection of eight budget acoustic guitars and their ten budget electric guitars, and another who had to half his store in an effort to stay afloat in these trying times.

But last year we went to Tucson for Thanksgiving and a buddy of mine, Mark, took me to Rainbow Guitars (great jazz player, former teacher, great guy and a Minnesotan so you KNOW he's nice). They had a slew of Gretsch guitars, vintage amps, relic Fenders, etc. etc. I was in heaven. I played all of their Gretsch guitars including what I firmly believe is a prototype 512X Electromatic. If it indeed is, they've come a long way in a short time.

But I was on a mission. Walter Broes of the Seatsniffers had lit a fire in me about Guild guitars and I was determined to play one (an electric. I'm not huge into acoustic guitars. Yet). They had two. They had a modern one which was OK in that it played like a modern guitar which was good but not what he had been talking about, or what I had been reading about on-line and in Hans Moust's Guild book.

But then I saw one peeking out and it looked old. It WAS old. I THINK it was made in the sixties, but that's so much a stab in the dark I feel a little guilty for even hazarding the guess. It was a Guild CE-100 and it was SWEET.

A little about me: I was not a fan of sunbursts in general but esepcially on the cherry side of bursts. I don't like venetian cutaways and wasn't really into one pickup guitars. I had been in love with Walter's X-175 and another friend's X-500 from pictures and this one was not nearly as flashy. It lacked the fancy inlays and the headstock shape like the one above.

But this guitar won me over in a HURRY. It felt ALIVE in my hands. I wasn't so much playing it as it was helping me play. It was as if it knew exactly what I was trying to do and it was doing everything in its power to help me do it. My god, what an amazing guitar.

It put guitars I was trying there to SHAME. I had previously been impressed with a modern Epiphone archtop and the Joe Strummer tele, but it was not the level of smitten that I was experiencing with this guitar. It hurt to leave the shop without it.

It did not help at ALL, that Mark was saying he bets I could talk down the owner of the shop a couple hundred bucks off of its already incredibly agreeable price. I'm not kidding, I would have bought it in a heartbeat if I had the money. I might have even added to the bill to show my gratitude to Rainbow for their part in finding me this amazing instrument.

But I didn't buy it. I walked away and from then on was wondering if the joy that I had experienced, the feeling that I might have found one of those mythical, magical guitars that legends would use, like SRV's number one, Setzer's '59 or Clapton's constructed Blackie had been real or just a first timer's feeling. Maybe, I'd say to myself, it wasn't really all that great and the passing of time has done nothing but amplify the good things while hiding the things that might not have been good. I didn't plug it in after all, so maybe it was just feedback city, but jeez loise if I had to string it with flats and play it clean as a whistle for jazz I still woudn't be bummed.

I heard later on that it was sold. Someone came in and bought it and I was happy. Surely whoever bought it was appreciate it for the marvelous instrument it was.

But then it was RETURNED to Rainbow. As far as I know it's still there. I like to think it's waiting for me to come back to it. I hope it's cool with waiting for a LONG time because even at an agreeable price, it still costs more than I have.

But the sheer joy of the experience of playing such a fine instrument is worth it, even if I can't own it. I'm still happy having played it.

"'Tis better to have played and lost than to have never played at all."