My |
 |
Amp... |
My |
|
Amp... |
It all comes to a head one innocuous day as you drive back from the grocery store and suddenly turn into the parking lot of the music store you've driven by for years. Your teenager puts down his portable Nintendo, snaps his head around and says, "Dad, where are you going?" You answer, "I'll just be a minute." It's too late. As you walk out of the store 9 minutes later, $7.24 lighter and one set of Ernie Ball Lights heavier, the young store clerk with the tattoo on his neck and pierced eyebrows snickers to himself as he slams the cash drawer shut..."There goes another one," he mutters to his manager.
Now the 'net comes into play. You do a word search on your favorite amp. Voila! 'Fender Still Lives! Let me catch up on what I've missed...' And before you know it, the sun's coming up and you've learned that the music world didn't stop turning since that fateful day so many years ago when you decided to forego that last jam session in the dorm in favor of working on your term paper. And upon checking out the ages of the guys in their profiles on the Fender Forum, you see that you are not alone!
Musical instrument cases stand out no matter where you store them. I would always glance their way every time I was in the basement, so there was no time lost fishing them out when the time came. I dragged them into the light and eagerly anticipated the bright, shiny things that were going to make my life bright and shiny again. However, finishes had faded, capacitors dried out, transformer windings shorted, and potentiometers oxidized; like me, guitars and amps and speakers weren't immune from the ravages of time. (A succession of male dogs certainly didn't help matters, either!)
It wasn't a total loss, though. That silver Fender logo, though peeling, still sparkled at the slightest bit of light. And the #47 bulb behind the jeweled pilot light still left an after-image if you stared right into it. (Remember, rockers were never noted for having an abundance of common sense!) The masses may think of Fender as merely a line of musical instruments, but to those of us who came up through the ranks, it's a message in itself. Playing a junior high dance through a Silvertone Twin Twelve got us heard, but walking in with a Fender gave us credibility.
Once the gushing -- and reminiscing -- stopped, it was time to get to work. First step: assess the damage. Thinking like a practical businessman about to undertake a totally impractical venture. Repair or replace? A no-brainer. (How American.) Next step: bring it back up to par; cost be damned. Wife be perplexed, but she knows it's better than seeing you drive by in a convertible, sitting next to a young waitress. (Or maybe not...?) You used to call home from work every day to talk to your wife, or to hear baby's new words, and now it's to see if there are any packages. And you always have the right answer when she looks at the credit card bill and wants to know who the hell's this Angela chick you've been spending all this money on.
Well, here I am...an ex-rocker from my youth in Cleveland, now the textbook image of the middle-aged family man in whose heart of hearts lies a smoldering ember of glory days long since past. (My last paying gig was in 1981.) The 'itch' is back. The ads have been placed, phone calls made, and fellow wrinkled rockers smoked out of the forest. Click HERE to see how things turned out!
To see the story on the amp, click HERE.
To see the story on the bass, click HERE.
Check out my new BIO page
 |