Jake
5 Second Punkologist
I have no musical members of my family. My brother dabbles in guitar occasionally, and my sister to lesser degree, but I'm the only one who has ever pursued music to the point of playing in writing music, playing in bands, gigging and so forth. Most of my extended relatives aren't musicians either. Not a single aunt/uncle, or cousin plays anything, except for my neurotic second cousin, who is a keyboard player.
Except for my Uncle Sammy. I never knew Sammy - he died in the early '80s, years before I was born. Family legend is, at one point he was a roadie/guitar tech for The Moving Sidewalks, the precursor band that would eventually become ZZ Top. I cannot verify if this is true, because I only have second hand tales of this from other family members, and every version is always different than the other. My dad thinks it's all made up, but my 2nd cousin swears up and down that Billy Gibbons and my uncle were not only friends, but also his trusted guitar tech. No recordings of him survive, but everyone who knew him said he was an amazing guitarist, and might have been a rock star if he had made the effort.
All that's left of Sammy is his early 70s Les Paul that's been sitting under a bed in my parent's house for several years now. When we were teenagers, my brother and I would argue over who was going to "keep it", but in reality it was always my dad's. Even though my dad doesn't play guitar, it always meant way more to him than it ever would to me or my brother, since it's the only thing my dad has to remember him by. When we finally understood that, we eventually dropped the argument and left it alone. In fact, I had even forgotten about it's existence for several years until a week or two ago, when my dad brought up out of nowhere that the guitar was doing nobody any good by just sitting in a case under a bed, and thought I should take it. I originally had declined, because I still believe it probably means more to my dad than it every would to me. "He would want it to be played" my dad said, and since I'm the one who still pursues music actively, he wanted me to be the one to take it. So, I swung by my parents house today and picked it up.
This guitar needs some work done. As you might imagine, a guitar sitting in a case for 30 years might smell a bit musty, and the intonation is severely out of whack. He also tried replacing the pickups - you can see some damage where he replaced the pickups, and appears to have cut up the wood? I spent a long time breaking in a set of strings, but the intonation is quite off. E-A-D sound amazing, but the other strings are very off. The guitar jack is also loose, but that's an easy fix.
Except for my Uncle Sammy. I never knew Sammy - he died in the early '80s, years before I was born. Family legend is, at one point he was a roadie/guitar tech for The Moving Sidewalks, the precursor band that would eventually become ZZ Top. I cannot verify if this is true, because I only have second hand tales of this from other family members, and every version is always different than the other. My dad thinks it's all made up, but my 2nd cousin swears up and down that Billy Gibbons and my uncle were not only friends, but also his trusted guitar tech. No recordings of him survive, but everyone who knew him said he was an amazing guitarist, and might have been a rock star if he had made the effort.
All that's left of Sammy is his early 70s Les Paul that's been sitting under a bed in my parent's house for several years now. When we were teenagers, my brother and I would argue over who was going to "keep it", but in reality it was always my dad's. Even though my dad doesn't play guitar, it always meant way more to him than it ever would to me or my brother, since it's the only thing my dad has to remember him by. When we finally understood that, we eventually dropped the argument and left it alone. In fact, I had even forgotten about it's existence for several years until a week or two ago, when my dad brought up out of nowhere that the guitar was doing nobody any good by just sitting in a case under a bed, and thought I should take it. I originally had declined, because I still believe it probably means more to my dad than it every would to me. "He would want it to be played" my dad said, and since I'm the one who still pursues music actively, he wanted me to be the one to take it. So, I swung by my parents house today and picked it up.
This guitar needs some work done. As you might imagine, a guitar sitting in a case for 30 years might smell a bit musty, and the intonation is severely out of whack. He also tried replacing the pickups - you can see some damage where he replaced the pickups, and appears to have cut up the wood? I spent a long time breaking in a set of strings, but the intonation is quite off. E-A-D sound amazing, but the other strings are very off. The guitar jack is also loose, but that's an easy fix.
