My guitar fetish

I have an admission to make. I'm an addict. I'm addicted to spending money on useless shite. CDs, comic books, DVDs, neurology text books and guitars. Guitars is the biggie. I own six (or eight) guitars.

What makes this addiciton worse is the fact that I hardly ever play guitar now. I was never very good anyway but now I work so much that I can go for several months at a time without even lifting a guitar. Most of the time I'm just too stressed and tired to pick up an instrument and I'm lucky if I manage to play with my friends more than once every six months.

My week of annual leave has been good because I've had time over the past couple of days to just sit down and play. I've tried to learn some songs by Neutral Milk Hotel and I've been relearning old favourites by Husker Du and the Violent Femmes. I've also been playing old songs that I wrote years ago and I've even tried to write some new stuff. It's great.

I've always had a dream that someday, when I can afford my own house, I would set up a room with a four-track tape recorder, an organ and a computer and just sit and record music when I get the notion. I know that in many ways this is just an adolescent fantasy but I earn a decent wage so I may be able to do that someday. However, that does not mean that any of the music I make will ever be any good....

My favourite guitars are Fenders. I have several; a 1978 solid body anniversary Stratocaster that is rare and worth a bit; a thinline Telecaster reissue with humbucker; a sixites Jazz bass that I found in a pawn shop, a cheap fender acoustic and two nice cheap Fender/squire copies.
The copies are pretty good - a solid body Telecaster and a Jagmaster (which is a combination of a Jazzmaster and a Jaguar). I also own two very cheap, very shit bass guitars. One is in pieces at the bottom of the cupboard in my bedroon at my parents house and the other is in a friends house somewhere.

It would be difficult to pick a favourite instrument. I love them all for different reasons and I have good memories of all of my guitars. Memories of gigs I've played, songs I've written and places I've been. I would like to keep them all for as long as I can.

In the future I will try and make more time to make music. It's good for the soul. I advise everyone to try. It doesn't matter if you are crap as long as you are loud and having fun. Make your own noise, don't try to copy anyone else.

funky