OUCH....

... the FIRST day I owned my brand new 1980s Les Paul... I dropped it solid off of the guitar strap... my head and guts just went...

"GLUP !!!!!"

The guitar still has a dent on the very corner of the headstock, and the input jack has a dent on it...

Bought strap lock the very next day... the leather kind... they are still on it 28 years later... same strap, too... lol

That car going over the cliff was loud. I can't believe noone heard it over the band playing.

Oh my god... hahahahaha

I can picture the guy laying there.... oh my god

And the Korean lady...

"You guy meannnn"

"You guy too cwwwwazy..."

LOL
LOL
LOL

I have straplocks on everything. Cept the 58 v. Still has og gibson buttons.

<<<<< Hands bonnymiss a map...

Now we are old rockers. We all have arthritis.

oh god... the 58 V would be my house toy....

... course, what the hell fun are they if you can't rock the piss out of them...

... it was meant to be played hard and put away wet...

I had a new gibson explorer got smashed into 3 pieces coming back from germany. Ouch. Never forget opening that case.

I had a marshall jmp head explode on stage in level plains alabama one night. Lightning strike. Blew all the glass from the tubes into the wall behind it. That was stick of dynamite loud!

In 1996 in january I was in detroit at work when my furnace quit at the house. It got cold and the hot water lines broke flooding the house. I came home, opened the front door and 6 inches of water comes pouring out. I'm frantically trying to figure out what happened. I get the water mains turned off. When I layed on my back in the water I realized the electricity still worked because the whole time I was turning off the water mains I was getting electrocuted. So I got a furnace tech to fix my furnace. I borrowed sump pumps and pumped all the water out of the house into my yard creating a 6000 gallon skating rink till may. Mopped up the horrible mess. Wet vacced out all my heater vents. Just the worlds biggest nightmare come true. As I wound down I walked into my living room, grabbed a beer and sat down and looked up at my new bright red fender precision bass that I only had for a month.ruined. It looked like the f*cking thing melted. The humidity from my house flooding with hot water was too much. The neck warped like I've never seen. The headstock was pointing absolutely 90 degrees from the body. The strings were a foot off the body. The string tension pulled the moist neck in an L. Wildest thing I seen. I renecked it and sold it.

My freind backed over his yamaha electric with his car one night.

I didn't get arthritis (yet)... but the Diabetes is kicking my ass... doesn't prevent me from jammin'... just a b.i.t.c.h. all of the other in between times.

I don't play an instrument. But I worked with the entire Christian music genre in Nashville. Get an agent? Go ask dude.

Kinda cuts into the band profits when ya'll keep smashing sh!t up... LOL.

And lee had a guitar fall out of the back of the band truck one night at speed. Million pieces. You'd have thunk it would have just slid down the road flat on its case. Noooooooo! End over end - million pieces.

Cool Edgy producer-type chicks are welcome in here!!

((((((((((JUDY))))))))))

(((HUGSSSSSSSSSS)))

...ya got that right. But the expression on his face was priceless.

My friend Ben is sort of a compulsive type of guy. He is also one of these guys that sort of goes "CHARGE" before engaging brain.

He bought an antique upright grand piano one time, and it took about four or more of us to hoist it into our friend's truck.

We got it in the truck and then started asking if anybody had remembered to bring the rope to tie it in.

Nobody did.

Ben, being the eager-beaver. let's just get this sucker home guy that he was, vehemently insisted that we take off, and he would hold the piano in place on the trip home.

"OKkkkkkkk" we all thought.... a couple more of us volunteered to be rope-type guinea pigs in the back of the truck, too.

We backed verrrrrrrry gently out of the drive way and then Perry (the driver) accelerated really slow down the road.

We made a left turn to get out onto the main road and he had to accelerate just a little bit. When he hit the gas, the piano rolled right up and over ol' Ben, mashing him to the box of the truck, then took a wicked outside jog to the street and mashed itself to smithereens, top first, on the asphalt. There were pieces of piano EVERYWHERE.

OMG.

The legs broke, the little wheels underneath went scurrying down the street. White and black keys were meshed together with chunks of wood as it rolled a time or two, then finally came to rest two lanes over blocking traffic in both lanes.

It took forever to pick that thing up.

Ben was crushed.

I don't remember what he paid for that thing, but it was one of those pianos made in the late 1880s. Like 1898 or something.

He just HAD to get it home ASAP... and was not gonna stop b.i.t.c.h.i.n.g at us until we got it there.

SMASH.......

... it turned into toothpicks in a split second

I thought I was the only one LOL

Had a martin acoustic slide out the back of a station wagon at night while on the freeway in Cali. Went back looking for it and the largest piece I could find was 2x2"; no case, no nothing. That pissed me off!

So...

what are folks doing with your music these days?

Are you playing live? Just chillin' and enjoy couch playin'? Givin' lessons? What ya'll doing with those instruments and abilities?

For me, I'm doing the full-time college thing right now. While I'm doing college, I've found a way to pay rent with little effort, just by offering private lessons. I've had a lot of people come and go, and quite a few folks stick around for many months, some over a year.

Right now its really sucking, though. Unemployment in Michigan is the highest of any of the 50 states. One of my best students just got laid off and is going to have to seek work out of the state to keep working. People are leaving Michigan by the hordes. As soon as I finish my Master's degree, I will be on the next train to let's get the hell out of here.

I really like giving lessons, it is something I could do for enjoyment and a little cash for a long time. I teach folk, rock, jazz and blues. I can also teach music theory, how to read and write TABs, how to learn stuff by ear, and mostly how to simply love your music so that you have something to carry with you for many years to come.

That guy that is leaving Michigan just complimented me in the best way. Over dinner with his wife, he told me (and her) that I had helped him rekindle his love for music. Now he plays every day, and he really enjoys his guitar. I don't need to make rock stars, by biggest thrill is to see folks simply enjoy the instrument in whatever way that fits them. Every person is an individual, and I teach a different way to every student. I don't have like a "Mel Bay" this-is-how-its-done book. Everybody gets it in different ways at different times. So I leave it up to natural creativity to make the most out of everyone's lessons.

When I first started playing guitar, I studied in private lessons for 14 years. I learned a lot of styles and a ton of chords, and how to do all kinds of things with my axe. I wouldn't be me without a guitar somewhere in my house.

I got a chance to study with some famous people, and it changed my life and attitude on the instrument. I studied for a time with Phil Upchurch, at one time he was the arranger and rhythm guitarist for George Benson. He has recorded in the studio or played live with a huge who's who list of heavy weights. Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Aretha Franklin, Chick Corea, B.B. King, Albert King, Willie Dixon, Dizzy Gillespie, Whitney Houston, and the list goes on.

For two years I studied with jazz guitar guru Ted Greene. Ted passed away in 2005, and I'll miss him dearly. He was like a tenth degree grandmaster Sifu of the jazz guitar. Such a meek and mild man who was so into his music. Ted would sit for hours every day and conceptualize new ways to teach music to his students, and to understand music in general. I consider Ted to be like an Albert Einstein of guitar.

I perfected a philosophy about guitar guys while studying with Ted. I built it into a simple saying...

"Ego and talent...

...a guitar player with a lot of one usually has very little of the other."

If a guy has sh!tloads of ego, most times he can't play worth a damn.

The opposite is usually the same...

If a guy has very little ego, most times he can play the living hell out of the guitar."

That was the case with Ted Greene.

I have a video of Ted I'd like to share, because he rarely ever played in public. He was a genius recluse who spent most of his days reflecting on music and out of the public eye. Howbeit as an artist, I have not seen anyone ever with more flavor and style. He was always very shy of his personal playing, but had techniques perfected from constant life-long woodshedding... some of the stuff he did I've never heard any other guitar guy do.

Here he is giving a seminar at Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood, CA. All he is using is his favorite vintage 1950-something telecaster and a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp.

One thing that set Ted apart from most jazz guys, was his love for the Telecaster. He had a huge collection of beautiful arch top guitars, but he recorded and played his Tele more than any of them.

Here is a video of Ted playing "Send In The Clowns"

http://www.tedgreene.com/video/tedgreene_mi_2.asp

Just a quick note of something to watch for in the Ted Greene video. Notice all the activity with his right picking hand. He is pulling off harp harmonics like nobody's business over complex jazz chord progressions. If you watch what he is doing, and realize how long it would take to get all five of your right hand fingers to pluck those harmonics an octave above the chords... just damn.....

Children, don't try this at home.... LOL.