June 1964. My
older brother bought me a small Honeytone transistor radio
from an electronics store- a shop he had been working at
for a part time job. I had just walked home from school and
was thumbing through a few stations, trying to dial in
something that wasn't full of static. After a couple of
spins on the side wheel station selector, the little radio
hit the spot. I did not know who I was listening to, but
whomever-whatever it was dropped me to a single knee. The
blast that was pumping through this little speaker had the
most driving rhythm I had ever heard. The searing pulse of
the electric guitars and the vocals sent me. I knew one
thing- From that moment on I would be forever changed. It
was like I had been hit by lightning.
The station DJ jumped in just before the end, "That was the Beatles, I Saw Her Standing There". "The Beatles" I repeated to myself, "what are the Beatles". In less than a week, I had purchased an electric guitar. My dad (a musician himself) took me to Wallach's Music City to pick out a guitar. It was a semi-hollow guitar with two pickups and a vibrato tailpiece, a St. George electric ($79). Man, was I in heaven, even without the amp. Nothing mattered from there on after. Everyday every minute I could, I dropped the needle on a Sears Silvertone turntable trying to figure out what these guys from Liverpool were playing. I was hooked. I was more than hooked. It was all I wanted to do.
Within
walking distance from my home was a guitar store- Ernie
Ball Guitars. Once my parents resolved to the fact that my
obsession was more than a phase- they eventually opted to
let me take a few lessons- Of course lessons were not the
only reason for visiting the guitar shop. Ernie Ball, a
Fender dealer (Tarzana CA,) was the first store in the
country to only sell guitars. The guitars in his shop had
all these neat names. There were Jaguars, Jazzmasters,
Mustangs, Esquires, and of course Telecasters and
Stratocasters. Besides guitars, they also had amps. It
wasn't long before I was the proud owner of a Fender
Princeton Reverb. Whoa, this amp had reverb and vibrato
built in. Soon I was riffing the Chantays "Pipeline" and
every Ventures album ("Walk Don't
Run") I could get my hands on.
1960 Gretsch 6120 -
1929 National Tricone - [larger photo]
August 1968. By this time my personal arsenal had grown considerably, axes included a Fender Stratocaster (the 63' red one featured on the home page), a three pick-up Rickenbacker 360 12 string (black with pin stripped white binding), a gold-top Les Paul standard with cream P-90's, and a very nice Mosrite "Ventures Model" six string (Sunburst with the Vibramute). I had started my own band with a few high school friends and was given the chore of lead vocals. The bass player in the band was Dave Jerden (Producer-Engineer). On second guitar was Eddy Schreyer (Oasis Mastering), and on drums was a neighbor named Jim Renfrew. My guitar Amp/fFX rig had gone over the top as well- There were two Leslie 147 speakers with the Combo Pre Amp, a white Fender Tremolux amp (still had the Princeton), a Gibson Echoplex, and a Gibson phase shifter. I still own both Leslie speaker cabinets even today. In 1968, not to many young musicians had this setup. It was great to be 17. next page...