your guitars and who inspired their purchase...

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 3:52 pm

Mark Arm for the Hagstrom IIIs. Really must dig them out.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 4:22 pm

Bacchus wrote:Mostly Fran.

Same for a lot of us, probably.

Really?

It's fair to say I've owned a ridiculous amount over the years, but never thought my collection was one of the coolest.

The models I've mostly used
The Offets (Jaguar in particular), was inspired by being a teenager in the late 80's. At that time you couldn't find one, yet it seemed every cool Indie band used them: MBV, Sonic Youth, Ride, Spacemen 3, Happy Mondays, Dino Jr...
So when they did become more available I bought quite a few and sold quite a few, of each model. Some guys on here inspired me with these as well, plenty of posters had a Jag, Jazzy and Stang before me back in the JS.Com days.
When I joined that place I think I had a LP Junior and a Fender Musimaster.

Had a craze on SG's, Gibson version inspired by Pete Townsend, Yamaha version by McGeogh and Stuart Adamson.

Double cut/LP Junior fad was pure Punk. Mick Jones, Johnny Thunders...

Superstrats, learnt on one, they were everywhere, so always y s had a soft spot for them.

Telecaster. The model i naturally gravitated to, not really inspired by anyone.
I like how Fenders look but how Gibsons sound. The Tele is by no means in between the two, but it's got more balls to it than most other Fender models. It also naturally sounds good.

Freddy V-C · Post by **Freddy V-C** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:29 pm

dezb1 wrote:You have an SG... Pics?

I pretty much exclusively play SGs these days. My two main guitars are a Yamaha SG200 and a Vintage VS6. Although recently I've been tempted to bring my old Encore Strat and/or my Affinity Tele out of hiding. I don't own any offsets anymore!

Here's a recent photo of the SG200, featuring me pulling a very unfortunate face...

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:02 pm

Jazzmaster - same as Fran, rare as hen's teeth teenager in the late 80s/early 90s thing; remember a Guitarist article about Sonic Youth titled "Taming the Jaguar", led me to a Jag first, but once I had one, I hankered after a Jazzmaster. So Sonic Youth/Mascis etc.

Firebird - the sleeve and promotional artwork for Spiritualized Electric Mainline - Pure Phase. Featured a Firebird in silhouette, just the (second after Jag/JM?) coolest looking guitar ever.

SG - had loads of SGs, and will have one again (don't have one at the mo), because of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and because to me they look like:

► Show Spoiler

Tele - Black Francis, Judah Bauer and (brace yourselves) Boag and Hooligan from These Animal Men. Used to HATE them when I was a teen, and thought the tiny headstock and piddly neck pickup looked ridiculous.

Strat - hated strats until really really recently. Was my first guitar, and I think they're a terrible first guitar. HOWEVER - brace for controversy - I think the strat bridge pickup sound is the best bridge pickup sound you can get. Love Michael Karoli, so my strat is built around a 68 model (based entirely spuriously on the "Delay 1968" Can compilation). Ben Chasny from Six Organs of Admittance is my main strat squeeze though.

(also have a Bass VI and a 335 at the mo, but studiously ignoring them because I have to sell them in the New Year).

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:28 pm

There's no particular artist that made me pick my guitars, but there might have been some influence.
Strat - first choice; seemed sensible; affordable, comfortable, flexible choice of tones, played by Blackmore & Hendrix.
Flying V - the humbucker option, lighter than a Les Paul, played by Andy Powell (Wishbone Ash) but his has a Vibrola.

No discernible influences:
Burns Double Six - the twelve string option. Don't really know anyone who played it. Elvis? Not an Elvis fan.
Fender MP Marauder
Texas J-Bass
Tanglewood dreadnought

dezb1 · Post by **dezb1** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 1:04 am

benecol wrote: Strat - hated strats until really really recently. Was my first guitar, and I think they're a terrible first guitar. HOWEVER - brace for controversy - I think the strat bridge pickup sound is the best bridge pickup sound you can get. Love Michael Karoli, so my strat is built around a 68 model (based entirely spuriously on the "Delay 1968" Can compilation). Ben Chasny from Six Organs of Admittance is my main strat squeeze though.

I want to like Strats mainly because of David Byrne and Nile Rodgers, but I always end up getting bored with them. And I agree with you that they're not good first guitars too many bits to deal with, and they're not the most forgiving of instruments.

dezb1 · Post by **dezb1** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 1:08 am

Freddy V-C wrote:
dezb1 wrote:You have an SG... Pics?
I pretty much exclusively play SGs these days. My two main guitars are a Yamaha SG200 and a Vintage VS6. Although recently I've been tempted to bring my old Encore Strat and/or my Affinity Tele out of hiding. I don't own any offsets anymore!

Here's a recent photo of the SG200, featuring me pulling a very unfortunate face...

Nice! the 200's look class in white shows up the aged plastics, I'm also on an SG tip at the moment my Tele isn't getting much attention.

speedfish · Post by **speedfish** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 3:24 am

Brainfur inspired me to get one of these:

http://www.shortscale.org/forum/viewtop ... 07bcb5c76c

I even put a mint pickguard on it. I've refretted mine twice. Not that it needed the second refret I just wanted to see if I could do it better the second time around.

Thanks Brainfur!

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 8:45 am

I started with Les Paul copies because as a teenager I thought that Les Paul was way cooler than Strat. Nobody inspired that specifically, it was just the sound of rawk for me. Maybe Knopfler with his Money for nothing partly was an inspiration.
Wilshire I bought as the closest possible copy of Coronet because of Dohertiez. Also I discovered Waynne Kramer.
LP Junior double cut I bought because of all protopunk/punk/garage bands of the 60's and 70's.
Strat. I used to hate strats, but I needed a cheap and robust guitar. And it is hard to hate surf green strat. I still mostly don't like strat guys, but I like my stratocaster.

johnnyseven · Post by **johnnyseven** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:27 am

dezb1 wrote:
benecol wrote: Strat - hated strats until really really recently. Was my first guitar, and I think they're a terrible first guitar. HOWEVER - brace for controversy - I think the strat bridge pickup sound is the best bridge pickup sound you can get. Love Michael Karoli, so my strat is built around a 68 model (based entirely spuriously on the "Delay 1968" Can compilation). Ben Chasny from Six Organs of Admittance is my main strat squeeze though.

I want to like Strats mainly because of David Byrne and Nile Rodgers, but I always end up getting bored with them. And I agree with you that they're not good first guitars too many bits to deal with, and they're not the most forgiving of instruments.

I've had my strat since 1998, it was my 21st birthday present. It's lovely to play but I just don't particularly like how it sounds. It does sound good to me, just not great. The closest i've been to being happy with it was when I put a Dimarzio FS-1 (the Johnny Ramone pickup) in the bridge, I think i'll have to put it back in.

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 9:48 am

Freddy V-C wrote:I pretty much exclusively play SGs these days. My two main guitars are a Yamaha SG200 and a Vintage VS6. Although recently I've been tempted to bring my old Encore Strat and/or my Affinity Tele out of hiding. I don't own any offsets anymore!

Here's a recent photo of the SG200, featuring me pulling a very unfortunate face...

Seem to remember you weren't that enamoured with the SG200 when you first got it? I assume it must have grown on you? Rather depressingly, I think I have had my SG200 since before you were born

The purchase of my SG200 (my first guitar) was inspired by the bass player in my first band. We'd taken the somewhat foolhardy step of forming a band before any of us could really play, or in my case even own, an instrument. One of my friends had a bass and a guitar knocking about his house. I think his parents had bought them for him and his brother but neither had shown any interest in learning. He chose the bass so I bought the guitar off him and set about teaching myself a few chords. Prior to seeing the guitar I asked him what it looked like to which he responded "it's a bit like a Strat". The fact that I didn't really question him on this when seeing the guitar probably sums up how much of a clue the pair of us had about guitars.

In a similar way to Fran and Benecol, my first Jaguar was inspired by pretty much every indie/alternative band who were kicking about in the late eighties/early nineties. It seems like every band I liked at the time either had Jaguars or Jazzmasters. Don't think Teh registered tbh. If I had noticed that he was playing Jaguars then I probably just assumed that he too was trying to emulate David Fitzgerald. Can't remember precisely why I picked a Jaguar over a Jazzmaster but it was probably because of the shiny shiny. There was nowhere near me where I could actually play one so I bought it via mail order. In those pre-internet days I spent years not really having a fucking clue what all the switches actually did.

I've got two signature guitars, a Venus XII and a Johnny Marr Jaguar, but I don't think either purchase was really inspired by the signatory, although I like both. I know that it's his guitar of choice these days but I don't really associate Johnny Marr with Jaguars and I'm not sure Courtney Love ever played the 12 string version of the Venus.

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 10:08 am

Oh, I forgot one. My purchase of a CP-100 was inspired at least partly by this adorable wee Scottish gentleman:

[youtube][/youtube]

Noirie. · Post by **Noirie.** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:40 pm

I remember buying my blue Aria Pro II cause Teh Kurtz had a red one.

I got drunk and smashed it though.

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:56 pm

Me too, his demo is excellent.

BearBoy wrote:Oh, I forgot one. My purchase of a CP-100 was inspired at least partly by this adorable wee Scottish gentleman:

[youtube][/youtube]

Here's Kim Gordon's Musima Eterna, one of which I owned for a few years. That turned me on to Musima guitars, of which the Elgita is IMHO the nicest model. So I bought two.

Brandon W · Post by **Brandon W** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:57 pm

wow!!

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 4:24 pm

Forgot about my Flying V.

Grew up thinking you had to be in Metal Tribute band, wear a denim jacket with cut off sleeves and be man enough to grow a tache to justify owning one. Kind of a Jim Martin clone.
Then I saw James Iha with one on the 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' video and thought it looked cool.

Had a few BC Rich models too. Originally bought one because it was just ridiculous and never the type of design I would naturally go for. Then I realised they are good guitars that you could pick up fairly cheaply, and it grew from there.
Wasn't inspired, only guitarist that looked remotely cool with one was Max Cavalera in his Sepultura days.

Had a lot of Strats and like a lot of Strat players, especially Steve Hillage and Jimi.
Wanted the design to work for me and tried many times, but the experiment always fails miserably and they get part chopped in for something else.

dezb1 · Post by **dezb1** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 7:12 pm

Fran wrote:Forgot about my Flying V.

Grew up thinking you had to be in Metal Tribute band, wear a denim jacket with cut off sleeves and be man enough to grow a tache to justify owning one. Kind of a Jim Martin clone.
Then I saw James Iha with one on the 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' video and thought it looked cool.

When I finally get round to buying a flying V (not long now), Iha and this guy will be to blame:

[youtube][/youtube]

Brandon W · Post by **Brandon W** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 8:22 pm

dezb1 wrote:
Fran wrote:Forgot about my Flying V.

Grew up thinking you had to be in Metal Tribute band, wear a denim jacket with cut off sleeves and be man enough to grow a tache to justify owning one. Kind of a Jim Martin clone.
Then I saw James Iha with one on the 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' video and thought it looked cool.
When I finally get round to buying a flying V (not long now), Iha and this guy will be to blame:

[youtube][/youtube]

I have one but it wasn't inspired by anyone really.. but if it was it would surely be albert king

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 10:22 pm

my sg bass (2009 re-issue) & eb-4L are because of Mike Watt..

as for the jags/mustangs its part kurt/mark arm/thurston moore and part thats the sound i want for what i do

the fascination with telecasters just comes form it being the iconic guitar it is..

i bouhgt my first harmony lp because of my dads old harmony acoustic.. and partly because hillel slovak played les pauls

my first ibanez (only ibanez) super strat was because of dave navarro

dezb1 · Post by **dezb1** » Thu Dec 24, 2015 3:17 am

FAO Fran