When did it happen for YOU???????

[Bruce]

For me, I remember being 12 or 13 and I had a few records. I didnt have my own room, I slept on a pullout in the living room where the turntable was. My father HATED music with a passion, like it stole his lunch money or something. I’d have to sit at the stereo system with headphones on and listen to my records and thats exactly what I did. The thought of anyone doing that seems so foreign now, doesnt it?

Anyway, Ozzy/Randy tribute record. The sound of Randy’s guitar was just…..I dont know. Otherworldly. Larger than life. I memorized every note in my head of his 2 or 3 minute long solo. At that point, the electric guitar was forever in my veins and my heart. It was that record, in that one bedroom overcrowded apartment with my wicked bitch of a stepmom.

Where were you? How old? What was your environment like? Is it still a clear picture for you? It sure is for me.

 

[kartikg3]

Where were you? How old? What was your environment like? Is it still a clear picture for you? It sure is for me.

I was 14 years old. Had no idea (hadn't really paid attention to) what an electric guitar sounded like. My dad was cleaning out some old boxes from the attic, and pulled out some old cassettes of stuff he used to listen to when he was a teenager. He played his favourite songs from those cassettes that day. I heard the glorious sound of the electric guitar bathed in overdriven tubes, wahs and other power adornments: Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, Burn; Santana's Black Magic Woman; Pink Floyd's Time; Black Sabbath's Vol 4: Supernaut, Snowblind; Whitesnake's Judgement Day, Don't break my heart; Eagles' Hotel California; Jethro Tull; Joe Cocker; Hendrix's Voodoo Child and Woodstock records, to name a FEW. All on the same day. I asked my Dad, "what's that instrument, the instrument that growls with power?" "That's the electric guitar. This is some heavy stuff, son". And henceforth, it was entered and was bedded in my veins forever.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Pops was playing long before I came along. When the misses and I were planning our wedding we decided to do a slideshow of each of our childhood pictures from young to older, my mom showing us old pictures like "here's Alex playing his little guitar, here's Alex playing his little drumset, here's Alex sad about breaking a string, here's Alex strumming, singing and growing a tooth, here's tiny Alex with his father's large guitar." I had no idea it was that early for me, I barley remember those days.

I remember the guitar well. It was a cheap acoustic but it played fine and had an obnoxious white pickguard. I don't remember the age but I was pretty young and I distinctly remember sitting in the garage while Pops' band practiced, changing my perspective from person to person, imitating how they were nodding their head to the beat.

I remember breaking the snare skin on my little drum set, Pops playing Diary of a Madman, showing me the cover of Scorpions Blackout album and me being shocked and amused all at once.

There was never any hope for me not playing guitar

 

[FractalAudio]

8th grade. Mr. Fransico Ezile's music class (his given name was Frank Ezil but he changed it). One week he announced that Friday would be "free music" day where the students could bring in records and he would play them.

So this kid, Craig Gerrish, brings in this album with a UFO that looks like a guitar on the cover. He instructs Mr. Ezile to play this track called "Foreplay, Long Time". He drops the needle into the groove and my life changed. I was gobsmacked by what I heard.

I immediately wanted to learn to play electric guitar after that but my parents wouldn't let me get one. It wasn't until I was older and had money I was able to buy one and learn to play it.

 

[Achilles]

1969 - 9 yrs old.
Hung out at a local bowling/arcade place and they had Whole Lotta Love on the Jukebox. Then within a couple of months Immigrant Song dropped. Saved my allowance up and bought LZ1. Had a K-Mart electric guitar shortly after.

Over and out.

 

[DrewJD82]

It was always kinda floating around, everyone knew I’d end up a musician because my dad and uncle playing in a band together and me being around it or he discussion of it nonstop. We all thought it’d be drums since that’s what dad played, but I was always more drawn to pitched instruments. Shortly after Floyd’s The Division Bell was released I was sitting on the floor with this toy electric piano and I started picking notes out of the “High Hopes” solo with it as my dad was shitting his pants on the couch over it.

A year later him and my uncle took me to see Floyd and there was no question after that, I wanted to play guitar. Between my dad’s reaction on the couch that day and seeing/hearing 60,000 people go apeshit over Gilmour’s guitar, I was sold. Doing the zombie walk back to our car I told my dad “I want to play guitar” and the following Christmas I had one.

That was simultaneous to this underlying thought that all my peers seemed to have found their ‘thing’ already (I was 10 LOL) and I didn’t. I wanted to have my own thing, but sports and/or hunting was all there really was where I grew up, neither which I had an interest in. Found it!

 

[JasonE]

I started playing guitar at about 9 years old. It was about three years later that I spend the night at a friends house on the next street over when I really got hooked on playing. My friend's older brother had an Epiphone Genesis guitar and I really took to that thing. They showed me how to play a song that I liked at that time. I literally stayed up all night at their house working on getting that song down. I was able to play it by the next morning. That started the whole addiction that I still have today.

I have looked for a guitar like that from time to time over the years and have not found one in good condition. Many of them suffered headstock breaks. They did reissue the guitar probably a decade ago now but they just didn't have that same feel. I still almost bought one even though it was now an import guitar and the quality wasn't near what that old guitar had. I almost bought it just for the nostalgia. If they had any in red, I probably would have bought it. That was the color of the one I fell for years ago.

 

[JT]

My grandma played piano. I sat with her long enough to learn the theme song to Halloween. Tooth and Nail simultaneously with Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Scorpions straight into the big 4

 

[Whizzinby]

My parents bought me a shitty nylon string guitar for Xmas when I was 11. Of course giving someone a guitar with no lessons or anyone in the house being able to play an instrument, in those days pre YouTube, was generally a waste of time. I think I picked out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star once on a single string and then hid the thing in my closets for two years. lol

My uncle was in the Navy and he came into town a couple years later. Unknown to me he played guitar and had a band on the ship. Him and his singer buddy came to hang with us while they were in town and the topic of their band came up. I mentioned I had a guitar, and he had me bring it to him. Him and his friend basically did a little impromptu unplugged session, and I was sitting there with my jaw on the floor that that piece of shit guitar could make those glorious noises. Instantly hooked. Life literally changed. Haha

He taught me how to tune it, and the opening lick to a Pearl Jam’s Alive. So there I was armed with a tuned guitar, Twinkle Twinkle and the opening to Alive.

I begged my mom to buy me a chord book the next weekend and the rest is history.

I often think back to that. You know in life there are those 3 to 4 moments that really change you and your life. What if I went to a friends house that night? What if they said screw it and went to a bar rather than hang with family? I went from baggy jeans and Nikes, to flannels, doc martens and long hair over a summer.

 

[The Monorails]

In 1987 I was digging through the D&D manuals at the used bookstore when I chanced across a copy of "Rockschool 1: Guitar, Bass, and Drums" that someone had put back on the wrong shelf. I was already a music-obsessed little nerd with vague dreams of being the keyboard player in a new wave band (mainly because they were always the ones with the coolest haircuts) but back then real synthesizers were still so far outside the budget of a 14 year old with a $2/hr. after school job that those dreams seemed no more attainable than my other dreams of being a ninja or a space pirate.

I was just discovering punk rock at the time, though, so guitars were starting to show up on my radar as something that ordinary mortals could afford and learn to play, and as I flipped through the book my thoughts quickly progressed from "I bet I could do this" to "I want to do this" to "I'm fucking  doing this!" I bought the book, ran home and dug out the beat up old acoustic guitar we had in the garage despite the fact that no one in the family played, and had my first terrible three chord (probably more like a chord and a half if I'm being honest) punk song written by the end of the week.

 

[Bruce]

In 1987 I was digging through the D&D manuals at the used bookstore when I chanced across a copy of "Rockschool 1: Guitar, Bass, and Drums" that someone had put back on the wrong shelf. I was already a music-obsessed little nerd with vague dreams of being the keyboard player in a new wave band (mainly because they were always the ones with the coolest haircuts) but back then real synthesizers were still so far outside the budget of a 14 year old with a $2/hr. after school job that those dreams seemed no more attainable than my other dreams of being a ninja or a space pirate.

I was just discovering punk rock at the time, though, so guitars were starting to show up on my radar as something that ordinary mortals could afford and learn to play, and as I flipped through the book my thoughts quickly progressed from "I bet I could do this" to "I want to do this" to "I'm fucking  doing this!" I bought the book, ran home and dug out the beat up old acoustic guitar we had in the garage despite the fact that no one in the family played, and had my first terrible three chord (probably more like a chord and a half if I'm being honest) punk song written by the end of the week.

Players Guide, DMs guide……….we had a gaming store on 57th and I think Amsterdam Ave carried all of them. Great memories.

 

[AutomationBias]

I was 15 and caught a ride with a bunch of friends to a karate tournament. "Rock and Roll" came on the radio. Everybody was talking over it, and I had to shout, "WAIT WAIT WAIT, WHAT IS THIS?" My friend's dad said, "It's Led Zeppelin. You've never heard Led Zeppelin?" I went home, bought Led Zeppelin IV, and spent the next six months saving money for a guitar.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Around 71 or so, I was 7 after a steady diet of Beatles a friend of my old man brought some posthumously releleased Jimi album with crosstown traffic.
I wanted to be that, sadly the demand for a German pre-teen Hendrix was not so big.

 

[FuzzyAce]

I was 16 when I took up guitar. I loved all the classic rock and metal, hard rock, pop, even a lot of the 70's funk as a kid -- so naturally that was embedded in my heart and soul, and ears. Interestingly enough though, the first thing I learned was opening riff of One by Metallica. A friend at my church brought in his acoustic and showed me that riff. So I picked up his guitar and started to learn it pretty quick right there. My dad was in the room and must have noticed my interest so the next week he picked me up a cheap nylon acoustic from a church sale or something. Only had 4 strings, but I ended up teaching myself Smoke on the Water and Ironman by ear. From there it just cascaded.
What really solidified my love was listening to Jimi Hendrix albums, Vai - Passion and Warfare, and Satriani's Flying in a Blue Dream and Surfing with the Alien, among many others-- At that point I was hooked on guitar.

 

[JT]

Around 71 or so, I was 7 after a steady diet of Beatles a friend of my old man brought some posthumously releleased Jimi album with crosstown traffic.
I wanted to be that, sadly the demand for a German pre-teen Hendrix was not so big.

At first I was like "late start"

 

[norminal]

I grew up in a very musical household due to my father. Lots of Pink Floyd, Yes, Dregs, Zeppelin, etc. He didn’t play guitar, but music runs in my family. My grandfather played concert violin and my uncle plays guitar, violin, and piano.

I remember seeing Bryan Adams and being mesmerized by the electric guitar.

It wasn’t until the 80’s that I got hit by the glam rock and hair metal bug and started having interest in actually learning the guitar.

I picked up my first acoustic and began taking lessons. My guitar teacher introduced me to Joe Satriani’s Surfing With The Alien and Steve Vai’s Flex-Able and the rest was history.

 

[CakeEater]

I was about 13 and was starting to explore music more and more. My eldest sister's boyfriend who was about 5 years older than me dropped over a CD of a small band that he was a fan of. The opening 10 seconds of that CD did it all. I got my first guitar a few months later:

 

[yeky83]

My sister's a classical pianist who started when she was 4. I was born when she was 4. So I grew up listening to classical music 24/7 and rolling around the piano while she practiced. Love of music came very early, and my ears developed and I sang in some choirs.

Two things happened when I was 11 and we immigrated to the US, I heard the Beatles and my mom picked up an acoustic guitar from Costco. Perhaps it was to ingratiate myself with a culture whose language I did not speak, or maybe it was a method of self-exploration through those puberty years, or maybe just that it was easy to play compared to the piano, but my love of guitar started then.

 

[megametal7]

I was around 15/16 in post Soviet Georgia, there were not much western music at that time ( at least to me ). Then during a football game break they played some Deep Purple and Ozzy… At that time I had no idea who they were but I was mesmerised by electic guitar.

Then I would record everything on my VCR anything with electric guitar…. Back then I even thought Nirvana was badass lol

Then I was bugging my friend who had acoustic guitar action as high as Bob Marley after joint…. Was wondering why I could not play….

Then in1998 I heard Creeping Death and everything changed for me…. I knew it was my calling without knowing it was my calling if that makes sense…..

 

[metropolis_4]

From before I was old enough to remember, I loved my mom’s acoustic guitar and I loved listening to her play.

I remember before I was big enough to pick it up I would sit on the floor next to it and play its strings. I was captivated by it from the start and loved everything about it, from the sounds it made to the way it smelled.

She gave that guitar to me when I was around 14 and I still have it today and I still play it. It’s one of my most cherished possessions