Your First Guitar

[metropolis_4]

The first one that was actually my own was a Epiphone ET-290N that looked just like this one. My parents gave it to me for Christmas when I was 14. I loved that guitar! I didn’t have an amp so I used to plug it into a mic input on our stereo. It was a karaoke feature on the stereo so I could play along with cassettes and records.

Sadly in high school I gave it to a girl I was madly in love with and now it’s gone forever… and so is she, haha

 

[DrewJD82]

This isn't THE guitar, but it's the same year/model.

Someone had dropped it off for my uncle to setup and he never came back for it. My uncle was sick of hanging onto it due to the case being fairly obnoxious and I wasn't shutting up about wanting to play guitar after the Floyd show so on Christmas day I was told to close my eyes and he put the case in my lap.

In 7th grade, 2 years after I got it, a dude across the street saw/heard me playing on my porch and came up to shoot the shit, eventually saw the Warlock and asked me if I wanted to trade it for a cheap Playboy Distortion/Chorus pedal that had a belt-clip on it. I stupidly traded it. I spent about 20 years keeping an eye out for the same model, it had a standard Strat trem and I couldn't even find a picture of the same model online, only fixed bridge and Floyd versions.

Then I posted about it one day on a forum that no longer exists and surprise, surprise, @Iron1 posted a picture of the exact model I was describing in reply, apparently he took it in on a trade. A Line 6 M5 and a few bucks later, it was in my hands. It was blue when it showed up, spraypainted with no clearcoat, so I stripped that off to get ready to paint Cadillac Pink but then my divorce happened and I just haven't thought about it since, until Iron1 mentions it!

I'm going to leave it on this 4x12 that's in my studio doorway, that way I can't forget about the damn thing. Part of me wants to set it up exactly like it was, with the stock pickups and Strat trem, while the other part of me wants to make it a fixed bridge and slap some badass pickups in it to actually play the thing.

The day after Christmas we hit up the pawn shops and my uncle got me this amp for like $40. I remember reading the Parana name like it sounded sooo cool and my uncle goes "Yeah, it bites!!!"

I'll snag one next time I see one on an auction site. It'd be cool to hear what these sounded like back then!

 

[Iron1]

This isn't THE guitar, but it's the same year/model.

View attachment 54891


Then I posted about it one day on a forum that no longer exists and surprise, surprise, @Iron1 posted a picture of the exact model I was describing in reply, apparently he took it in on a trade. A Line 6 M5 and a few bucks later, it was in my hands. It was blue when it showed up, spraypainted with no clearcoat, so I stripped that off to get ready to paint Cadillac Pink but then my divorce happened and I just haven't thought about it since, until Iron1 mentions it!

It wasn’t spray painted, it was a dark blue stain. I was trying to go for the see-thru blue wood grain look, but then it didn’t turn out right and I lost interest.

 

[HotRats]

It was a karaoke feature on the stereo so I could play along with cassettes and records.

You made some great memories come back with this one, man.

The main tape player on my parents living room has been my first guitar amp.

I used to put a cheap microphone we had at home inside the hole of my nylon guitar, turn up the record level all the way up to make it distort, and then play some deep purple!

Few years later, the karaoke feature on my boombox made possibile to "multi track recording" myself.

The boombox had 2 tape decks and a karaoke input with a volume control.

One day I discovered that the karaoke input was recorded on tape B and along with tape A, if A was in play.

From that day, untill I bought my first proper multi track recorder I did demos this way:
1. record myself on drums (thanking an out from of our band mixer and using the 3/4 cheap voice mics we had) into a first cassette tape.
2. duplicate that tape into a new one while recording the bass through the karaoke input.
3. duplicate the second tape into the first one (with out erasing the first pass) while recording a first guitar part.
4. repeat the process untill the song was complete and full of tape hiss.

 

[metropolis_4]

You made some great memories come back with this one, man.

The main tape player on my parents living room has been my first guitar amp.

I used to put a cheap microphone we had at home inside the hole of my nylon guitar, turn up the record level all the way up to make it distort, and then play some deep purple!

Few years later, the karaoke feature on my boombox made possibile to "multi track recording" myself.

The boombox had 2 tape decks and a karaoke input with a volume control.

One day I discovered that the karaoke input was recorded on tape B and along with tape A, if A was in play.

From that day, untill I bought my first proper multi track recorder I did demos this way:
1. record myself on drums (thanking an out from of our band mixer and using the 3/4 cheap voice mics we had) into a first cassette tape.
2. duplicate that tape into a new one while recording the bass through the karaoke input.
3. duplicate the second tape into the first one (with out erasing the first pass) while recording a first guitar part.
4. repeat the process untill the song was complete and full of tape hiss.

That’s awesome, I love stories like this!

Necessity is the mother of invention

 

[richey88]

Very first was a Silvertone parlor size acoustic, strings literally made my fingers bleed, then I mowed a few yards and got this (not my photo, but this was it):

 

[RGB]

You made some great memories come back with this one, man.

The main tape player on my parents living room has been my first guitar amp.

I used to put a cheap microphone we had at home inside the hole of my nylon guitar, turn up the record level all the way up to make it distort, and then play some deep purple!

Few years later, the karaoke feature on my boombox made possibile to "multi track recording" myself.

The boombox had 2 tape decks and a karaoke input with a volume control.

One day I discovered that the karaoke input was recorded on tape B and along with tape A, if A was in play.

From that day, untill I bought my first proper multi track recorder I did demos this way:
1. record myself on drums (thanking an out from of our band mixer and using the 3/4 cheap voice mics we had) into a first cassette tape.
2. duplicate that tape into a new one while recording the bass through the karaoke input.
3. duplicate the second tape into the first one (with out erasing the first pass) while recording a first guitar part.
4. repeat the process untill the song was complete and full of tape hiss.

I didn't count it as an amp, but my Dad did replace the RCA jack on the aux in of his big console stereo with a 1/4" plug so I could hear my new guitar plugged in...lasted me until my next birthday when I got a real piggy backer.

Eventually I ended up shredding the speakers though...no good deed, right Dad?

 

[Zodiac]

My first guitar was a nylon strung Spanish guitar my dad got for me back in 1971 when I was 13. I think it was a Palma, though my memory might be a bit hazy. I do remember it being virtualy unplayable.
Couple of years later I got my first electric, a Teisco Top Twenty. I think these were sold in Woolworths and in mail order ctatalogues, the Bells music catalogue springs to mind. I got mine in a swap deal with a mate. I gave him a few 45 vinyl singles and £5. I loved that guitar when I got it, but tbh it was probably a peice of shit.

Not my actual guitars obviously, but found pics online.

 

[Jazz Padd]

Wow, great thread! Some amazing pics that really resonate with me, and I love reading your stories.

My first guitar, technically speaking, was a no-name nylon-stringed acoustic that was a rental from a music studio where I first started taking guitar lessons, some time during the early to mid 1970s. My younger brother also started on drums at that time, and he's practicing his paradiddles on his knee.

The guitar teacher, a folk singer, was showing me the usual cowboy chords and a few folk songs, and also "House of the Rising Sun" and James Taylor but I kept pestering him to learn "Smoke on the Water." When my parents asked him how I was doing he told that I was "predisposed" toward music and suggested that they get me an electric. Since my birthday was coming up, my Mom and Dad agreed and he found us a nice closet bound 1960s Telecaster along with a Princeton Reverb.

Soon I was in a garage band and we did a few gigs for school dances and other events, playing of course "Smoke on the Water," along with some early Aerosmith. The other guitarist was totally into Clapton and we did "Sunshine of Your Love." The singer later went on to join a gigging rock band.

By the early 1980s, I started gigging at first in a wedding band and the drummer got me an audition for a regional college, which gave me a scholarship to play in their jazz big band, a show band and a jazz combo. By that time, I had switched to a Strat and an ES-335 for gigging, but still had the Tele. The above pic is from that era, with the Tele in my studio, behind which is the Princeton. Next to the Princeton, under a cover, is my gigging amp at that time, which was an Acoustic two channel tube combo. And IIRC, I think the pedal on top of the Princeton might be a 1980s MXR Distortion Plus.

But I did take out the old Tele to play for fun from time to time. I'm playing it in the above photo in a blues jam at my brother's bachelor party in the mid-1980s. I was also having a go at being a work-a-day musician, still playing in a wedding band (before the DJs took a lot of those gigs) as well as other groups, doing some studio work and teaching guitar. However, by the end of the 1980s I was getting burned out and had become disillusioned with the lifestyle of an entertainer. So by the early 1990s I had quit music, and sold all of my gear including the Tele and Princeton to study and travel.

I eventually settled in Japan by around 2010 with a non-music day job. The guitar soon beckoned me back, but it's now mostly a hobby with a few random gigs. Fast forward to the present, and in the above photo I'm playing a 1980s Fender Japan "Sonny" Telecaster in a solo guitar set. Nearing retirement and now in my mid-60s, that's actually a 50 year time period bookended by Telecasters!

 

[TSJMajesty]

Wow, great thread! Some amazing pics that really resonate with me, and I love reading your stories.

My first guitar, technically speaking, was a no-name nylon-stringed acoustic that was a rental from a music studio where I first started taking guitar lessons, some time during the early to mid 1970s. My younger brother also started on drums at that time, and he's practicing his paradiddles on his knee.

View attachment 55402

The guitar teacher, a folk singer, was showing me the usual cowboy chords and a few folk songs, and also "House of the Rising Sun" and James Taylor but I kept pestering him to learn "Smoke on the Water." When my parents asked him how I was doing he told that I was "predisposed" toward music and suggested that they get me an electric. Since my birthday was coming up, my Mom and Dad agreed and he found us a nice closet bound 1960s Telecaster along with a Princeton Reverb.

View attachment 55406

Soon I was in a garage band and we did a few gigs for school dances and other events, playing of course "Smoke on the Water," along with some early Aerosmith. The other guitarist was totally into Clapton and we did "Sunshine of Your Love." The singer later went on to join a gigging rock band.

View attachment 55408

By the early 1980s, I started gigging at first in a wedding band and the drummer got me an audition for a regional college, which gave me a scholarship to play in their jazz big band, a show band and a jazz combo. By that time, I had switched to a Strat and an ES-335 for gigging, but still had the Tele. The above pic is from that era, with the Tele in my studio, behind which is the Princeton. Next to the Princeton, under a cover, is my gigging amp at that time, which was an Acoustic two channel tube combo. And IIRC, I think the pedal on top of the Princeton might be a 1980s MXR Distortion Plus.

View attachment 55407

But I did take out the old Tele to play for fun from time to time. I'm playing it in the above photo in a blues jam at my brother's bachelor party in the mid-1980s. I was also having a go at being a work-a-day musician, still playing in a wedding band (before the DJs took a lot of those gigs) as well as other groups, doing some studio work and teaching guitar. However, by the end of the 1980s I was getting burned out and had become disillusioned with the lifestyle of an entertainer. So by the early 1990s I had quit music, and sold all of my gear including the Tele and Princeton to study and travel.

View attachment 55409

I eventually settled in Japan by around 2010 with a non-music day job. The guitar soon beckoned me back, but it's now mostly a hobby with a few random gigs. Fast forward to the present, and in the above photo I'm playing a 1980s Fender Japan "Sonny" Telecaster in a solo guitar set. Nearing retirement and now in my mid-60s, that's actually a 50 year time period bookended by Telecasters!

Cool! I recognize some gear in that middle photo. I had that same metronome (I wonder where it went, since I rarely ever sold gear... ), and a band I was in had that same Peavey 400 amp on top.

Speaking of metronomes, I bought that one because my first THREE were the kind that had the sliding weight on the pendulum, but them damn things would always count in like a "swing" feel! Idk why they did that, but I kept returning them, then finally gave up on that type because of that flaw.

 

[Jazz Padd]

Cool! I recognize some gear in that middle photo. I had that same metronome (I wonder where it went, since I rarely ever sold gear... ), and a band I was in had that same Peavey 400 amp on top.

Speaking of metronomes, I bought that one because my first THREE were the kind that had the sliding weight on the pendulum, but them damn things would always count in like a "swing" feel! Idk why they did that, but I kept returning them, then finally gave up on that type because of that flaw.

I loved that metronome! It was actually a gift from my grandmother, but I don’t think it was part of the great gear purge of 1990. I have no idea what happened to it. I don’t like those weighted pendulum ones either. Nowadays, I use an app based metronome.