49

Birthday number 49. Well, it was okay…if not just a little quiet. I slept in for awhile. I really wanted to head down to Madison to look for another new axe (Guitar)… Up until recently, I have been thinking about getting a "number 1" guitar to replace the worn and well-used Paul Reed Smith that was purchased in 1987.
Now, my PRS is a work horse…been with me through countless (and sadly meaningless) relationships…a divorce…and son born… more bands I want to admit…probably hundreds of gigs and television appearances… it was featured as one of the guitars in the WYOU "Worth Watching" program (which featured local Madison Bands)… I have played it with my feet…used beer bottles and spark-plug wrenches as bottle slides, used it as a "saw" of the edge of the stage.. used as a phallic instrument against several drunk women dancing on and off the stage…and even used it as a blunt weapon during a bar-room brawl one very blurry night.
So replacing the guitar is a little like having to replace an appendage… something I don’t take lightly. Finding a "premium" guitar the likes of the PRS is a pricy proposition… I had no idea how pricy it would be. In 1987, after trading in an awful guitar..the PRS cost me somewhere around 600 dollars. For a comparable PRS guitar today? About 2,600 dollars!!! WHA????
How good do you have to be to play a twenty six hundred dollar guitar?
Well, I ain’t that good! And I can’t afford anything like that. So, I decided to (probably) drop the idea of a new number 1 guitar. (I was given a couple of other leads and I might still consider a used premium guitar…but not at those prices…FERGITABOUTIT). So, I probably will stick with the red PRS…but, I’m going to have it retrofitted with new frets, new string saddles, new string nut, new tuning "cams" and have the neck and tuning checked. It still will cost several hundred dollars I reckon… but when it’s done.. it should be good as new. I hope. I know it’s a gamble… but I still need my axe, man..
I have also asked the great guys down at Baraboo music to install a new EMC pickup on my newer number 2 guitar (the Blue Ibenez guitar I bought a year ago) which will make it more playable and I will spend more time using this at shows.
There is a little more than a month between Sonic Rush shows in July and August in which I hope the luthier can accommodate a po’ rock dude from Boo..