Those were the days

spantini

COO of me, inc.
Circa 1976 I was making my first purchase of new gear for my bass-playin' self. Our band had been together for one year doing all originals - practices only, no gigging yet. In those days I was starting to make good money and always had a fat wad of cash in my pocket. I drove over to Rolls Music and plopped down $700 cash money on a new Ampeg SVT with an 810 cabinet. Threw it all in the back seat of my '76 Jeep CJ Renegade and headed for home. I was going to move it over to our practice pad (drummer's house, of course) the following weekend. The next day, I was offered a gig to sit in with a guitarist and drummer that night for a birthday party - I jumped. After the party the guitarist went crazy over my new rig and said he had to have it. I told him where I got mine and he said NO! he had to have MINE! Well, next day he showed up at my house with his father and a fat check for $700 .. 1-2-3 Done Deal! SO I was at Rolls the next day buying my second Ampeg rig - another wad of cash on the counter.

CIrca 1982 : Then... THEN!... after we had spent time in a home recording studio I got the (analog) recording bug. Now I'm buying synths, mixers, 8-Track R/R, DBX units, FX modules, computer, software, plus all the accessories required to connect it all. And again, just walked into Rolls Music, plopped down wads of cash and walked out with mucho gear. All in stock.

Circa 1985 : Then I went on a guitar buying spree. Ovation acoustic, Les Paul Pro, '65 Hofner, Fender P, Fender Active Jazz - these involved several stores. Still, just walked in and plopped down wads of cash and walked out carrying. Never had to order.

I slowed up on the guitars but continued to sell and upgrade my recording gear.

Fast forward to 2009 when I liquidate the last of my gear and go into musical hibernation for 6 years. At which time I acquire the digital home recording bug and begin to immerse myself, only now those wads of cash are no longer there. But then (a lot of) the gear isn't in the stores either, so that makes us even.

So that's what started this thread. Flush with cash, stores full of gear.. Ahh.. those were the days.
 
Flush with cash?

That was never my story.

All the gear that I ever owned from about the time I was 16 and started playing was secondhand, old and cheap. Having the cash to buy reasonable gear was a dream. It wasn't until I retired from gainful employment that, perversely, I was able to afford respectable gear and started surrounding myself with nice shiney things.
 
Flush with cash?

That was never my story.

All the gear that I ever owned from about the time I was 16 and started playing was secondhand, old and cheap. Having the cash to buy reasonable gear was a dream. It wasn't until I retired from gainful employment that, perversely, I was able to afford respectable gear and started surrounding myself with nice shiney things.

My first guitar was a stringless, fretless, bridgeless acoustic guitar I got from Goodwill for IIRC less than $5. I fixed it up best I could but being ~ 11 with no experience it never did play right.

Was 14 when I got first electric. A grand total of $100 new, which tells the quality. Then a~ 18:

I had sold my first guitar( a fine Asian les paul copy made of, I believe, plywood:rolleyes:) a year or so earlier. It was winter and I was living in my car saving up enough for an apartment(long story). The weather turned nice and car living didn't seem so bad but really missing having a guitar, found a Japanese strat copy that sounded good, played great and put it on lay-away. I had the guitar before I had someplace to live and I still have it. Now I have money but i'm still hooked on inexpensive stuff for the most part.
 
Well, I wasn't always flush with cash... just after I moved into management. My early years were similar to yours [MENTION=45599]gecko zzed[/MENTION] and [MENTION=196554]Gtoboy[/MENTION] - hand me down 4-string acoustic from my best friend's brother who just enlisted in the Navy. Then a dirt cheap large violin bass and amp from Columbia Records through their record club promotion - which I destroyed a few years later.
 
Around 16 or so.....took a bus downtown to buy a black and red acoustic guitar I saw sitting on the upper shelf in EJ Korvette in Hartford Ct. I think it was around $20. It was as terrible to play and listen to as you think but my fingers got conditioned !! No extra cash until I got a decent job in 1976 and bought a brand new blonde LP custom in Los Angeles at GC. Still have it. MANY amps have come and gone.......still haven't found a favorite.....but I do happen to like a small Vox VT20+ for some reason. It cranks and has some excellent tones. Then...in 1986......bought a Tascam 388 from Long and McQuade in NJ. Man that was a dream come true.......beginning the long journey to today. Lots of guitars came and went over the next.....well....until even now. A bunch of analog and digital recorders and mics came and went over the years. It's Reaper and a PC now. GAS is now starting to wear off....finally. All that being said.........those days of learning to play and then playing in my first bands and buying that LP in '76 are still some of my fondest and warmest memories. Describing those days to my wife and family and friends that aren't musicians........is almost impossible. They don't really get it. I guess that's why I always felt lucky to have taken this road.
 
Oh my god......my '76 Custom weighs a TON!! It almost hate pulling it off the wall to play.......but so far......nothing I've owned sounds as good to my ears and I love the neck scale and feel.
 
:thumbs up: My Les Paul was a factory second 1976. Weighed a ton.

Les Pauls made my left shoulder lower than my right!

I get what you are saying about modern stores having limited availability. I had some extra cash during the AKG sales last year so I stopped by the local GC's and they didn't have any high end mics at all. Disturbing trend. Had to purchase online, which doesn't give you the chance to try it first.

We used to have many different music stores and some had great stock, just like "record" stores back in the day. These days I have to go online for just about anything. But I wish I didn't have to.
 
A couple years ago I went into my local GC to buy a new set of ATH-M50X's for my nephew. When I got there they had a bunch of cans but no M50X's. When I asked why they were out of them the counter guy took some offense it seems and he said........"well they're popular and they go fast......and we're are out of them all the time". When I suggested that maybe they should carry more.....so they could sell more.....he looked at me as if I had insulted his mother.

GC seems to have a cash problem based on what I've read. It's a self defeating business strategy to keep stock too low and stock mostly lower end stuff.....hoping to sell that when people are looking for better stuff.
 
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Ahh.. those were the days.....
Before there was such a thing as the internet and Ebay, when our cities and towns had second hand shops that sold all kinds of crap in different states of repair but where one might see a guitar or bass or organ going cheap.....when there were instrument exchanges that would take your instrument no matter how shitty it was and either give you cash or an exchange voucher that was worth twice whatever the cash they gave you was.....when there were 2nd hand instrument shops {Notting Hill had a great one} where you could always find something that was at your level {and price point} at the time and had the item there and then that you could drool over, fall in love with, hold and buy there and then or claim it and pay them a bit of money each time you passed the shop until you'd paid it off and then you could take it and float on air {until you discovered that it was kind of rubbish !}.......when there were actual musical instrument shops in lots of local areas; I still remember some of the ones in London like Blanks in Kilburn and one just down the road from them where I bought a Mirage drum kit, my first guitar {with pitch pipe and chord book} and my Fostex X-15 {I spent 14 years in Kilburn working and hanging out so it was not possible to not pass those two daily}, Sound Control {where I bought my first VSTi, Garritan personal orchestra} and Turnkey {where I bought my Tascam 488} in the West end and lots more besides. If I was buying instruments now, I'm close to Herga music in Harrow {about 4 miles}, Ebony & Ivory in Colindale {about a 10 minute walk} and Edgware music {about 2 miles the other way from Ebony & Ivory ~ it used to be called Rock around the clock} in Edgware ~ but such places are few and far between nowadays.
Flush with cash?

That was never my story.
Same here. That's partly how I came to know the instrument exchanges so well ! I managed to build up a useful set of instruments over the years from various sources, including a set of congas I snagged for £80 [$100] back in 1990 {still use them} when this hood came into the playground I worked at and tried to sell us these congas thinking that we could use them with the kids. I often found that local criminals had something of a community heart. Anyway, I'd been looking to buy a set for my friend to play as we were just getting back into jamming after a long absence so I said "forget the playground ~ if you can wait till tomorrow, I'll buy them from you !" The banks had closed, he could and I did.
My first guitar was a stringless, fretless, bridgeless acoustic guitar I got from Goodwill for IIRC less than $5
Mine was when I was 4. I don't remember it at all but the family legend is that I smashed it pieces. As this was 1967, my only explanation is that maybe I'd seen Townshend and Hendrix do likewise on TV {I have no memory of such a thing ~ I only remember the Monkees and the Impossibles from then} or I was {probably more likely} a child with a penchant for the destructive. I don't even know if it was wooden or one of those shitty plastic ones.
That said, who buys a 4 year old a guitar ?
The actual first instrument I bought was a bass guitar, it was a Kay and the body was definitely wood. Very early on the G string broke, I never replaced it and played it that way for nearly 2 years until I bought a Fender Musicmaster. It influenced the way I played for years and arguably, still might.

Les Pauls made my left shoulder lower than my right!
I remember long before I'd ever picked up a bass, I read in a Suzi Quatro biography by Margaret Mander how heavy the instrument was but I've never found it heavy at all. I used to play standing for the first 3 years but I've been a sitting bassist since 1984. I haven't had a strap for a bass since then !
 
When it comes to guitars I will not buy on-line at all. I need to pick it up and play it and check it out closely. There are too many dishonest people selling on-line....big surprise huh? And I hate the process of returning items on line. GC still has used equipment and you can negotiate to some extent........but they're not in business to take away from sales of new stock. Pawn shops are another source and they're hit and miss of course......but from time to time you can find deals that are at least better than GC for used equipment.

As Grim has mentioned......there used to be more locally owned music shops. They often carried just a few brand name instruments along with more non brand name stock and a fair amount of used trade-ins. You got to know the shop owner and many times he was more trustworthy than the floor people at GC and stores like that. Those places are far and few between now. Those were the days.
 
I will not buy on-line at all. I need to pick it up and play it and check it out closely
I've never been a good enough player for that. I'll pretty much take what I'm given !
When it comes to guitars I will not buy on-line at all
I've been quite fortunate with the few instruments I've bought online. My double bass is just a nice shaped piece of wood with 4 strings ~ I'm sure if a semi decent player played it they'd lose all respect for me for having such an abomination. But I don't care; it sounds like a double bass. My bass guitar I bought on Ebay back in 2005. I'd wanted a 5 string for a while and some guy built it as part of a business project he was doing at university. I've modified it a bit but it's cool. At the start of the year I bought a cheap electric 12 string guitar from Gear4 music. I knew it couldn't be bad because I have absolutely no yardstick by which to measure it by. Other than on records, I've never actually heard one other than my acoustic that I had a pick up fitted to and used to overdrive for 21 years as my contribution to 12 string electricdom. And then my acoustic bass guitar, I bought online years ago and when I went to collect, it turned out the guy that sold them used to sell them out of the back of a bed shop ! There were beds everywhere and about 8 basses !
I'm so cheap. :D
 
You're so cheap.. if you got a Fender American Strat, you'd have to give it to me to protect your reputation :D
I'm so cheap, if I got an American Fender strat, I'd be honour bound to keep it as it would no doubt have come to me for nothing !
I rarely look a gift horse in the mouth {or at least not since a chimp spat in my face ~ twice !!}.
 
Circa 1974 at 21 I quit my nice paying warehouse job making a whopping $3.50 an hour, sold my 1971 dodge van and got the parents blessing to live there at home and go back to college majoring in music...Took all my cash and went down to my buddy's music store in Pasadena...and made the purchase that would shape the next 5 years of my life...An Elka string ensemble, a Roland SH3 and Peavey musician with 4 12's and a leslie 910...put a bunch of cash down and financed the rest...picked up a beat up m3 and abra cadabra I was a prog rock keyboardist.... I had hooked up with a amazing guitarist (Dave Macias) and tried to build a couple bands but we just kept hitting a wall....Then some chick told me about some band that was looking for a keyboard player...with full intention of bringing my guitarist buddy along I went and checked them out..They already had a rhythm and lead guitarist both very mediocre players but the music writing and lyrics were awesome...so I was interested just had to get them to see we needed Dave... well I got in the band and it just took a few months to get Dave in...Damn that was a kick ass band and we practiced 5 nights a week....tight! Well it was La La land and we were getting popular..VH, Quiet Riot, Motley Crue were still just local competition...Alas though we got close we did not get signed( several sad stories on that venture) but I sat in the Sunset towers at Sunset and Vine a few times ...we got " so fucking close" to signed...but nope...

And then it ended...just like that KAPOW! Dumbass rock stars doing drugs and humping on anything with a pulse...

I tried a few more times to build a band but never even got close the window of opportunity had closed ( being young and free ) It was time to settle down, make babies and raise em...Once my first daughter was born I was owned and though I still wanted to play..I just could not put the wife and daughter through the feast or famine musician lifestyle so adios to trying to build a band....

Baby them was the days...December of 1976 definitely not the biggest or greatest gig we ever played but as far as damn cool it wins..VH had got signed and a promoter who loved both VH and Cheap Day Return set up a gig at the Snow Crest Lodge and we opened for VH...Crazy night...they had been in the studio with Ted Templeton and the VH that showed up that night was a "new and improved" VH Damn they were good that night...got to hear a lot of that first album....shit..Roth sat me down in a booth after the gig, bought me a drink and we talked a bit about making it in the music business...his advice "All you guys got to do is stick together, you're on your way" well that's the tricky part...the grass is always greener drummer left first, then Dave...I kept hearing Diamond Dave's advice and I stayed but the fact was as soon as the drummer left it was the first of a few death rattles that I should have heard....so close...yet so far away...

Those were the days my friend....BTW oddly enough I have been working on that song solo for the last few months and as soon as I can figure out how to freaking get my stereo mix to get recorded into my iphone camera as I record the video live....I'll post it here...I totally butcher that song but in a nice romantic kind of way....for a 66 year old Dino-rocker...:guitar:
 
In the mid '80s, I was just getting set up with my first home computer and 2400 baud modem. I began my online connecting with GEnie BBs. This was text only, yet surprisingly similar to this site. One feature it had were live chat rooms where I would hang out on Friday or Saturday late nights - fun but not so productive.

I could never stay interested in that form of social media, much preferring to stay with the static forums.

I will say there was quite a bit of activity there. We had multiple projects where about 16 of us would collaborate on experimental projects centered around MIDI. Splitting into two 8-person groups, each group would produce one MIDI composition. Each person in their group would receive a copy which, using their own mapping, would be transformed into an original composition. One person's strings became another's percussion. There were 8 wildly differing variations on a single starter file - 8 more in the second group.

Each person then either left their version as MIDI only, or they added guitars, vocals and analog percussion of their own. We then did stereo mixes of our own versions onto cassette tape and mailed to a designated final mixer to be processed as they saw fit. These were put to stereo cassettes and returned to each of us, along with final copies of all 16 versions.

That was some wild stuff there. No two of us had the same mapping in our MIDI gear.

There are many threads here looking for collaboration, that's what got me recalling this stuff. I don't dabble in this sort of MIDI these days, just drum kits.
 
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