If the topic of Jan and Dean interests you, then you should read When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams, by Bob Greene. He's an independent journalist who wanted to meet and write about Jan and Dean back when they were touring county fairs and playing small stages. He barely played the guitar but had a chance to come on stage. For a period - maybe as much as ten years - he experienced every middle-aged man's dream. He bought an electric guitar, would join up with them part of each summer, toured the country, and for brief moments would step over cables in a sweaty Hawaiian shirty, plug in his guitar, parasitically accept some of the cheers for Jan and Dean, sing a little backup, and be a rock-and-roll 60's star to the smell of funnel cakes and suntan lotion.
I don't write much at all about Mormon history compared to the way I write whenever anyone mentions guitars . . . I was not a popular person around here during the last (second) Gibson raids, as I know Henry J. and David Berryman; I've collected guitars seriously for 40 years this year; I'm intimately familiar with the first, November 17, 2009, raids on Gibson, I have all of the documents from that litigation and the underlying internal Gibson emails confirming that Gibson knew it was illegally buying wood from Madagascar in .pdf format and I've spoken with the NAMM reps regarding the Cooper Amendment. Henry J. played the Tea Party like his person fiddle regarding the second, August 2011 raids. But don't get me started, because it became quite apparently that Gibson press releases trump affidavits and Gibson's own internal emails and reports.
So read the book. And just writing this has me pondering what to plug in this evening. I'm considering the Rickenbacker 360 Carl Wilson model, but a Mosrite (the Ventures) gives great surf sounds. The 'currently plugged-in' electric guitar is a natural ash American Classic Telecaster with a Vox V847A Wah Wah pedal.
Surf's up!
The ‘currently plugged-in’ electric guitar is a natural ash American Classic Telecaster with a Vox V847A Wah Wah pedal.
- - - - - -
I love you. Seriously.
Come to Indianapolis for the Super Bowl: stay for the guitars!
http://www.indystar.com/article/20111218/ENTERTAINMENT/112180316/Eclectic-exhibit-features-Colts-owner-Jim-Irsay-s-impressive-pieces-rock-n-roll-history