Eskimo_Joe wrote:
Great stories as always Slim! You should write a book.
i DID
only two people in the world have read it, so far. it's a bit too scary to release publicly
here's a small sample, how i let got of a '64 strat for next to nothing. possibly one of the STUPIDEST things I have ever done!
As we left for Ft Benning Georgia, I was on the loose. Our bass player at that time in the X-Statics was Arthur “Ferrari” Hall, an affable Scotsman who had grown up in Gulf Breeze on Pensacola Beach. Arthur had played in some competing bands to us around town, and ended up playing bass with us like a lot of other bass players did. Spinal Tap went through drummers, and The X-Statics went through bass players. Let me see….Kurt Robinette, Arthur Ferrari, James Bowie, Charley “Goathead” McGraw, Tommy Gunn, Brad from the “Cool Babies”….and that’s just the ones I can remember 20 years later.
Arthur and I had secured ourselves a case of cheap beer, and we rode in the back of the equipment truck with the door open all the way down the interstate highway. We did this a lot; it was a great way to see the sights traveling that way. Over all the years we did it, we only got stopped by the cops a couple of times for riding in the back of the truck that way. We were traveling this trip with a temporary roadie named Dwight who was working for us as a fill-in. Dwight was a frustrated guitarist who played metal guitar in a vaguely Michael Schenker sort of style. He wore a black leather bomber jacket, had ratty 80s metal hair, and smelled like saddle soap. This particular trip, I was renting his Marshall 50 watt combo guitar amp, as I had made a quick deal the week before for a beautiful vintage 1964 Fender Stratocaster, the year of my birth.
My love for the Fender Stratocaster goes way back in my youth. Seeing Clapton and Hendrix play them inspired me, not to mention Richie Blackmore and other icons who favored the sleek instrument. God bless Jonathan Richman for writing a song about it, because that guitar is an obsession. Vic Valmus then turned me on in the early 80s about how much cooler the 50s and 60s era Stratocasters were. The modern Gibson and Fender guitars in the late 70s and early 80s truly did suck. Vic used to find beautiful vintage 60s custom color Fender Strats for around $600, and I was always secretly jealous of his ability to seemingly conjure up these rare guitars from within closets and under beds. I was playing at the All Nite Affair one night, when some scruffy looking dude comes up to the stage and says “I heard you like Fender Stratocasters”. “Sure do!” I replied. “Whatcha got”?
The band took a break, and the scruffy guy comes back in with a beautiful Olympic White 1964 Pre-CBS Stratocaster. “The guitar player in my band don’t have no amp”, he said. “I’ll trade you the Strat for your guitar and your Legend amp”.
It only took me about 30 seconds to decide. I hated my current guitar at that time, and I knew I could get another amp somehow. My Legend amp was really cool though, covered in a wood cabinet and a real wicker grille, it looked like something that would not be out of place in someone’s high-end Florida room. But I simply HAD to have that Strat. So at the end of the night, they carted away my guitar and amp, and I took the Strat home.
I had that guitar completely rebuilt and refretted by Dick Boyden, a great guitar and amp tech in Pensacola. It was BEAUTIFUL. I could tell the look in Dick’s eyes that he hated seeing me have that guitar, because he knew I would smile it up somehow. And he was right.
So here we are on the road, Arthur and Dwight and I are in the back of the truck, drinking beer all the way to Ft Benning. There is a local rock club just off base that we play a few times a year. I literally had a woman walk to my table, grab my hand, pull me outside, go to the band truck, blow me in the band truck, bring me back in and have a drink before the break was over, with absolutely no conversation. Military girls have always seemed to like me for some reason. We get to the club and set up. For some reason, I end up with Dwight’s smelly leather bomber jacket. Unbeknownst to Arthur and I, Dwight is a SERIOUS pill head. So as I am wearing the jacket, I feel a pill bottle in the pocket. I pull it out and put the contents into my hand. Blue Valiums. Yum. Brings back memories of my mom’s medicine chest back in the 70s. So Arthur and I take a few, about 4-5 each, which is enough to “tranquilize a horse” as my mom would say.
I don’t even remember the actual gig. Jon tells us the next day that I told him he could sit down, and I would three-piece the band. I am more than sure the results were atrocious. I’m surprised we weren’t fired, but it was a Tuesday night and it was a slow night anyway.
Dwight comes STORMING into my hotel room, demanding to know where the rest of his pills are. To Arthur and I, it was no big deal. We had no idea we were dealing with someone as addicted to those pills as he was.
“Where are my fucking pills?” He screams, grabbing me off the bed. Arthur rises up and grabs Dwight, and we pin him to the wall. “What the smile Dwight?” I scream back. “It’s just some fucking pills…do you want the money for them or something?”
He just slid down the wall and almost started to cry. “It’s just that we’re on the road, and I can’t get anymore of them until we get back, and I NEED them, I NEED THEM” he wailed. “And I’m gonna kick your ass if I don’t get them back!” he threatened.
I had never really seen this level of addiction before, and I immediately looked at Dwight like he was pond scum lower than low trash. I told him to smile off, and to take his amp with him, I didn’t need to play it that week. I got the band truck, loaded Arthur in it, and headed to a local Podunk Music Store.
You have to love some of the local little music stores in small towns. I love how items that cost me $5 in New York cost me $20 in Selma, Alabama. Occasionally I will find something amazing in these places, like a vintage unsold Minimoog synthesizer I found in a mom-n-pop shop in Sarasota for $200. EBay has about killed that, however. Very few treasures left to find now that they are all online.
I pull into this music shop, and cart in my pristine 1964 Strat. I pick out a new Hondo guitar, a cheap amp, and a couple of cheap effects pedals. I show the shop owner the guitar, and he literally salivates over it, immediately calling his brother to come to the shop. I see myself doing this as though outside my own body, the Valium is still coursing through my veins and I am in some kind of post-pill popping bad dream. Arthur tries to stop me, but he cannot. Lots of people since have tried to stop me as well, but I am nothing if not determined.
So, for the price of some cheap beer, a handful of Valiums, and some misplaced anger – I traded a guitar that today would be worth right around $30,000 for the cheapest piece of sing guitar I ever owned. These are consequences of my drug and alcohol abuse, as well as nothing greater than sheer stupidity. I still have the little yellow receipt for that transaction, and the guitar’s serial number was #L- Anyone know where she is these days?
by Donner » Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:38 am 
