Welcome to Guitar Heap
About this substack and my bio
Welcome to my substack. Thanks for reading my posts!
What you’ll find here:
I write about guitars. Old ones, new ones, electrics and acoustics. I give my perspective on how they sound, how they play and what makes them unique. I’ve been playing, buying and selling guitars for over 30 years and have owned well over 100 in that time. My goal is to share what I’ve learned with you and to use this platform to connect with people who are passionate about guitars. I am a life long learner and really appreciate your insights so please don’t hesitate to comment or message me.
About Me:
I was born in the 70’s. Grew up in a small, gritty town on the east coast. My father was a Vietnam war veteran. My parents had me right after my dad came home from serving his last tour of duty. Back then, times were tight and we didn’t have much, but there was always music in our apartment. We had a turntable, a box of 45’s that were my fathers from his teen years. We listened to the Beatles, Beach Boys, CCR, Iron Butterfly, Moody Blues and many others. I remember sitting on the shag carpet in front of the hi-fi for hours soaking it all in at a young age.
My father had a Stella acoustic guitar that he bought from Sears. It should have been strung with nylon strings, but he put steel strings on it. To this day I’m amazed that it held together.
He would strum chords, sing songs like Norwegian Wood and “What do you do with a drunken sailor”. My sister and I would dance around the room and when he stopped playing we would drop to the ground and beg him to play some more. He wasn’t the best guitarist, but to me, the thought that any person could pick up a guitar and play a few chords while singing the songs on the records blew my mind. I was hooked immediately and wanted to learn to play just like him.
Those Stella’s were rough. The action was as high as you can imagine. My fingers hurt like hell, but it didn’t stop me from learning an A chord, then an E and a D and so on..
When I was 10 years old, I had visited my grandmother and noticed my uncle’s records in a cabinet in her living room. He moved out and left them at her house. I asked if I could listen to them and she said sure.. take them. She said my uncle didn’t want them anymore. Something was different about these. There weren’t any Ventures, no Del Shannon or Franki Valli singles. These records weren’t 45’s. They were stereo LP’s and were from bands like Led Zeppelin, Boston, Aerosmith and Nazareth. The guitar sound was loud and distorted. I hadn’t heard anything like it before. It was wild.. and primal.. it gave me goosebumps.
What was that guitar sound I thought? How were they getting it? Our Stella didn’t sound like that. I got my first electric guitar when I was 14 and there was no looking back.
Those early moments kicked off my life long passion for guitars and guitar oriented music.