At 13 or 14 years old, I’m not really sure which, I got my first guitar and Mel Bay Classic instruction booklet. I already had a pretty good ear for music with singing and playing trumpet, so I knew how the guitar should sound. I just needed to figure out how to do it. That guitar was a small classic model—a starter guitar. With the help of pop radio, and a few James Taylor albums, soon I could play the basic cords in the open position and finger-pick a few patterns. But all this time I was playing by myself, not really watching anyone or learning things from others. Funny way to learn guitar I suppose. James Taylor was my instructor.

I needed a bigger and better guitar! A year or two later in a pawn shop in Milwaukee I found a pretty, full-sized classic guitar with a wide neck for my thick fingers—a Val Dez model born in 1971 in Finland. Anyone know anything at all about this guitar company? I still have it. It’s a little beat-up, but still has a nice tone and action. Beautiful checking of its finish. Couple of tuner keys broken, but that can be fixed sometime.

Soon thereafter I started playing with other people, and began to learn about the flat pick. I even put some steel strings on my classic guitar at one point. Kids, don’t try this at home. I soon learned that the increased tension would destroy the guitar, and the pick was not doing nice things to the finish. I got over it.

I bought a $35 no-name electric guitar from a friend, stripped down its finish and lacquered it up myself. It looked awful, and I think it played awful, too. But I jammed with kids at Jefferson Senior High School using it. I really can’t remember what I eventually did with that guitar... I wish I had it now just for the grin factor.

I didn’t play much guitar in college at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Too busy trying to study in the midst of everyone else’s party.

In medical school, I picked up the guitar more and more. Some of us began to play together as a group. Cindy loaned me her brother’s Epiphone hollow body model. A red guitar that I could never get the action and tuning set quite right. Plus it had a 2" crack in the body. But it had a pretty nice tone that I couldn’t appreciate at the time. I played this guitar for several years, and still had it when I left medical school. I feel bad about that—I should have worked harder to return it to Cindy. But it didn’t seem very valuable at the time we had bigger things on our minds.

I played that guitar off and on for the next 6 years in Ohio and Maryland. Mostly played in a Garrett Park Catholic Church group on Sunday mornings using a 16 watt Harmony amplifier I picked up for $10 at the church’s annual rummage sale. Eventually I sold that guitar at our own garage sale just to get it out of the house at the time we were moving to Dallas. Stupid! I just didn’t understand at the time that you could fix a cracked guitar. I know it sounds lame, but now I wish I could fix that guitar and return it to Cindy and her brother.

Ten years ago I moved here to the Twin Cities. I joined the St. Therese Schola choral group and sang bass on a regular basis. But there was a need for some guitar accompaniment at times, and I again had the urge to play along. Although I have sung all my life (although my current band members would be skeptical), I have always been more drawn to playing an instrument. So I needed a new guitar. I looked around for an acoustic-electric, because for my playing style (finger-picking and flat pick rhythm) I thought it would be most versatile. I thought a Takamine would be ideal, but when I played them I was never impressed with the tone, and I thought the cost seemed excessive. I suppose I can afford whatever guitar I want, but my frugal up-bringing always surfaces.

Finally I found my first nice guitar—I think I paid $625 including hard case. A barely used Washburn D17SCE 6-string with gold/ivory tuners, special abalone inlays in the fingerboard, nice pre-amp and equalizer, and beautiful maple body. The original owner developed tendinitis in his hand soon after buying the guitar, so it didn’t have really any wear at all. This has been an outstanding guitar for me. On occasion I have put on light strings to try my hand at some lead riffs using this guitar, but for the most part I have used medium D’Addario strings for a wonderful tone and resonance. I had to have the neck tightened down at first with these high tension strings, but now the action is incredible. It is hard work to push down these strings for a whole set, but well worth the effort.

About five years ago, I became more interested in trying my hand at lead guitar. Really for the first 25 years of guitar playing I had only tried to improve upon my rhythm technique based on watching others play and trying to mimic them. Now I felt the urge to learn a lead riff or two just for fun. I began to troll the pawn shops for a electric guitar to play with. I came across a black Charvel shred guitar, probably a Japanese model. I didn’t find the guitar particularly pretty or the brand particularly compelling (I think Charvel was an important new wave guitar brand of the early 80’s); but it was set up very nicely for me. First, it has a beautiful thin neck (maple?) with rosewood finger board. Standard round fret buttons—nothing fancy. The tuners appear to be black metallic Jacksons with a lock-down nut and tunable floating bridge licensed from Floyd Rose. Extremely cumbersome to set up initially, that’s for sure, but it stays in tune beautifully once it is up and running. The action is wonderful with light strings—this guitar has been great for me to learn lead with! I do feel like the electronics suck on this guitar. Everyone thinks the tone stinks, too. They’re probably right. Someday I will get a nice electric and I will know what they are supposed to sound like. I’ll know it when I see (and hear) it. In the meantime, if anyone knows of some decent pickup replacements for this type of guitar (single coil at the neck, paired single coils at the bridge), drop me an email.

The amp I have been using for the past 4 years is a Fender Princeton Chorus. This has been a good amplifier, although it is a compromise in many respects. I got it because the clean channel is very clean and the chorus is perfect. So I can get a great sound with my Washburn. The overdrive channel is usable, but pretty lame with my weenie guitar pickups. So I run my Charvel through a distortion pedal, and this really beefs up the sound. Recently I have been running the sound from the mono-out to our PA board, and have been just using my amp so I can hear what I am doing. This negates the value of the chorus, but this seems less useful/important in The Outliers. Recently, I blew out the feedback suppression circuitry (probably by running my Washburn through it too hard), so it is in the shop right now. I also trashed one of the two 10" speaker cones when I accidently drove the amp too hard with a keyboard. I don’t necessarily blame the amp for either of these breakdowns, though I wish it could take more punishment. But frankly, I am playing really LOUD.

This band has been a great opportunity for me to broaden my guitar playing skills. You are forced to learn things in a band that you wouldn’t otherwise try. My lead skills still pretty much suck, but really most of the time lead guitar is just not that complicated. I have a good ear, so if it doesn’t sound quite right I can work to make it better. I’m not trying to be a virtuoso—just have some fun. Let me know how I’m doing. I appreciate any kind words. Send all your complaints to Yoji.

Before the Zellar concert on New Year's Eve, I purchased a beautiful new guitar. A 1994 Gibson custom shop Les Paul Standard with dark metallic green finish, pearloid pickguard, and gold-tone hardware including Grover tuners. I haven't yet figured out which Humbucker pickups it has (with gold pickup covers). The guitar was barely used--it is pristine, and sounds ohh so sweet! Obviously, this has become my main guitar. With its ability to sustain and its low end guts, I now operate my amp almost exclusively through my clean channel, and just vary the amount of distortion by adjusting the volume on my guitar and using my Boss DS-1 foot pedal set somewhere between 7 and 12 o'clock. I will also be using 10 ga. strings with this one, rather than the 9's I have been using on the Charvel.

Also, my Charvel now has Fender Texas Special pickups (with the neck and middle pickups rotated 180 degrees so that I could force them into my chiseled-out non-Fender strat-like guitar). I have created a "Frankenstein-like" monster with much more accoustic bite. I will keep working on my "Texas" blues using this axe. I plan to replace the 9 strings with 10's, and de-tune the machine at least a half step. Stay tuned for my impressions later as to whether I think this upgrade was worth $140.

Time for another up-date on this equipment of mine.

First, the Gibson Les Paul Standard continues to be my #1 guitar, and it plays like a dream.  Fit and finish are nearly perfect. A little on the heavy side (as expected) but doesn't break your back. Neck pup is very clean at lower volume, but can bite at higher volume. Bridge pickup overdrives wonderfully with higher volume and a roll-back of the tone a bit. Using #10 string set (D'Addario) with standard tuning.

Continue to use the Boss DS-1 pedal for volume boost during leads and distortion.  At this point I intend to get a nicer overdrive pedal, but haven't yet come across the one.

In practice, and largest gig settings I am using Yoji's Crate VC5115 inch tube combo amp.  At home and for most gigs (miked), I use my own Crate V1512 tube combo that I eBayed about a year ago.  These Crate tube amps have been durable, have great tone, and are plenty loud!  Yoji's amp has an overdrive channel.  Mine just requires that I put the gain between 10 and 1 o'clock.  Really, this amp rocks! It's as simple as that.

I have a different #2 guitar now–a Gibson Les Paul Special '55-'77 reissue. P90 pups, nickle hardware, sun-burst on Mahagony, it just screams. None too quiet, but perfect for straight-ahead rock-n-roll.  Telecaster on steroids kind of tone.

The Charvel sits in its case.  I sold off the Fender pups.  I may set this up with an open tuning for slide guitar.  Or sell it.  We'll see.