Sunday 12 May 2013

How To Buy A Guitar.... (if you're into that sort of thing).

Mr. Mick's Bourgeois guitar had developed a distressing problem in the fret-board area.
I won't elaborate as any description would soon deteriorate into modes of communication only Mystic Rog or Mr. Mick understand.
All that needs to be understood is that Mr. Mick asked Mystic Rog and myself to accompany him to the Acoustic Music Company shop in Brighton.
(Slap-up fish n' chips nosh included).
"Yes, yes I will go".

Getting in and out of Brighton by private auto-ma-car is tedious.

We arrive in the Kemp Town area of Brighton and enter the unprepossessing shop.
This shop sells high-end guitars and mandolins full stop.
No strings, no plecturms, no capos.
In a nutshell, this narrow product range is aimed at keeping time wasting riff raff out.
And should you want to buy a guitar or mandolin here, bring money, lots of money, and then some more money.
You will need it.

Mr. Mick explains the problem with his guitar to the repair guy in the shop.
The repair guy seems to completely understand what Mr. Mick has said to him and takes the guitar into a cupboard and closes the door behind him.

Another person appears, the 'owner' I believe.
He and Mr. Mick discuss various guitars.
Mr. Mick says he's thinking of buying a Gibson L200 Emmylou Harris edition.
The shop owner derides all Gibson products and the L200 in particular.
Mr. Mick's Gibson nostalgia bubble takes a hit.

While we're are waiting it would be silly not to try the exotic range of guitars in the shop.

Here we see Mr. Mick surrounded by guitars, each more perfect (and expensive) than the next as Mystic Rog looks on and listens:
Mr Mick tries a guitar out
Mr. Mick pulled out all his test tunes:
Anji (if you call yourself a guitarist you should be able to play this. Both Mr. Mick and Mystic Rog can play it.)
After a while I began to notice that I could actually tell the different sound qualities of each guitar.
After a while it became apparent that one guitar stood out above the others.
I think it was a Ken Franklin Elsie 

In the meantime, Mystic Rog has fallen in lurrve with a 1920's Gibson Mandolin:
Mystic Rog with 1920s Gibson Mandolin 01
We break for lunch at the Regency Fish Restaurant:
Regency Fish Bar Brighton
Before we went back to collect Mr. Mick's repaired guitar we called in at GAK music shop.
Surprise, surprise they stock Gibson acoustic guitars and have a model very similar to the one Mr. Mick thinks he would like.
He tries it.
We are all three agreed.
It's shite.
Mr. Mick's nostalgia bubble bursts.

Back to the proper guitar shop.

Mr. Mick tries his adjusted guitar.
He doesn't feel the problem has been solved.
He trades it in, gives the shop owner a VERY LARGE AMOUNT of money and buys the Ken Franklin Elsie.

Mystic Rog continued his lurrrve affair with the Gibson mandolin:
Mystic Rog with 1920s Gibson Mandolin 0
The astute will notice that this shop did not sell ukuleles.
Truly I am a saint.


4 comments:

Le Sanglier said...

I was really hoping you would be in this story as the sensitive misunderstood uke player who dazzles and charms all the humans with whom he comes into contact.

I have a guitar, you know.

Sometimes I even play it.

I miss your stories! I mean, plates are OK, you know, but your stories are tip of the top, cream of the crop, outa-spaceman and THERE WE STOP! I stole that from Walt Disney's Mary Poppins movie. I love Mary Poppins.

I talk too much, I know. I really try to keep a lid on it, but sometimes, it just feels like it really doesn't matter all that much.

OutaSpaceMan said...

A Doctor writes...

I advise you to trade your guitar in for a Makala 'Dolphin' soprano ukulele and a clip on tuner.

That prescription should help you to rip the lid off it.

OutaSpaceMan said...

Oh, and while you're at the shop get a set of Nylgut strings fitted.

Laurent said...

Hahaha, great story! Especially Gibson acoustics tend to cost a LOT of money and often not live up to it (every once in a while they do, I am told, but you really have to do a lot of searching then). having been playing guitar for morethan 35 years, I didn't know that brand of guitar that was eventually bought though.