After I had been playing guitar for a while, I decided I wanted a better guitar. I had been playing a couple strat copies (Peavey Horizon II, Peavey Falcon Custom). I decided I wanted a real Strat. And if I was going to get a strat, I wanted an Fender Stratocaster American Standard. I visited a local music store and saw a really pretty red Fender Stratocaster American Standard witha natural maple fretboard. It was like $700 or something like that. I decided to check out the pawn shops. I hit my favorite pawn shop, but nothing there. I mapped out all the pawn shops down in Tacoma. I figured I would find lots of pawn shops down by military bases. I thought I would have a good chance of finding a Fender Strat. I went out on a Saturday and hit every single pawn shop in Tacoma. It was a fun afternoon driving around the city in my 1967 Ford Mustang. I saw only a couple actual Fender Strats. I saw a ton of electric guitars, but they were mostly cheap junk. One of the strats was a lefty. I thought about buying and and stringing right-handed, but decided that might be a bad idea for my primary guitar. Another Fender Strat had been butchered and I could tell what was original and what wasn’t. So I had no luck in the pawn shops.
I did however stop at a music store in downtown Tacoma, and saw some nice guitars. They had an Yngwie Malmsteen signature model strat. But it cost more than I wanted to spend. They also had a Fender Strat Am Std in this ugly bergundy color. But it was on sale for $550 or something around that. I went back to the first music store where I saw the pretty red Strat. I told the guy there that I saw another Fender Strat on sale down in Tacoma for $550, but that I had been to their store first. And if they would match the $550 price, I would but their strat. The matched the price, and bought the pretty red Fender Stratocaster American Standard along with a hard case.
I sold my Peavey Falcon Custom with the Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck pickup back to my brother for what he sold it to me for. He also wanted the Rockman Soloist back, so I sold that back to him too. I really miss the Rockman Soloist.
After I stopped taking lessons from George, I mostly played on my own, or sometimes with a friend of mine. I had also bought a used classical guitar and attempted to learn some classical guitar. I even took a couple lessons from a co-worker. But it was just too hard, and I was more interested in hard rock/heavy metal stuff. I learned some songs out of various guitar magazines. Guitar Player, and Guitar for the Practicing Musician. I also bought a few tab books, and learned some songs out of them.
Up at the local community college, I saw a 1 credit electric guitar class being offered. I thought it could be fun. It was a beginning class, but I was going to be coming in with some chops already. I still wasn’t very good, but I certainly wasn’t a beginner. And I could use the college credit. Alot of the class was learning how site read. I worked on it, but never got very good at it. It was pain lugging around my electric guitar and amp. Often I would just bring my classical guitar. No one said anything about it though. I remember in an early class, the instructor was playing rythym and having students solo over it. When my turn came, he let play for a while. I threw everything I knew into it. I was hammer-ons, pulloffs, bending, different modes, finger tapping, whammy bar stuff, howls and growls. It was fun. But I pretty much hit my limit, and the instructor knew it. But it was fun anyway.
The intermediate class students were supposed to play a song as a quarter end project. Some of them were pretty good. I remember a couple guys playing a duet of Yesterday by the Beatles. I was in the beginner class so wasn’t required to play a song as a project, but I thought what the heck. I played Battery by Metallica. I put a lot of work into learning it. I did an okay job of it. I hit a couple bad notes in the song. At one point when I hit a couple bad notes into a row, I stopped screamed a loud ARRGGGHH!!!, and continued playing. It’s funny, but everyone thought that was part of the song! LOL! I passed the class (it was pass/fail) and got my credit.
My brother had a Peavey Falcon Custom electric guitar and pawned it for $100, and was going to just leave it default. I told him I would have given him the $100 for that guitar. It was better than my Horizon II. He offered to sell it to me for $125. I took my Horizon II down to the guitar store where I was taking lessons. I put it up for consignment telling them I wanted $125 out of it. It sold quickly. I went to pay my brother the $125 for the guitar, and found my mom had paid him the $125 and bought me the guitar as a birthday present. So now I had a new guitar and $125. My brother also sold me his Rockman Soloist. The Peavey Falcon Custom was basically Fender Strat Clone. I bought a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck pickup and had it installed into the bridge position. The work was done at the guitar store where Iwas taking lessons. They were very nice and only charged me for a basic pickup install even though they had to route out the guitar to install the double coil pickup where a single coil pickup used to be. The guitar sounded awesome with that pickup. Fantastic harmonics. Somewhere out there is a Peavey Falcon Custom with a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck pickup installed in the bridge position. I can’t imagine there would be more than one like it!
Now having an electric guitar, I wanted to learn how to play it. I bought a book by Alren Roth, and started learning some basics. But I wanted to take some lessons. Having experienced the group lessons with the Michael Row Your Boat Ashore strum strum strum stuff, I was a bit leary. I visited a local guitar shop located in Federal Way, WA. Not sure if they are still there. I inquired about lessons, and from what I remember, they cost $30/half hour. That’s what I remember, but that seems kind of high, but maybe that’s right. I decided to try them. I signed up to take a half hour lesson each week. The teacher Scott, started teaching me basic rock and blues stuff. I started learning Ted Nugent, Credence Clearwater Revial, and Eric Clapton stuff. The Nugent stuff was fun to play, but I broke a lot of strings with all the bending. I was started to listen to stuff like Yngwie Malmsteen, Ozzy Osbourne with Randy Rhoads, Metallica, etc. But especially a lot of neo-classical heavy metal.
I studied with Scott for about a year, learning songs, and scales, and modes. It was alot of fun. I really wasn’t very good. But I enjoyed myself.
After a year or so, Scott passed me on to another guitar teacher named George. George was more into the neo-classical heavy metal that I wanted to play.
Things started out good with George and I was learning some cool stuff. But George wasn’t as good of teacher as Scott. George was trying to teach me Rosanna by Toto which had some fairly complex chording. First it was a tough song to play, second, I wasn’t that interested in learning. So each week for a month George would have me working on this song that I really didn’t have much interest in learning. I stopped going to lessons.
Years later, I bought my first electric guitar. I bought it used in a pawn shop for $200. It was a Peavey Horizon II. I had read somewhere that Peavey made inexpensive, but good quality guitars. I couldn’t afford a really good guitar at that point in my life. They had some SG style guitars in there for not much more mioney. I kick myself now wondering if they were actually Gibson SGs. If they were actual Gibsons, I would have been better off buying one of those. Oh well. Chances are they were cheap knock offs. But the Horizon II sounded great. As far as electric guitars, that particular pawn shop always seems to have a good selection at pretty prices. Maybe next time I am back in the Seattle area, I will stop in and see if they still have any good guitars in there. Who knows, maybe I can find a Gibson SG hanging on the rack?