Basically a Yellow Pages for vintage dealers and a real world price guide. The articles are often laughably written, but we don’t buy it for the articles 
Oh, and I am not jealous; I have some fine guitars
Thinking about this; no, this is different. Jack Black got all holier than thou over an issue of taste - the Stevie Wonder song the guy wanted was “uncool.” I am saying that this guy is being lovingly portrayed as not knowing what he is doing. It is not a question of taste, it is reading between the lines of what I read.
astro, insults are absolute against the rules and you know it. Now jack your shit down immediately or there shall be blood. And by that I mean official warnings.
Ellen Cherry
Which is it; should rare and valuable things be used by someone who tries to get the most out of them, or in a glass case somewhere to be "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over? It may be that Irsay or the Ferrari driver don’t have the skill to get the ultimate performance out of their toys, but very few people do.
I guess to me it’s a question of whether the person in question really appreciates what they have. Irsay may not know as much about guitars as some people, but that doesn’t quite tell me that he doesn’t appreciate them.
Totally fair. The magazine’s write-up seems to portray his appreciation as that of a clueless dilletante with Irsay’s seeming full complicity. Whatever.
Well, the same basic argument has been going on over classic cars for years. Should they be on a pedestal, should they be driven, should they be raced? Are people buying what they love, or what they think they can sell for a profit in five years?
It all seems to work out in the end. The ones who don’t know what they’re doing will move on to the next fad soon enough. The cars, and guitars, will live on.
And he’ll probably leave the battery in the Garcia guitar while it sites unplayed. Then when he finally picks it up again he’ll find it leaked and destroyed the contacts.
You buy it for the naked pictures of the guitars, then?
I’ll be in mah bunk…
Not a guitar, but I knew a stripper (stage) named Fender Rhodes.
They’re still required to have G-strings…
I don’t play guitar, but I’m offended that presumably great guitars wind up in the hands of mediocre players with deep pockets. If this guys son were just starting to learn the violin, he’d buy him a Stradivarius.
I’m a big fan of Todd Rundgren, and for years he played the psychedelic SG known as “The Fool” that Eric played in Cream. The collector’s market eventually made it pretty much impossible to keep as a player, so he sold it and bought a replica. Typical Todd, he sold it for $150,000 and the buyer re-sold it for $500,000.
Yep. The Fool SG is in this issue of We Be Douchebags listed as owned by someone named Oxman. It is in an article on a limited edition coffee table book that comes in its own guitar case replica and sells for over $1,000. Okay.
And before I am accused of anything, I love guitar books and photos so have no prob with glamor books. I prefer mine to be interspersed with feature specs and shipping totals since I use them for research, and not paying for extra bling like limited edition status - I want the photos and data - but no biggie.
As for Todd - not sure what to say; that’s business. Gary Moore did the same thing with Peter Green’s Les Paul a few years ago: sold it for a few hundred thou to fund an operation and then saw the buyer who apparently promised not to sell it list it…for $2 million.
It’s seems to me that the word journeyman was appropriately used above and was in no way a putdown.
No one who plays an instrument at the semi-pro level, like WordMan and me and I’m sure others in this thread, would think for a second that a guy who records and tours with Mellencamp is anything but a highly-skilled and competent professional player. And most such players take all kinds of side work, like this guy. I agree with WordMan that the article puts him in the difficult position of trying to say nice things about a guy who really doesn’t understand what he collects. And while the rich and clueless may have preserved a few instruments that might otherwise have disappeared (I actually doubt this), they have also driven the price of vintage instruments into the stratosphere.
Exactly, on all fronts. Thank you.
I can just picture all those nice guitars, scratched to shit, by lousy strumming technique.
I’ve come back to this thread a couple of times today with the idea that I’d flesh out my anti-Aficionado stance. It’s been thought than I thought. Sure, there’s a bit of jealousy there, you know, rich guys buying up a bunch of instruments they don’t know shit about, much less know what to do with. But in reality, all my guitars would probably be better off in the hands of someone with less money and more talent. Probably the same could be said about my motorcycle, my Linotype, my camera, whatever. That’s a pretty hypocritical stance for me to take.
I think the more tenable objection I have to the whole Aficionado lifestyle was illuminated by a quick browse through the latest Fretboard Journal. I think where FJ gets it right is that the stories are ultimately about the music. The guitars, as rare, or fancy, or outstanding in whatever way, are only the tools with which the music also discussed continues to be made. Collector value is only of secondary interest.
Guitar Aficionado turns that whole concept on its head. In my limited reading of it, they seem to focus on how much the guitar cost, and the collector that has managed to buy it. Any discussion of the music, how the guitar actually sounds, what’s actually unique about it seems only to be based on what someone did with that guitar years ago to make it ‘famous’. Misses the whole point of an instrument to my mind…
WordMan, the H&D is treating me just fine although I’ve been neglecting it fearsomely, for mostly the same reasons is still owe you a reply to your email from some months ago. Short answer: been real busy.
I suppose what is so annoying about rich guitar collectors is that a great guitar is an odd confluence of art, history and tool. I’m sure these buyers appreciate the first two aspects, but usually lack the skill to truly appreciate them as the latter. Again, I don’t play guitar, but I am a craftsman who appreciates quality tools. I have enough skill to appreciate the difference between a mediocre tool and an excellent one. And unlike a great guitar, there is no scarcity with a great tool - my owning one does not deprive a more skilled craftsman of one.
Hopefully there will eventually evolve a situation like the one with Stradivari. Rich people own them, but few sit silent in vaults. Instead, deserving players who could never own one are loaned them.
That said, the eternal question arises of the player or the instrument? I only know one truly great guitarist, and I’ve seen him pick up beat to shit guitars and get his sound out of them, so I tend to believe the former is more important then the latter.
No, for either “amateur” or “hobbyist”. I realize you were joking, but figured I’d say it just in case someone actually tries to use it in a test.
Yes. I have been selling and trading my collectible books to get guitars for exactly that reason - the books are interesting and fun, but the meat of what makes that book great is accessible via other means more cheaply. The vast majority of collectible guitars became collectible because of their inherent value as a tool.
gaffa the player always comes first, yes. But a good tool helps a great player go new places and that really matters.