Tag Archives: peavey

A Different Coda

Posted on August 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

As we’re trying to downsize, I’m trying to cull the musical herd. My daughter gets to take the piano once she gets her own place. My son’s clarinet doesn’t take up to much space. However, my guitar collection and the drum set do. I hope to get down to my Taylor 6 string, Greenbriar by Peavey 12 string, Peavy Raptor electric, and of course, my Brian May guitar.

My current guitar amplifier is an oldie but a goodie, a Peavey 112 Bandit Sheffield Transtube, Silver Stripe. By the long name, you might expect it to be big. It is. It is also heavy and loud.

My new Peavey Vypyr VIP1 is smaller, lighter, and has all kinds of effects built in. It’s got a 32 bit floating point computer processor, which is a marketer’s way of saying, “You have to learn how to program it.”

The bottom line, I now have a guitar amp, cell phone, tablet, laptop, etc., ad nauseum ALL of which are smarter than I am.

I miss the days when my biggest challenge was to get the VCR to stop flashing “12:00”.

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My Life in Guitars – Part 5 (We’re not done yet?)

Posted on October 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

Then there was the ukulele, and it would be unfair to skip over the ukulele. There was a group of wonderful people who set up “Ukes for Troops,” and sent ukuleles to those serving in the desert. Our group of about 1200 received a dozen or so Lanikin ukuleles from them—what a cool move. I confess, I kept one for me, and even though I do not claim to have mastered the ukulele, I still have mine, prominently displayed in the music room.

 

 

Thanks Ukes for Troops!

 

When I got back home, I was still very pumped up about music, and kept an eye on eBay for special deals. One day I found one—a twelve-string guitar that had a starting price of $29.95. No one had bid on it. I watched it, and as the time ran down, I put in a bid. With eBay, it doesn’t automatically jump to your full bid, but whatever it would take to win the item, up to your full bid.

I got it for $29.95 (plus shipping, of course). The seller had taken great pains to point out that it had a ding on the front edge, and when it arrived, after playing it for a few weeks, I went in search a proper luthier who could repair it. (Trivia alert! The term luthier hearkens back to when the most common stringed instrument was the lute.)

A 12 string is to guitars, what a calliope is to organs with an over-the-top sound all its own. Most people like the sound, but don’t grasp the obvious. I saw a Quora question in which the person asked why a 12-string guitar sounds so “jangly.” Was it the type of music people played? The answer pointed out that it sounded jangly because of all those strings.

After Tom Petty died, NPR replayed an interview with him on Fresh Air. Terry Gross asked about the particular and special sound Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers developed; Petty replied that they were inspired by Roger McGuinn from the Byrds and his use of a 12-string. (It’s all those strings, man.)

By the way, if you have a 12 string, never, EVER tune it like normal guitar; back off at least one fret and use a capo as needed. Besides sounding jangly, all those strings put a tremendous amount of tension on the guitar’s neck.

Incidentally, the guitar turned out that the 12-string I had purchased was a “Briarwood,” with the label inside stating “Briarwood by Peavey.” Is it me, or is there a conspiracy? Doesn’t matter—the 12 string has been and remains one of my most favorite guitars. My wife concurs that it’s a great sound.

Travel Guitar

n.

 

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My Life in Guitars (Part 3) – the Desert

Posted on October 3, 2017 | 4 comments

I’d been quite happy with my Peavey Predator, so although I looked—and occasionally drooled, I didn’t seriously plan to buy another guitar. I became a geo-bachelor in Oakland, California, and had my Peavey, but no amplifier. In my teeny-tiny one room apartment, I could hear my playing well enough to keep my sanity.

Then I got the word that as a reservist, I was being recalled and would soon be in Southeast Asia. Obviously, the military pretty much dictated what would go on the plane, so the word was—mail yourself the survival gear you’d need in a plastic footlocker, with the fiberglass reinforced packing tape in every direction. Contents included books, electronic games, civilian clothes (sometimes referred to as “mufti”), and, in my case, a small ham radio station. If the footlocker was shattered, the tape would keep everything together.

What? No guitar?

No guitar. I did not want my Peavey damaged, and, besides, the military exchange system was there to take our money and send us whatever we desired. I’d just order a new guitar once I got there.

I did.

The order was cancelled.

I placed a second order with AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange System)—the store for our men in women in uniform who are deployed.

Cancelled again.

I called the AAFES command—I mean, why be a senior officer if you can’t call the military’s retail headquarters? As a civilian I can call Radio Shack headquarters—never mind.

When military are deployed their mail is routed through a system to an FPO (fleet post office) or an APO (Army post office) so that mail to overseas bases is treated—and costs—like it’s within the continental United States. However, AAFES claimed they didn’t ship to APOs or FPOs.

Huh? Isn’t that why the Military Exchange System exists?

I suspect that items like musical instruments are “drop-shipped” from the manufacturer directly to the customer. If the manufacturer was not located in the USA, then it couldn’t be sent as US mail to a US APO/FPO address. (Damn bean counters!)

Fortunately, I realized that the horse was dead, so I should stop whipping it, and went over its head, straight to . . . . . .

eBay!

Peavey Acoustic

I found a nice used acoustic guitar in the “Buy it now” section. I even talked with the seller (if you could dial back to a US base via the military system, you could then use your prepaid WalMart 5 cents-per-minute account to make a prepaid call elsewhere within the US). The seller was a nice guy who told me that he had changed out the bridge from white to black for a customer who changed his mind. Did I want it changed back?

No—just send it to me.

The vendor was either Music 123 or Musicians’ Friend—it doesn’t matter, they’re all part of the Guitar World now. The neat part was that for deployed military (you know, those with the dreaded APO and FPO addresses), these vendors, replaced the shipping cost with “Thank you for your service.” (To this day, they’re still my primary source for anything and everything musical—thanks, folks!)

For my new guitar, oddly enough I had picked a Peavey acoustic (imagine that). It arrived in short order in perfect condition. When I was “home” I tried to practice regularly and I also played at church. St. Augustine said that “He who sings, prays twice.” If you sing at a service at which I’m playing guitar, your prayers are probably worth a hundred-fold. On the other hand, one could always count dealing with my playing as penance.

After Mass one evening, Rubin, a fellow officer, approached me and asked if I wanted to play in a Beatles band. I laughed and pointed out my general (if not total) lack of talent, but Rubin (and I’m spelling his name the way I THINK he spelled it) said, “No problem, it was just for fun.” I thought about it, and figured that at the very least I’d get free guitar lessons out of the deal, so I agreed.

We didn’t get a lot of USO activity at our location, and what little we did always happened when I was on the road. There was a fair amount of excitement when a women’s volleyball team stopped by (so I hear) and Charlie Daniels performed, after which he autographed the guitar of one of the other Beatle band members. He had a black guitar with a mother-of-pearl Statue of Liberty inlay on the fretboard that had been custom made when he was stationed in Korea. Charlie signed it with a bold silver marker of some kind. The final result couldn’t have been more awesome.

But I digress, although I’m digressing about guitars, so it’s okay.

Just before Christmas, after weeks of rehearsing in a warehouse, WE became the USO show and did about 30 minutes of Beatles music for a crowd of fifty or so (after all, there was not much else to do if you weren’t on duty). However, a good time was had by all, and I had my 30 minutes of fame.

Next—a different guitar for an encore presentation.

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My Life in Guitars (Part 2)

Posted on October 2, 2017 | 2 comments

It was a few years, a marriage, a move or so, and a son and a daughter later before I got my next guitar.

We were living in Cheyenne, Wyoming—a wonderful place, although you do have to get used to the wind—the Wyoming Wind Festival runs from 1 January through 31 December—and they sell the tee shirts to prove it. In other words, when you first move there, the first priority is to figure out how to bungee cord the lid to the garbage can.

Cheyenne was small—about 53,000 people (in a state with 500,000, or 5 people per square mile) so it was a bit modest as far as shopping opportunities. For example, the first year we were there, the newspaper declared Sbarro’s Pizza as second place, in the “Best Restaurant for Lunch” category.

We’d regularly go to Fort Collins, Colorado for “real” shopping, but there were definitely places in Cheyenne worth visiting. One day my wife wanted to go to a craft store. I think I went in, and “finished” much earlier than she did, so I decided to go next door.

To a music store.

The music store had guitars on sale—the previous year’s Peavey Predator Plus. They had two, both green. Apparently was not fashionable (aka “cool”) and therefore, not a big seller. The guitars were marked down to half price or so. (Not actively shopping for guitars, I can’t say if it truly was a great price, or if they merely boosted the “original” price. Nevertheless, at the time, it seemed like a great deal.) I picked one up and I loved the feel; I mean, it was like, “Even I could play this!” I was hooked.

Peavey Predator with practical padded plain black guitar strap

 

The Predator series is supposedly inspired by Eddie van Halen, with a shorter neck to allow people with talent (like him) to move more quickly around the fretboard; it also allowed short under talented guys like me to feel cool, which is pretty awesome in itself. I mean, think about it. Playing a guitar, roughly the same color as my 1972 Ford Pinto could make me feel cool. How weird is that?

My wife walked in, realized that fate had spoken, and there was no use in even raising an eyebrow (she’s wonderful that way). So, with the guitar, a generic hard sided guitar case and a practice amplifier (Peavey, of course) we headed back home. When I told my parents how excited I was, they were so impressed, they offered to pay for the guitar. I decided I was neither too old, too wealhy, nor too proud to decline

Cool guitar. Wife supportive. Parents paying. So, who cares if it’s green?

I used to download chord charts and play rhythm along with Eagles CDs. Fortunately, none of the Eagles ever found out. Don Henley would have been most unhappy. Timothy B. Schmitt and maybe Don Felder might have even been willing to play along with me, so long as no one told Glenn Frye or Don Henley. However, if Glenn and Don found out, even though Joe Walsh and I have a lot in common (ham radio, northeast Ohio, etc.) I don’t think he would have dared to rush to my defense. Nevertheless, I had fun.

So, 15 or so years later, the green Peavey Predator Plus is still one of my favorites. The machine head has a locking system to keep the strings in tune. It’s got great pickups that can be switched in and out. That short neck does work well for me, and I have to admit, I’ve never thought—even once—of having it painted.

Incidentally, we returned to that same music store just before I deployed to buy a piano for the kids to start their music education. We still have the Peavey and the piano.

Good memories of Cheyenne.

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