Guitar Hero

When I first started playing guitar, I had no clue how to play it. I was making rap songs with a drum machine and getting bored with the sounds on it. So, I decided to write a song called Rockin' The Microphone and put some guitar on it. We had some P.O.S. Korean-made guitar that was some kind of Fender Mustang knock-off. My best friend Ricky got it as a present from his Dad. It had the original, rusted strings on it and was completely out of tune. Yet, we made it work. I barred the first fret and slid it up and down on the neck in a semi-melodic fashion. I thought that would be the end of my guitar interaction as rap was the way to go; then the idea of a forming a band came along.

I started learning guitar initially to meet chicks as a direct result of seeing the girls' reaction at a 7th grade talent show. When this kid played the opening riff to Guns 'N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine, the girls screamed and squealed in delight. After seeing that reaction, I was like, "Dude, if I can play guitar, chicks will like me!" Granted, it took about 5 more years after that incident to finally getting around to doing it, but that was the seed!

My band had learned a bunch of covers to play at my friend Heather's house for her brithday. we were on the bill another band whose guitarist/singer Robert was best-friends with my girlfriend at the time. His band had much better equipment than we did so we convinced him to come out and do the show. In the process of learning song, I ran across tab for a song called "Today". I played the intro and recollected that I had heard this song on the radio. I wasn't a Pumpkins fan at all thanks to my friend Ray's infautation with them during the Gish era; he would play them constantly while I clung to the "fact" that rap was a much better music style, thus, all others suck. I decided to check out their record to better learn the song, and, thus, started my love affair with the Smashing Pumpkins.

Around 1996, I started hitting up Fender about coming out with a Billy Corgan Signature Stratocaster. They would reply and say they had no plans for one (even though at the time the Pumpkins were the biggest band on the planet) and would give me a rough idea of what Strats they had that I could buy because Billy played a Strat. Lo and behold, 12 years later, they finally came out with one!

Yes, I want one but I will definitely play a bunch of them before I decide to get one. It'll be a while though. It's cool!

Currently listening : Gish By Smashing Pumpkins Release date: 1994-10-04

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=16074757&blogID=411251523&Mytoken=B24394DA-D7B8-4FC9-BBF3C8AAB224218C575972