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To All the Equipment I've Loved Before by Erik Carter

So I have this problem holding on to stuff. Even stuff I like seems to slip through my hands in order to get something else. One thing that always seems to be in flux is musical equipment. Well records too but that's another can of worms entirely. My first bass was sitting in the corner of my stepfather's house. His first marriage was over and the house was being sold. We used to go down to Cape Cod on the weekends and paint and stuff and one weekend I picked up this 3/4 scale sears bass and fumbled through the standard tunes one does when they don't know how to play. Soon enough the house was sold and the bass moved in with me. It was a miserable piece of crap. I then needed an amp to plug it into and down in the basement was found an old Oahu (possible misspelling) which had like 3 watts and a 6x9 speaker. I think it was made by supro or some other old company and looking back it probably was pretty cool sounding but I was more looking for something big and loud to boom the house with. At the time the Oahu was a miserable piece of crap. My 15th birthday was approaching and I asked everybody for money so I could get some equipment. I ended up getting a Madeira bass guitar. It was pretty cool at the time but looking back I'm sure it was a piece of crap. Madeira was Guild's inexpensive line. I put that bass though hell. I began jamming with two brothers, Todd and Hannes Schneider who had a supro amp with a 15" speaker. The same on Jimi Hendrix used toward the beginning. All three of us would plug into the damn thing and I'm sure it sounded like hell. Their parents were pretty understanding. We got a drummer who once had sat in with a local band called gorilla I forget his name (Kevin I think)but we then would all go to his house and butcher a bunch over cover songs. The four of us went to a "how to be a band" class at the local music store. The guy there showed us how to play a Roy Orbison tune and we all traded off solos. It was so lame and we still sounded like crap. I soon needed my own amp to relieve the punishment on the supro. I cashed in some savings bonds or something and picked up a 150 watt transistor head made by acoustic. The front was turquoise which I liked and though lacking personality it seemed pretty damn loud at the time. it was like $75 and for another $75 I got a Traynor cab with 2 blown (or at least they were soon) 15" speakers. We got a new drummer, Paul I think, who was over 21 and jammed at his house a bunch cause he could buy alcohol. He lived on the beach and we would set up on his back porch and play to the ocean and whoever was out there. I stared playing with this guy Neil who made cool loud sixties rock and could actually play quite well. I still sucked but we would pal around and he taught me a lot. He found me this incredible deal for 3 fender heads for $250. One was a black face bassman which became my new amp of choice. The others, a silver face bassman I sold right off to a keyboard playing friend, (Steve I think) and the silver face bandmaster I just kept around for a while and eventually sold to somebody else. Around this time I found some ridiculously big folded horn cabs that were free. Each held 2 12" speakers and I threw some old altec lansings in there that had huge magnets. I was very impressed by old speakers. Neil wanted this Vox AC30 and was selling off all of his extra crap so I bought an old Danelectro head which was like 30 watts and had a spring reverb that was constantly making huge crashing sounds & a matching 1 12" cab with a JBL in it. I think he sold me his Danelectro guitar too. I think the total for the guitar and amp and speaker was like $125. Oh yeah he sold me this old Kay bass from the 50's that was pretty cool. I gave that to my girlfriend at the time who wanted to play bass. She soon after moved "up" to a peavey that she bought new. No accounting for taste. Everything becomes a blur at that point. I remember buying a Vox spitfire guitar from Neil but I don't know when. I also did unspeakable things to what was left of my friend Jim's brother's '66 fender bass. His brother's girlfriend smashed it in a fight one time and he had lovingly turned it into a Devo looking thing with a body that was the same width as the neck. I took the neck and pickups and put them on the body of my Madeira. Looking back that was a bad thing to do to him. I was a piece of crap. Eventually I traded the bass for a blackface fender Princeton combo amp that was never loud enough for me but I'm sure it sounded great. Around this time somewhere I got a Vega acoustic guitar which though in disrepair I still have today. I moved to Cape Cod to go to community college and started playing with this guy Eric. He soon after that got a job working at a guitar store and has been amassing shit ever since. I remember a music man bass that I bought for $200 from a guy who lived at the house that me and Eric were playing at. There was a Sunn amp there somewhere that I used a lot. My friend Todd loaned me his Gretch for a while. And then he loaned me this Epiphone semi hollow 12 string. That was a cool guitar. I picked up a Ampeg VT 40 amp with a broken reverb for a while and used that. I borrowed a lot of Eric's equipment as I would always trade something I had for something else and end up with either a guitar or an amp but never both. I remember trading the Music Man bass (which I hated) for a blackface fender dual showman head. There was a bogan amp in there somewhere that I gave to my friend Tommy. I picked up this '63 Epiphone coronet that I traded the vt 40 amp for. That thing was cool as hell! Some years later I sold it to this guy Derek who wanted to learn how to play. That thing was very close to me. Derek broke a string soon after buying it and the guitar sat "broken" for some time. I moved to CA and heard a tale of Derek smashing it to pieces in some show. My old friends sent me the pickguard as a memorial. I picked up this bag of disassembled guitar at an antique store one time for I thing like $30. It was an old Kay semi hollow body from the late 50's and that was pretty cool once I put it back together. I loaned that to my friend Sarah and it got ripped off out of her apartment. I stared playing bass again in this other band and went through much borrowed equipment. My friend Brett often loaned me his no name bass cause it played pretty nice and had active electronics. I played this red Ibanez bass of Brett's for a while till the action got all crazy. I played this S.D. Curlee bass of my friend Craig. Then I picked up what was left of this 3/4 scale fender music man bass that was laying around my friend Chi's parent's house. I threw some pickups in it. I think they were from my friend Pat's precision but I don't remember. I played that through this Standell amp that was kicking around the space. It was another shitty sears thing that no matter how I tried to fix it just plain sucked. Then I picked up another fender blackface bassman for like $75 somewhere. I grabbed the rent for the house the band was living in and bought one of those Mexican made fender jazz basses. Eventually I needed something louder and got this newish fender amp. bxr150 or something like that from my friend Joe. Joe was very understanding and gave it to me on the cuff. About 5 years later it was paid off. Eventually my buddies Glazed Baby were touring through with Zeni Geva and K.K. Null blew up their guitar amp and they "borrowed" the bxr150 and I have not seen it since. I've heard rumors but... On my trip out to California the car broke down in Ohio and I found a guitar shop there and picked up this cool Eko violin guitar. It was kinda squirrelly though. It gave me something to play while the car got fixed. Upon getting to California I went to look at some drum equipment with my friend Jay. There was this guy who inherited a bunch of stuff when his uncle died and he took out an ad in the paper for people to come to his basement and make an offer on whatever they needed. I found a beat up old Kay acoustic-electric that he gave me for $30. It had all sorts of damage and the strings alone were from the 60's. The bank offer me free checking for 6 months if I applied for a credit card. So I did and I got one. I started looking for a nice acoustic. I found one I liked and brought the Kay, the Eko, the card and all my cash down to the shop. I walked away with a guitar and that's the one I have played ever since. It is an old Epiphone Texan from the 60's. I just love it! My credit card has not been empty since so at this point I have probably paid some $10,000 for the damn thing. Hopeful it will last me a while. Since then I have picked up An old Framus hollow body electric bass and a crappy $10 mandolin which is about what my mandolin skills deserve. I play through an old blackface fender bandmaster or showman or something with a 2 12" cab. I got an MXR overdrive plus that I picked up for $30 that I like a lot. I was trying to get a better distortion sound and picked up a blue tube pedal but I hate that thing. Let's see the shit I forgot. I picked up a Danelectro silvertone head for $100 and was playing it through this $5 G.E. speaker I got at the Fred Sanford place. I never really liked it though and some buddies of mine were playing with the Apples in Stereo and Robert had the bigger silvertone head with reverb and all driving 2 2x12" silvertone cabs. It was very impressive because I had never seen anybody who chose to own, let alone tour with a silvertone stack. He complained that the amp didn't have enough power to drive 4 speakers so I went home and got him mine which he was glad to replace my $100 for. It is nice when an unappreciated amp can fit exactly where it belongs and be loved once again for being just what it is. I have an old Supro lap steel that I bought from my buddy John for $20. I never did learn how to play it but while touring with Idiot Flesh I used it from time to time to make ungodly noise. I would tune all the strings to E and bow them across the 12th fret with a piece of copper pipe. shove that through distortion and sing one chord folk songs like Hangman (off the first 7") or Po Lazarus. I picked up another Danelectro silvertone combo amp which I have never really liked. I use it mostly for when the Moekestra plays because it is lighter that the fender and I don't need anything that big in a 30+ piece ensemble. It works pretty well. I picked it up at the flea market for $75 which is about what it is worth. I always see them in stores for $200 and wonder who would want to pay that much for an amp with no high end or low end. My stepfather sent me his hand me down Korg 8000 keyboard which is fun to fool around with. I use it for the Moekestra and in Pummel and Beg (Mumble and Peg's evil twin). I used it for the remixes of the Left Handed Decision recordings. Mostly though it just sits in the case cause I don't know how to play keyboards. My friend Mary's old roommate had a gold guitar she had done some sort of playboy photo shoot with which I eventually was given. It never really worked right even after I sanded off all the gold spraypaint. I then put an eye hook at the 18th fret and ran the high e string through it and attached the other end of the string to this broken slingshot handle. I used it for the backward solo track on the 4 track version of Mirrorface which probably no one will ever hear. Oh yeah way back in the day my friend Bill gave me this old Marshall combo amp. It was for bass and had a 4x10" set up. It was stereo too. Like all old Marshalls, it had some strange unpredictabilities that he didn't like so he gave it to me. That thing sounded cool when it would work. My buddy Steve gave me and some painting buddies a Leslie speaker cab instead of paying us one time. Never could get it to work too good. Have not had too many effects. Bass Balls pedal by Electro Harmonics that I bought for $20 out of a clearance bin. A Rat pedal. A turbo rat pedal. Nothing really too amazing. Oh I made this weird violin thing that I played at a disaster opera theatre show. It was mostly a violin but more like a crappy 2 string guitar. Noise maker only. I remember an old Kay acoustic from like 1940 that I don't know what happened to. I think I traded it to my friend Josh. I traded Neil's old Danelectro for some violin bass that sucked. I then sold that for like $75 I think. I remember having some part of an Vox AC15 at one point. I don't know if it was ever even partly mine. I just don't remember. Oh I bought this broken Hagstrom from some guy's shopping cart one time. My friend Dan rewired it and I sold it soon after. It was really cool and sounded good too but I had to make rent. My friend Brett gave me this cool old Vega acoustic. It was pretty old and sounded like cardboard. Great for fingerpicking old folk songs. That was a cool guitar. Sold that at a flea market while unemployed. Anyway this is my where are they now list. They only thing I really miss is my old coronet, and I know what happened to that. Oh well. Your buddy in the buy high-sell low club Erik