- Six Strings - Scooter's Fault

(Scooter's Fault v1 - Mirrored Insight)

My office is a bit of a crowded mess right now.  There's a modest desk where my work computer and related peripherals sit, and then the rest of the office is utterly dominated by musical equipment.  I have three or four guitars sitting in my office at any given point in time.  I've showed many people my office, and one question tends to come up almost immediately:

"Why do you need so many guitars?"

There are many perfectly reasonable answers to this question.  There is, believe it or not, a certain rationale that exists for ordering five or six different guitars, and I go over that at one point in my review for my Gretsch Streamliner.  For me, the answer actually goes a little deeper than this. 

I don't buy a guitar unless it calls something out of me.  Every instrument I've ever bought has called something out of me 

Guitars are funny things.  They sit there in the store looking like colorful hunks of wood with a few bits of wire stuck to them.  You'd never know what they were capable of simply by looking at them.  Indeed, the same holds true for any musical instrument.  You can pick one up off of the wall and play it and then put it back down again, thinking, "That was nice."

Occasionally, if you're very lucky, you'll pick an instrument up and know within moments that it's special.  It calls something out of you, some bit of music that was hidden away.  Every guitar I've ever purchased has done this for me. I've either instantly played better on them or they've called a song out of me within moments.  When that happens, it's over.  You're gonna buy that thing sooner or later.

The crazy thing about this whole situation is that an instrument's ability to call such things out of you has no corollary to price or quality whatsoever.  Case in point: Belladonna, my Squier Strat.  In the grand scheme of things, 'Donna is not a top tier instrument.  She's actually one of the cheapest instruments of her kind that you can buy and still play it reliably.  That said, I've played Strats that blow her out of the water in terms of construction and supposed playability.  None of them call music out of me like Belladonna does.  That includes the flashy blue Strat that I hint at towards the end of the product review I did on my Squier Strat.  I sat in a room for 45 minutes with that gorgeous blue Fender Player Strat and I couldn't get anything out of it.

My nephew is currently learning guitar using that Squier, so I don't get a chance to play it very often.  I did have a chance to spend an afternoon and evening with him specifically so we could play guitar together.  He brought Belladonna with him and, after we'd finished working on some of his chording skills, he asked if I could show him how to play the first few parts of Kansas' iconic 'Dust In The Wind'.  

Heck yes, we can do that.

He picked up 'Donna, I picked up the Goose, and we did business for over an hour.  It was wonderful.

When we'd reached the end of our playing session, I asked if I could play 'Donna for a bit.  I missed her, after all.

Ninety percent of 'Scooter's Fault' happened in about 2 minutes after he handed me that guitar.  That, right there, is why I own so many guitars.  Each one draws something out of me.

In retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought my nephew would never see this, but...there we go.  I was so hyped about recording a rough cut of this that my mouth ran away without my brain.

Again.

Guitar: PRS SE 245 'The Goose'

Pots: All Max

Pick-Up: Neck -- I know I said 'Bridge' in the video, but if you look at the pickup selector, it's Neck.

Amp: Boss Katana Mk I

Cabinet: (o'Clock): Clean, Gain 9, Amp Vol Max, Master Vol 12

Effects: Blues Overdrive 10, Delay (O) 10, Reverb (O) 10

Pedals: Seraphim Shimmer, 2:30, 2:30. 10

Chord Notes:

Am, C, Dadd9/11

Am, C, Dadd9/11

Am, C, Am, C

Am, F5, Am, F5

G, Em, Am, Am

G, Em, Am, Am

Dm, Dm, Am, Am

Dm, G7, Am, Am

Am, C, Dadd9/11

Am, C, Dadd9/11

Am, C, Am, C

Am, C, Am, C

Single note noodle