Dear Abby:
Today Jeff Bezos delivered the cheapest electric guitar investment one can make - a 10 foot audio cable to attach my two-month old Alvarez acoustic electric to a Fender Mustang LT25 that my grandnephew had left at my sister’s house and I “borrowed”; which he won’t miss because he’s a working musician in a black metal band and would consider this amp a toy (no apology for the run-on sentence).
So with trepidation lest something blow up, I plugged it in, just as a Tony Joe White spunky blues shuffle called “Ice Cream Man” came on the Spotify feed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp4n3CQCiGQ
So…I played around and found the key and a minor pentatonic scale that worked to jam along… and filled my small living room with music!!! I can only say it was an almost mystical feeling. Many of you have felt it. So my question is, based on a $20 investment and petty theft from a relative, am I on the treacherous path to becoming yet another incurable guitar gearhead?
Please help me Dear Abby? Rhonda? Jolene? Layla? Anyone??!?!?
Nice clean foot-tappin tune you found there. No, I don’t mean the lyrics… I was expecting something more like the original that Van Halen probably covered, but this is nowhere close.
oh, I like the tune! I really liked the clean sound of the guitar and vocals. I listened on headset, so it came directly into my ears. Not a lot of reverb, so it felt very close.
Van Halen’s Ice Cream Man is during a time they were covering a lot of blues songs but with a rock twist, so I always figured it was a cover - due to your post, I may have found the source: John Brim (youtube)
Highlight, copy, paste. This is what is so fun about the blues - a simple chord pattern can be churned into so many flavors of Ice Cream Man. I like Van Halen’s cover - starts all crisp and jazzy and then rocks out - but John Brim knew how a showman should dress on stage.
B.B. King said that his cousin, Bukka White, told him “as a bluesman, whenever you leave the house, you should dress like you’re going to the bank to ask for a loan.”
Sound words in a different generation, not today when we apply for bank loans on an app sitting in our sweatpants, and people pay a premium to buy ripped, holey, faded jeans to dress up. Following Bukka’s advice, if I ever make it to a stage I will wear my necktie from the Jerry Garcia collection. Maybe as a headband.
Hi Michael,
I’m the last person to want to stir up GAS…but but but
in your own home an acoustic electric amplification does not get the best out of the amplifier… this screams for an electric guitar… I hear it through the screen when I look at the amplifier and between your words it is printed in black. …should I buy an electric guitar?
should I buy an electric guitar? should I buy an electric guitar?shouldIbuyanelectricguitar?shouldIbuyanelectricguitar?Ibuy a guitar YES I needaguitarIneedanewguitarIbuyaelectricguitarsoon
Should I buy an electric guitar? Should I not learn to play the acoustic before launching into electric? Will I get kicked out of my home by the condo owners association for trying to be Jimi Hendrix at 5 a.m.? Will my Visa card burst into flames if I start browsing guitar sites? Will the F and B barre chords still be a pain in the ass to play on an electric? Should I buy an electric guitar?? Should I?? Should I??