I have been playing Guitar since mid 1997 when my friends got guitars, and I knew I had to have one as well!
My first guitar was an Acoustic made by Simon and Patrick of Canada, which I got
in August 1998 for my 18th. I played this after a similarly priced
Fender acoustic and couldn't believe the increase in sound Quality,
It was quite simply the best sounding Acoustic I had ever heard.
The Guitar has a solid spruce top, a cherry body and a mahogany neck, it is using D'Addario strings at the moment. The sound is very clear thanks to the Spruce top.
My only slight regret is that I didn't get an Electro-Acoustic Version, I am thinking of buying a pickup that mounts on the Guitar top.
After I had owned my Acoustic for a few months, I knew I would not be happy with just an Acoustic, so after a failed attempt to buy my Flatmate's off him, I bought my own Yamaha Pacifica 112M electric in January 1999, this is when I started making some REAL noise! Click on the image to see some more about the Guitar.
I started off learning Stone Roses Guitar tabs along with some Oasis B-side Tabs (Beginners stuff!), progress was slow with the Stone Roses stuff, but within a Couple of months I was able to do most of the Oasis songs.
After about a year of the Pacifica, I got bored of its Crap pickups (Its main failing) and started longing for a better, cooler Guitar, It had to be a Les Paul!
Originally, I was planning to get a Pearl White Epiphone Les Paul Custom, which is a copy of the Original Gibson version that James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers uses, but one Day I was at my local Guitar shop and I saw a very nice Epiphone Les Paul Custom in Black, 5 minutes later I was playing it, the sound was brilliant, really clean due to the £80 upgrade pickup at the back, there were a few stratches and dents (Something I'd made sure never to get on my pacifica), but on the whole it was a really nice Guitar and played very well, I am using Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Strings on it which seem to be the perfect thickness.
First on the list, is the Guitarist of the Best Band ever, John Squire of the Stone Roses. A bloody fantastic Guitarist who has been copied by many lesser bands such as Radiohead, Blur, and Oasis, but never been bettered. He has been hailed as 'Century's last Guitar Hero' which I agree with.
From the best band ever, to the Best Guitarist ever, Jimi Hendrix.
Quite simply the best Guitarist of all time, he wrote some very cool tunes such as Voodoo Child and Castles Made of Sand with some very cool riffs and solos.
I played a lot of Manics tunes from the first album, Generation Terrorists, I liked James Dean Bradfield's punky Guitar riffs on that album and worked out a lot of the songs such as Slash and Burn, You Love Us and Another Invented Disease, I also played quite alot of the second album, Gold Against the Soul.
I hope the Manics make an album like this again one day cos it was class, but they probably never will, as they seem to have forgotten what made them great in the first place and now just want to get in the charts.
Bigup toNapster for all the free music I've got off it, great idea!
Winamp, a great free Mp3 jukebox, check it out!
Sounds Great in Heald Green, South Manchester. Where I bought all my Guitar stuff from, it is the BEST guitar shop in Manchester.
The Guitar Tablature books I got from Music Sales were very useful in learning lead guitar.
