Ranger's Story #323

[Ranger]

ok, here's a story for the gear folks, my first sounds....

back in in the mid-70's I was a young teen getting into music and sound quality. All my wealthy friends were getting stereos, compact-types and generally cheap shit. I was tearing up clock radios and attaching extra speakers because my folks set limits on spending regardless of anything else, they started poor. As my 9/5 birthday approached my dad suggested I defer a stereo request until X-mas, thereby combining my September Birthday gift with my December X-mas gift. So I got nothing for my birthday. Nothing. Approaching X-mas, my dad directed me to research just what I might get with the budget I was provided. A DOUBLE budget because I dferred my B-day gift. So I have about $150 to work with and that's an amazing dole for the likes of me back then. I do all kinds of reading and ask for my X-mas gift, dammit I want a Harmon Kardon 330c receiver. Which is an approved request, but, there's no money left over for speakers. Which is fine by me, I just want that damn perfect receiver for the moment. Within a few months I save my money and buy a set of Koss Pro4AA Headphones and now I can hear my tunage. With headphones.

A year passes and my birthday approaches. I ask for another defferal, please can I combine again my B-day and X-mas gifts and wait to get what I need? "No prob" sez my folks and Sept turns to late December and my dad drives me to get a set of Advent 1's.

Took me 2 birthdays and 2 christmasses to get what I wanted/needed, but I got 'em. And now, almost 40 years later, I still have them, the receiver and both blown speaks. I'll be buried with that receiver.

A christmas story...

[jaberwock]

Another tale for the gear heads,

back in the early seventies I pestered my parents for an electric guitar, assuming it was a passing fad they bought me a cheap, classical, nylon string, and payed for lessons; although no where near as cool as an electric, I loved that guitar and along with the Bach Minuets I would work out Kinks, C.C.R.and other simple tunes.

The ephinany came when I heard "voodoo chile" for the first time, my folks still wouldn't budge on the electric front, so I decided to build one; I copied the neck, and fret spacing, from my classical, and constructed it from oak harvested from unwanted furniture, my older brother helped make a pickup from old electric motors parts; I must have put hundreds of hours work into it, but eventually, weighing in at around 15 pounds!!, it was finished, I plugged it into the phono input on my fathers Leak stereo system, and for the first time in my life felt the thrill of playing an amplified electric guitar.

My father I suppose must have been impressed by my determination, and ingenuity because on my sixteenth birthday he took me to the local music store, and with the fifty pounds I had saved, he put in an extra one hundred and twenty and I walked out with a 1963 red Stratocaster ( this was 1974 ); armed with this, a borrowed Selmer treble and bass 50, and a home made 2 x12 speaker cabinet I entered the world of live music, which I'm still just as passionate about today as I was back then.

Seasons greetings Jaberwock

[edgar_allan_poe]

Another tale for the gear heads,

back in the early seventies I pestered my parents for an electric guitar, assuming it was a passing fad they bought me a cheap, classical, nylon string, and payed for lessons; although no where near as cool as an electric, I loved that guitar and along with the Bach Minuets I would work out Kinks, C.C.R.and other simple tunes.

The ephinany came when I heard "voodoo chile" for the first time, my folks still wouldn't budge on the electric front, so I decided to build one; I copied the neck, and fret spacing, from my classical, and constructed it from oak harvested from unwanted furniture, my older brother helped make a pickup from old electric motors parts; I must have put hundreds of hours work into it, but eventually, weighing in at around 15 pounds!!, it was finished, I plugged it into the phono input on my fathers Leak stereo system, and for the first time in my life felt the thrill of playing an amplified electric guitar.

My father I suppose must have been impressed by my determination, and ingenuity because on my sixteenth birthday he took me to the local music store, and with the fifty pounds I had saved, he put in an extra one hundred and twenty and I walked out with a 1963 red Stratocaster ( this was 1974 ); armed with this, a borrowed Selmer treble and bass 50, and a home made 2 x12 speaker cabinet I entered the world of live music, which I'm still just as passionate about today as I was back then.

Seasons greetings Jaberwock

What kind of idiot tells a story like this...to an audience like us...and neglects to tell us what the heck happened to the 63 Strat??!!!!! LOL!!!! COME ON MAN!!!! WHERE IS IT NOW!!!!????

BTW...awesome story

[hamerhead]

Two awesome stories. I remember those days all too well. :angry:

Merry Christmas.

And where's that Strat?!?

[JohnnyB]

My father I suppose must have been impressed by my determination, and ingenuity because on my sixteenth birthday he took me to the local music store, and with the fifty pounds I had saved, he put in an extra one hundred and twenty and I walked out with a 1963 red Stratocaster ( this was 1974 ); armed with this, a borrowed Selmer treble and bass 50, and a home made 2 x12 speaker cabinet I entered the world of live music, which I'm still just as passionate about today as I was back then.

Jabberwock's dedication is all the more impressive when you realize that in 1974 a British Pound was worth 2.4 US dollars, making his purchase $408 USD that year, which is equivalent to $1,755 today. A lot of money for a 16-year-old, but a stone cold bargain for a 1963 Strat wherever it is.

Ranger's story is particularly close to my heart as I've also bypassed conventional conveniences for better audio (and instruments, for that matter). My first stereo was an Altec-Lansing compact with 44 wpc receiver topped by a Garrard SL-95B ($100 back then) and a pair of Altec bookshelf speakers. When it was marked down to $419 I bought it on the spot. This is equivalent to $2125 today. Two years later I bought a used Tandberg reel-to-reel tape deck for $300 plus a pair of AKG mics for $100 ($1720 total today) . So how many kids working their way through college without a scholarship or student loan would buy a $3845 stereo along the way? I also paid $175 ($753) for a pair of used congas around that time.

Music was a precious commodity back then, and something we were willing to pay. I also spent $75 ($300) for a cymbal, $25 + trade ($108+T) for a hi-hat and $38 + trade ($163+T) for a drum stool back then. Vinyl records cost the equivalent of $22 each and we all had collections of dozens or hundreds.

The cool side of it was...when I sat down to my 1965 Ludwig Super Classic drum kit with all USA-made Zildjian cymbals, my music buddies were playing late-'60s Gibsons and Fenders and some were playing through Blackface Fender Twins. The keyboardist in my band was wearing scruffy old shoes and bargain bin clothes but he bought a new 88-key Fender Rhodes electric piano. There were no used ones yet.

And Ranger: there are many places where you can get your Advent Model 1's reconditioned and restored. They're still worth the trouble.

[BubbaVO]

pics of the 1963 strat?

or it didn't happen. : )

[jaberwock]

I sold the Strat four years ago as it was sitting under a bed in my brothers house in England, and costing me two hundred and fifty pounds a year to insure, good timing judging by the current vintage market.

As for all you doubters I have pics of me with guitar aged sixteen, can someone please tell me EXACTLY how to post them here using photo bucket; I've tried twice with no success.

A postscript to the story at seventeen my Grandmother sadly passed away ( God bless her ) and with some of the money she left me I bought a 1970 Marshall 50 watt head for 75 pounds, and a really, beat up, Sound City 4 x 12 cab for 40 pounds; at seventeen, as a penniless student I was playing gear I couldn't afford today. It sounded ######## amazing by the way, I still have the old reel to reel tapes.

Just as reference the price of a new Strat in England back then was 339 pounds, and a Les Paul an unthinkable,

599 pounds sterling !!

Jaberwock

[jaberwock]

In photobucket I have a Direct link, a HTML Code, and a IMG code which one do I use to attach an image ?

Jaberwock

[jaberwock]

Thirty seven years later.

[specialk]

A cool pic and a beauty of a Strat! Glad to hear you sold it before the market tanked.

To post pics, I use the Direct Link. Looks like you got it!

[a.bandini]

In the summer of 1980 I was between freshman and sophomore year of college, waiting tables in a small restaurant on the coast of Maine. I saved my tips and bought a Fender Champ for around $100. $5 represented my weekly disposable income, so this was a major purchase. The next summer while cooking in the same restaurant my younger brother called me and said a friend of his has a tele for $120. I have no idea what year it was...but bought it at the end of the summer and took it to back to school with me. It was yellow, and I just wasn't in love with it. That is all I remember of it. I walked into my little local guitar store (still in business, at [http://www.topshelfmusic.com and saw a '65 Jaguar on the wall. "Sure, let's trade," the proprietor said "but throw in another $50." Two hours and a visit to the ATM later (representing over a month of discretionary income) I walked out with my all-original "65 sunburst microphonic Jaguar with the quartersawn neck and scratchy switches in the original case, all of which I love, and still have to this day. My eldest daughter told me "You can never sell this guitar, Dad." She's right. It's a beauty, and I've got all of $175 in it.

Wish I'd bought that sunburst '59 LP Junior for $250. Sigh.

[Ranger]

Nice responses, thanks. Regarding repairing the Advents, JB, I sent you a PM for tips. With a quick google I found a number of promising sites for speaker repair info, parts and repair kits, how-to videos and such. And there are places to ship the speaks to for professional repair.

[BubbaVO]

Sweet! Nice guitar!