your uh-ohs?

[suprswd]

what is the biggest guitar-related mistake you have made since you started playing guitar?

 

such as snapping strings

...or bridge

getting ripped off

tripping onstage

getting your guitar stolen

or having someone knock it over

 

mine is probably...

 

getting my tuner stolen and then lost by a friend.

 

lol.

 

[knockwood]

I got a little too deep into a groove a couple years back while playing my Guild dread, which I would occasionally mistake for a bongo... Somehow I segued into an unwitting Bruce Lee impression and put a massive crack right under the pickguard. I'm pretty sure I'll never forget that sound as long as I live.

[bjorn-fjord]

I once had about 6 or 8 drinks too many and fell down a set of stairs with my Strat strapped on resulting in a broken neck. The guitar's, not mine. But don't get too choked up, it was only a Squier.

[guit30]

Bought a Zager , then sent it back, the good thing, I learned string science for free
Jim

[kwakatak]

There've been a few.

The first and worst uh-oh happened when I was in the Navy and had a guitar stolen from my living quarters on board the ship which was in its home port of Jacksonville, FL. It was a $300 electric guitar (an Epiphone Fat Strat clone) and a $100 Fender practice amp and at the time I had nowhere to lock them up other than chaining it down to my locker. The living area was a rather large compartment that housed 200 people, mostly from a different division than my own, so I had to take steps to really secure my belongings. An jamming buddy from my division also had a guitar and we decided that we'd split the cost between a padlock and keep our stuff together. They wouldn't fit in our lockers so we had to chain them out in open sight to the main passageway, but around the corner from either of our bunks.

Well, one afternoon I was on sick duty and laid up on some pretty strong painkillers because I had a case of the shingles and was an oozy, achy mess. I had the key but my friend came and borrowed it so that he could jam a little before heading down to the mess deck for chow. When he left the dip{censored} didn't lock up our guitars and I was semi-lucid so I was in no condition to jump out of my bunk (it was the top of 3) and lock them back up myself.

At some point during the afternoon I woke up to hear someone messing with our guitars but I was still out of it because of the painkillers and listened in a semi-asleep state. I assumed it was my friend coming back and just passed back out.

Well, a few hours later my friend comes back from wherever he was, slides back the curtain on my bunk and says "Dude, our guitars are gone. Did you hear anything? Besides my guitar, they also walked off with my Tom Scholz Rockman which served as a ghetto effect loop for my amp which on the bright side, was not stolen. I guess Fender Squier Bullets weren't in high demand in the local pawn shops on Mayport Road.

I don't remember what I said to my friend because I was so out of it, but apparantly he went down to ship's security and filed a report with them. I don't know what he told them, but a few days later when my "rack pass" ran out I had to go down there and give them my statement. It was a harrowing experience because they weren't too happy with not having a lucid eyewitness and for some reason they loved to make people my age (19) feel like {censored}. They grilled me over the fine details but I could tell by reading between the lines that nothing would happen. As far as they were concerned it was my own damn fault for trusting in somebody I hardly new so it was not their problem.

Eventually my "friend" did get busted for something stupid and was restricted to the ship for 90 days. Meanwhile, I had moved into our division's main living quarters which had a dedicated security watch, bought a new electric guitar and got transferred into our division's 5-man DC shop where I could lock it up.

I never did find out what happened to that guitar, but I'm still a bit pissed about it. It was a high school graduation gift and I literally lugged it from Philadelphia to the ship which was floating off the coast of Iran at the time I first came aboard.

I have other uh-ohs but they're nowhere near as entertaining (or as long to read). Some other time I'll post pics of what my Takamine used to look like before I had it put back together.

[learn'r]

yeah, man am hating to even tell it ..........

ovations get a bad rap around here - but mine was a love gift and i loved it because of that .... it had a tobacco sunburst finish ... balladeer.

it was back in the dopehead days .... I el'kabonged it.
act of rage. it was not a Hendrix sacrafice replay

I was clearly a real a$$h0le.

[thirdstone]

Brought home my tele after some mod- work. Got distracted and left it in the back of my truck all night in Feb.

[Cldplytkmn]

my first acoustic was a washburn D10... had a cheesy undersaddle pickup in it, and i played with a church band for a while... our attractive, yet clueless female singer was holding the guitar for me in a hallway, somebody said her name and then that whole slow motion thing happened... she swung around and the headstock of the guitar collided with a doorknob and snapped the top third of the headstockright off... right at the tuners... ouch.

[tonedrops]

I once checked a guitar as luggage on an airline. It was strung at full tension (though not sure that was a problem). When I picked it up, the neck was no longer attached to the body. I was pretty dumb at the time and since the guitar wasn't super expensive...I just threw it away.


Oh..also in my dumb stage of life. A friend gave me a strat as a show of ...friendship. I wasn't really into electrics. I only had a regular stereo amplifier and couldn't figure out how to get it working. I ended up taking it apart and then....throwing it away.


I had a mandolin at one time. But I went through a phase where I was trying to free myself from "things"...things that tied me to the earth. So I gave it away (along with my George Harrison cassettes).

But I'm better now.

[postalsock]

i got mad and threw my guitar,

then my friend cussed everyone out.







keepin it real:thu:

[WaveRay]

I've been pretty lucky, although one night, after drinking as was the routine then, my friend staggered over to the back couch to pass out. That happens to be where my 12 string was leaning against the wll. The top of the guitar was facing out, which is wrong. Well, about two days later I decided to play it. The headstock was broke at the neck and the top of the neck was touching the wall. I tried to have it fixed one time but it broke at the repair very soon after I got it back. Only a Sigma but I bought the guitar from my brother who bought it new in the early 70's. It had a fantastic, mellow sound was is no more.

I don't leave my guitars (or my computer) around my drunk friends anymore.

[M-1 Fan]

Get this:

I bought one of those Shadow stick on pick ups for my friends 18th birthday about twenty years ago. He just bought a brand new Guild with an ash body. I installed one in my Martin 5-28 so I thought I was a pro. The procedure called for drilling and reaming out the end pin hole so that the output jack could be installed there. I had a reamer of the exact diameter that was specified (.440"). The hole was reamed out perfectly. I was working with his Father and we wanted to surprise him with the new pick up. The output jack's fit was a little snug and I couldn't quite get it in. His Father says, "tap on it a little with this hammer". When I tapped on the jack, the entire guitar body split perfectly in half!!!!! He had to send the guitar to the Guild factory to have it fixed back to new. He still has the guitar and whenever he gets it out I think about the disaster.

[Whalebot]

TROLLDAR ALERT TROLL INBOUND!!!

[thirdstone]

My Les Paul fell off it's stand and landed face down on the stage during a set one night - uh- {censored}ing-oh !!
I thought the worst but it was o.k.