A long long time ago in a town far far away....
Seems like eons, ago I wanted to learn to play the guitar as just about all my friend played some form of instrument. Even my girlfriend played drums!
to be continued soon!
So I got hold of a sort of cool friend named Eddie, he didn't like me all that much but that is because he owned a 65 Fender Jaguar and could play just about anything if ya know what I mean!
Anyway, he sold me a Teisco one pickup guitar for 10 bucks and showed me a few chords.
Soon I was getting good enough to play rythm in a band called Blues Underwing. Don't ask! Well if you must know the band leader was nuts over Iron Butterfly so the name I understand is actually a species of butterfly.
Soon the Teisco became tiresome to play and really uncool as far as guitars went in 69'. So I found a part time job in a drugstore as the delivery boy for 20 bucks a week plus tips.
Wasn't long before I had enough for a better guitar so off to Manny's in Manhattan, NY I went.
There was a Daphine blue Fender Musicmaster there which I could afford, I think it was around $250. So I grabbed that eyeing a cream colored Fender Telecaster as I went out the door.
Well needless to say I just had to have the Tele but at $349.00 was just too much for the moment. I played the Musicmaster for a week and decided to go back to Manny's and try to bargain for the Tele in Exchange.
I walked out of Manny's with my new 1970 Cream Tele case and all for $300!
Well now I was cookin! Soon after I managed to purchase a Sound Amplifier at 100 watts and twin 12" jensens, thanks to Mom.
Life was good.... so I thought until one day against my girlfriends wishes, I loaned my new shiny Tele to what I hoped was my best friend to take with him to Boston for a gig he was playing there. I was dumbfounded to learn that my Tele had been stolen from backstage and that I would never see it again! Well I wasn't about to come up with more money for another, however my friend?, Chris said he'd give me another guitar as a replacement.
This was my first and totally accidental introduction to Hagstrom Guitars. He had given me a 1966 Hagstrom III in sunburst finish.
Well being young and impetuous, I decided to sand the Hagstrom down to raw wook and put a poly coat on it, what can I tell you, I was a hippie back then! Heh. And after getting married and a few kids, one day I dug out the Hag III only to remember that
I had also stripped out the electronics, pickups and controls etc in hopes of installing newer strat style pickups and controls. Little did I know then that this was just not possible as the Strat stuff would not fit in the shallow body cavity of the Hagstrom III.
I decided to try and restore the Hagstrom back as original as I could except for the natuyral finish, I would leave that alone. Well along came Ebay and I hunted for pickups and controls and anything else I needed to get the guitar back to playing speed. This restoration can be viewed on my website.
The next phase:
My wife decided that she wanted to buy another guitar for me, a Stratocaster! And of course an amp to go along with it - so one day we went to a local used instrument dealer where I fell for a Mexican made 1970's reissue Strat and Fender Deluxe 90 amp.
A cool deal for 750 bucks, I was in heaven! I finally got that strat I wanted as a kid.
However this was only the beginning. I got back on Ebay and with a little seed money I had saved, started buying burnt out Hagstroms and then refurbished them for resale, making some money along the way. Then I started buying everything! More amps, Strats, Rickenbackers, Gibsons, Tokai, Deans etc just to find out what I really liked. I even bought all the parts I needed to build my ouw Strat in Fiesta red. I started making a hobby of repairing and restoring guitars for my pleasure.
I love playing them all!
Most recently I became intensly interested in Zemaitis guitars. Now I can't afford 10,000 and up for an original Z so I purchased a Greco Reissued Z fo a fraction of the cost and it is one great piece of work!
I am now repairing guitars for The Music Center at the Tontine Mall, if you have a question about your own repair job, just shoot me an email and attach a picture of your project. I would be more than happy to help you out.
to be continued soon!
So I got hold of a sort of cool friend named Eddie, he didn't like me all that much but that is because he owned a 65 Fender Jaguar and could play just about anything if ya know what I mean!
Anyway, he sold me a Teisco one pickup guitar for 10 bucks and showed me a few chords.
Soon I was getting good enough to play rythm in a band called Blues Underwing. Don't ask! Well if you must know the band leader was nuts over Iron Butterfly so the name I understand is actually a species of butterfly.
Soon the Teisco became tiresome to play and really uncool as far as guitars went in 69'. So I found a part time job in a drugstore as the delivery boy for 20 bucks a week plus tips.
Wasn't long before I had enough for a better guitar so off to Manny's in Manhattan, NY I went.
There was a Daphine blue Fender Musicmaster there which I could afford, I think it was around $250. So I grabbed that eyeing a cream colored Fender Telecaster as I went out the door.
Well needless to say I just had to have the Tele but at $349.00 was just too much for the moment. I played the Musicmaster for a week and decided to go back to Manny's and try to bargain for the Tele in Exchange.
I walked out of Manny's with my new 1970 Cream Tele case and all for $300!
Well now I was cookin! Soon after I managed to purchase a Sound Amplifier at 100 watts and twin 12" jensens, thanks to Mom.
Life was good.... so I thought until one day against my girlfriends wishes, I loaned my new shiny Tele to what I hoped was my best friend to take with him to Boston for a gig he was playing there. I was dumbfounded to learn that my Tele had been stolen from backstage and that I would never see it again! Well I wasn't about to come up with more money for another, however my friend?, Chris said he'd give me another guitar as a replacement.
This was my first and totally accidental introduction to Hagstrom Guitars. He had given me a 1966 Hagstrom III in sunburst finish.
Well being young and impetuous, I decided to sand the Hagstrom down to raw wook and put a poly coat on it, what can I tell you, I was a hippie back then! Heh. And after getting married and a few kids, one day I dug out the Hag III only to remember that
I had also stripped out the electronics, pickups and controls etc in hopes of installing newer strat style pickups and controls. Little did I know then that this was just not possible as the Strat stuff would not fit in the shallow body cavity of the Hagstrom III.
I decided to try and restore the Hagstrom back as original as I could except for the natuyral finish, I would leave that alone. Well along came Ebay and I hunted for pickups and controls and anything else I needed to get the guitar back to playing speed. This restoration can be viewed on my website.
The next phase:
My wife decided that she wanted to buy another guitar for me, a Stratocaster! And of course an amp to go along with it - so one day we went to a local used instrument dealer where I fell for a Mexican made 1970's reissue Strat and Fender Deluxe 90 amp.
A cool deal for 750 bucks, I was in heaven! I finally got that strat I wanted as a kid.
However this was only the beginning. I got back on Ebay and with a little seed money I had saved, started buying burnt out Hagstroms and then refurbished them for resale, making some money along the way. Then I started buying everything! More amps, Strats, Rickenbackers, Gibsons, Tokai, Deans etc just to find out what I really liked. I even bought all the parts I needed to build my ouw Strat in Fiesta red. I started making a hobby of repairing and restoring guitars for my pleasure.
I love playing them all!
Most recently I became intensly interested in Zemaitis guitars. Now I can't afford 10,000 and up for an original Z so I purchased a Greco Reissued Z fo a fraction of the cost and it is one great piece of work!
I am now repairing guitars for The Music Center at the Tontine Mall, if you have a question about your own repair job, just shoot me an email and attach a picture of your project. I would be more than happy to help you out.
posted by 21 Frets at 8:01 AM
2 Comments:
Haha you got 1 comment and its friggin' spam! You should report it, dude.
My dad bought me an '82 Epi Spirit when I was like 14, which I proceeded to beat the hell out of - dragging it around town to play metal with my stoner friends. Never appreciated it, now I'm playing a $200 Hohner Birmingham and I decided to pull out whats left of the old bastard and get it refretted. Your site is one of very few who even ackowledge the existence of this lightweight, great sounding and smooth playing axe. Thanks.
Yep te Spirit is a cool axe, I am now into Vintae Japanese or JV Strats, want a cool axe, score one if you can!
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