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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Trigger gets repaired (Aug. 14 2017 21:54:25)
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Thanks, Stephen. It's always a pleasure to see Dan Erlewine. What a great guy! I met him for the first time about 30 years ago. [Edit number 2: Mark Erlewine, Dan's cousin is, and has been for years, the proprietor of Erlewine's Guitars in Austin. Dan never has been in business in Texas, but for many years I thought Mark was Dan.]
My son was one of those kids who could hear something once, and then play it accurately on the piano--when he was four years old. When he was 12 he won the city wide drum contest run by the school district, after taking lessons for six months. When he was 14 I gave him one of my nylon string guitars. It took him about a month to be able to play anything he wanted.
For his 16th birthday (1986) I gave him a Gibson SG Special and a Fender Bassman amp. In what seemed like no time, he was playing up a storm. I paid a really cheap price for the Gibson in the late '60s or early '70s, something like $150, but i never got around to playing it much. It was advertised in the Chronicle, the local weekly paper. [Edit: Must have been The Rag, the counter-culture paper that started in the '60s. The Chronicle didn't get going until 1981.] The seller told me he had to sell it to pay the rent. I figured it was either that, or it was stolen. I watched the classifieds and the bulletin boards for several weeks, but didn't see anything about a stolen SG Special.
I traveled a lot in those days. One day I came back from a week long trip to an atmosphere I couldn't quite figure out. After a day or two I overheard my daughter telling her brother, "Go ahead, show it to him."
I never knew how it happened, but the neck of the Gibson was snapped clean in two, somewhere around the 10th or 12th fret. My son was devastated, and fearful of my reaction. All I said was, "Tomorrow we'll take it to Erlewine's and see what he can do with it."
A young man at the counter in Erlewine's shop on Guadalupe street was not very cool. He implied that the damage was severe, and asked arrogantly, "How on earth did you do that?"
About that time Mark wandered by. Seeing the look on my son's face, he strolled over, looked at the guitar, and said, in his mild soft voice, "Oh my, I can see why you are upset. But don't worry, we can fix it up good as new."
True to his word the instrument was ready in about a week. When we went to pick it up, Erlewine came out of the shop to speak to my son. "What kind of amp do you have?" he asked.
"A Bassman."
"We have one here if you would like to try out the guitar, see whether it's OK for you."
After my son played for a while, Erlewine asked, "Who do you play with?"
"Just friends. I'm only 17."
"Well, when you get a little older you'll be able to play with just about anybody you want to." Then Mark took me aside and showed me a good road case, to replace the cardboard one that hadn't protected the guitar.
A couple of weeks ago I was at my son's place. The subject of guitars came up, as it always does. He told me that when he decided years ago to get a Custom Shop Strat, he traded in that SG Special for a couple thousand bucks. I didn't ask him whether he mentioned the completely invisible neck repair.
So nice to be reminded of Mark Erlewine...
RNJ
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