Grim's Gear Graveyard [Part 1]

Suzuki '50'

The first time I tried to play the guitar was in junior school, in an after- school guitar club. I had a 'model 50', a small classical guitar made by Suzuki Guitars, Japan. The neck was so thick I couldn’t get my fingers round it and I think the bridge broke off it before it even sang a tune. I hadn’t been particularly inspired and that was the end of my guitar-playing career for next 6 years.

Mini Grim & Tetra 'Foreign'

Following the sudden inspiration that hits most teens at one point or another, I found myself trying again. The first guitar I really tried to play was a 'Classic Foreign', made by Tetra, Czechoslovakia, an old classical guitar that belonged to one of my parents. It was the guitar my older brother used to use at that same guitar club in junior school and it was better than the little broken one I’d tried to play. By the time I got to it however it only had two strings – the bottom E and A. This suited me perfectly. I was able to play along to the songs in my CD collection, mostly just the bass lines or route notes of the chords. I did this for several hours a day and, I suspect out of pity, my mum eventually took me to buy some strings for it. Like so many classical guitars, the neck seemed huge and it wasn’t easy to learn chords on it. It was so unexciting having to work out where to put my fingers and then remember where they had been. I got very frustrated trying to make the chord shapes in my brother’s guitar tutorial book and just generally annoyed that I wasn't instantly able to play like the guitarists I admired. At that time I was reasonably determined I was going to save up and buy a bass. 

 One day, let’s say it was in the summer - hell if I can remember when it actually was - I visited my auntie in Bath. Not all that long before the visit she had bought a bass guitar. At the time I wasn’t especially fussy about whether I played bass or guitar and was very excited that I was going to be able to try her new bass. I remember the excitement when she finally asked if I’d like to see it. It wasn’t a make I was familiar with and was a slightly different shape from the basses I’d started obsessing over, but here it was, in my hands - the first time I’d even held a bass guitar. I was nervous, almost reluctant to play it, in case I found I was unable to, but my two-stringed guitar playing paid off and I was able to play the bass line for Design For Life, by Manic Street Preachers… or as much of it as I knew at the time anyway. This was a very encouraging experience and, when we left, I felt freshly determined as I sat in the back of my dad’s car, the opening track of Everything Must Go drifting in to my earphones, underscoring the passing motorway; I hear the ocean, a guitar… ‘Twenty foot high on Blackpool Promenade…’

Manics - Butt Naked (click for video)

I’ve been very into a lot of different bands but only ever completely obsessed with one. I had friends who were into Manic Street Preachers too and we would discuss them often, especially in lessons when we should have been learning something like what happens when you mix blah with blah and heat them up or something equally dull. I’m still talking about guitars, I promise, but this bit of the story is significant. Amongst our small cult of Manics maniacs we would exchange any information or magazine articles we’d come across. One of my friends had got hold of a videotape of various recordings of the Manics performing on TV and being interviewed. The tape was about 3 hours long and dated right back to the band's first album and ended with a gig, from the Holy Bible tour, which had been recorded on a camcorder. On that tape (I still have it) is the Manics playing live on a TV show called Butt Naked. They play about six or so songs, mostly off the Holy Bible, but also Motorcycle Emptiness. James Dean Bradfield is obviously a crazily good guitarist but never had that come across more so than in the footage of him playing on this show. And this was the moment, when he played Motorcycle Emptiness; I no longer wanted a bass, I was going to play the guitar.

Rockin' cake

Liverpool used to have a lot of guitar shops and I was becoming familiar with all of them. I knew what they stocked and I couldn’t afford any of it! Exciting as visiting the shops was, I was getting pretty desperate to own a guitar. I was watching people play them, trying my friends' ones, drawing guitars, talking about them, looking at them in magazines but I still couldn’t afford one. 

Guitar shops have kinda been killed by the internet but back then they would stock a lot of secondhand guitars. I remember the cheapest guitars started at around £100 and it took months for me to save up that much money. Years later, when I was working with young bands, I really hated the kids who’d been bought a brand new Gibson by their parents, just 'cause they’d shown a vague interest in owning one. It was a Gibson I wanted, of course; that extraordinary footage of James Dean Bradfield playing had never left my mind. The closest I was going to get to a Gibson would be a copy but not for one second did that dampen the excitement of finally getting my own electric guitar. 

Rushworth's on Hanover Street. The shop was downstairs, below street level. It was in there one day when I saw my guitar. A black, Les Paul-shaped guitar made by Hohner. I can remember the buzz of excitement I had when I saw it. I wanted to take it there and then, not to let it out of my sight. I was already recreating my identity around it. The guy went and got a horrible, old, thin, grey guitar bag for it and the transaction was complete. I’m fairly sure I sat in the back of my mum’s car on the way home, holding the guitar, just looking at it. This guitar was mine and that really meant something… more so than any object I’ve owned before or  since. The only thing I had to do now was to start learning to play it… oh, and to get an amp; I didn’t have an amp at that point.

Hohner Rockwood LX250G (The Hornet)

'The Hornet'

The guitar I think of as my first guitar was a Rockwood LX250G, made by Hohner. A black Les Paul- shaped guitar with a slim body, cream binding and a very slim, inlaid rosewood neck. I nicknamed this guitar ‘The Hornet’, after putting a rubbish sticker of a wasp on the headstock… I suppose I thought it was cool at the time. I gigged this guitar for a year, although it’s a small miracle it survived so long, considering the abuse I gave it. Thankfully, I eventually learned that a performance is made no better by smacking your guitar into the stage or throwing it at your amp at the end of every set and, by the skin of its teeth, it still survives to this day.

When I started writing this I looked online to see if there was any mention of this model of guitar. I was quite surprised that, not only was there plenty of information about it, but a lot of people had left comments on Harmony Central saying how much they liked theirs. One of the most common notes of praise for it was how robust it is; I can certainly attest to that.

Marshall Park G15RCD amp.

They called it 'Park' cause it was for kids playing - clever

This is a 15 watt, single channel, solid-state practice amp. There's a special input for your CD player - which, I suppose is where the 'CD' part of the product name comes from. I got this amp on my 16^th Birthday. On the same birthday, my cake was a white Les Paul Custom – my Manics obsession was still in full swing! Unbelievably, I used this amp to gig for around 2 years before a friend gave me an old one of his.

 

 

 

End of part one...