1) What was your first guitar, and when did you get it?
An old accoustic - my Dad had it spare and bunged it at me when I wanted to buy a record but didn't get pocket money. He said "learn to play instead" - he's probably regretted it ever since!
I think I was 13 or 14.
Edit: Just remembered, I can still see it, I did have one of those plastic Beatles guitars. Orange with a white front with their faces on. I guess I'd have had that as a christmas pressie when I was two or three. Apparently I called it my "doo-doo", but I have no recollection of this :lol:
2) What's your first guitar playing memory?
Learning to play and sing "King of the Road" over the next day or so.
3) The building's burning, which guitar do you save?
Probably my Fiesta Red strat (but I expect I could carry a lot more than that :lol:)
4) When and what was the last thing you practiced?
Last night, the guitar part and lead vocal for a new song I'm working on.
5) What's the worst thing that's happened to you onstage?
This was really hard to come up with, I've got loads of "string-breakage", "tuning problems", "missing out half a song", "falling over", etc memories - but I never regarded these as particularly bad or embarrassing. Some old guy (I'm probably older than him now :roll:) taught me that if the band, especially the front-man, isn't embarrassed by the f@ck-up and laughs it off, then the audience feels more comfortable.
So we ended up with a toss up between "loss of voice" (which started out bad, but the audience picked up on it and sang the entire two hour set for me!! So that's kind of a fond memory :D), and THIS... (I'd forgotten it, but I find it still irks me :lol:)
Bass-player not shutting the f@ck up when I was trying to speak to the audience (eg he'd complain about the next song I'd just announced, or he'd go "tell em about the demo-tape" between every song, even though I'd already announced it, or "tell em about the next gig", etc...) - I had to put up with this for 50-odd gigs from this guy. Away from the stage he'd agree not to do it, then he'd still bluddy witter on, interrupting me...
Eventually, one day, I stopped what I was doing and told him (on mic) to "f-ing shut-up, I'm talking to the people, if you wanna tell them something, you've got your own mic, use it..." - I think that kinda embarrassed him, and he seemed to restrain hisself afterwards.
6) If you could have any vintage guitar to own, and not sell on, what would it be?
Rory Gallagher's 61 strat.
7) What's the most expensive guitar you've ever bought?
Gibson Explorer.
8 ) What's the oldest guitar in your collection?
Squier JV 62 Stratocaster, bought in 82/3
9) Is there a particular record in your collection that you wouldn't want people to know about?
Nope
10) Is there a song that changed your life, and in what way?
I could choose all sorts, but I think it has to be "Billy don't be a hero" because it started me songwriting, but I didn't realise that's what I was doing at the time.
It was a few years after that I got the first guitar, and then 6 months before I wrote my "first" song. But my earliest memory of "singing and making it up as I go along" was one morning based on "Billy" while my Arfix soldiers were re-enacting the Normandy landings... Apparently I sang non-stop, and made sense, for over an hour or so, and by the end I had a different, but recognisable, tune (my own memory is that I hung on to the chorus, and that I couldn't possibly have made sense for over an hour!!).