Warwick gear = very tough

My last real band in LA, me and the guitar player were like best friends and I have to say, Kit was one of, if not the, best guitar players I have ever played with. Anyway, he has this rare Ibenez guitar that was like his first serious guitar, I don't know if any of you are familiar with John Carruthers, but he's a pretty famous luthier in LA and he did all the work on Kit's guitars. So Kit takes the Ibenez to John and have it completely refinished; new paint job, new electronics, the works. It came out beautiful... I was with him when he picked it up and man, it was stunning.

Well, the point of having this done was he gave this guitar to his eldest son as an 18th birthday present. Ahhhh how nice. To be honest with you, the kid couldn't play the guitar to save his ass, and I think Kits hope was that the kid would be inspired by the guitar and take it serious. The kid wanted to be a rock star, but didn't have the dedication to actually do it. Anyway, about 2 weeks after receiving the guitar the kid was in his room pretending to be a rock star. Stereo cranking, kid in his best rock star stance, pretending to shred on this vintage guitar, when he gets the bright idea ..... He chucks the guitar over his shoulder expecting it to spin around his back and then catch it when it comes back around. But.....

In reality what happened was, he chucked the guitar over his shoulder, the strap came off and the guitar flew across the room. It hits the wall, which instead of being drywall was the old stucco and lath. Anyway, the guitar actually penetrates the wall and like a dart in a dartboard, is hanging there sticking out of the wall. And this kid, and his friend stood there for a minute staring at it. I didn't get to see this because as these guys stood there gawking at this, gravity took over and the guitar came crashing down to the ground. Now if these two brain surgeons would have ran over and actually pulled the the guitar from the wall instead of just staring at it defying gravity, perhaps the damage would have been limited, but noooooo

One week later, Kit & I in his music room practicing when the kid walks in. Kit tells him to go get the Ibenez and join us, the kid heehaws for a second and finally says he can't because he broke a string. Kit says he has a set, go get it, he'd put a new set on. Oh no he can't, his strap is broke. No problem, there's plenty of straps around. Well one of the volume knobs fell off. GO GET YOUR GUITAR RIGHT NOW! We both knew something was up. Seeing Kits face when he first saw the guitar was so sad. 4 of the 6 strings were broken and this punk kid didn't even remove them from the guitar so they were flopping all over the place. Volume knob fell off, not, busted off. The whole shaft of the pot was gone. Two machine heads broke off, a huge dent on the end of the headstock with a crack that ran just over halfway down the headstock. Lots of scratches on the body in general, but at the very bottom of the instrument was a massive dent with a chip of wood missing. and the bridge was pulled loose from the body; still attached, but loose.

The kid finally tells the whole story, and I have to say Kit took it well and said he would take it back to Carruthers and see if John would repair it. I have to admit I was amazed the kid was still alive even after saying possibly the rudest thing to his father I think I ever heard. He said, "actually it's your fault this happened, if you would have had strap locks put on it this never would have happened!" I wanted to smack the kid myself, but dad just took it in stride. I went with him when he took the guitar back to JC (I love going to his shop). I felt so bad for my friend, he was so embarrassed to be bringing the guitar back in this condition and this soon after such a beautiful job John had done on it. The initial look of shock and horror on John's face showed it was hurt to see his work so disrespected, but he quickly got over it and was pretty cool about it. He told a couple stories about seeing worse. He said he could make it look like it never happened, but he and Kit talked about it and deceiced to leave the dents at the bottom of the guitar as a permanent reminder to the kid of what he did and hopefully remind him to show the instrument with the respect it deserved. And yes, this time it had straps locks added. Again John did a wonderful job and unless you knew where to look, you couldn't tell what had happened.

You know, even as I write this I have to wonder ... How long would would that kid have waited to tell his dad what he did. I mean he just picked it up the guitar and put it in the case and hid it under his bed. But blaming it on his dad for me for the icing on the cake. I would have never given it back to him, or never had it fixed in the first place. Have to say, the man is sure a better dad than I would ever be.
 
Less we need question after these:

warwickownerstandingonneck.jpg


And the rockbass...
 
i think he had enough other warwicks at hand, if he would have wanted one ;)

I suppose something like round about.. a whole factory ....
 
Heh... :)
 

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Nah ... Here's the one for him to print and frame

warwickownerstandingonneck2.png


But seriously... I cringe everytime I see that pic of HPW standing on the neck.
 
I posted years ago how cat lurv rockbags, someone suggested it's cause they don't use glue, and so prolly smell better. Could be, but kitties do love guit bags.
 
boebl said:
i think he had enough other warwicks at hand, if he would have wanted one ;)

I suppose something like round about.. a whole factory ....
Click to expand...

I only just realised who was standing on the bass!

:x

:lol:
 
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