Skotosynthesis

This was originally going to be an entry on this thread over in the Backstage:

How to teach guitar to a beginner?

But I got carried away and started to go off about the whole history of my personal guitar training! So I decided that, since I never properly introduced myself on this forum despite being here almost two years, I would just take this opportunity to bore you guys and finally give you all the rundown!

I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere, but most of all I just feel it will be cathartic to finally get it all down in writing!

I was born in 1979 and grew up in a little dirt town in south Alabama, very conservative and very religious. My musical experience was mostly limited to gospel and country and "oldies," with a few Eagles and Carpenters records laying around. I loved it though, anything that I could get my hands on. I was a huge music fan from day one, but I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Couldn't sing worth a lick. I knew that somewhere out there though, there must be SOME way to express myself musically...

My teenage cousin was a rocker, and he saw how much I loved that stuff. He would come pick me up sometimes and take me to the garage where him and his hesher buddies in their acid-wash jeans would drink beer and work on cars all night. I was a little toddler, and they got a kick out of watching me stand in the truck bed and headbang to KISS or Sabbath or AC/DC while they got shitfaced. I would beg and plead with them to put on "Eruption" though! I was always hollering "play that song with guitar and no words!!!"

When I was 13 or 14, my dad finally gave in to my years of pleading for a guitar. In exchange for the summer grass cutting, he got me a cheap blue Kustom electric and an RMS amp, and it came with 2 months of free guitar lessons. The teacher was a wily-haired old church lady with a sunburst Alverez electric and an antique Gibson 2x12 tweed combo amp, which I still want to this day. Kept trying to get her to crank it, but she would look at me like I was crazy and say "but that would make it sound all distorted! And it would overload them old vacuum tubes! You don't want it to do that!!! It's had the same tubes since 1964 and I wouldn't know where to find new ones! The volume at 4 or 5 is plenty loud for a church or a fellowship hall!" I have fond memories of her kicking that thing in a furious frenzy when the truck drivers would start squawking "breaker, breaker" through it.
But she taught me E, A, D, B, C and F and the basics about tempo and up and downstrokes and how to count time and all the meat and potatoes. More importantly, she had an appreciation for the blues and taught me songs like "House of the Rising Sun," "Memphis, Tennessee" and "Big Boss Man." I was content with this for a while, learning all kinds of new stuff. But then the unexpected happened: I was watching the old big dish satellite one hot summer afternoon at my grandma's house, and the Independent Film Channel decided to put on a documentary I had never seen. It was called "Monterey Pop." Changed me, man.

I mosied on down to the "modern" guitar shop one day after school, which happened to be the only Marshall dealer in town by the way, and met this guy named Kevin. He was a shredder. Offered guitar lessons for $20 a month. I was officially at the next level. This guy blasted me through pentatonic, mixolydian, harmonic minor, etc, etc. Taught me all the exercises, but most importantly he filled my ear with the lore of the guitar gods! Told me all the stories about the Clapton-is-god wall grafitti, Townshend vs. Jimi backstage, the Led Zeppelin occult connection, Ozzy snorting ants and eating bat heads, all the general rock legends I had missed out on being an isolated country kid living in a field. I was enthralled. I had found my calling!
Problem was though, this guy had a major heroin issue that just got worse and worse as the months went by. After a year or so, our lessons were just 30 minutes of him laying his head back against the wall with his eyes closed and running scales in a daze while I watched him. Still learned though! After a while, he would just go in the back and do drugs and tell me to wait out front until my mom picked me up. Needless to say, after that month was out I stopped going. In the meantime, I would just sit on the shop floor playing through different amps. Later on, after I had moved away, I heard he finally cleaned himself up. He got a good job and got married to a gem of a girl... only to drive off a bridge one autumn night back in the late 90's. Nobody knows how it happened or why he did it. But I was told he got his wish and was buried with his guitar in a KISS casket!

But back to me in 1995 sitting on the floor while I was supposed to be getting lessons: one day this old black guy with white hair walked up and started listening to me play. He said, "Boy I wish I could play like that!" Being a dumb 16 year old, I had no idea he was being sarcastic, so I just started blabbing "oh it's easy, run the scales, yadda yadda." He said, "Well, give it about 5 years an' you'll be runnin' up on me!" He started walking off, but I wondered what he was talking about. I followed him out the door and said "who are you anyway?" He just stood there grinning, and I looked at his custom plate on the front of his truck which said "Lil' Jimmy Reed." Needless to say, I felt completely embarrassed. This guy was a local legend. He slammed his truck door, came back inside and picked up the guitar I had been strumming on. He said "Aight boy, sit down on that floor and watch how it's done." That was the beginning of an all too short but very significant apprenticeship. I began to follow him around to every show he played and study everything he did. After the shows, he would sit down with me and quiz me about what I had just seen like a classroom session! He really filled in the missing gap in my repertoire and taught me about how the blues is the foundation of every ****ing thing else.

My dad finally realized how serious I was about this, and so for Christmas of 1996 he got me a Mexican Stratocaster. Still my main axe. And I'm still learning.

I've come and gone, but keeping a well-rounded catalog of music plus the words of wisdom I get from you guys on this forum have taught me just about every damn thing else. Even before I started posting here, I was a creeper for a long time!

I don't know what happened to Little Jimmy Reed, after I moved out of town we parted ways and I don't know how to reach him. But I have managed to find him on YouTube, so I dedicate this to him and Kevin (RIP) and Mrs. Lawrence, the crazy old lady that's probably dead by now but got me off on the right foot, and to my cousin that introduced me to metal when I was like 4!

Behold the man:

Marshall Amps

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Söulcaster

That's a great story Skoto

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Skotosynthesis

Thanks man! I had to stop myself before I started talking about my later days in bands on the road and in the studio and all the other people that have influenced me along the way, but they know who they are! Hope I didn't bore you guys too much.

gdh1532

great story,, you'd make a great rock-n roll journalist/historian..

CaptainZero

That IS a great story, and you have a journalistic calling!

It reminds me of this!

Skotosynthesis

Thanks guys!
After guitar, I have to admit, writing is kind of my second big thing!
Rock journalist...
hmm... maybe I'll get to have a foursome with three teenage groupies like that kid in Almost Famous!

tubes

Definitely not boring Skoto.

And welcome to the forum!

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SmokeyDopey

Hey that was cool man, I enjoyed reading that. At moments I felt like I was there.
Thanks for sharing.

Georgiatec

I'm a sucker for "Crossroads" kinda stories. Made for interesting reading while having my cup of tea Skoto....Nice one.

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Skotosynthesis

appreciate it!

And thanks for the welcome tubes, although I've been here about 2 years now!

just never put up a proper intro after I jumped into the technical questions back then.

carnada

Nice story man.

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Skotosynthesis

Thanks! Just trying to get my act together now and fit all these pieces together!

Harlequin tusk

Oh hell no I'm not bored at all LOVE hearing stories like this!

Bring em on the stories from the later years also