crankdaddy tom asked....
and i was planning on sharing this story on the blog, so i'm copying parts of my email to him.
The story about the guitar was that Kev and I always liked Jake's white Charvel and wanted to have one made.
Sadly, the man keeps us all down and states that they won't do an artist based guitar for a non-endorsee.
The subplot is that for me, Jake's white guitar was one of those iconic guitars. As a 16th birthday present to myself, I had a guitar made for me. It was to be modeled after Jake's white strat. Some time went by, and the specs changed to the white strat that I have (maple neck). Of course, I still have that guitar although it's in dire need of a refret (I gotta get on that). A few years ago, I had a white pearloid Jake style pickguard made, and I put it on my white strat, and that was pretty cool. I also have a sea foam green strat that now has that pearloid guard on it (I returned the white guitar to its previous configuration), but all this time, I've always wanted a white strat like Jake's. It's just a cool guitar.
And the final story? The guitar kills. I'm not a big Charvel nut or anything (I think that Charvels tend to bring the worst out in people), but it's been played more than anything else lately.
While I plan on modding the guitar to be as close to Jake's as it can be, but most importantly, I can't stress enough what a nice guitar it is.
Now, on to much cooler topics...
A few days ago, I got a call from Kaitlyn (my friend TIm's daughter, and my favorite guitar student). She's out in Los Angeles going on commercial auditions. This is something that she's been doing for the past year or so. She told me that she went to an audition for a McDonald's commercial, and all of the kids were all dressed rock style, and had guitars with them. Apparently, her agent wasn't hip to this information, so she felt a bit out of place. When it was her turn to audition, she borrowed a guitar (she said that it was a full size guitar, which is way bigger than what she has). She told me that she ran through a few cool rock moves (we covered a lot of important topics in our lessons), and then she played a basic blues riff/progression that I taught her. She said that it was a lot of fun, and that she got a callback!
She went to the second audition with her butterfly Daisy Rock guitar and apparently, she aced it. She called me the next night (which was Valentine's Day) and told me that she got the job! I'm so proud of her! She told me that the McDonald's people were really impressed with how young she is and how well she played.
Kaitlyn is the closest thing that I will have to a daughter of my own, and I couldn't be more fortunate. She's such a talented kid; I'll be shocked if we're not seeing her on some tv show in the future. She could easily be a Hannah Montana type, or something to that extent. She's got so much charisma and talent; it's what I thought I had when I was a punkass teenager. Let me tell you that what i thought I had back then pales comparison to what I've had the good fortune to be around every Monday when it was lesson time. I'm really, really proud of her.
