My Dad is Dead's "Guitars I used to own but did not smash"

Guitars I used to own, did not fully appreciate at the time, yet did not smash part 1.

This Japanese ES-335 copy made by DIA was purchased for $75 from a private owner, via classified ad of unremembered source. It was my first electric guitar and saw lots of abuse being carried by the neck on caseless journeys across the US and functioned as the only guitar on the entirety of the 1st 2 MDID records and live shows throughout 1985-88. Mine was this same beautiful green color, sans the whammy bar, but in otherwise good shape, and when paired with my small single 12” speaker Roland tube amp could produce an acceptable variety of clean and distorted tones. After eventual problems with the electronics due to years of smoky clubs and unprotected transport, and my first and only attempt at repairing a hollow body electric, (it never sounded the same once reassembled), and with its white trim yellowing significantly, it was unceremoniously relegated to the trash bin in 1989, after I had purchased an authentic Gibson 335.

Songs Played on: And He’s Not Gonna Take It Anymore – all Peace Love and Murder – all Let’s Skip the Details – Baby’s Got a Problem, Put it Away, 5 minutes

Favorite Tuning – DADGAD. I often let the upper 2 strings drone in this tuning, which gave the illusion of a more complex sound than my limited skills could otherwise provide. You might have trouble matching the tuning to the records, because at the time I didn’t own a tuner, so while the guitar was in “DADGAD with itself” so to speak, the bottom string wasn’t always in exactly “D”. This wasn’t as big a problem in the studio as you might think, because 1) I didn’t do a ton of overdubs on those 1st couple of records and 2) what I did was usually single string soloing, which was easy to retune to match the basic track.

Guitars I used to own, did not fully appreciate at the time, yet did not smash part 2.

The 2nd guitar I owned, was this 60's or 70's Teisco single pickup, another Japan special, from a neighborhood garage sale for $25. It had a pretty unique sound, like from the inside of a bathtub underwater, but not in a bad way, It had a low midrange heavy sound that lent itself well to drone tunings, especially in C and E, and was used to great effect on songs like In the Morning, For Lack of A Better Word, On Holy Ground, and Boiling Over. It was probably one of the prettier guitars I've owned, with the sunburst finish and patterned pick guard. Plus, it was super light, easy to transport and surprisingly sturdy, as it held up pretty well being beat to shit on the road before I learned that cases were a good idea.

I wish I could say what ultimately happened to it, as it's one of the few of these early instruments I wish I still had due to the uniqueness of it's sound. It's possible it was packaged with another guitar in one of the "tradeups" I did over the years, more on those later, but can't recall for sure. I've seen a few of them now and again going for ridiculous prices on collector sites, but haven't been so tempted yet to get another one.

Guitars I used to own, did not fully appreciate at the time, yet did not smash part 3.

Another $75 garage sale special, this Ovation Applause had an oddly oval shaped plastic back which made it constantly slide in your lap to the "lap steel" position, making it nearly impossible to play while sitting. While the gray "sunburst" and white trim made it quite pretty from the front, the plastic back "turtle shell" had a texture not unlike popcorn ceilings, making it rather two faced from an aesthetic point of view. It had a rather tinny, hollow quite trebly sound as an acoustic and howling pickups at moderate volume that made it difficult to use as on onstage guitar. Used for primarily early acoustic tunes, most famously Nothing Special on Taller, Gone Gonna Rise and Sabotage which although recorded earlier, appeared later on Shine(r). Also used for lead acoustic overdubs on some songs, like On Holy Ground and some others which escape me at the moment.

It ended up in a 2 for one trade with cash and a guitar to be named later for a future more fancy Yamaha acoustic electric, which is also eventually in this series.

Guitars I used to own but did not smash pt 4.

Of all the former guitars this is probably the one I wish I had kept the most. Found in a music shop somewhere along the road it jumped out at me solely because my friend Tim's primary guitar has always been a Duosonic, and I loved the way it sounded and played, plus this seemed low priced for the time, at 250. Disappointingly it never sounded exactly like Tim's version, probably made at a different time in a different place, still it was very playable and offered a very nice counterpoint to the Gibson 335 which had become my primary instrument, and used to great effect that way in the studio on several of the songs on Chopping The most repeated story around this guitar is on our tour with the Pixies in 1990, I brought this along as a second guitar for certain tunings. One or two shows into the tour it disappeared, and I was convinced it had been lost forever. After our opening set we had moved our eqpt off the stage and left it to the side while we melted into the crowd to watch the Pixies set. When we went back to load up, it was gone. At the last show of the tour in Denver, one of the roadies from the Pixies crew walked up to me with it, handed it over, and said, "hopefully this teaches you a lesson about leaving your guitars unattended" Aside from the complete condescension of this move, I'm still not certain to this day if someone intended to steal it and was convinced by Charles T (who was super nice to us along the way), or someone else to return it (it was apparently with the Pixies gear in their truck the whole time) but without it there were several songs we were unable to play due to the time it would have taken to retune. Unlike the Pixies, we didn't have guitar tech offstage to bring us our perfectly tuned guitars and we were limited to a quick on/off 30 min set. So, I was happy to have it back, but not happy enough to keep it, as shortly after that tour it was part of a trade for another guitar that's up next. Can you stand the anticipation?

Guitars I used to own but did not smash pt 5.

the early to mid nineties were a strange time in the history of MDID. After Homestead contract expired and the renewal offer was uninspired, we switched to the local Scat label for two records, Chopping and Out of Sight. Both did ok, but a lot of transition happened over that time. Chopping was recorded just after returning from Europe with as full of a band as I ever had, with up to 6 other people contributing, including Doug Gillard, Tim Gilbride, Chris Burgess, Scott Pickering, John McEntire, and Jeff Curtis, leading to a maybe overly diverse sounding record. By the time Out of Sight came out, all had left for other bands or pursuits, and the only other member was now a new one, Matt Swanson on bass. We did a tour as a 2 piece with drum machine to support OOS, that was a bit underwhelming, as was the LP itself in my mind. Partially recorded in a crumbling Beat Farm, additions made at Summa, and then eventually mixed in Nashville, The guitars sounding too rough, the vocals too sweet. Additionally I had gotten married for the first time between the 2 records, and the angst level had dropped considerably, so playing such aggressive songs was not in my heart at the time. All that to say the band was drifting towards a "lighter sound" and my interest in writing acoustically driven songs was probably at it's peak. Hence, the trade of the aforementioned Duosonic, plus the aforementioned Applause, netted me this overly pretty Yamaha Apx 20, which was put to extensive use on For Richer For Poorer, a record that found itself on a new label yet again, as Scat declined to release upon hearing the demos. At this time shopping this record was the closest we came to a major label deal, as there was actually some mild interest that ultimately did not play out for various reasons, one of which was of course issues with the name, which considering the recent signing of the Butthole Surfers, seemed silly. Luckily we had a fan in TX in Craig Stewart who made the record the very first Emperor Jones release. Recorded in Nashville at the Castle (supposedly an old Al Capone hideout), we recruited Scott P again to come down for the drum parts, and this was probably the most fun I've ever had doing a record. Everything came together pretty much exactly as envisioned. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever and the sunny version of MDID quickly disappeared after a painful divorce, and the next record would see new guitars yet again and the angst dialed up to 11.

Guitars I used to own but did not smash pt 6...

This was a Les Paul Copy by Aria (the Aria Pro II) I messed up the chronology on this one. It came before the Duosonic . Used primarily for high D drone tunings, on songs like World On A String, Sweet Company, Come to Me (from Chopping) and several other demo songs that never ended up being recorded. It had a buzzy compressed midrange sound that was best with 2 or more strings tuned in octave unison, and was a pretty cutting lead guitar, for which I used it occasionally, on which songs I don't remember. The specialty extreme tunings made strings snap often and eventually warped the neck to a degree that it would not stay in tune. I don't recall it's ultimate fate, but I know it's no longer in the collection.