Yes, I have to face the facts. In my 20s, 30s, and even into my 40s, I was obsessed with making music. Thus, my house was full of musical instruments and recording equipment. At one time, I had about 30 guitars and basses, along with a few mandolins, a banjo, and a dobro. The fiddle came later, after the guitar count went down by way of selling, trading, and theft.
Look, I’m 57 now, a diabetic, overweight, a bit arthritic, and my knees aren’t in the best of shape. I don’t see myself hitting the stage of some dive bar banging my Stratocaster through my Twin Reverb amp playing with others who are in the same questionable shape, to an audience that would rather drink than listen to us. While my listening tastes have not changed much over the past 40 years, my playing tastes have dwindled considerably.
It hit me a few days ago. My blog last week talked about the baritone guitar that I built from an old Fender Squier Telecaster. I pulled the guitar out of the closet and plucked around on it for a few minutes. I realized that I am never going to play it again other than what I was doing then and there. Why should I have this thing gather even more dust when I’m now trying to clean out my house for sale as well as take a load off of my mind?
I looked around the house at other equipment that I have. Lots of vintage recording equipment. I’ll never use it again, as I have no desire to be in a rock band nor record one. Everyone is going digital anyway, and I use a small digital 4-track for my demos. At the time I bought it, the Tascam 238 8-track Syncaset was the go-to recorder for making decent band demos. I also have a Fostex 12-channel mixer and patch cords galore. Maybe someone out the is interested in that vintage stuff.
A couple of amplifiers that I have are worth something. The already-mentioned Fender Twin Reverb from the mid-70s is still sought after by guitar tone freaks, as well as a super-vintage Ampeg V4 head. I got them both at reasonable prices, so I should be able to make some money getting rid of them.
I also have a few old Kustom roll-n-tuck amps and speaker cabinets from the late 60s. I was totally into the Kustom stuff years ago. I sold a few things off, but it’s time to rid myself of the rest.
I’ve been only playing bluegrass these past few years, and even then, mostly songwriting. I ‘ve jammed a few times with others, but I have lost interest in being in an actual bluegrass band. As a songwriter, I am interested in hearing my work performed. However, most bluegrass musicians tend to want to just play the same 20 standard songs.
I have a lot of acoustic instruments, especially guitars. I have bought a few of them to do lutherie work on, and will probably sell them off much later in time. I do want to keep some PA equipment, at least a small set-up and some microphones, just in case I get called to do a sound job or plan to do a show. And I have always been and still am a vintage microphone collector, so the ones that I have will be sticking around for a while.
It will take some time to sort through the stuff, and it will be hard parting with some of it, but it is time for this to happen. I may do a spring garage sale, who knows? I do know that it is a crap shoot running ads on Craigslist. I am currently selling a student violin that I repaired for $70, and one person offered me $20. Heck, I invested more than that in repair parts! I have had some good luck with CL, but also some idiots wasting my time (the same violin, one woman wanted to buy it for her kid, and as I was driving in the snow to meet up with her, she texted me to say she changed her mind).
I’ll have to self-appraise the stuff before I sell it, and that will take time as well. If you do check out the Detroit Craigslist site and see someone selling in the “Dearborn/Hamtramck” area, most likely it is me. Hey, if you are interested, contact me and perhaps we can work something out. I’m actually selling a lot of non-musical stuff as well.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 