Sometimes I get into some real arguements on my hobbies, but none have been more heated than the endless debates on things like tonewoods, branding, *NEEDING* a Floyd Rose for heavy whammy work, and how much *normal people* actually notice these esoteric elements that guitarists obsess over but likely no normal person really notices let alone cares about.
| It's not the Wood, it's it's Scientific Properties - So right up there with the samsquanch, the mud shark, and the existence of UFO's sits something as ridiculous as blinker fluid and that snake oil salesman from Pete's Dragon - TONE WOOD! That's right, every balding boomer wannabe with a bank account the size of a Ford Expedition will try and sell you on the "Mojo" and "VooDoo" of "Tone Wood". Because we all know Agathis, Pine, Basswood, or Acrylic just can't have the "Tone". However, while I do dispute the whole SPECIES arguement - ie, attacking living trees because they look pretty all sawed up - I DON'T dispute that it does make some differences, albeit minute, but it has fuck-all to do with the species, and more to do with density, hardness, and resonance properties - which ALL material types have.
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| The Ludicrious Pursuit of Needless Sustain - Us guitarists (shakes head), constantly chasing the every running rabbit of Sustain, and then using it as an argument for our ridiculous diatribes about why certain models "suck" (ie Jaguar and Jazzmaster to name a couple) and some RULE (ie, anything set-necked, glued-in-necked, or played by Jimmy Page), when in reality, who needs ninteen tied whole notes long of sustain out of a guitar? Save for some special effect better handled by an inexpensive indonesian Sustainter clone, I just don't see the purpose for it. So we discuss the fabled "take a bite to eat and it's still playing" guitars vs the "plink plonk surf guitars".
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| No regular listener gives a rats a** about your "tone" - Seriously, unless you're playing a weak little Teisco Tulip through an Alarm Clock Radio with the bridge pickup and strangle switch on and the Wah Wah cocked in one position all night to the point the bar windows are about to blow out, I doubt you'll sound bad enough for anyone whose not a musician to really care. Chances are, if it's too loud, they're not there, and if it's not loud enough, they'll comment they can't hear you, not that your tone sucked - and that part IS YOUR fault, not the gear's fault.
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| Every Guitar Works for Only XX Genre - Seriously, if I want to play Metallica on a 52' style Buttescotch Telecaster, you know full and damn well I'll be rippin' the cornfields of the midwest up with Master of Puppets! This is about all the other assorted bullshit I've had to endure based on once-universal truths caused by limited technology and engineering toleraces, now based on nostalgia and rose colored glasses for being the greasy haired guy down the street with a Camaro and a Marshall who summons out the local police three times a week with a Charvel and a JMP-45.
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| Cheap Guitars Don't Suck - Everyone likes to shit on cheap guitars - Hondo, Squier, Epiphone, Ibanez's lower end line, First Act, Harmony, Memphis, Series10/Bently, Samick, Rogue, and what have you. Well, these guitars don't suck. Sure they're cheaply made, but most of us are just too experienced to get the best out of them as kids, and the ones that truly do suck can be made great in the hands of a capable shade-tree luthier with too much time on his hands and a morbid curiosity for how things are done in Taiwan.
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| You *NEED* A Floyd Rose (or to be Jimi Hendrix) to do That - aka. A long myth busting diatribe on whammy systems from the original Bigsby all the way to the most recent crazy headless creations and why it's absolutley ridiculous how much we argue about which unit we should have on our instrument of choice. Personally, I like the Fender Dynamic Trem the best.
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| My Constant Struggles of an Ever-Growing Guitar Collection - because it seems I'm incapable of creating an ugly, poor playing, bad sounding, strictly cosmetic instrument IMHO. And no, I'm not humble bragging at all here, I'm seriously, in dire need of help. And it also explains why I have a hard time rejecting almost any instrument...because, let's face it, I like ALL guitars pretty much. This might be the most positive article in this entire section.
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