UFrom 1976-1994, I occasionally played lead guitar in new wave, blues-rock and country-rock bands... from basement to showcase. While in college, I was part of a new-wave/rock/reggae band in Boulder, Colorado called The Ravers. We formed in 1976 - Colorado (even liberal Boulder) was not the most hospitable environment for that kind of music. The band was formed by keyboardist Dave Kaufman and singer/songwriter/guitarist Marc Campbell. I was a college friend of Dave's, and auditioned after bassist Jon Cormany joined. I kept coming back to practices and they needed someone who was interested in new music so I stuck. Mix in a drummer (Jamie) followed by Al Leis (now deceased) and there we were. Dave wrote a brief history of the band's formation and early activities, which can be read at http://newwave.www6.50megs.com.ravers.html
and he recently put together two CDs containing material from Colorado 1976/1977 prior to the band's move to NYC.
I played a 1973 Gibson SG and 1968 Mosrite Combo (semi-hollow) through a Mike Mathews (ElectroHarmonix) Freedom amp, then bought a flawless 1965 Fender Super Reverb for $300 when we started gigging in Boulder. That era SG was pretty bad, but it sounded good cranked up and it's all I could afford ($225 used). At Mountain Ears Studio, we recorded an EP on Screwball Records with the songs Another Lesson, Big Star and Cops are Punks. The EP shows up on ebay occasionally. Highlights in Colorado were opening separate dates for The Ramones and Ray Manzarek's (The Doors) Nite City in a small club in Denver called Ebbett's Field (the cozy bleacher-like seating explains why it was named after the old Brooklyn Dodgers ballpark.) Our manager was Rick Stott, and one of our roadies was Eric Boucher. Eric would soon achieve fame as Jello Biafra, founder of the Dead Kennedys, and I believe Rick got a law degree and became his attorney. The band moved to NYC in 1977 to play the showcase clubs (e.g., CBGB, Max's Kansas City) in search of a record deal. I sold the Fender amp and used a '71 Marshall Super Lead 100 through a Sound City cabinet. During a gig at Max's one of the tuning machines of the SG fell apart and someone rudely inquired if I got my guitar at K-Mart hahah. The band's name was changed to The Nails right after we recorded a "45" at Greene Street Studio in Soho (Rock and Roll Show / Backstreet Boys). Then Jon left, and I saw things weren't gonna happen very quickly. Although living in the rock and roll flea bag Hotel Earle in the Village, and the quiche/pate delivery job I took over from Jon were pretty cool, I ambivalently left the band in 1978 to go to graduate school in Virginia. Dave and Marc kept going for many years with the band and individual projects, and the Nails recorded some albums. A couple of songs had success on new wave/college radio (for example, 88 Lines About 44 Women). Check out the band's web site http://www.the-nails.com/. That's enough about this brief period in my life.
In the mid-80's to mid-90's, after my graduate and postdoctoral training were completed, I had the time to get involved with rehearsing and playing music as a hobby. In 1987, I discovered Paul Reed Smith (PRS) guitars and they instantly became my favorite solid body guitars. I saw a used 1985 Standard in seafoam while looking for a used Les Paul in a Detroit music store. The original Standard has a mahogany body, set neck, humbuckers, five-position pickup switch, "sweet switch," rosewood fretboard with 24-fret scale and moon inlays, and tremolo. It is unadorned and slightly darker sounding compared to the more glamorous Custom model (which has a stained figured maple top over mahogany body). Since that time, I have acquired five more 1st-year production (1985) PRS Standards. At first, I figured that the young PRS company was something special and that it would be fun to search for first-year examples in various colors. It's not too affordable anymore because their collectibility has grown and there just were not many made in 1985 (~500). The PRS company has grown tremendously and these guitars are regularly seen in the hands of performing guitarists.
I played weekend gigs in Detroit with Chili and the Dawgs in the early 90's. We were supposed to be country-rock, but we covered tunes from a spectrum including Tritt, George Jones, Yoakum, Eagles, Seger, Cheap Trick, Lou Reed, Ketchum, Skynyrd, Berry, Clapton, T-Bone Walker, Stones, Headhunters, Satellites. Bar band fun, no artistic innovation ;-). I picked up a 1993 reissue 1956 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top as well as a thin-body quilt-top semi-hollow Alvarez, but an '85 seafoam PRS remained my main axe. After moving to Texas in 1994, I stopped playing regularly, collected some more '85 PRS's, PRS Dragons, got a PRS McCarty goldtop for noodling around. Drag racing became my main interest. Lesson: dropping money into the sinkhole of drag racing makes guitar-collecting look like the height of fiscal responsibility.
1985 PRS Standards in seafoam (2), pearl white, magenta pearl and black pearl (looks like metallic dark blue); a regular black '85 was acquired after the photo was taken.
PRS Dragons
When the PRS Dragon series came out, I thought I'd have to be insane to acquire a guitar like that. When the Dragon II came out, I decided to get one. A year or so later I got a Dragon III. There were 100 each made of the II and III. Only 50 Dragon I's were made available to dealers, or so I thought. I remembered a Dragon I that a dealer in Michigan had so I called to see if it was sold. It was available and turns out it was one of several Prototypes, not one of the numbered 50. The limited-edition Dragon series guitars have a highly figured maple top over a select mahogany back, 22 frets, a stop-tailpiece, Dragon pickups, wide-fat neck, and gold hardware. I sold the Dragon II and Dragon III. The Dragon I is for sale.
Dragon Group Photos.
Historic '56 Les Paul Gold Top (1993 reissue). Massive neck, deep antique gold finish on the top, light stained mahogony back and sides, P90 pickups.