The Junkyard
I suppose it's not really a junkyard, but when I decided to throw all the strays onto one page, that name just sprang forth.These are instruments that are.... well, they're just "here".
Below is something just a tad bit morbid. In early 2005, two people were browsing an outdoor tag sale when a drunk driver went off the road (after a hit and run of another vehicle) and plowed through the yard sale, running over the two people, continued on, crossing the road and finally hitting a tree. One person was killed instantly, the other lingered for days. The driver was charged with manslaughter but I have never been able to find out any additional information. This bass was in the yard sale. There are signs where the strings were ripped from it, bending the saddle screws into pretzels, shearing off the knobs, and leaving what appears to be scuff marks from a tire on the pickguard. There is one indentation of a string in the side of the body where it (the string) was likely caught on the car as it plowed through, and probably dragged the bass until the string let go. It's mounted on the ceiling of my shop.
Back in the early 90s I took an Aria Telecaster neck, the fingerboard and body from an Egmond bass, an aftermarket Gibson bridge, and a homemade aluminum tailpiece, and made a 30" scale baritone guitar, tuned halfway between a guitar and bass. I painted it the disgusting surfy blue you see. It's really got that Jack Nitzsche "Lonely Surfer" sound. It's basically junk, the plywood body is starting to delaminate and one pickup went dead. I may rebuild it with another body someday when I'm bored and have nothing to do... HA HA HA!!!
There was a trashed cello on ebay with an opening bid of a buck. Over the course of the auction I bid it up to $53 and still got outbid. A month or so later I had emailed the seller to ask about a different auction and also asked if the sale ever went through on the junk cello, as the high bidder had a reputation of not paying. He said it hadn't been paid for, and that he didn't feel right about selling such a mess anyway. He said if I'd reimburse him for the shipping I could have it. Yay! Gotta love deals like that! Well, he wasn't kidding about the condition. The neck has been broken and repaired several times, the rims are shattered at the tail block area and have also separated from the top and back. There are gouges, cracks, and chunks of wood missing. It's a mess. Inside was penciled "MISERABLE WRECK REPAIRED BY ALFRED LANEGGER 1981". Turns out Alfred Lanegger was the Professor of Violin at Marshall University in West Virginia. How or why he came to repair this old clunker I'll never know. I'll piece it together someday. I have no intention of making it look any better; just to function again would be enough for me.
Everyone needs a uke. Here's mine. Retail price $37, my cost = a cheap repair job. I rooted through the boxes of new ukes, all had problems. They are Chinese trash! This one's neck was loose. It was eeny-meeny-miney-mo, as they were all junk. I repaired it and it's playable. Someday I hope to have a GOOD uke, but this will do for now.
Update June 2007: I took this with me to Bozeman Montana in June 2007 for the second annual Gibson Homecoming, a three day event where a bunch of us Gibson freaks get together and socialize, plus visit the acoustic factory! Well, this made it TO Bozeman without even going out of tune. Coming BACK however, this is what I found when I opened my suitcase:
Thanks TSA, for unpacking and re-packing my suitcase, and thanks, United Air Lines, for making sure my bag got thrown extra far! It's all back together now though, with scars, but it's alive!
Garrison is now owned by Gibson. I know they are now producing Garrison-ish Gibson guitars but I don't know the fate of the Garrison name. This is a store display of a Garrison guitar showing the Griffeth bracing system. It showed up on ebay for $75 and I had to have it. Kinda pricey wall decoration but I'm strange like that.....
