First guitar was a used $60 Cort electric my mom gave me for Christmas when I was 15. Looked kinda like a 70s Ibanez knockoff. A year and a half later I'd been working at a grocery store and decided to buy a brand new MIJ '50s Stratocaster in Lake Placid Blue. For some reason my mom got super pissed that I spent $375 of my own money (not everything I'd saved btw) on a guitar. Anyway, it was a nice guitar that I had for 20 years or whatever and I totally regret selling it, mostly for sentimental reasons. From 16-23 I played that thing every waking minute. Walked around the house with it trapped on. Played it acoustically over movies and tv. I spent a lot of years playing other things and rejecting Strats after 1996, but they'll probably always feel the most familiar to me.

Ha, 1996 was when I got my strat, which I suppose was my first really nice guitar. Still have it, though these days it's basically the emperor, it sits around being the oldest and not really getting played much. Compared to my newer guitars it's just kind of a jalopy, and honestly I prefer either of my wife's (kinda junky) strats, for whatever reason they're just more fun.

My first bass amp was a Roland cube 60, not too bad for a beginner. Then around 85 I had the chance to buy a Peavey 400 Series Bass Head and an Ampeg 4 12 bass cab (must have been a V4 cab)! Loved that setup! Should probably have kept at least the Ampeg.

My best friend at 15 was also the drummer of our first teenaged rock band. He was even worse off in the money department than me. We literally fished a set of drums out of the garbage for him. My memory is fuzzy, but it was beat to hell Rogers kit. Kick, snare, floor tom, and a broke hihat stand. Somehow we cobbled together money to buy the most awful cymbals ears have ever heard. Thankfully my friend actually had a decent ear right out of the gate and was able to get the drums themselves to sound about as good as these drums could in their beat up state. After a couple of months the king-shit high school band Uncle Earwig decided to upgrade their drummer and their old drummer lost interest in playing and sold us his set of Zildjians As for next to nothing AND traded us his Pearl set for our "vintage" Rogers set. Man, playing with good cymbals vs basically toy cymbals was an amazing upgrade in sound. That first practice after with a real working kit felt incredible.

Also grew up playing a Strat copy, an early 90s Memphis one that I got in sixth grade. While I played guitar on and off for years, I didn't really get serious about it until I got to college and met other folks who wanted to be in bands, etc.

A friend got a rad 60s Fender Music Master and blackface Bandmaster head & cab that sounded amazing. I ended up in late 2002 finding a cobled together Music Master that had a weird crackly refin, modded for a bridge pickup, and an antigua Mustang pickguard--basically it was a hardtail Mustang, with rando Carvin(?) Strat pickups. I think the neck might have been 70s and the body 60s, so it definitely appeared to be someone's cobled together parts guitar. Pretty sure I got that for ~$300, which seemed to be the going rate for all the decent real gear I bought around that time (Music Man 112 65 combo, MIJ Fender P-Bass, GK 400RB w/ SWR 4x10).

Absolutely loved that guitar, and for years it was the only electric guitar I owned as shortly after that I got recruited for bass and started off on that whole thing. Ended up selling it a friend in Chicago as I realized a 24" scale just doesn't work for me and I wanted that guitar to get damn hell ass played.

I had a bunch of mid priced guitars and even a couple pretty good amps before this, but I remember getting my AKG414 in 1996 ish.
I had been doing a lot of recording and I traded some gear and some cash for this mic. I think what made it feel like a big deal was because it was so small. In '93 I paid $550 for a JCM800 2204 half stack (with generic cab... I wish I still had that head). Then a couple years later I spend more than that for something I can fit in my hand!

I still have the mic. It's been use for years on tons of stuff. Currently, it's my wife's voiceover mic and it will soon be all over Nickelodeon.

An ‘83 Strat that I got as a combined birthday and Christmas present in 1998. I didn’t know it was made in 1983 when I got it, but it’s nice that it’s the same age as me. My parents paid £300 for it. It’s still my main guitar and has very much been through the wars. No other guitar feels quite as right in my hands.

Owen wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 11:05 am My best friend at 15 was also the drummer of our first teenaged rock band. He was even worse off in the money department than me. We literally fished a set of drums out of the garbage for him. My memory is fuzzy, but it was beat to hell Rogers kit. Kick, snare, floor tom, and a broke hihat stand. Somehow we cobbled together money to buy the most awful cymbals ears have ever heard. Thankfully my friend actually had a decent ear right out of the gate and was able to get the drums themselves to sound about as good as these drums could in their beat up state. After a couple of months the king-shit high school band Uncle Earwig decided to upgrade their drummer and their old drummer lost interest in playing and sold us his set of Zildjians As for next to nothing AND traded us his Pearl set for our "vintage" Rogers set. Man, playing with good cymbals vs basically toy cymbals was an amazing upgrade in sound. That first practice after with a real working kit felt incredible.

Was that Rogers kit actually a classic?

losthighway wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:48 pm

Owen wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 11:05 am My best friend at 15 was also the drummer of our first teenaged rock band. He was even worse off in the money department than me. We literally fished a set of drums out of the garbage for him. My memory is fuzzy, but it was beat to hell Rogers kit. Kick, snare, floor tom, and a broke hihat stand. Somehow we cobbled together money to buy the most awful cymbals ears have ever heard. Thankfully my friend actually had a decent ear right out of the gate and was able to get the drums themselves to sound about as good as these drums could in their beat up state. After a couple of months the king-shit high school band Uncle Earwig decided to upgrade their drummer and their old drummer lost interest in playing and sold us his set of Zildjians As for next to nothing AND traded us his Pearl set for our "vintage" Rogers set. Man, playing with good cymbals vs basically toy cymbals was an amazing upgrade in sound. That first practice after with a real working kit felt incredible.

Was that Rogers kit actually a classic?

In retrospect I am sure it was a nice kit at one point, but back then I had zero idea, we just knew they were drums that were from the garbage. We didnt have them very long so my memory is hazy, but I know they were a red sparkle Rogers set. The floor tom had a crack in it, they were musty, and you could tell they had been sitting in a leaky garage until the owner decided to toss them.

My first guitar was a 1967 Fender Telecaster that belonged to my Dad. It's a blonde one with a white pickguard. I still have it. Played a million shows and recorded a bunch of records with it. An airline lost it when I was flying from Chicago to Boston after recording the first Ferries ep. It turned up the next day but I decided to stop bringing it out after that. The bridge pickup died a couple years ago. Kevin at EGC made a few drop in tele pickups last year and I snagged one and put in it a few months ago and it sounds better than ever.