rhcole just posted a story under archtops in which he recalls breaking a guitar neck while imitating the Who when he was a kid, and it reminded me of something similar that happened in a High School band I was in as a teenager in the late '60s. I don't know how funny it is now, but it sure was at the time.
We were playing Ventures-type stuff, and the (other) guitar player in the band didn't have a whammy bar but he was able to get a similar effect by pushing lightly toward his body on the upper bout of the guitar while pushing lightly outward on the headstock.
It worked pretty well until one time in the middle of a school dance he pushed a little too hard, and the most horrible sound you've ever heard came out of his guitar amplifier. The rest of the band stopped and he found himself standing on stage in the spotlight, in front of a room full of staring, frozen-in-place dancers with 2 pieces of guitar in his hands connected only by strings. After what must have seemed like an eternity of stunned silence, the room erupted in laughter.
It was one of those moments you never forget. And I'm confident that, 40 years later, he remembers it even better than I do.
We were playing Ventures-type stuff, and the (other) guitar player in the band didn't have a whammy bar but he was able to get a similar effect by pushing lightly toward his body on the upper bout of the guitar while pushing lightly outward on the headstock.
It worked pretty well until one time in the middle of a school dance he pushed a little too hard, and the most horrible sound you've ever heard came out of his guitar amplifier. The rest of the band stopped and he found himself standing on stage in the spotlight, in front of a room full of staring, frozen-in-place dancers with 2 pieces of guitar in his hands connected only by strings. After what must have seemed like an eternity of stunned silence, the room erupted in laughter.
It was one of those moments you never forget. And I'm confident that, 40 years later, he remembers it even better than I do.
