I bought my first guitar from Fred and Toody's guitar store Captain Whizeagle's in Portland on my 17th birthday way back when. I don't know if my memory of the place is at all accurate but I remember it feeling like a place of infinite possibility. My guitar was the cheapest thing in the store (of course), and I think even the people who sold it to me realized it was terrible. But even that price still represented what, upwards of a week of after-school dishwashing work at four-something an hour? Anyway, we threw it in the back of the family's minivan and headed back to Tualatin.
What a piece of garbage. It wouldn't play in tune without a capo. The tuner for the low E string fell apart almost instantly, and the other tuners barely worked. Electrical issues aplenty - it buzzed, the switches didn't work, it cut out randomly. Terrible action, wobbly neck. Ugh.
But it felt good when it was all I had. I plugged it into our old tape deck and turned the input level all the way up and it was glorious. Or into a four-track later. Here's a song from a little later (from Yak Ampersand's Steadfast, Unalterable, Unyielding) that features the five-string magic in action.
I have owned many guitars since then and can confidently say that this was almost the worst one I've ever owned.
RIP Fred C and much love to this old thing, wherever it ended up. Eventual owner, I hope you kept the Catsup Plate stickers and the furniture decal I put on the headstock.
