- What's the first stuff you learned on guitar?
- What year was it?
- Did you have lessons?
- Was it on your own guitar, or a borrowed one?
- What was it?
- How did you feel?
I'll start...
It was 1976 or '77. One of my friends, Frank, had just picked up guitar. My brother had a cheapo classical guitar sitting around that he'd borrowed from his girlfriend's dad. He was gonna learn how to play, but never got around to it. There were two 50's Mel Bay books inside, with the red covers (I've still got them). Somebody had crossed out the fingering for the G chord, and remarked it as being played with index, middle and ring fingers - a playing deficit I still haven't recovered from. The two things I picked out by ear were the intro to "Roundabout" and "House of the Rising Sun." It probably took months.
Man, I felt like I was the coolest thing in the world.
Frank wanted me to play bass in his band. Stuff that was relatively new, like "Can't You See," "Needle and the Spoon," and "Freebird." Got myself a Telestar Bass, a Univox 100W head and a Sunn 2x15 folded horn cabinet that weighed as much as a refrigerator.
I sucked on bass. I mean, really sucked. To be fair, we didn't have a drummer.