Guitar Horror Stories
Everybody has really good days, and everybody has really forgettable days. And then there are those things that are so ridiculous that, as they’re going down, you think to yourself “This will make a great story someday.”
Well, someday is today. We’re sharing guitar horror stories. Be thinking of a guitar related situation you’ve been in that was so bad it was hilarious. But before you share it, it’s only fair that I go first:
I’ve been playing guitar for a long time, so where do I even start? I’ve had a cable go bad during a live TV performance, to the point that for the last 30 seconds of the song, all you can hear is a loud humming noise. One time I dropped a guitar on its headstock and snapped the neck. When I got the guitar back from being repaired, I was trying to demonstrate in slow motion what had happened. I dropped the guitar again. And snapped the neck. Again.
But I’ve got an even better story.
Long ago, while the earth was still cooling in the early ’90’s, Mac (Third Day singer) and myself were rehearsing. The night before I had been to an Yngwie Malmsteen show. If you’ve ever seen Yngwie live, you know that throwing out picks is a BIG deal to Yngwie. He has several different pick throwing styles. A friend of mine recently told me that Yngwie used to practice pick throws at soundcheck. I try to explain to Mac my favorite Yngwie pick toss: he would throw it in the air, catch it in his mouth, then spew it several rows out into the audience. Gross, I know, but when you’re like 19 it’s really cool.
I’m not sure if Mac is as inpressed as I was. A visual is the only way to get my point across. So I throw the pick up in the air and catch it in my mouth. But it doesn’t just go in my mouth. It keeps going. My pick actually got lodged, as Tommy Boy would say, “right in this region here”. Somewhere in my esophogus was the pick I needed. It was funny for a while, then it really started to hurt. I tried swallowing ice chips, grapes, just about anything else we could think of. Didn’t work.
Next thing I know, I’m at the emergency room. They have me swallow this barium nitrate stuff to try to pinpoint where the pick is. The doctor stuck some probe down my neck, then said he’d be right back.
As I lay on the table in the emergency room, I thought “surely with all this stuff I’ve been swallowing, the pick would be knocked down by now.” Wait a minute. I swallowed. I swallowed again. Everything felt normal. I summoned the doctor back in. I’m sure he was relieved that he wasn’t going to have to do whatever torturous procedure he was conjuring up. Sure enough, the pick was gone.
Well, not lodged in my throat anymore at least. I guess I swallowed it. The pick has never been seen again.
OK, your turn. Do you have a funny horror story involving a guitar somehow? Fire at will…
Posted via email from marklee’s posterous
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- What was your first guitar?
- Guitar for the Absolute Beginner #2: How I hold a guitar pick
- The Mark Lee Special Edition PRS Guitar
- “Ask Phil Keaggy”
- It’s a great time to play guitar
