Comments on: Guitar Horror Stories

By: Big Ron

Big Ron — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:40:31 +0000

Years ago I was dating my first ex wife. I took her to her High School Senior Prom. I was already in College. All her friends knew I played guitar but I didn't take my guitar, as I really have strong feelings about NOT trying to sit in with the band. However, a little garage band was struggling through some songs, and before you know it there was a grass roots movement for me to play with the band. First one person and then another wanted me to play with the band.
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After declining over and over I finally explained to the class Sponsor (who oddly enough was a friend of my family) that it wasn't polite or professional to ask a band to let you sit in. So this sponsor goes to the band leader and tells him I want to sit it.

Then we have this conversation about I didn't have my guitar.

At the end of all this their guitar player offers for me to play his guitar, and the crowd cheers and I go up on the little stage platform and this guy hands me his guitar.

Suddenly I realized why the band sounded so BAD, he had a very inexpensive copy of a copy guitar, with NO"G" String at all. The high "E" string did not have the benifit of a tuner, there was a bolt in there that he turned with a wrench "when he wanted to tune it".

What to do - Ah Ha! Brilliant idea - I tuned the E and A strings up which were out of tune to, and played every Duane Eddy song I could think of twanging away on those two strings.

OK, what did we learn from this - 1: Never sit in 2: Always bring your own equipment 3: Look that loaner guitar over before you depend on it - not necessarily in that order.

Big Ron

By: Abby

Abby — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:36:24 +0000

Okay, confession time. As soon as I read this, I thought to myself, "I wonder how hard it is to catch a pick in your mouth and spit it out. Hmm." So, naturally, I tried it. (This is the part where everyone groans forbiddingly) And it IS hard. So I try again. After about 6 times, I could catch it in my mouth. So I practiced spitting it. And I could only spit it approximately 3 feet. So I spit as hard as I possibly can! The pick flies up and away… straight into the paws of my unsuspecting terrier. What happens next can only be guessed, as she ran away. The pick was never seen again. So both Mark Lee and my dog have a pick as a (possibly) permanent part of their anatomy.

By: emissarygtrist

emissarygtrist — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:09:43 +0000

two words… strap locks

By: Josh Millwood

Josh Millwood — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:03:01 +0000

Hey Mark, I really like this website and hope to see more from you. I guess the worst thing I ever did, aside from popping strings while playing with the choir and I was the only musician, I was a member of a praise band for a while and we were playing at about a 500 member church. I had an electric guitar and an acoustic, but only one hook up so the lead singer was going to talk to the crowd and give me some time while I swapped guitars. Well before the service I had unhooked my electric, which I needed for the first song, and hooked up the acoustic to tune it up. so after all that, then we went in the back to have prayer before the service, We came out on the stage gave a big introduction started in the first chords of the songs, and I was supposed to start off a lead break in the intro, I placed my fingers waited for the note and hit my strings…..nothing. Everybody was so loud and my guitar wasn't making a sound. So I spent half the song in front of 2 or 3 hundred people crawling around on the stage trying to hook my electric up. In the end, I hooked it up just in time to hit the main lead break in the song. So all was well in the end.

By: Chelsie Gratzer

Chelsie Gratzer — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:39:03 +0000

I, too, have no guitar horror stories! But I just wanted to say that I love, love, LOVE the story about getting the pick stuck in your throat! That's probably the best ER stroy I have EVER heard!

By: John Skorski

John Skorski — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:48:24 +0000

I have a love/hate relationship with these stories. I had an old Washburn Acoustic electric (w/ the "W" burned in) and was headed out the door late for a day of teaching lessons. I go to put in the guitar in the right sliding door of my toyota van and it's locked. No keys. Dang it! I run back in to get my keys and stuff and on the way out my wife is reciting a verbal list of things for me to remember as i get into the van and I put it in reverse to exit the drive and I hear this scraaapppe!
OMG… I had set my case down next to the van on the right side. duh! Ran over it! Michelle heard it and came running out. We both slowly opened up the mutilated SKB case … like it was a coffin! The green birdseye maple sixstring beauty was okay… just a tuner tweak! Thank You Jesus! The case was a true friend -RIP. (BTW- that was about 17 years ago and I've done that same thing again two more times. Now without fail I must know where my guitars are as I slowly creep out of any parked situation.)

By: Cathartic Sarah

Cathartic Sarah — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:27:44 +0000

I can totally identify with this since I play a Take and am a big fan of that Shaun Groves song. Great story.

By: wayne

wayne — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:40:37 +0000

well i was playing in the paise band at church during a revival and the evagalist that was preaching was greating everybody i stood up from my chair to greet him . well while sitting down my strap on the tail end of my guitar had got turned up side down so when i stood up to greet him my guitar hit the ground with a loud thud . i just stepped right over it greated him then spent the next 10 minutes trying to get back in tune with the rest of the band .alas it didnot snapp the neck but she was never the same .

By: Lori

Lori — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:38:33 +0000

Back before the world cooled and formed land (i.e., back in the early 70's), I was playing guitar at summer camp (I was one of the campers at the time), and after playing at the "campfire" service, set my guitar down on the ground at the edge of the cleared area, where it wouldn't likely get stepped on when we split up for the night. About 15 minutes later, "something" started playing my guitar, rather softly, but it had absolutely NO talent for it at all. After the group dismissed, I picked up the guitar and headed back for my cabin. I set the guitar on my bunk and headed for the shower. Just as I was stepping out the door, there was this ear-splitting shriek from more than one of my bunkmates. As I looked in, there was the UGLIEST snake on the planet, slithering out of the hole, brushing ever so softly across the strings. One of my other bunkies grabbed the guitar, el kabong style, and proceeded to smack at the snake with the guitar. Rest assured, she never hit the snake, but that was the end of my very first Spanish guitar!

By: frets

frets — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:11:52 +0000

Great stories, thanks for a great topic! I've got many I could share, but here are 3 quick lessons I've learned:

1. Turn off the Idle Guitar: College gig, I put my guitar down to play keys on the next tune. About halfway thru the song, huge feedback (faint at first) kept growing louder and louder. Funny thing was, it was in the same key as the song we were playing (Good Lovin'). Finally our sax player figured out it was my guitar, which I'd forgotten to turn down. I earned a new nickname that night: Feedback.

2. Always Thread the Cord Thru the Strap: Last year, I had to switch between acoustic & electric quickly for a song at church. So I didn't thread the cord thru the guitar strap. About midway thru the song, the guitar plays the theme all alone, and as we hit that spot, I jumped…landed on the cord which ripped right out of my guitar…total silence.

3. Easy on the Windmills: In a college battle of the bands, I ended our final song with a flurry of windmills, only to come off stage & find my hand had swollen to twice its normal size.