Early to mid nineties I was 16 or 17 and had just started playing guitar. I went to a local guitar shop and they had a bunch of Jacksons on the rack with these cartoonish topless women painted on them amongst other things. The art of airbrushing guitars must have been in its infancy back then. At that time they were about the most expensive guitars in the store and I couldn't help thinking who would pay so much for such a tacky looking guitar? Other than Metallica, I was never into metal so was not influenced by who was playing them. From that day on I associated Jackson with cheesey hair metal and did not look at them again until about four years ago.
I was looking for something Strat like and saw an SL-1 with a nice flame top. I tried it out and thought this is the nicest guitar I have ever played, why didn't I look at these before? It was a couple years after that before I actually got my first Jackson. I ordered one of the SL-2H Copperheads from Matt. Most people I show it to say "that's nice" but I can tell they are thinking "you paid $2k for that ugly thing?" I decided if I'm going to get a pointy hair-metal guitar I might as well go with a "modern" tacky finish. I don't play out so I don't care what other people think of it, but that modern tacky snakeskin finish reminds me of when I was back in highschool and saw those Jacksons for the first time. Now I'm one of the people with one of those tacky looking guitars.
I was looking for something Strat like and saw an SL-1 with a nice flame top. I tried it out and thought this is the nicest guitar I have ever played, why didn't I look at these before? It was a couple years after that before I actually got my first Jackson. I ordered one of the SL-2H Copperheads from Matt. Most people I show it to say "that's nice" but I can tell they are thinking "you paid $2k for that ugly thing?" I decided if I'm going to get a pointy hair-metal guitar I might as well go with a "modern" tacky finish. I don't play out so I don't care what other people think of it, but that modern tacky snakeskin finish reminds me of when I was back in highschool and saw those Jacksons for the first time. Now I'm one of the people with one of those tacky looking guitars.
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