The first time you ever a Jackson guitar.

[cookiemonster2]

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.

[fullmetalguitar]

I can't even remember. It's as if Jacksons have always been here.
First exposure was probably Randy, Vinnie, Ratt, and Stryper.
Actually, it might have been that famous picture with all the
guys holding their Jacksons or Charvels. It was an ad in guitar mags.
You guys know the picture I'm talking about.

[T_money419]

I was looking for my first guitar in a second hand guitar store and saw a jackson preformer from the 90s and tried it because it had a 'wammy bar'. It killed everything else in the store and it was soo old. Realized that they were the same brand that made Randy Rhoads' guitar and I bought it.

[Bri]

I became aware of Jackson with the first one, Randy's. V's never agreed with me though and strat type bodies are a little dull. Explorers always felt best, but they still lacked something. Then I saw Chris Hager of Rough Cutt playing a kelly. The kelly took the looks that extra mile and the Jackson neck sealed the deal. It only took 23 years for me to get one.

[Snoogans]

Vinnie Vincent, Creatures of the Night tour in 1983 after Kiss finally let the world know that Ace was out of the band. The gold sparkle paint-job on that was awesome. Too bad he got the brilliant idea to refinish it in pink.

This one.
I remember seeing in an interview he did in Kerrang. I thought it was the coolest guitar I had ever seen, although I don't think he referred to it as a "Rhoads". I was under the impression that it was a "Sharkfin" or something like that...
The first one that I saw on TV was the blue Rhoads played by Tommy from Warrior - that looked even better than the gold one!

[goodwood]

Mid 1980s...like maybe 1983 or 1984...in a guitar magazine ad or pictures of Randy.

[Bryan]

It was mid 80s for me. Two instances come to mind.

First was the Def Leppard "Women" video when Phil Collen was playing a crackle Jackson.



And in my LMS they had a rack of custom Jacksons and there was a Nebula Soloist that just blew my mind. I had never seen a guitar that cool in person, only on TV. It was then I knew I wanted a Jackson. I even bought a red sweatshirt that I wore to pieces from high school on.

[Rsmacker]

Around 1985, I used to eagerly await the monthly edition of Kerrang, there'd almost always be a Jackson in there somewhere.

Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Ratt etc etc, all the names have been mentioned already, but the one that really made me blow my beans was Scott Ian's RR on the SOD LP cover.

Guitarist magazine also used to feed my addiction, but made it worse! There was no fucking way I, or anyone else really, could afford them, there were 2 shops in the country that had them in stock, and one "Allbang & Strummit" (I think) used to advertise them with the headline "Available to Rock Stars and Oil Sheikhs Only", accompanied by tiny tiny pics that I used to squint at lustfully. (Kind of like the ads for "real" hardcore videos in skin mags back then - you could see there was some penetration going on, but the pic was juuuuuust too small to see the detail)

It was the bold styling (yep, sounds like an advertising cliche, but actually true), the sharp angles, the sharkfin markers, the bright solid colours or the fantastic graphics, the total opposite of rounded sunburst "old man" guitars. I had to have one.

I used to look at the Aria Pros and Washburn RR series at the time and plot to get one and have the Jackson logo sprayed on the headstock. Back in those days when great computers were BBC Model Bs, there was no scanning, photoshopping, etc ripping stuff off like today. The chances of me finding someone to paint a passable logo would have been slightly above the chances of getting the real guitar, but only just!

I slogged and saved my cash, went to America in 1988 at 18 and bought the 1986 snakeskin Strat serial# 12**. I used to open the case and peep at the logo - yep, a real Jackson and MINE!!!! I still love that guitar.

And I'm still not over wanting more......

[bobafer]

Hi! I'm from Mexico, and in latinamerica there was an argentine band called Soda Stereo from the mid 80's and 90's. The lead sinnger and guitarrist Gustavo Cerati was using a blue Jackson , from around 1985, and it was a neck-thru-body guitar, one of the first ever made. This was my inspiration to buy a Jackson guitar.

[bonghits]

^ I thought it was Neal Schon.

[Zabel Zarock]

Megadeth

Around 97 ish before I started playing guitar. I was aware of the KV Dave played but never really took much notice that it was a Jackson V. I actually think it was Martys Kelly that sparked my interest. I wanted to know what that guitar was that looked like an explorer but looked cooler!

A year later I owned an Epi flying V. 6 Months after a Jackson JRR 94 Rhoads and thats where the obsession began lol.

[~K~]

Did the guy Tom Scholz or what ever his name is play a jackson?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lh4k...eature=related

No Gary Pihl played black Jackson soloists without inlays.He was originally from Sammy Hagars band. After he joined the band Brad Delp started playing the same model soloists on tour.

[~K~]

first time I became aware of the jackson brand was walking into a music store in 83/84 looking for a les paul. Ther Rhoads caught my eye and I was hooked when I played it. I bought my first Rhoads in early 84.

In 1985 I got my first charvel and got hooked on their unfinished necks. Here's me in 85.

[gregmarmon]

First time i became aware of a jackson guitar is when i was 11 years old and saw randy rhodes playing his white jackson in knoxville, tn in march of 1982. I had just started playing guitar and getting into rock and i asked my freiend who was 15 who could really play about jacksons and he told me know one could buy one that randy's was the only one-than the first time i saw one for sale was in 85 in a music emporium catalog and it was a black soloist for like 1800 bucks-Fist time i played a geniuine usa jackson was years later at rob payne's music center in knoxville when he got in a soloist that had the sunset graphic on it with the actice pickup boost on it-I loved that guitar but could never afford it so i just stuck with a charvek model 2 with a kahler pro trem i put on it.

[phill_up]

is someone trying to give the JCFonline the cooties?