Your first guitar to your USA Jackson...

[Soloist-USA]

Everytime IE 9 beta tries to go to the "home" url it locks -up, so please forgive me if this might be off-topic.

What inspired you to play guitar and can you tell about your experience in buying a USA and playing it for the first time. Was it all you were wishing for?

Stories are wonderful little tidbits in life that make us all lean forward.

[Bri]

Like many people, hearing the Space Ace made me want to play guitar. I played 6 hours a day most of my teen years. Couldn't afford a USA Jackson back then. While I was in college I didn't have time to play much and then I broke my thumb. It hurt to play for more than a few minutes for the next 16 years, so investing in a new guitar seemed silly. Then one day I picked up my Japanese Bich and played without pain. I love that Bich, but I always wanted a USA Kelly so I started hanging out here. As everyone knows, hanging out on the JCF only increases GAS. I went down to the Hollywood GC and played a KE2 just to make sure it was everything I remembered. After trying to deal with the Hollywood GC and then West L.A. Music I contacted Matt and a little over 7 months later I was a proud owner of a Jackson USA Kelly. Yes it was all I was wishing for. The best playing guitar I had ever laid fingers on.

[Soloist-USA]

See. That's cool. Short stories of music.

I started in '81 after hanging with a friend. He had a Hondo II LP copy and (it seemed like) a 9' tall Standell. There were a lot of different colored lamps and he used to jump-off a chair onto a real Big Muff. sSo I bought a Hondo II (Japanese) and a Peavey B-15N. '65. I traded it for a microphone. Ya know.... That's the story for everything - "I traded it for a microphone."

Anyways, I got a job when I was 15 and bought and worked on cars and guitars. My first pro guitar was a '79 LP BB. I was 15 and saved $400 for that thing. I was a bussboy and saved every penny for that axe.

Much. much later after the Gibs BB burned-up with 7 others, I was awarded with a '59 Dano. Retro cool. I kicked some demons after embarassing session work and bought my first USA Jackson. I wanted one so bad. My Charvel 475 Deluxe was embers. My insurance only paid a fraction of my loss after the fire, but I've learned a lot since then. Dreams do come true. I got my USA.

I beat some demons, found my love and make a modest living playing and marketing. What more do you need?

[wilkinsi]

To cut a ong story short; I was inspired in 1997 to start playing guitar, but I was into BC Rich guitars and Black Metal back then. It wasn't til about 3-4 years ago, I started a thread here about choosing a WR1. Chris (Phantom Hawk) then sold me a WR1 in Nebula.

[Soloist-USA]

To cut a ong story short; I was inspired in 1997 to start playing guitar, but I was into BC Rich guitars and Black Metal back then. It wasn't til about 3-4 years ago, I started a thread here about choosing a WR1. Chris (Phantom Hawk) then sold me a WR1 in Nebula.

Well duh.. As I said, the Warriors are sick. And so are you

[Soloist-USA]

For a good follow-up, How many times have the cops or the landlord police come over for drinks at 4 AM?

[eakinj]

My mom tried to get me to learn piano when i was 5 or 6, but instead of buying a piano they bought a big old organ, church organ kind of thing. sounded like complete shit so i have no interest in learning. My parents listen to rot gut country, honky tonk country, just country. so i never head anything there that inspired me to do anything musical except maybe stomp on a cats tail that's about what it sounded like to me. Then when I was about 11 I heard "Wasted" on the radio by this group the DJ kept talking about being super young. (Def Leppard) a couple years later rolls around and there's this band again with this blond haired guitarist on this bad ass gibson and this dwarf looking guy on a white explorer kind of guitar. I think it was the video for Bringing on the heartbreak.

i think i may have wet myself. i started talking about wanting to learn guitar. 84 rolled around and I got my first one, was taught in my like four lessons i ever had how to play Mirror Mirror.

A few years later I was exposed to Metallica which started my interested in heavier music, then Tribute came out and there was no turning back. When I first heard the Crazy Train solo on the live video I was hooked. Had no idea at this time that Randy had anything to do with Jackson guitars.

I saw a guitarist playing a Jackson Kelly at the Omni at some metal show and I asked about it, he told me i'd have to go to a dealer and order one and it was about a couple grand i think he said. he was out of his head at the time so.. but i figured it was a good start.

I went to Dublin California to a place that i think is now called Music unlimited. I went there with 3 grand in my pocket (I was 19 i think at the time or just about to turn 19. I told them I wanted a guitar by this Jackson company, and I wanted the explorer style they had called the Kelly, and I told them I wanted it arched topped like a Gibson.

I basically got told by the jackson rep to fuck off.

So I talked to the guy who was helping me with this and ordered a custom shop les paul instead. For a couple years I talked nothing but shit about Jackson, how their reps sucked, they made this shitty import charvel guitars that sounded like crap, blah blah blah (I had and still have a couple charvel model guitars and love them but it was an anti jackson thing)

I opened up a guitar player or something mag and they have a picture of the 1992 Rhoads Tribute LTD's. I fell completely back in love and bought mine at Guitar Showcase in california.

After I touched it for the first time, everything other then my les paul was pretty much banished from my sight.

I later found out that the "Rep" was actually the guitar places owners wife and she just couldn't be bothered. If Jackson would have done the arch I will never know.

But I have my 92 and it's the best feeling guitar in the world. I sold the les paul but this guitar has never been far from my reach.

[Twitch]

I had always wanted to play guitar for as long as I can remember. Three years old and watching Back to The Future, something has always seemed to beckon to me about playing guitar. I got my fist guitar in 2nd grade, a cheapy 3/4 acoustic. It wasnt an electric though, so I was a little less than inspired. From 2nd grade through 6th grade I really never progressed. In 7th grade, I finally got my first electric for my 14th birthday and was playing the main riff to Smoke on the Water from memory by the end of the day. It awakened a beast and never ending GAS. I didnt get into Jacksons until about 7 years ago after owning numerous other brands and not being satisfied. I tried a Jackson one day and loved the way it played and the way it looked. I got my first and only USA Jackson a little over a year ago and no longer have it due to this incurable GAS, I regret it almost everyday, it was such a fiiiiine instrument.

On a note about how I learned, Ive never had a lesson beyond asking someone to show me how to play this that or the other if I couldnt figure it out by myself. Ultimately, 99% of what I know, I taught myself. I could be better, but Im lazy and really didnt take it too seriously until I was 18 or so.

[markD]

it was 2 videos, in 1985 - the scorpions' "world wide live" and iron maiden's "live after death" that made me pursue guitar with more passion. i had already been playing for a couple years, but mostly i just had a guitar and really didn't PLAY. i knew some chords and played around with noodling "solos". i started playing more seriously and traded my first guitar, which was an aria 335 copy, toward a yamaha rgx211 at the local music store. i then got a peavey VTM60 half stack and started a band.

around that time i discovered metallica. this would have been when "master of puppets" first came out - 1986 i guess. my band was a thrash/proto-death metal band. our claim to fame (we were still in HS) was that i was the "fastest guitarist" and our drummer could do double bass like "rolling thunder". hahaha, yes, i WAS fast, but not accurate. it was all out-of-key wanking like slayer. our drummer was good. we got to hang with a lot of the local tampa area bands. it was a great scene....morbid angel, iced earth, savatage, obituary, atheist, nasty savage....those guys were all very cool to us and we often got to "play" at band BBQs. nothing cooler than being able to be the "warm up" act (as 9th-10th grader) for some of the cool area bands AND enjoy mama oliva's ribs and chicken!!!!

i soon graduated from the yamaha to an ESP guitar because a lot of those guys were playing ESP. i had a candy apple red mirage. it was pretty cool. but i started drifting from that scene because i wanted to more of a "guitar hero." a lot of those guys were just dirt bags that partied a lot. my band had broken up and i had discovered steve vai, paul gilbert, blues saraceno, marty friedman, jason becker....all the shred stuff.

i had already been introduced to yngwie malmsteen and i was a dixie dregs fan, but hearing that level of playing done within the realms of "metal" excited me greatly. so, i traded my ESP for an ibanez. i played ibanez for about 10 years, alternating between RG550s, 560s and S540 guitars.

in 2000 i picked up another ESP, a candy apple red M-II. i enjoyed that guitar greatly until, in 2002, i went to a local music store and saw a solar jackson PC-1. i played it and it was near perfection. i LOVED the huge neck....it felt exquisite. the only thing i hated was the way it sounded. the dimarzio super 2 sucked balls. that was an easy fix. i happened to have the ESP with me that day because i was actually out trying amps. well, the guy at the music store LOVED my ESP so much that we made a straight trade - my used ESP for the stores brand new PC-1!!!!! i guess you can work deals like that with a store owner....

i had formed my second band in 1991. it was more of a straight ahead rock band. we survived until 2005. for the last 3 years of that band i played jackson exclusively. i had the PC-1, an SL-2H, an SL-1, an SD strat, a PS-7, a pair of FB-2s, an SLSMG, a DK-1, a second PC-1, a couple of charvels - a surfcaster, an SD reissue, a model 1, a CS dinky....it was j/c madness!!!!

as my new, and current, band formed and began writing material i realized that having all j/c guitars was somewhat limiting so i sold many of them off and i am down to just the solar PC-1 and my holoflake SL-1 for jacksons. i miss having the herd of jackson/charvel guitars, but i enjoy having a variety of brands now that allow me totally different vibes as opposed to just variations on a theme....

[wilkinsi]

Well duh.. As I said, the Warriors are sick. And so are you

I AM sick. Incredibly underweight from buying guitars instead of food

[Rsmacker]

To cut a schlong story short; I was inspired in 1997 to start playing guitar, but I was into BC Rich guitars and Black Metal back then. I was pasty and a virgin, and needed a big masterful superman to bugger me stupid and teach me the meaning of BUMSEX. That would come later, when my darling Rsmacker agreed to be my Master. It wasn't til about 3-4 years ago, I started a thread here about choosing a WR1. Chris (Phantom Hawk) then sold me a WR1 in Nebula. Through my love of Warriors came the fateful day I bowed before my AssMaster, begging him to spear my donut with his mighty beef bayonet and make me obey His rules. Our favourite game is for him to rub his whiffy balls on one of my Warriors and for me to guess by sniffing alone which one he has "gigbagged" (like being teabagged, but more fun). God, I love him.

Thanks Simon, I'm touched.

[Soap]

Bands like Black Oak Arkansas, early Black Sabbath stuff, Aerosmith (Get your wings), Deep Purple (Machine Head), Who, stones, early Kiss stuff and etc.
Then Van Halen came out and that was it for me.
The parties and chics was a deciding factor too.

[RacerX]

Black Oak Arkansas,

Ha ha, you're old!

[wilkinsi]

I'm a stupid gay troll who quoted and edited your post, then thanked you.

I can quote and edit your posts too, dickhead

[tonemonster]

I started playing a $60 acoustic from sears catalog in 1986. I still have it today. then I got a total piece of shit Harmony Strat copy. total junk. I fought that guitar. if you looked at it wrong, it went out of tune. I hated it. then I built a body in woodshop in highschool, bought a wrecked guitar, and bolted the parts on. I still have it too. it got me by way better than the plywood strat. then I got a ibenhad, then a few shitty washburns. then I got my toothpaste Charvel 475, flame amber. I still have it. traded a motorcycle for it. best deal of my life. Great guitar and ignited my fire for JC guitars. I found my first USA Jackson used, it is a Fusion model with the bikini beach graphic. I sold off some of my shit, junk washburns to finance it. I still have that guitar 17 years later. after that, it was an obsession. I have collected them since. I have only sold one of them, that was the pink crackle to Axewielder here. They are great axes.