My LA pilgrimage

[Snoogans]

I was clearing out, and found some cool mementoes -
Back in February '89 I had the opportunity to stay with relatives who were living in LA - N.Hollywood to be exact. Obviously, I jumped at the chance to make a pilgrimage to the "Centre Of The Rock guitar Universe".
For a young guitar-nut from rural England, it was a mind altering experience, even wilder than I had anticipated, and of course, the "Holy Of Holies" was the Guitar Center on Sunset Blvd.






I often wonder. Did I bump into any "To-be future JCFers" in there?

While I was there, I bought a copy of the Recycler classified ads paper, and found this Carvin, which I still own and love.
(That's Steve Lynch's phone number! )


Everywhere I looked, there were the gloriously trashy free newspapers printed by the local rock clubs, which were full of biogs of local bands and details of upcoming shows. Warrant, Hurricane, Faster Pussycat and Pretty Boy Floyd were the biggest at the time, but I found one listing that would prove to be an ominous sign of things to come...

[Super_shredder]

awesome

and 350 dollars !!!

[lerxstcat]

Wow, time capsule! And I bet Nirvana looked like Poison in those days too!

[Spivonious]

Nice to see what L.A. looked like when I was 9

You should have gone to the Nirvana show and stopped them before they got popular.

[shreddermon]

Look at all of those Jacksons. Cool walk back in time.

And I'm pretty suprised at all of the PRS's hanging on the wall, too. I thought they didn't really hit their uber-popularity until later in the 90s, but I guess it started sooner than that.

[Bengal]

That inside shot of GC kicks ass. I think I've spent the last 10 minutes just looking at all the models and colors! Thanks for posting this blast from the past...

[daisp]

Cool stuff! thanks for sharing..

[tortfeaser]

Cool story and nice presentation.

[bonghits]

Sweet! Thanks for sharing man. I really dig the pic with the Jems and what looks like a Seafoam Green SL1. I've been to this particular GC many times when I was a teen and walked out utterly bummed because I couldn't afford the guitar(s) that I really wanted which was basically the Jems and the USA Jacksons.

[Special-K]

Adolescents how cool is that !?!?

[Bri]

Cool stuff. I felt the same way in '85 when I came out here from Minnesota on a family vacation. GC was across the street then. I was eating with the family at the RnR Denny's (now gone) done the street. It was our last day in L.A. before we went up to S.F. I wolfed my food down and said come get me at the Guitar Center when your done. I walked into GC and asked to play a Kelly! I just went back there in Oct for the first time since then to try and order a Kelly. That didn't work out, but at least they had a KE2 to play. Times really changed in four years. In '85, Rough Cutt was playing the Roxy. I saw Union at the Teaser on New Years Eve years ago. It's like having a big band play at your house. The stage is only about 6" high.

Why 22 years? I had to focus my time and money on other stuff. I knew the GAS would be too strong.

[sonicsamurai]

let's do the time warp agaaaaaain

nice photos dude - very retro!! thanx for sharing...if only all guitarshops came with a wall of charvies!!