Thursday, November 20, 2003

For what it's worth, I visited Galaxy Music yesterday. Galaxy Music is my favorite hangout-and-play-really-cool-guitars store. I told my good friend Dale about the 1982 Alverez Yari I had seen there for $550, an exceptional price. Dale once owned an old Yari, but traded it to Jim McMahon for a Chevy van. Now Dale can afford to buy back the Yari, but Jim (even though he is a great SOB to sit around and drink whiskey with) won't sell it back! So I find this old '82 Yari in great condition and Dale says it sounds to him like the exact model that he can't buy back from Jim. So, Dale tells me to go in and try to haggle the price down to under $500. I go in and talk them down a measley $50 and then they say "of course that'll be plus tax." I am not a very good horse trader. Plus this is the Holiday Season and they will sell everything they have in stock regardless if I buy it or no. But they do show me the hardshell case which is the original aircraft plastic/aluminium case with the Alverez logo carved right into the top. This makes the Yari even more desirable to a collector. So I e-mail Dale and he's making up his mind.

But that's not the important thing. While I was there I noticed a new dreadnaught in the used instrument area with an unusual shape, with rosewood split back. I picked it up and it was an Everett guitar! I learned about Everetts from my favorite singer/songwriter that noone has ever heard of, Don Conoscenti.

I played one of my standard blues numbers (Laughing Dog Blues) that I always fingerpick when I try out new guitars. The sound was amazing! A tone so pure that I can still hear/feel the resonance deep down in my soul a day later. This was a joyful noise guitar! They want only $895 for the Everett.

Of course I don't have anywhere near that and besides I have a bunch of stuff in hock that I need to get out before I get a new guitar. But just to play this instrument was a singular pleasure.

November 24 is the anniversary of Scott Joplin's birth. If you've ever heard The Entertainer or Maple Leaf Rag played on an acoustic steel string, you'll understand the reverence.