Who Am I and Why am I Doing This?

Hi, my name is Robert and I am a lover of guitars, nostalgia, and mysteries. I had the idea to try to track down my old guitar earlier this past summer. I am far from the first person to do this. However, I must admit it is usually world famous guitar players with a much larger platform and who have a much more interesting connection to the guitar they are looking for.

Jack White is currently looking for a Gibson ES-120 that he sold in the early 90’s. He etched something under the truss rod that only he knows which would identify the guitar. Luckily for me I still have the serial number of the one I’m looking for, but that’s not nearly as cool as looking for a guitar with a secret message carved in it. Gibson Guitars is currently looking for the Cherry Red Gibson ES-345 that was played by Michael J Fox in Back to the Future that has been missing since 1985.

I started playing guitar probably around 2001 when entering high school. Some of my friends had picked it up and I hopped on board. I played in a few garage bands through high school and college, but mostly I’ve always been a bedroom player. I would say that I plateaued around the low end of an intermediate level. But as Paul Rudd tells Tim Robinson in Friendship “it isn’t about how well you play, it’s about how passionate you are”.

Around 2011 or 2012 I began an art project/small business called Artistic Amplification where I made small watt guitar amps out of found objects. Inspired by a video I came across of a beer can amp, I decided to try to make one myself. After I successfully did, I continued with other objects. This included rotary phones, retro lunch boxes and thermoses, board games, old videos game systems and any other old junk I could get my hands on. Nothing was off limits to turn into a weirdo amp. I even sent one of my creations to Jack White’s Third Man Records. A few years later the amp I sent popped up in a video he made promoting his band The Dead Weather’s next release Dodge and Burn. I was ecstatic when I saw the way in which my creation was used and you can see it around the 0:40 second mark!

After working on my amps for a few years other aspects of life started taking up more of my time. I let Artistic Amplification fizzle out, but I’m very happy with the work I did and what I accomplished with what started as a goofy little hobby. Maybe one day I’ll see one of my creations somewhere in the wild, but this story is about finding my guitar. So I’ll focus on that for now.

My Richie Sambora Fender Stratocaster in Lake Placid Blue is what I consider my first guitar and that is the main reason I’m trying to find it. I must admit that it is technically my second guitar, but let me explain. The first electric guitar I bought in the early 2000s when nu-metal was at the top of the charts was a B.C. Rich Platinum Warlock. Visually it was one of the most metal guitars you can get. I quickly swapped out the stock pickups for a set of EMG 81s and headed to Home Depot to get a piece of chain to fashion into a guitar strap like Zakk Wylde.

Like the chain strap that absolutely destroyed my shoulder, the Warlock, albeit awesome was not very practical for what I wanted to play. I was interested in exploring more sounds and I felt like I couldn’t really play a range on genres on the Warlock. It just wasn’t suited for blues, jazz, and alt rock. I had my sights set on a Fender Stratocaster. A classic among classics.

So, how did I end up with a Richie Sambora model? To be honest I was never really a fan of Sambora or Bon Jovi. He’s a great guitarist and I’m sure he’s probably a nice guy, but that wasn’t really the selling point for me. And let me just reiterate I mean absolutely no disrespect to Mr. Sambora I mean he did design an absolutely awesome signature guitar. I wanted something a little more unique than a standard strat and the Sambora model had the HSS pickup configuration (humbucker, single coil, single coil). The other huge selling point for 15 year old me was simply the color. Lake Placid Blue. For my money it’s the most gorgeous color Fender has ever produced.

I have been asked if I can’t find my guitar that I owned, will I just at some point buy another Richie Sambora Fender Strat in Lake Placid Blue. It’s tempting, but honestly I don’t think I will. There was a reason I sold it. It’s not necessarily my dream guitar, but this is something else. I am chasing the nostalgia of my guitar that I haven’t held in twenty years. This is my treasure hunt and I want to see where it takes me. Usually I am very much of the ilk that the past should remain in the past. I think 90% of the time that is true, but not when it comes to guitars. Never with guitars.