The very first electric guitar you ever owned, how good or how crap ?

IvisonGuitars

The first electric guitar I played was my uncle’s Marlin Strat - it wasn’t a Sidewinder but some other ‘exotic’ name.

The first electric I owned was a Tanglewood Kantana which was a cheap and cheerful Strat copy. I’m sure, with hindsight it wasn’t the greatest playing or constructed guitar but, at the time, it was the absolute centre of my universe. I did my first gigs with it & the dreams that guitar inspired are worth  the cost 200 times over. It started a life long passion for music, Guitars, avoiding a ‘proper’ job and always being broke!

RedRabbit

I'd actually been playing a fair while before I got my own guitar.  The first two were borrowed from friends and family. 

I first started learning on a Kay strat copy. The electrics were shot and the action was high. Can't really remember how long I had it but one of my older brothers dug out a guitar he'd bought at uni and told me I could hold onto it as long as I wanted. It was a tele shaped Fender Bullet from the 80s (so US made - not to be confused with the more recent squiers). I think it was meant to be a student model but it was so much better than the Kay I felt like I'd been given a US standard.

I handed it back to him when I left uni as he was wanting to get back into playing and I'd bought an Ibanez RG by then. Still have fond memories of it. If I had it now it might benefit from a pickup upgrade but other than that it was a decent guitar. 

AuldReekie

An "Audition" semi acoustic - Wollworths own brand.  Was £22 in 1973.  Was replaced 6 moths later with an Antoria Jaguar copy, which came in at £95 - a helluva lot of money then, parotcularly as was still in school at the time

Jalapeno

jonnyburgo said:

Jedson Telecaster, was walking to a mates in 1989 when a bloke walked  down his drive and asked if I wanted to buy it for a tenner. I had no interest in guitar but bought it anyway. If I'm being generous I'd say I overpaid him by £5. It was a ridiculous instrument, I ended up making a video a couple of years later smashing it up and setting it on fire. In the words of Scott Walker - No Regrets.

I had exactly the same model - awful, diabolical thing. Dire !

Hit a power chord, clip the weeny switches ... silence

daveyh

Hondo II Les Paul copy, black custom copy thing, got it in 84/85. Looked cool but was beyond shit.

ICBM

jonnyburgo said:

Jedson Telecaster, was walking to a mates in 1989 when a bloke walked  down his drive and asked if I wanted to buy it for a tenner. I had no interest in guitar but bought it anyway. If I'm being generous I'd say I overpaid him by £5. It was a ridiculous instrument, I ended up making a video a couple of years later smashing it up and setting it on fire. In the words of Scott Walker - No Regrets.

While I completely agree that they aren't great guitars, it's a bit sad to see here how many of these 60s/70s Japanese cheapos have been cheerfully destroyed - with some (OK, a considerable amount of ) work they can usually be made pretty playable, and decent-sounding in a quirky sort of way. The pickups in particular are actually quite good and it's sad to think how many have ended up in landfill.

I do admit to burning half a dozen such Les Paul copies and a couple of other things once too - they take a while to catch fire, although once the rock-hard finish has blistered off there's a lot of heat in them… but to be fair, they were all broken beyond repair - even given my current experience of what they can be sold for when made good - and I had stripped all the hardware off first.

57Deluxe

guitars4you said:

My first electric was a Grant LP Copy - effectively the same as Columbus, Avon, Satellite and Eros  with a bolt on neck and a black finish - Imported and branded by a small chain of stores in Scotland - @ICBM will know him/them

At the time I thought it was okay and I suppose that whatever were its short comings, allowed me to start to learn how to set-up a guitar to maximise its playing performance - Can't recall adding any hotrods options - partly as little around then and more as I saved to get something better asap

Today the budget end of the market has never been so good - entry level players are spoilt as to the quality of guitars available today

Ditto  - mine was an Avon SG copy, so same materials/hardware. At 15 was all about the looks and association than what it actually sounded like as at that stage I thought it was the individual models of guitar that made all those sounds I loved on records not knowing about amp circuits and even the limited effects that were available - there were several marketed FX but either a Fuzz or Treble Boost or Wah. Would have been mostly strummed with Barre chords at that early stage o playing as well.

My overriding memory is that it rang out nicely when strummed and had resonance but with a Woolworths Audition germanium ss amp I never got to know if it could be made to sound like Mick Ronson. It did a nice growl with my Kay Wah into the Woolies amp but that would have been rather unsophisticated. I still have the amp and the Wah, so if anyone has an AVON that they want to hear as it would have been heard by countless teens like us in the day - bring it rounnd!

http://i65.tinypic.com/2akfnzr.jpg

scalino65

markv said:

Westone Spectrum MX, circa 1984. Pickups were rubbish and replaced within a year (Gibson humbucker and OBL twin rails). And that's how it is today. Still in the family, with my brother-in-law. Great guitar.

I had one of those too as my first electric. around 1985/6. The blue one. It has a laquer type finish all over it including the blue fretboard. I thought I was the dog's danglies carrying that about! I cursed it for years, reckoning it had been a terrible starting place but, in truth, it was really down to my lack of any musical ability and terrible ear. (and not having an electronic tuner which might have helped!) My mate had the cheaper SX (I think) which had some sort of "rosewood board" and a neck that was a very smooth wood finish - I reckoned that was much better as it looked more like a "proper guitar" and felt much nicer. He also had a gorilla amp which was really crunchy whereas the carlsboro thing I had just sounded like I was underwater. My ear only started to improve, might have been co-incidental, about 10 yrs later when it was replaced by a fender tele (my mum gave me some money for an interview suit which I decided wasnt necessary as my band would surely remove the need for a job.....rightho....)

Switch625

1996 Squier Strat in sunburst, bought for £139 I recall from my local music shop that no longer exists. I bought it with a Park G10R that was an additional £100. Cavities have been shielded and the pickups changed to a set from a Japanese Strat. Plays well but could probably do with a setup. I chose the colour cos I wanted to be like Richie Sambora

Would never part with it purely for sentimental value.

Balrog68

My first electric was a Kay Effector...hard to say whether it was any good but it was nice to play and the built it effects were a lot of fun.

Nitefly

Mine was in 1965, an ancient Framus jazz-box kind of thing with an afterthought pickup; I think it was £14.  It was a strange red-black burst, and the pickup had a 3mm mini-jack socket.

I joined my first band with it, and did my first couple of gigs, but then managed to trade it in against a Harmony H75, which (as related elsewhere) eventually my dad smashed to splinters with a lump-hammer when I got sacked from my job...

Telejester

I also owned an aria pro II ironman standard made only in 1985, it was a black sharkfin pile of junk, what was I thinking.

guitars4you

57Deluxe said:

 It did a nice growl with my Kay Wah into the Woolies amp but that would have been rather unsophisticated. I still have the amp and the Wah, so if anyone has an AVON that they want to hear as it would have been heard by countless teens like us in the day - bring it rounnd!

http://i65.tinypic.com/2akfnzr.jpg

I remember those Kay pedals as well - rubber base plate which just peeled of to get access to the battery and you'd see very little components in there - I can remember my granddad selling them for around 20 odd pounds

Nikko

Mine was an ESP LTD Viper 50

Like this one Mine had a stupid high action and actually put me off playing guitar for years. I didn't know at the time that these things could be adjusted.

markv

scalino65 said:

markv said:

Westone Spectrum MX, circa 1984. Pickups were rubbish and replaced within a year (Gibson humbucker and OBL twin rails). And that's how it is today. Still in the family, with my brother-in-law. Great guitar.

I had one of those too as my first electric. around 1985/6. The blue one. It has a laquer type finish all over it including the blue fretboard. I thought I was the dog's danglies carrying that about!

Snap, the blue one, all over, including the fretboard. It looks great under lights, I think. The finish is indestructible. It's got a few surface scratches but nothing major. And I still think it looks pretty cool!

Deadman

A sunburst Encore Strat. I sprayed it red and painted the RHCP Bloodsugarsexmagik cover art on the pickguard. When I traded it in for a Squire Strat (nice guitar that was) I expected the guy to be impressed with it and give me more because of the guard. He didn't of course.

Dave_Vader

'Oakland' Matsumoku strat that i was convinced was shit. I was wrong.

Went through loads of others (notably a love of Hondo Les Pauls with Di Marzio SD pickups in) until I realised I should have left it alone and used it as is.

I still gig it most weekends, but the only original bit left is the body.

guitars4you

Dave_Vader said:

I still gig it most weekends, but the only original bit left is the body.

sounds like Triggers brush

MagicPigDetective

Another Encore Strat (In 1992) here, in white. Did the job and got me started.

MtB

Yep, Encore Strat here too (bought in 2001). Still have it - lurking in the darkest possible corner of the house!