Sonicus's history about the bass player with the big belt buckle and rings made me remember when I started studying guitar, waaaay back then in the very early 80s, the was a time when the same teacher had to put together both the Classical (where I was then) and Electric (Where I wanted to be!) Guitar classes at the same time, in the same classroom. We early teen kids on Classical training admired the slightly older guys with their electrics, and asked them for tips and licks we could try (mostly unsuccessfully) on our nylon strings. But there was a lot of a comrade thing to it, as some of them weren't able to do some of the lessons we had to. I specially remember one guy they called The crazy little one, which had a cream colored, maple neck 70s 3-screws neck joint strat with a few cigarette burns in the headstock. It was the first strat I ever played, and I still remember how amazed I was at how it felt, and how easier to play it seemed compared to my Nylon-strung Giannini. Anyway, the guy was a charm to talk with, and was eager to let me play on his strat every now and then, unless one of his friends, who had a black Gibson Les Paul (A Custom, if I recall correctly), all shiny and all. This guy would play this guitar with extreme caution, had towels everywhere not to scratch it, only once I saw some other guy playing it with this guy literally over the other, telling him to avoid making any skin contact with the guitar body, because it can develop stains. It was the pre-MTV era back then, but I had seen more than enough of players who were not that neurotic about this, and immediately thought there must be something wrong with this guy. 30-something years after I think... Why, then, would he even bother to bring this guitar to a class full of teenagers? Why even taking it out of the house, if he would spend so much time and energy by NOT having it touched? How would he do when actually having to play it? I've never heard of this guy ever again... and some of the other guys even became somewhat famous around here. Still to this day, I have not seen anybody as obsessed with not touching the guitar's finish as that guy. Not that I would play my Alembic wearing a big, bulky belt buckle (sounds like a tongue twister!) myself, while swinging the instrument all over as I play... But there are extremes, in every situation, for almost anything, I guess...
