 |
| Gard on front porch of 68 Yarran Road, Oatley, c. 1965, with his first electric guitar and amp., plus Oatley buddy John Baker. Guitar was a Guyatone EG-80H (a.k.a LG-60), bought at a moneylender in George Street, Haymarket. Probably cost about $50.00, but today is a collector's item worth, I'm assured, around $US600. |
 |
| Also in the window for sale at that shop was an 'Amprifier', made by the same company. |
The Guyatone was a lump of a thing with an action an inch high and a neck six inches thick, weighing two tons, but it looked vaguely like a Les Paul Gibson, so I had to have it.
My amp. was about 30 watts RMS, built by our bass player Geoff Little from a Playmaster circuit published in Electronics Australia. We built the cabinet together, and it had four x 8 inch, 10 watt RMS radiogram speakers. Our theory was that this cheapo combination equaled two x twelve inch expensive 20 watt RMS guitar speakers. It didn't - the 8" speakers blew up regularly.
I can't comment on the shades, or the half-mast jeans. It's too painful.
The red semi-acoustic Maton John is playing (it was his brother David's) is now also a collector's item. It had a nice action, but was inaudible even with an amplifier.
 |
| Gard, circa 1965, at bass player Geoff Little's house, Oatley, with another EG Guyatone (probably an 80-G) belonging to Oatley mate, Russell Storey. |
Haircut was the result of pressure by Bing and Bob Booth, both of whom ridiculed me for having long hair. (In the 1960s, teachers could talk to students that way with impunity.) I thought this haircut made me look like Mr Spock, and I added a Biro elongation to my ear to emphasize the effect. I'm using a banjo pick! After a while, I stopped using a banjo pick.
 |
| Gard circa 1966 in the back yard of 68 Yarran Road, Oatley |
The guitar is of unknown brand, and was only about 20% better than the awful Guyatone. The pickups fed-back like a cheap crystal microphone, and the tremolo bar worked with the finesse of the brake lever on a Speedwell bicycle. But it looked just like B.B. King's Lucille, so I HAD to have it.
Oddly enough, I didn't buy it at Morrie Maven's Music Store at the top of Hillcrest Avenue, where we went and drooled over his guitars every afternoon after Tech, but at another music store, in an arcade under Woolworths. Cost about $100.00, which was a lot of money back then. To me, anyway.
I'm wearing the jacket from my father's blue pin-striped suit that he hadn't put on since his wedding day. In defiance of the reign of Bing, the hair is getting longer. Let's not say anything about the pegged cord jeans, okay?
Oddly enough, I didn't buy it at Morrie Maven's Music Store at the top of Hillcrest Avenue, where we went and drooled over his guitars every afternoon after Tech, but at another music store, in an arcade under Woolworths. Cost about $100.00, which was a lot of money back then. To me, anyway.
I'm wearing the jacket from my father's blue pin-striped suit that he hadn't put on since his wedding day. In defiance of the reign of Bing, the hair is getting longer. Let's not say anything about the pegged cord jeans, okay?
 | |
| The Silver Lining, c. 1966, playing in Geoff Little's rumpus room in Oatley. Left to right: Gard; drums Doug Martyn; Singer Dave 'Fred' Freestone; bass Geoff Little. |
Geoff also built our amps, from circuits in Electronics Australia, and they worked well, except for our Fender-circuited P.A. which regularly blew every diode in its PSU halfway through any gig we played.
I'm playing the mystery guitar. Dave's a good-looking bastard, eh? Lots of girls thought so. Just what you want for a lead singer.
I'm playing the mystery guitar. Dave's a good-looking bastard, eh? Lots of girls thought so. Just what you want for a lead singer.
Geoff's Beatle Bass sounded quite good through a good amp, though it lacked that 'edge' available from a Fender Precision. (McCartney kept playing his Hofner on stage because it was part of the Beatle image, but in the studio, he used a Rickenbacker. Just thought you'd like to know.)
Only Doug Martyn went on to rock and roll fame, with 'Ol 55, playing drums and adding vocals (1980-1981). I think we were trying to do a 'black and white' thing in our stage presence, hence the clothes.
(I can't believe I was ever that thin, or that I wore white shoes. This picture also helps me understand why my younger son is such a poseur.)
I recently had an e-mail from a US guitar collector wanting more info. on the Guyatone. He assured me that those ugly lumps of sorrow were now valuable collectors' items, to which I replied:
(I can't believe I was ever that thin, or that I wore white shoes. This picture also helps me understand why my younger son is such a poseur.)
I recently had an e-mail from a US guitar collector wanting more info. on the Guyatone. He assured me that those ugly lumps of sorrow were now valuable collectors' items, to which I replied:
Yes, I know! Being a Sixties dance band muso, I find that kind of thing really funny.
I repeat, those and the vast number of similar guitars available back then, are crap. We spent half our gig tuning the suckers. The action was an inch high. They weighed 3/4 of a ton. After years of slamming on those rock-sleds, when you finally got a real guitar in your hands, it felt like a yard of angel in your lap. You discovered things like finesse of execution. Subtlety. You discovered that all those slinky little riffs you tried to cop from Clapton or Beck or B.B. King were now possible for you, because those guys were playing them on real guitars, high-quality instruments made with a precision finish. There is also the question of talent, but still...
That anyone would want to assemble a collection of crappy musical instruments is amazing. People have so much cash for indulgences, these days. I realise that it's part of the postmodernist retro schtick. Who'd want to be seen on stage today with a brand-new Gibson ES-335? Anybody could get one of those! No, much better to have a beat-up old 1955 semi-acoustic Hofner with 65 knobs, 36 switches, nine pickups, a body two feet thick, and a finger-board six inches wide. People will say Wow, cool old guitar, dude, where did you get it? Never seen one like that. Okay, it sounds lousy, and plays like a warped zither, but looks totally retro and kitsch and ossum. And in a climate of grunge and thrash music, sounding lousy is essential.
(I have a theory that the blues originals, the Negro masters, played on the open strings, and played simple riffs, not because they were 'untutored musicians', but because their instruments were so lousy. They did not dare move further up the fingerboard than fret five, for fear of the guitar going out of tune. I submit also that they 'bent' notes in a bid to push them into their correct pitch. This exactly parallels the invention of tremolo by eighteenth century string players to cope with the problem of equal temperament tuning.)
Have you checked out Andy Babyuk's Beatle Instruments (Backbeat Books, 2002) and seen the really terrible guitars they started out with in Liverpool? But they wrestled with them and managed to play them well. They had no choice! There wasn't anything else around in the UK. Same for us here in Oz. Interesting that even when they were millionaires and Princes of Rock, The Fabs stuck with (almost) the same instruments. Lennon finally abandoned that tinny little Rickenbacker, a horrible bloody thing, and got him an Epiphone, George got over his Gretsch thing. The Gretsch is great for C&W and Buddy Holly twangs, but not a good rock guitar; there's too much Brylcream in its voice. Harrison's over-driven Les Paul sounds great on Revolution, hotter than a purple Marshall valve...
I really liked Paul McCartney's reply when someone asked him what strings he uses on his bass: 'Long shiny ones! I don't know...'
In other words, Sir Paul and the other Fabs were into making music, not collecting and polishing hot-rods."
 |
| Syn, 1968, doing 'pop music zany photos' in Renown Park, Penshurst, below Alan Crew's house. Photo by Alan's brother. Identity of Resch's DA longneck-thrower unknown. |
Left to right: Robbie Taylor, playing a mystery bass, Alan 'Normie' Crew with snare drum, Gard with his 'yard of angel', a red Fender Mustang, which he was a fool ever to have sold. Gard bought it from STHS lad Eric Kennedy, class of 1966 (I think), who was in a band with Robert Hicks and Mal Goudie.
This model is now a seriously valuable collector's item, I'm told. The guitar, that is. Not Gard. I sold it to Robbie T. Where are you Robbie T.?
(Who gives a rat's rectum what it's worth to 'a collector'. Damn the trainspotters, it played well. I laughed aloud in 'Wayne's World' when I heard his guitarist girlfriend declare that, if she owned the 'pre-CBS takeover' Strat. on sale in a music store, she'd 'file down the nut to take the buzz out of the E string'. That is pure 60s Fender talk. I doubt any chick in the 60s would have known such a morsel of guitar-lore subtlety... or even many today... but hey, just chill out and enjoy the movie, k?)
This model is now a seriously valuable collector's item, I'm told. The guitar, that is. Not Gard. I sold it to Robbie T. Where are you Robbie T.?
(Who gives a rat's rectum what it's worth to 'a collector'. Damn the trainspotters, it played well. I laughed aloud in 'Wayne's World' when I heard his guitarist girlfriend declare that, if she owned the 'pre-CBS takeover' Strat. on sale in a music store, she'd 'file down the nut to take the buzz out of the E string'. That is pure 60s Fender talk. I doubt any chick in the 60s would have known such a morsel of guitar-lore subtlety... or even many today... but hey, just chill out and enjoy the movie, k?)
Syn, 1968. Alan Crew's front drive. Robbie T. combed his hair for forty minutes before this was snapped.
We rehearsed in his garage, and his Mum used to bring us afternoon tea, often including iced cup-cakes and vanilla slices. Maybe this was to make us fill our faces, and stop our God-awful noise.
 |
| Syn, 1968, playing at the Wayside Theatre, Kings Cross. Gard is singing into the world's cheapest mic, but then, he had the world's cheapest voice. |
There were a lot of other bands that followed of which I was a member, but no photos...
Around 1970, I stopped playing the guitar and began acting and writing for the theatre... but that's another story.
Around 1970, I stopped playing the guitar and began acting and writing for the theatre... but that's another story.
 | |
| Isn't it pathetic at his age? Gard in 2005, with new toy: genuine cheap Epiphone Dot 335, made in genuine mainland China, backed by 1966 Gard with cheap Japanese mystery guitar. |
