I was kickin’ back here on a Friday night. Another bottle of the grape gone down. Post a Rom Com, (that I like to call a Ro Co). …Films that my lady likes to watch. After the fact, I click over to the music video stations. Immediately, I hit onto MTVs Metal Mayhem, and on the TV, playin’ their music, is a band that used to rehearse and have their guitar work done at the shop I was just discussin’ in the last blog gone past.
 
The guy playin’ lead guitar, was paying a guitar made by my friend, who made mine, (in the blog post last). There it was, in full view, for the world to see.
 
That player passed away from AIDS, as did more than a few of the people I knew—way back in the way back when. SAD! If you weren’t there, you could never understand. So many people died.
 
For the more contemporary of you out there, it was in someways like COVID-19, loved-ones here then gone. Sad, sad, sad! So many lost.
 
The guy rocked his lead though very well, in the aforementioned song playin’ on the TV. It’s a good song. Though I can’t say I was ever a fan of that band. Or, of many of the Hair Metal bands of that era. But, I can say that it was a TIME. A time that if you weren’t there and livin’ it, you could never truly understand.
 
My lady, who knows, via me, the creator of that guitar, (and mine, the one discussed from the that last blog post made), asked me what happened to him? Him, the creator of that guitar. Why did he fall from grace? A question I have also asked. As once upon a time he was the man—the king of a kingdom. A place where many of the guitar-gods of the era came to have their guitars fixed, modified, and created. …A question I asked of the man himself. I mean, he was the man of an era. The place to go to get your guitar did. Like he told me, and now I tell you, times change. Factories took over the reins. The guitarist, who were actually a someone, went straight to the source. The name-brands made them their guitars to the standards and specifications they wanted. Thus, his masterful one-off creations fell out of fashion.
 
That does not change the contribution he made to an era, however. A contribution you had to be there to appreciate. He, and his staff, worked and reworked a lot of guitars for a lot of people. How many guitars did he make and/or modify for me? A lot! Wish I still had them all.
 
But there, locked in history, is at least one of them. Making music on the TV screen that is still listened to today.
 
Me, all this made me smile. Me, a lover of guitars to this day. I just purchased another one this AM.
 
But, that’s not really the music I focus on creating anymore. I would rather fall into the perfection of Zen and work within in the electronics of music. Where every note is a new expression of Suchness. A note that may never be played again. …Kind of like freeform jazz, I think. Only true to the moment. Perfection within imperfection.
 
Not like guitar. Not like Rock. Where every note must be rehearsed and then played over and over and over and over again, each time a song is actualized.
 
It was great then. But, it is so far from Zen now. …At least for me.
 
The video was over. The guy who played the notes on the guitar, made by my friend, long gone. Then, it was all gone. The player, the song, the notes, the video.
 
I flipped the station. Flipped over to a more pop influenced presentation. A great song was playing. No guitar was featured. Just a guy and girl, doing what a guy and a girl do. The age of Rock is over.
 
All this is a lesson in life. Remember, times change. Nothin’ stays the same. What may be our bread and butter today, may not feed us anything tomorrow. We, (you and ), can hold onto what once was. We can hold on as long as we can hold on, if that is what you or I hope to do. But, no matter how much we hold on, that does not stop the change. Like the lyric from the theme song from the great 1960s film, Wild in the Streets, Nothin’ Can Change the Shape of Things to Come. Remember that.