I think I started playing guitar when I was in 9th grade. Yup, pretty sure it was 9th, it was right around the time I was losing interest in the saxophone. I was a pretty dorky kid…extremely skinny, braces and a bit of a nerd and playing an instrument and wearing a school jacket didn’t help. Kids are tough and when I did some of the things I enjoyed I often got made fun of as a result. Junior High was the height of my time as a “dweeb”.
Anyway, as I mentioned in another post I started playing on a Madeira Guild Acoustic from the 70’s that was previously my dad’s. It gave me the musical outlet I needed, but was a lot more fun than the sax (and not quite as dorky). Obviously, like most young guitar players I wanted an electric guitar. I remember getting a music catalog in the mail (might have been Musician’s Friend?) and like most kids in the 80’s I would obsess over it, going through it page by page by page, mostly looking at electric guitars. It was the Sears Catalog of my teenage years.
The EX series of guitars had just come out the year before and I was focused on one in particular. The Ibanez EX360 in marine blue. It was somehow mystical to me and I loved everything about it, the color, the triangle inlays in the neck and I thought somehow it would take me to the next level, maybe even make me cooooooool. But, I was just a kid in junior high and thought there was no way I was ever going to get that guitar.
I don’t remember, but I must have mentioned the guitar to my parents. Who knows…maybe I blatantly left the magazine out with it circled, said it out loud, or talked about it all the time, but somehow my parents knew that was the guitar of my dreams. Maybe it was like the red rider BB gun from A Christmas Story and I was annoying the heck out of people talking about it non-stop?!?!?
That Christmas, I opened my gifts and there was no guitar. I was a bit disappointed, but I really didn’t think it was a reality. That guitar was pretty expensive, especially for the time and I had two older siblings, one in college and the other soon-to-be.
My dad walked over and said, “here you forgot to go through your stocking”. It was the usual stocking stuffers, underwear socks, probably the Life Savers holiday book we would get every year, but at the bottom there was a riddle. It was a clue to a scavenger hunt. I had no clue what the hunt was for, but man was it exciting! I think the first clue led to another clue taped to the inside of a cabinet in the kitchen, then upstairs, then the basement and so on. I was nervous with excitement, my mind going a million miles a second just wondering what was at the end.
The hunt ended with a wrapped square box, that definitely was NOT a guitar (I think it was in the dining room, hidden in a corner). I opened it up and inside there was a Peavy Rage amp, which I still have and use from time-to-time. My dad said “I am not sure how it works, but you can use it with your acoustic guitar”. I remember thinking to myself, “I am pretty sure you need a pickup or something”. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful so I opened it up to see if there was something I was missing. I was right and a little disheartened, but was still super excited to have an amp, I mean you have to have an amp to play an electric guitar right?
I believe after a few minutes of going through the instructions and fiddling with The amp I turned around and verbalized my findings and my dad was standing there with a gig bag. He said “I think you might need this for the amp to work”, or something along those lines. I opened it up and there she was in all her glory, the marine blue Ibanez EX360 I had been obsessing over. That was easily one of my favorite moments of my youth. Spoiled? Absolutely! Thankful then? Probably not enough, but hopefully enough to make my parents happy at the time. Thankful now? Yes. In fact I just texted my parents now thanking them almost 31 years later.
My parents were always good about making sure I stayed out of trouble. It didn’t always work, especially as I got older, but they tried. I think it was also my dad living a little vicariously through me. Like I said in another post….at the time, he was my biggest and probably only fan. Other than a few girls who lived on the street (or at least I like to believe). I was finally cooooool, at least in my own mind.
For some reason in high school, I sold the guitar. Not sure why and I have no clue what I put the money towards. Maybe I was thinking about a car or bike or spending money for college. I am not sure what the rationale was, I just remember selling it to a kid named Ryan and getting a decent amount of money for it. There was a hairline crack in the paint right where the neck mounts to the body. I think I gave him $20 off.
Fast forward to earlier this year. I was surfing instagram watching guitar videos (a favorite past time) and came across a guy playing an Ibanez that looks very similar and I commented that I had a similar one as a kid. He said, “what do you mean had? Why would you get rid of it?” I thought to myself, right, why did a I get rid of it?!?!?
I began searching for that guitar. They are out there, same color, same year, but most of them were BEAT and people were asking a premium for them, so I gave up, figuring most of them are just trashed at this point. It was a Korean made guitar from 31 years ago. Sure enough I get an ad from Reverb on Facebook and there she is, a new old stock Ibanez 360 in marine blue. It still had the plastic on the electronic covers on the back. As you probably guessed, the photos in this post are that guitar….I wish it was the original, but it still brings back the same memories and guess what….it even has the same crack in the paint right by the neck mount.
