The ones that got away

If you ask 1,000 musicians if they have any particular instrument or other piece of gear that was "the one that got away", I'm positive that you'll get 950 variations on the word yes, along with a story or two. Here are mine.

Fender Stratocaster Yngwie Malmsteen

I don't love Stratocasters because of Yngwie Malmsteen. I discovered Yngwie specifically because I was into Strats. Seeing him play for the first time was a complete game-changer for me. Of course I would never be able to get that good, but it was a worthy goal to pursue, trying to be the best guitar player that I could be, now that I knew what was possible.

At that crucial point, someone ill-advisedly told me that Yngwie played scalloped necks because they made him play faster. That promptly became the next point on the agenda for me. Realistically, I could have put a scalloped neck on my Strat and been done with it, but ideally of course I wanted Yngwie's signature guitar. All through ninth grade, I had a page from Fender's then-current catalog on the inside of my locker door, with a maple-necked Yngwie Strat in Sonic Blue. It was my dream guitar, and I was convinced that I would never get to play one, let alone own one, as the official Fender importer only stocked the yellow Yngwie Strat.

Eventually, the impossible happened: someone offered a used one for sale. Over the phone the guy said it was green, so I had no idea what to expect, and therefore I was completely over the moon when I walked into his apartment a couple of hours later and saw a light blue guitar.

I had of course laid some groundwork before that. But I dare say that most of what made me into the guitar player I am today was directly inspired by that guitar. I would be sitting on the bus home from school, all giddy because I was about to be reunited with my new Fender. And then I walked into my room and it was right there, in the stand, all blue and beautiful. I could just sit and look at it, revelling in the fact that it was mine. That never lasted long. I soon picked it up and started practicing. For hours every day, and for months. It is completely amazing that I managed to get my best grades ever during that very year.

Unfortunately, all this transpired during my teens. The Yngwie thing got me going, but it was just a phase, soon to be replaced by another. Extreme metal required a suitable guitar, so a little over a year after the triumphant return from Strömstad, I left my blue Strat at the music store in ignominy, instead coming home with a black, spiky BC Rich. That turned out to be an even shorter-lived phase, so of course, eventually, I came to regret the exchange bitterly.

Whatever I have regretted since then, little if anything was directly related to the Yngwie-specific features of the guitar. I know this because at any point later in life, I could simply have saved up and bought myself a new Yngwie Strat, at least before he added the big headstock and dropped the blue and red colors.

I didn't have to spend much time with a scalloped fretboard to realize that it actually wasn't that big a deal. I developed my technique quickly because I was at it for hours every single day. The man himself pointed out that the scallops have nothing to do with speed, instead they give you a bit more control over vibrato and bends. I worked that one out on my own, and came to appreciate scallops more than I absolutely require them. But tall fretwire works just as well.

The thing I loved about the guitar was that it was pretty. The combo of that finish and a maple neck is simply unbeatable. There are many cool Fender colors, but none that come even close to Sonic Blue. Of course there was more to it than that. Going beyond shallow exteriors, the main thing that I remember loving about that guitar was the rather thick and chunky neck, somewhere halfway between an American Standard and a 50s reissue. On that theme, the first edition of the Yngwie signature Strat was actually an almost perfect compromise between vintage and modern Strat features. It married the 50s headstock, logo and tuners with an American Standard bridge and electronics, as well as noiseless pickups. About the only other thing I would have wished for was a 22-fret neck.

Since it was never really about the core Yngwie features, I quickly gave up wishing I could have my old guitar back. Instead, I became enamored of the idea of getting an American Standard with a maple neck and in Sonic Blue. One night I was nostalgic enough that I did some web searches. Sure enough, Fender had been known to do limited runs of blue maple-necked Standards every once in a while. I waited, and every time I saw something blue flash by on the Fender site, there was always something about it that I didn't like. Either they had the big headstock, a rosewood fretboard, or some weird aged finish.

The next time I got deep into nostalgic territory, I started researching what it would take (and cost) to order a one-off or maybe even something from the Custom Shop. I contemplated ordering a body and neck with the proper specs from Warmoth, before dropping the entire thing. The Mexican Vintera 50s model almost had the look, but was too vintage-vibey for me to get really hot and bothered over it. I finally decided to let the entire matter slide, and instead save up and get myself a nice maple-necked American Standard some day.

That's when I saw the classified ad for a used Sonic Blue American Series Stratocaster with a maple neck. And yes, it's sitting in my guitar stand right now, and has done so since 2019.

Hamer Guitars

In the late 80s and early 90s, the guitar store I used to frequent at the time kept most of their guitars on a dais opposite the counter. In the middle was a pillar of some kind, splitting the collection into two distinct subdivisions. To the left were the guitars I knew: Strats, Teles, Les Pauls, and that red Gibson with the horns. To the right were sleek, colorful guitars that matched the pantyhose of the frizzy-haired guys I usually saw play them on MTV.

I soon learned different. I never got into hair metal, but I do admit that I soon gravitated more to the right side of the pillar than the left. Ibanez guitars have never done very much for me, but somehow I clicked with Hamer. They had just the right specs. I remember clearly the deep black ebony fretboards with the flashy boomerang inlays, and the fanciful paint jobs. Hamers always felt very solid and well-built, everything about them oozed quality, even if I didn't always agree on the paint jobs.

One particular Hamer has stuck in my mind. It was one of those moments when everything just clicked. Back then, the store had a big 19-inch rack hooked up to a power amp and speakers, where you could try the preamps that were all the rage during the late 80s. I never really learned how to get any sound out of that setup. That day, I must have got lucky, or somebody left just as I was pulling in, so I used the cable that the other guy had just disconnected. I don't even know what I plugged into—maybe a Rocktron preamp? I just know I grabbed the closest Hamer, and that together with the rack thingy made a sound that was just to die for. I didn't realize that I could play that well. It was the first time that I realized that hey, maybe I too can do the shred thing.

It bugs me that to this day, I have no idea which Hamer it was. I had their catalog and knew the Chaparral and the Californian, and it was none of those. Not even the full resources of the modern-day WWW have been able to help me ID the guitar. It had a Jackson-style Superstrat body with the sharpish edges, and I'm not sure it had the drooping headstock but instead something a bit closer to a Fender. There was a Floyd (of course!) and it had dual humbuckers—no slanted neck pickup.

Getting a Hamer was out of the question in those days. They were about 25% more expensive than a vintage-reissue Fender, almost on the level of a Les Paul Custom. I drifted away from the brand, primarily because when time came to finally get a 24-fret dual-humbucker shred guitar, BC Rich had launched in a big way in Sweden. Those guitars could be had for not much money, I remember that mine was slightly more upscale, yet just over half the price of a Hamer. And when I finally got out of that entire thing and got back to Strats, the entire shred thing was essentially dead, and Hamer along with it.

The last (most recent?) time I played a Hamer was in the summer of 1995. I visited a friend, and immediately pointed out that he had a Hamer Chaparral exactly like one I used to sit down with at the store. Oh yeah, he said, it's that guitar. It turned out that one of the store owners had bought the axe for himself, then it was stolen, I don't know how many other people owned it after that, and finally it landed with my friend. He even phoned the original owner and offered it back to him, but he wouldn't take it. I remember the guitar well. It's one that you're not likely to forget, as it was a true 80s instrument: bright yellow with blobs of orange and brown or black, almost like leopard's spots. It was quite garish, actually, but a very fine instrument indeed.

One of the stupidest assumptions I've ever made was that Hamer guitars could be found for a song on Reverb et al. now that the entire 80s shred/glam thing was dead. I soon learned different! They regularly command prices in keeping with their status as hand-built quality US instruments.

Marshall JMP 2203

When my dad put his old band back together in the early 90s, I went amp shopping with him. It was father/son bonding, rock 'n' roll-style. We tried various Marshalls and silverface Fenders, the louder the better. Eventually, a guy came over, and offered Dad a 1979 Marshall JMP 2203 for the insane price of 1900 Swedish crowns. Adjusted for inflation, it's about 3500 crowns, which is roughly 350 dollars. (The guy was legit; no one wanted those 70s Marshalls back in the day, just like Yngwie snagged all his Plexis when everyone in Stockholm offloaded theirs to get master volume amps.) Dad added an off-brand 4 x 12 that our music store used to put together themselves (one of which was modelled for Softube's Amp Room Metal suite!) and had himself a Marshall stack at a bargain-basement price. Eventually, he got tired of schlepping the thing, not to mention that it had about twice the sound pressure level a cover band needs, so he sold it. By that time, the late-70s master volume Marshalls were becoming increasingly sought-after, so he turned a tidy profit.

I so regret not buying that amp. It was just awesome. I remember sharing rehearsal spaces with Dad's band, playing through his rig during one of the seven trips that my Peavey made back to the shop for repairs. The first time I cranked the gain and stepped on that Boss overdrive pedal, I was in seventh heaven. We wrote a song on the spot. And I thought, man, I gotta have that rig! I was able to borrow it once more just before he sold it, and was just as happy then.

This sort of thing is easy to say more than 20 years after the fact, wearing the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. That amp would have got me evicted from my old apartment as well as fired from the cover band. I wouldn't have liked carrying that beast any more than he did. And there was a reason why I tended towards more modern Marshalls. They have a tone more in line with my ideals, and it is built into the amp so as not to require the help of yellow overdrive pedals. Moreover, modern amps have reverb, channel-switching and effects loops. Nowadays, they even come with USB connectivity and advanced speaker simulation. I cannot be certain that I wouldn't have felt the limitations of that old 2203, and eventually sold it.