every time I go to a music shop, I come away with more questions than answers... as well as a whole heap of observations. so I thought I'd put them all together in one thread. Sometimes I'll just make observations, sometimes I'll ask questions.

hope it's ok!

I visited two music shops today, the first one was shire music, where I've bought my tele from. The tele arrives in two weeks!

I also visited Billy Hydes Music at Camperdown/Newtown. I know that means nothing to you yanks ...

Billy Hydes has heaps of guitars. Literally hundreds. But they keep them in such bad condition! I found a leftie tele to play, but the strings were rusty, the pup switch felt wonky and loose, and the knob at the end of it fell off. All the hardware was tarnished. I know it's trendy to relic a guitar, but this wasn't cool, it was just garbage. The pickups hummed like crazy!

Anyway, I plugged it into some sort of crate tube amp. The guy said it sold really well in the states last year, and has just come to Aus. One channel, class A tube amp. It sounded really nice! But I'd want a tube screamer or an alberta to have a sort of two channel thing happening. But the pickups in the tele were humming stupidly loudly. The MIM tele I played at shire music didn't hum at all; would this be an individual guitar problem, or would it be something to do with the power circuit, flourescent lights etc? I played the other tele (at shire) through a fender tube amp, and it didn't hum at all. Same pickups and everything. Is all that noise an amp thing? Could it be shoddy wiring in the Hydes tele? I'm guessing if the switch was loose, it would indicate that it had been opened up and had some work done on it.

I also found a leftie Les Paul; the black one with gold hardware and white binding ... my GOSH they're HEAVY!!! But then I saw something really special (with a really special price tag too ... AU$4499) ... a leftie, goldtop Les Paul custom (?) the dual cutaway thing with P90's. It was so light! and nice, I wish I could afford one!

Oh, I also saw the Fender Champion 600. It's AU$419. It was smaller than I thought!

Final question for today; is all this guitar shopping unhealthy for me, mentally? Up until recently I've been so satisfied with my guitar and amp, but shopping around has made me lusting after all this gear, to the point where mentally it's quite hard to feel content with my stuff. Even though it sounds pretty cool. I think.