When I first stared playing guitar I was frustrated with the fact that the sound coming out of the amplifier was not like the sound I heard on the song. I twisted knobs, I switched cords, I even tried to figure out if I was using the pick wrong. Nothing I did created that crunchy, heavy metal sound I so desperately was trying to reproduce. I wasn’t taking any lessons and this was 1988 or so and the internet didn’t exist in a way that was useful to me.
I was then asked by a friend if I was going to see a buddy of mine and when I said I was he asked be to take a distortion pedal to him that he was borrowing. I said sure but what is a “Distortion Pedal”? My friend asked if I was an idiot and then said it’s what you plug your guitar into to play with distortion. He said you run a cord from the guitar to the pedal and from the pedal to the amp and when you step on the pedal it turn the sound on and off.
I couldn’t wait to get this thing home and try it out before I handed it off to my buddy. When I finally got home from school, I dumped my book bag, raced downstairs, plugged everything in and turned on my amp. I turned up the volume on my guitar and played the chords to “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath.
The goose bumps I got all over me and the grin that formed on my face were so strong that I’m sure my folks would have thought I was on drugs at the time. Just remembering that moment to capture it here is enough to have me grinning like an idiot. I suppose the adrenaline rush I got at finally playing a Sabbath tune that sounded (somewhat) like a Sabbath tune was healthy fix. Needless to say, the very next thing I was earning money for was my own distortion pedal which was a D.O.D. Thrashmaster and turned out to be a piece of junk. But while it worked I enjoyed many hours of grinding away trying to play like Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax , Metallica and Black Sabbath.
My parents, however, did not.
yet another story in the life of abretok,i tell ya what man, ive heard alot of these stories and some of them twice and even thoe your a bit younger than myself i never get bored of them and i never passed an oppertunity to listen given the chance.it saddens me to know that my life has become such a whirl wind of commotion and activity that havnt been able to see a single show under the new name and that i dont get to just swing through and chill anymore.but you bring me back to a time when life was actually fun.
ReplyDeletejoke of the week is ?????i applied at the funny farm today and after i filled out my application the manager told me i need at least 24hrs experience with these kinds of people.....so what are ya doin tomorrow ill stop by and ill bring the crayons........
ReplyDeleteThat DOD Thrashmaster was a piece of art! I loved that thing. Thank you for donating it to the Soulman Foundation for Useless Junk. I had such a blast running my bass through it (back in the early days of Gothic Fury) and I even kept it around through the short life of Onslaught and I still did not get rid of it through a good portion of Bluefire (though I had found no good need for it in that group) until I finally decided to give it back to Mother Earth from whence it came (toxic chemicals and all!). RIP, DOD.
ReplyDelete~Soulman~