That’s my gear from Orange County, California.
I couldn’t find a Peavey at Guitar Center in Irvine, California, so I got this, and I think it’s still in storage. That Jackson is probably my favorite axe, and for an obvious reason. I also have a Dean and a Fender. The Dean looks like Ritchie Blackmore’s Fender Stratocaster. I also have a Fender Gemini II acoustic, which I bought in 1986.
My best friend and I started a band in Los Angeles, California in 1985 and we would write long into the night, hitting the streets after 10 p.m.-and I have no idea how in the hell we pulled that off without getting busted, because we go to friends’ houses and go off on our bikes or skateboards to McDonald’s. We would then play hacky sack in the street until one in the morning and go back to writing lyrics until around three in the morning.
The funny part is that I would wake up around 7:30 in the morning and take one of the axes. It was at this point that I would be “asked” to take it outside, where I could perfect the tune he and I composed the night before, so I would be there with an old tape recorder and the axe.
It took me longer to learn songs because of the brain damage-and I hated it. I felt stupid, but that wasn’t the case. I just didn’t know how to learn for my situation.
I wish I had enough confidence to play leads, because I would have been a much more effective member of the band. What really irritated the hell out of me was the fact that I
would forget chord changes which we had just written, and I felt stupid for it. However, it was years later that I came to realize that I was never stupid; that I had a learning disability to overcome.
I went back to writing when the heavy metal thing didn’t come to fruition.
Of course, the other side of that $20 bill reads that I’d probably be dead by now by 25 had we been signed, and that’s because I have always been a person of extremes in every aspect of life. It’s not something which I aim for. It just works out that way.
It’s amazing that this brain damaged mess has played heavy metal for over thirty years, but this is why I have become so pissed off at parents of so-called “low-functioning” children-because I wasn’t supposed to amount to anything at all.
I’m a writer, a musician, and a general pain in the amygdala.
Someone has to be.
freedomfortheoppressed 