Like a pair of jeans.

Merry Christmas folks!
I'm sure you all have significantly better things to do than to read the J-Blog this holiday season, but two posts popped into my head tonight, and I thought I'd get them out now rather than hold on to them. They're both worship related, but this one goes out to all you guitar players in the bunch.

Tonight I was getting ready for the Christmas Eve service, and giving my guitars the yearly once-over. Polish. Lemon solution for the neck. New Strings. String ointment (no joke). The whole nine yards. I do this no where near as often as I should, but Christmas Eve is a big production for us, so I like to make sure the axe is in good shape.

As I was polishing the body of my Taylor, I noticed that right around the sound hole there are a collection of scratches. At first I thought it was just a smudge, but these are in fact deep lasting scratches right next to the pick guard.

At first I was sort of ticked. This is my beautiful guitar, that we spent way too much money on! How could I be so foolish as to rock so hard unrelentingly for so long as to cause my baby this damage? But then I thought about some of my favorite guitars out there (spoiler alert: they're all Taylors)

Dave's Taylor is sporting some wear and tear on the up side of the sound hole. This strikes me as odd. Is he strumming harder on the upstrokes? This man is a mystery to me...

I scoured the internet looking for a frontal shot of Josh Wilson's Taylor, but alas Google would not comply. Josh just went a head and ripped his pick guard off his guitar, which is pretty slick because it leaves the anti-pickgaurd line behind. You can see it best in this video, which just display's some sick pedal work!

First of all, where does one summon the courage to wear those shorts on stage? Secondly, Jars of Clay has been one of my favorite bands for a long while. No two albums sound the same, and yet, I love all of them. No other band can do that. Again, Matt Odmark's guitar is ellusive to the still camera, but youtube bails us out again. Check out the :52 mark.

I heard someone say that a good guitar is like a good pair of jeans. They're fine when they're brand new, but they don't really become yours until they're worn in a little bit. I will say that I feel like guitar self-mutalation, or purposefully damaging it to look cool is on par with paying 50 dollars to have someone pre-rip holes in your jeans. But if you're actually wearing and tearing your guitar, have a blast!

Godspeed,

J