Desert Surfer wrote:Welcome, Veenture to our forum. I enjoy your story a lot.
You are not alone about not knowing Mosrites until much later. I was born in Taiwan but have been living in the US for over 33 years. I have been a die hard Ventures fan since 1966 when I was 19. I never met the Ventures during those years, not even attended any of their concerts. I knew them only from the photos on the cover of their albums. The Ventures came to Taiwan for an 1 night show at one of the prestige Hotels in Taipei in 1966. Being a poor student at that time, of course I could not afford to go. (Ticket price was about 1/3 of my yearly school tuition)
All my guitar friends in school wanted to play like The Ventures (especially like Nokie Edwards) I could not join the band because I did not have money to buy an electric guitar. Most of us never heard of Mosrites at that time. We heard of Fenders, but no one could afford them as they were for the super rich kids. The best we could dream of was to own a Japanese made Teisco which I could not even afford. I ended up playing The Ventures tunes with a cheap acoustic guitar. Regardless, I had a lot fun.
I have never dreamed of meeting Nokie in person after 40 some years later in the US and sat next to him on his 72nd birthday party. Thanks to Danny on this forum (a.k.a dubtrub ), I have owned my first true Mosrite guitar (see link here for the restoration story)
http://www.timelineguitars.com/page/page/5468527.htm
Now I have owned 3 Mosrites and 2 Japanese clones
I also own a Hallmark Stradette guitar which I like it a lot.
Again, welcome to this great forum!
Thanks for your little story too Desert Surfer, I’m getting to feel right at home here now!
As you say, many of us couldn’t afford that which we so dearly wished for during our youth, but that formed us too in a positive way (but that’s getting on to another topic!).
Some of my Johannesburg (rich)classmates/friends at school played in a band and I was often invited to come along and watch them play during band practice sessions at one of their villa’s. I remember drooling over their equipment; Fender Twin Reverbs and the like…
However, the bottom line is getting the enjoyment out of PLAYING a (or any) musical instrument! My first ‘electric’ guitar was an old Spanish acoustic type which became ‘electrified’ by yours truly by mounting an ear/mouthpiece of an old telephone (or headphone) over the resonating hole, directly under a couple of strings and then playing it through my dad’s stereo radiogram which had a kind of reverb too, would you believe! I really got a kick out of the resulting amplified sound!
Ah, those were the days but now it’s fun too, only in a different way.
(I have to make do with a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Reissue, ha, ha).
Everyday I’m still learning to play and enjoy doing so even though I’m fully aware that I’ll never match up to the talents of a Hank Marvin or a Nokie Edwards.
I had the good fortune of meeting Nokie in person too, during a very rare opportunity in 2000 during an autograph signing session after his performance in Amsterdam together with a group of Dutch musicians calling themselves “AdVenture”. I could now express my sentiments to him in person and needless to say I conveyed my longstanding gratitude and admiration and shook his famous guitar picking hand and getting his autograph too!
It was the closest I’d ever come to see The Ventures perform live, or at least see their lead guitarist, -one of my favourite guitar hero’s!
The Ventures have never performed in Holland and England as far as I know and the first moving pictures I ever got to see of the band was 30(!) odd years later. A friend had this imported (very)expensive VHS tape of their 1993 tour in Japan and we were glued to the TV screen watching them play!
Now I’m going to pay a visit to your web link and read all about your restoration story! ...of a MOSRITE!
) but they sound like fun.