The best electric guitar that I ever owned was an Epiphone Les Paul Junior double-cut in cherry which I bought in 1996 from a now extinct music store in Muswell Hill.
It was confined space, which despite its comforting intimacy, raised a problem as I inspected the guitar. As I began to run through my limited guitar store repetoire I found myself competing with a chap who was nervously trying out a trombone over by the door. Whenever I started, he started. When I stopped, he stopped. Basically, he wanted me to mask the cacophony that he was generating. This meant that I had no idea what the guitar sounded like, unless I was planning to play in a band alongside a novice trombone player.
That was only thirteen years ago, yet that kind of shop, where you could buy electric guitars alongside trombones seems something from a distant past.
I mention this on the news of the death of Johnny Roadhouse who equipped an entire generation of Mancunian musicians. His shop window was once described as resembling the contents of a dredged canal.
Great days.
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