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Cowboy Caleb recommends 
Remember When Axl Rose Was Cool?
When I first picked up a guitar, it was back in the year 1991. I was in secondary one and had noticed that the easiest way to be ‘cool’ was to play a musical instrument. The same year, Nirvana released ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Guns & Roses had a hit with ‘Dont Cry’ and Metallica unleased ‘Enter Sandman’. Suddenly, everybody seemed to want to play an instrument and start a band.
A rich friend of mine had recently learned to play the guitar, so I went over to his place and learnt to play the guitar from him, on his guitar. After I could play a few chords, I begged my dad to buy me a guitar, and he bought me a cheap but cool looking acoustic guitar.
I would practice changing chords in the dark. Pretty soon, I could play quite a few songs by memory. Soon, I was playing the guitar in church for prayer meets, church mass and during Christmas caroling.
Thanks to my dad, who has always been a bad influence, I discovered 1970s blues-influenced hard rock - more specifically Led Zeppelin. The song ‘Black Dog above was the basis of me persuading my dad to loan me 500 bucks to buy an electric guitar from our family doctor. I would up with a Epiphone Gibson that looked similar to the one Jimmy Page used.
Then when I went up to tertiary level education, I formed a band and jammed regularly with Powerpuff and Imran. We talked about going pro, and even wrote & recorded a song, but it never went anywhere.
When the time finally came to graduate and get a real job, I put my guitars away into the storeroom and stopped playing for good. The truth be told, I was never really much good at it. Sure it got me attention with the chicks sometimes, but none ever took their panties off.
I wondered why I had even bothered learning to play in the first place.
Now I think the moral of the story is that if you know how to play a musical instrument, you’ll be able to appreciate music better. When I listen to music, I tend to be critical of the music as a whole, from the bassline to the drums to the rhythm guitars.
Kids these days don’t seem to be into forming their own bands anymore. Instead, they all want to be DJ’s. That’s what hip-hop did when it dethroned rock. Not that I dislike hip-hop, I like it alot, but it’s not easy to go out and get into hip-hop because it comprises of so many different things.
A few years later, I’ve discovered that my little brother had taken the guitars out of the storeroom and taught himself to play. And even better, he’s become a drummer (the missing link in any band).
That makes me really glad.
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