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Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:51 am
by kingdavid
My name is Yves and I live in Los Angeles. I was very excited to find this forum yesterday and had to join immediately!

I grew up in Hawaii and used to work at Island Guitars when I was a teenager back in the early 90s when the vintage market was still building. Of course, at the time, I don't think that any of us in Hawaii knew that it was going to explode the way that it did. To give an example, we had a '62 Strat in Lake Placid Blue that was sold for about $5,000 and customers were kind of amazed that we had the audacity to put a guitar on the wall at that price.

Of course, I was lucky to put together a nice little collection of vintage guitars and at one point had 28 instruments. Now I'm down to my core group of 10. I've always loved surf music and I have a '64 Fender Jaguar that I was very lucky to purchase pre-grunge / indie rock craze, but I've always wanted a Mosrite. I had a friend who had an original '63 sidejack sunburst that was his very first guitar, bought new. I think that I got to hold it ONCE - he was so protective of it. Unbelievably, I've never actually played a Mosrite.

I'm not a musician by profession, but I'm in a hard rock band playing originals, influenced by The Stooges, The Stranglers, The Flamin' Groovies, etc. I haven't bought a new instrument in about 10 years but I was discussing Mosrite guitars randomly with a Japanese customer of mine and I've reawakened the itch.

I went online to check out the current market for Mosrite guitars and research used ones and also new ones. I know that there have been a lot of clones over the years and when I worked at Island Guitars we had just stopped carrying the Japanese-made ones. I know that Dana Moseley is now making them in the US with a Japanese company and I'm very curious about that. I guess that I have a lot of questions and so will be digging through the forum for answers. I think that I'm going to drive up to Bakersfield one Saturday soon and try to actually play one - I've often heard of Back Porch Music and know that it's an amazing store but I've always been afraid to check it out... or at least afraid of what my bank account will look like afterward :)

So thanks for having me on the forum and thanks for reading all of this!! You all seem like a nice bunch and everyone is super informative about Mosrite guitars from the looks of it and I can't wait to keep digging.

Thanks!!!

Yves

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 9:22 am
by Dennisthe Menace
Welcome to the Forum kingdavid. Very nice Bio ;) .

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 10:29 am
by 101Volts
Welcome to the forum, You'll find that Mosrite made a lot of different models.

Austin

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 12:02 pm
by Sarah93003
Yves, welcome to the forum. I live in Ventura and I'm always up for a road trip to Bakersfield. If you want to go, I'll go with you. I could meet you either on the 5 near Magic Mountain, or here in Ventura. Just say the word!

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 12:26 pm
by JohnnySonic
Welcome to the Forum. =)
Sounds like a real cool band you've got there!

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 1:40 pm
by kingdavid
Thanks everybody!! It's nice to meet you all! Thanks for the offer to accompany to Bakersfield - I've never been there. I'll let you know - I think that this Saturday won't work but maybe in a few weeks if that works out.

Yeah, our band is pretty fun. We're needing a new drummer, unfortunately, which just happened about two weeks ago. There's a lot of different backgrounds in the band so we kind of have a unique sounds.

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 3:19 pm
by Veenture
Welcome to the forum Yves, "the more, the merrier"!
Wow, even holding a Mosrite '63 sidejack is something! Hope you find the Mosrite of your liking.
FRONTporch Music is quite a famous Mosrite shoppe also, and Artie there knows all about 'em; he is a forum member too [bakeoboy] and offers members a discount! ;)
:arrow: http://www.frontporchmusic.net/
There are some excellent luthiers on the forum too, like TerryTNM, Ed Elliott (former Mosrite employee) and others.
Bob Shade of Hallmark Guitars sells superb Mosrite type axes too with very attractive price tags on 'em.
Enjoy the forum and happy hunting.

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:36 pm
by kingdavid
Whoops!! Sorry about the mess-up - I meant Front Porch Music! And thank you for the kind words. :)

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:40 pm
by rog43win
Hi Yves and welcome to the forum.......thanks for the neat intro you gave, it's always great to meet other guitar/mosrite enthusiasts! :)

Roger

Re: Hello from Los Angeles!!

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:15 pm
by woodchuck30
welcome to the forum my man.