THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
EPIPHONE DOT HOLLOWBODY
Here's another recent “one that got away” with a good story. Over the last nearly 20 years I have had the good fortune to play music with a really talented drummer whom we'll call Rob. Why? Because that's his name. So Rob is seriously an amazing drummer and his brother Dave (also his real name) is an amazing guitarist...music just seems to run in their family. A few years ago Rob decided he wanted to learn to play guitar and within about a year he was already better than me. That's enough to really piss you off. The good thing about this is that he finally understood my obsession with guitars and buying them and looking at them and wanting new ones and selling something in order to get something else. Along the way he picked up a really nice, dark tobacco sunburst Epiphone Dot hollowbody. You've probably seen these...they are actually really nice copies of the Gibson 335 at a fraction of the cost. Rob really liked this guitar a lot, but hit a stretch where he needed to sell a guitar or two.
I have a buddy named Jesse (again, that's really his name) and at the time he was in a band that was getting some notoriety. They were recording their second album and for one particular guitar part needed that 335 sound. I told him that Rob was selling his Dot and, long story short, Jesse bought Rob's guitar. At least it was sort of in the family.
So, a couple of years go by and Rob mentions that he'd love to have that Dot back. Jesse came into my office not long after that and I asked him how the Dot was doing and wondered if he'd be interested in selling it. He kind of gave it a big "hmmmm" and said maybe, just maybe, he'd consider selling it. So he thought about it for a few days and came back in and said he'd sell it if I bought it right then on the spot. I didn't hesitate...I got out my checkbook (remember those?) and paid him exactly what he'd originally paid Rob for it back then.
THE NEXT THING I DID WAS GET OUT MY PHONE, SNAP A PHOTO OF IT AND SEND IT TO ROB WITH THE MESSAGE, “LOOK WHAT I JUST BOUGHT.”
Rob couldn't believe it and said he was coming over the next day to check it out. But then something came up and a couple of weeks went by. During those couple of weeks I played the Dot quite a bit and really ended up liking it quite a bit. I was now having thoughts of keeping it for myself, even if Rob wanted it. Of course I knew what I was going to have to do. Sure enough, two weeks later Rob finally makes it to my house and we plug the Dot into my amp and he gives it a strum. "You HAVE to sell this back to me!" Of course! He gets out his checkbook and it's now finally back in his possession.
Now you'd think that was the end of the story, but no. The following weekend Rob's brother Dave comes to visit and brings his Epiphone Les Paul for a little jam session. He picks up Rob's newly reacquired Dot and falls in love. He offers to trade Rob the Dot for the Les Paul. For some reason, Rob makes the trade and now the Dot is in the very capable hands of brother Dave. Still all in the family, but definitely not what we all thought was going to happen. The end.