THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

 RICKENBACKER 330 JETGLO

Back in the early '90s I worked with a guy named Walt who was into a lot of the same things I was...we were both graphic designers, we really liked baseball, and we played guitar. He had a Jetglo (black) Rickenbacker 330 six-string and I thought it was a really cool guitar. At the time, I had a great Gibson Dove acoustic (read the story of the Dove here) and he fell in love with it. At the time I was in a band and rarely played my acoustic. He was moving more towards country music and, long story short, we decided to trade guitars. It was a great trade...everyone was happy. Then Walt decided to move to North Carolina and, of course, take the Dove with him. I figured that was the end of that.

I didn't even think about the Dove much after that. Then, one day, Walt gave me a call. He was moving back to California and he wanted to know if I would trade back. Hmmmm. Interesting proposition. I really liked the Ricky quite a bit...it played very nicely and it sounded great. I have always loved the fretboards on Ricks...not sure what makes them feel so different but they are very obviously different than a Gibson or a Fender or, hey let's go out on a limb here...a Peavey Wolfgang (maybe I should have gone with Carvin?). Although they have a big ol' body on them, they stay balanced pretty nicely and they just sound great. I've always felt like a Rick is also a great visual guitar...when a guy is playing a sunburst Strat you kind of just say, "Well, there's a guy with a Strat." But when a guy walks out with a Rickenbacker, that's kind of making a statement.

You wear a Rick on your sleeve if you know what I'm sayin'.

So, after much thought, and much reminiscing about the Dove, I decided to trade back. I handed over the silver Rick case with the guitar all polished up and lookin' good, and I took back the Dove in it's original Gibson brown fake leather case. Later on I was very happy that I took the Dove back and it certainly got much more use over the years as I got more into acoustic gigs. But I will always have this little certain itch to get another Rickenbacker. I'm sure that at some point I will.