Given the fact there was always something with my health while I was home in the Czech Republic for Christmas holiday, I spent loads of time in bed and had all the time in the world to research all various electric guitar models out there on the market. Once short-listed I have eliminated all models but 2, which my interest was driven to the most. Not that the other guitars wouldn’t do for me, or for my skill level (hehe) – they were probably all bordering with an overkill anyway ;o)) – but I realized how much motivation was important in my playing and not coincidentally chose two signature models; in other words guitar models based on guitars used by world famous guitarists. And predictably one of the models was Kirk Hammett’s ESP signature model – KH-602 – and the other could be basically predicted too with respect to my taste of music, which was a Joe Satriani’s Ibanez JS-1000. The fact these two guitars had a story to tell to back them up turned out to be important to me.

So the first weekend after my return to the UK from the Christmas holiday I took off for a shopping spree in the London’s Denmark Street where one can find a street dedicated to guitars only basically ;o)) … My flatmate Tim was eager to join me and learn about what is out there on the guitar market at the moment while I was expected to get my hands on various models before I found ‘The One’ ;o)) …

The first store we happened to ended up to be a lucky draw. First of all they had both – KH602 & JS1000 – hanging there on the wall (I didn’t find these guitars anywhere else after that!!!). Second they were happy to let me play them for a while and we got a very helpful sales assistant to give me all my time and space for it. And then the tough times came. I couldn’t make up my mind. The two guitars were completely different and cool in their own ways. The KH602 was simply a heavy metal guitar, its sound was aggressive, it was a guitar to simply shred and get some noise out of, a guitar to fool around. Its frets gave enough space to be forgiving to possible inaccuracies in playing. BUT, the finishing wasn’t that nice and it had skulls on the fretboard, and that I found a bit childish to my taste. The JS1000 on the other hand is a jewel. It’s soooo beautiful, light, perfectioned to the very low level of detail one can imagine. It’s a fast playing guitar, but unforgiving to any mistakes – the frets are pretty close to each other, so one better plays accurately ;o)) …

Well, the decision has been made after some time. Money wasn’t considered for some reason although there were good £400 differences in the price tags. I enquired on discounts on both to see what the shop manager could do for me. He was happy to discount the KH602 much more than the JS1000 and I still couldn’t drop the idea of walking away with the ladder ;o)) … and then I realized I wanted a ‘mature’ guitar that will stick with me for many years going forward, one that I can use across different styles from blues to heavy metal … so JS1000 was the one I started pushing for!

We started on £1,399, which was the official sticker-price. The first query brought it down to £1,349 (the KH602 was discounted way more although the guitar was already a cheaper one!!). I have done my research, knew I could get the JS1000 online for £1,050 excluding the case, which is another £150 - £200. I preferred to buy it in a brick store to get all the free setup and have a place to go if something goes wrong with the guitar, which I wanted to pay a little premium for – so I knew I could get £1,250 ;o)) … Another consultation with the manager brought it to app £1,300, which I wasn’t happy about and told the shop assistant I’m going to buy today if we can get closer to my price limit, which was £1,250. He turned around and came with the final price £1,279 saying his margin target is already reduced. Then I turned around and threw in the trick with the debit card (showing the money) if we hit £1,250 – all paid for RIGHT NOW ;o)). The guy bought it – some margins are apparently better than none, hehe … and I walked away with a £1,250 JS1000 guitar. I’m sure I could still get it cheaper online, but this was a good deal for a brick & mortar store!!!

From then on I’ve been playing lots. Yesterday I bought a Guitar Pro software to help me with some of the songs I set out to learn. I’ve been learning scales, modes & exercises and a few songs – i.e. Def Leppard’s Promises or KISS’ God Gave Rock n Roll To You. I’m absolutely excited with the guitar after one and a half weeks and the more I play, the more appetite I have for more of it, which is a good sign!!! Hope I can keep it up to reach new levels ;o))) …