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You Know You are a Guitar Junkie If...
(C) 2009 Hank Wallace & Chad Barbour

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There are two or three people who play guitar because they can make money doing so. The rest of us play guitar because it's in our genes. We eat, sleep and drink it. If you are a member of the latter group, you will identify with these characteristics of a guitar junkie!

  • You have a $5000 Les Paul and a $500 car.
  • You pick your teeth with 1) a guitar pick, 2) a clipped guitar string, or 3) a clipped toenail.
  • You buy a $2000 guitar and a $9 tuner to tune it.
  • You buy your kid a guitar for Christmas and then hog it.
  • You have ever said in a band meeting, "All I want to play is Skynyrd."
  • You have a good paying gig teaching music but you still watch the inebriated watch you play every weekend.
  • You have ever said (while standing in front of your Marshall stack), "MORE GUITAR IN THE MONITOR."
  • You have arrived at band practice only to find your equipment sitting on the curb, only to think they were not good enough for you.
  • You spend Saturday night at the bookstore reading guitar magazines rather than hanging out with hot chicks.
  • You have been to the emergency room after impaling your foot on a clipped guitar string.
  • Your wife has ever said, "ANOTHER guitar?"
  • You are still sporting a mullet.
  • Your friends think you are speaking a foreign language when you use the words Fripp, Zappa, or Yngwie.
  • You've ever had an encounter with gorilla snot without a sinus infection.
  • You have no place to put your clothes because your closet is full of cases.
  • You're jealous of the homeless guy playing on the street because he actually got a gig.
  • You feel that 'spandex' is a religious term.
  • You've tried to convince the guys in the band to learn Girl From Ipanema just so you could play your sister's wedding.
  • You've emptied out one or more abandoned drinks at the end of a bar gig.
  • Your kid's science project includes used guitar strings.
  • You named any of your children Eddie, Jimmy, or Stevie Ray.
  • Your girlfriend is named Eddie, Jimmy, or Stevie Ray.
  • Your spouse knows how to set the intonation on your guitar.
  • You have played guitar in the band van on the way home from a gig at 3AM.
  • You paid too much for a used car because the salesman said he was a guitar player.
  • You have Hendrix boxers.
  • Your dog has a guitar-god silhouette dog tag.
  • Your ringtone is some crap you recorded in your home studio.
  • You have ever said "LESS VOCALS IN THE MONITOR" (while standing in front of your Marshall stack).
  • Your girlfriend said "It's either the guitar or me," and you kept the guitar.
  • You're irked at kids winning money at Guitar Hero contests while you slave away in your bedroom over Satriani tabs for nothing.
  • Your english teacher compliments you on a well-written term paper, and you say, "thang you, thang you very much."
  • You spend more time tuning before a gig than you do unloading the PA.
  • You've stopped the same song at practice more than three times to adjust your amp.
  • You've ever said "This pedal sucks," just to cover bad playing.
  • You walk your $5000 guitar into McDonalds so it's not left in your car, and hold it between your legs while you finish off your $1.99 Happy Meal.
  • You play through your Marshall 4x12 cab in the church band. The music minister is hospitalized.
  • You have to roll your pedalboard to the stage on a dolly.
  • You ask for a volume discount when buying two packs of guitar strings.
  • Your favorite metal guitar has a pull-cord starter.
  • You have clothing that matches the paint job on any instrument you own.
  • You have taken sandpaper and a hammer to a guitar in order to increase its value.
  • You have stuck your initials on your guitar's pickguard using lettering made for mailboxes.
  • Your amp is older than your mother. And your wife is younger than your daughter.
  • You're highly offended by that last item, but unfortunately it's true.
  • You're old enough to remember when "googling a Gibson" was something you did with your eyes at a guitar shop, not with your fingers on a computer.
  • You replaced all the screws in your guitar with 1956 original stock.
  • You have ever traded a family pet for gear.
  • You think drums, bass and keyboards are just your support staff.
  • You missed the birth of one or more children for a gig.
  • You get nauseated at the opening riff of Stairway to Heaven because you played it a thousand times before you were 10.
  • You hate having to endure stoned people yelling "FREE BIRD" at your gigs.
  • You must have a double bed on the road, one side for you, one side for your guitar.
  • You test drive a car by loading your rig in the back, just to get a feel for the fit, while your wife stands on the hot asphalt.
  • As a kid, your lunch money was actually your "allowance to buy more gear."
  • Your date slaps your face and says "I'm not that kinda girl!" when you ask her if she'd like to see you noodle your Stratocaster.
  • You go to church just to play along with the choir.
  • You've ever had to tell your wife, "But honey, they all SOUND different!"
  • The Spinal Tap joke of an amp that goes to 11 actually sounds like a good idea.
  • You called in sick from work so you could break in your new guitar.
  • You leave your equipment on as a nightlight.

    Suggest your own guitar junkie trait:



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