Kirk
is a Guitarist. I started playing in 1959 , played in bands in the '60's with all those great tube amps, Harmony and Gibson guitars. Played acousically in the '70's. Then in
1980 had gotten into electric's and amps again after
12 years of playing mostly acoustics. I had a 1972
Les Paul Deluxe and Fender Sidekick 65 and really
hated the sound. In 1989 I discovered a newly
started guitar store by a chap named Dave Duval.
After becoming a 'regular' hang-a-round, I
discovered (again) Vintage Guitars and Tube Amps. I
found my electric sound. I played in such wonderful
bands as the Pallbearers and Kingsmen (not Louie
Louie) and had Tube Amps, but offed them for those
new transistor ones in the 70's. There went the
'sound' I have now managed to obtain a nice
collection of Fender, Gibson, Martin, Gretsch and
more Guitars as well as Fender, Marshall, Traynor,
Musicman and Matchless amps but my one love is
pedals. Through Dave's store I have managed to find
Clyde McCoy Wah, Mu-tron, Dallas Arbiter pedals and
specialize in 9 series and 3 digit series Ibanez
pedals. Yes TS9, SD9 etc. as well as the TS808 et
al. I am an elitist, I admit and only abide made in
America Guitars and Amps. In collecting instruments
I have found that some of the nicest people around
are afflicted with the same compulsion which makes
this hobby a lot of fun. If you collect pedals, I
would love to hear from you, and I always say older
is always better. The picture left was taken at a
folk concert I did in the seventies in Southern
Ontario. The guitar is a Martin D35 which my wife
purchased new for me on my birthday, I still own
this guitar today and it is in mint condition. I
realized the value of the guitar back then and took
great care of it over the years. The purchase price
was $696.00 including the Martin case. In May of
2006, I found that the binding on the D35 has
started to separate after 34 years. I contacted
Martin, who checked their records and found my
warranty registration sent to them. They instructed
me to take the D35 to my nearest Martin repair
centre to repair the binding under their lifetime
warranty. Seems there still are quality companies
these days and always remember...send in those
warranty cards.
Well, I started writing this website in 1999. It was an exercise in learning to write HTML code for Dave Duvall's Encore Music Exchange Guitar store. I wrote his site and looked at my two pages of code. Why waste it and 21 years later it's still here but much expanded. I was 49 back then. 70 now and getting old. Wonder how much longer this website is going to still be going. It was my FaceBook before FaceBook. Have gotten lazy now and use Adobe Dreamweaver to edit it. Don't need to learn code anymore, just want to get it done. Added a lot today (Nov. 18, 2020). Regards, Kirk...