Read Online One Train Later: A Memoir by Andy Summers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andy Summers
Tags: General, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, music, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Genres & Styles, Rock Musicians, Composers & Musicians, Rock, Guitarists
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bought in 1972 off a kid in L.A. for two hundred dollars that I have made the journey. I idly wonder if he has noticed that his old guitar has become an icon. I offered it back to him after making the purchase, saying, "Are you sure? There's something about this guitar," but he declined. I Suppose I should have a nice shiny new guitar-I get offered one about every five minutes nowbut I love it, this old relic: it has soul. Someone once said to me that like a woman, you get only one real guitar in your life. For me, it's this 1961 Tele.
By the approach of my sixteenth birthday, and after a couple of years of delivering newspapers, I have worked my way through a few guitars--a Voss, a Rogers, and a Hofner Senator-and a couple of amps: a Watkins Dominator and a Selmer True Voice (featuring the famous Selmer filtered sound). But finally after enduring the endless purgatory of newspaper rounds and other menial tasks-washing up, peeling potatoes in a hotel kitchen, dog walking, selling ice cream, working as a beachfront photographer-I have the money for a Gibson, the most iconic and desirable of all guitars. With a pocket full of pound notes and a head full of hope, I board the train to London.
Arriving at Waterloo, I am overwhelmed by the size of the station and the grey mass of city beyond and almost get back on the train to return to the west, but with a beating heart, I ask a black-capped porter the way to Charing Cross Road. He leans down and says, "Toob to Tottenham Court Road and jump aht there, aw right, Sunshine." I thank him and wander down the platform, having understood nothing. Eventually, and after asking many strangers, I grasp that the tube is a train, not a thing full of toothpaste, and it's down there-underground. And so by getting little niblets of information, I arrive on the right train and eventually (with several people now guiding me) manage to jump out at Tottenham Court Road and make my way south to Selmer's. The shop is large, impersonal, and intimidating, and I feel about as significant as a fly on the side of Westminster Abbey. The guitars, the bored-looking salesmen, the whole ambience, makes me as nervous as a rabbit, but hanging on the wall like an Aztec sun in all her sunburst glory is a Gibson, an ES 175. With a pulse pounding like an African drum, I croak, "Can I see that?" to the salesman who has diffidently asked me what I want. "You want to see `that' guitar?" He looks at me incredulously, as if I have just asked for a date with Rita Hayworth. "Christ," he mutters to himself, but reaches up and unhooks it. I try a few chords-it's great, it's miraculousand as I run my fingers over the neck it is as if angels whisper in my ear, The future begins here. I look up at the lapels of the blue suit. "I'll take it," I say with a grin.
On the train home I sit churning with excitement, gripping the handle of the case; there is no way I am putting this on an overhead rack or letting anyone get near it. Back in my bedroom I unveil my new bride in all her honeyed splendor. Lying there in the crushed pink velvet case, she's a perfect musical machine. I gently remove her from her bed and stroke a few chords, gm7, C7b9, FM7#1 1. The smell of new wood drifts into my senses like an ancient forest perfume, something takes wing, and I play the intro to "Move It."
Two weeks later, on a beautiful late October day, I arrange to meet a girl in the local park. Wanting to impress her, I decide to take the 175 along and show off with a few chords. We sit on the bench together like Romeo and Juliet. The wind is sending a cascade of red and brown leaves down from the trees across the grass and around the bench where we sit, me holding the guitar. The girl, Natasha, has long blond hair, a face with a hint of Russia, and the promise of a heartbreaking woman. She sits close to me and I feel her heat. I am desperate to kiss her and I try to play something for her on the 175 and am so overcome that I play badly, but she pulls
By the approach of my sixteenth birthday, and after a couple of years of delivering newspapers, I have worked my way through a few guitars--a Voss, a Rogers, and a Hofner Senator-and a couple of amps: a Watkins Dominator and a Selmer True Voice (featuring the famous Selmer filtered sound). But finally after enduring the endless purgatory of newspaper rounds and other menial tasks-washing up, peeling potatoes in a hotel kitchen, dog walking, selling ice cream, working as a beachfront photographer-I have the money for a Gibson, the most iconic and desirable of all guitars. With a pocket full of pound notes and a head full of hope, I board the train to London.
Arriving at Waterloo, I am overwhelmed by the size of the station and the grey mass of city beyond and almost get back on the train to return to the west, but with a beating heart, I ask a black-capped porter the way to Charing Cross Road. He leans down and says, "Toob to Tottenham Court Road and jump aht there, aw right, Sunshine." I thank him and wander down the platform, having understood nothing. Eventually, and after asking many strangers, I grasp that the tube is a train, not a thing full of toothpaste, and it's down there-underground. And so by getting little niblets of information, I arrive on the right train and eventually (with several people now guiding me) manage to jump out at Tottenham Court Road and make my way south to Selmer's. The shop is large, impersonal, and intimidating, and I feel about as significant as a fly on the side of Westminster Abbey. The guitars, the bored-looking salesmen, the whole ambience, makes me as nervous as a rabbit, but hanging on the wall like an Aztec sun in all her sunburst glory is a Gibson, an ES 175. With a pulse pounding like an African drum, I croak, "Can I see that?" to the salesman who has diffidently asked me what I want. "You want to see `that' guitar?" He looks at me incredulously, as if I have just asked for a date with Rita Hayworth. "Christ," he mutters to himself, but reaches up and unhooks it. I try a few chords-it's great, it's miraculousand as I run my fingers over the neck it is as if angels whisper in my ear, The future begins here. I look up at the lapels of the blue suit. "I'll take it," I say with a grin.
On the train home I sit churning with excitement, gripping the handle of the case; there is no way I am putting this on an overhead rack or letting anyone get near it. Back in my bedroom I unveil my new bride in all her honeyed splendor. Lying there in the crushed pink velvet case, she's a perfect musical machine. I gently remove her from her bed and stroke a few chords, gm7, C7b9, FM7#1 1. The smell of new wood drifts into my senses like an ancient forest perfume, something takes wing, and I play the intro to "Move It."
Two weeks later, on a beautiful late October day, I arrange to meet a girl in the local park. Wanting to impress her, I decide to take the 175 along and show off with a few chords. We sit on the bench together like Romeo and Juliet. The wind is sending a cascade of red and brown leaves down from the trees across the grass and around the bench where we sit, me holding the guitar. The girl, Natasha, has long blond hair, a face with a hint of Russia, and the promise of a heartbreaking woman. She sits close to me and I feel her heat. I am desperate to kiss her and I try to play something for her on the 175 and am so overcome that I play badly, but she pulls
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