New Ulm, Minnesota is a German themed town in an extremely blond area of the planet. The band was playing at a motel bar which I can't recall the name. It was cold. Minus degree weather which you have to live through to appreciate. Snow so deep that the roads were like driving down a canyon, a snow canyon over the roof of a full size, 3/4 ton van.
Every so often there would be a cut through to the other side of the canyon to another road that led to frozen businesses with huge piles of snow scraped up every where to make space enough to park. Even the locals couldn't recall the last time they had seen that much snow.
As I was in need of replacement strings I found an interesting, independently owned music store called Brown's Music. When you walk into a typical, small music store you expect to see some beginner level electric and acoustic guitars displayed on stands around the store with the higher end models usually displayed hanging behind/above the counter out of reach of small children and idiots. Never let an idiot hold a high end guitar.
When I entered the store I was completely shocked and dismayed and fearing they would not have anything I needed. The entire front wall of the store was lined with accordions, squeeze boxes of all sizes. They even had electric accordions that plug into amplifiers like an electric guitar!
There were some of the fanciest, bejeweled instruments I've ever seen. Germans take their polka's seriously. There were quite a few band instruments for the high school concert and marching bands as well as a sign touting the prices for instrument repair such as re-padding clarinets and saxophones but nothing for guitars. As I was about to leave a spotted a small sign with "guitars" written in marker taped to the wall pointing towards a hallway that looked like it led to the bathroom.
Right around the corner was a small room with a sweet collection of high end guitars and all the guitar paraphernalia I was looking for. Relieved to find what I needed with plenty of time to kill as it was too fucking cold for a walk outside, I grabbed a "tobacco burst" Les Paul Custom down off the wall. A friend of mine had one similar so it caught my eye straight away.
A couple of hours later a handsome young man said they were about to close for the day so I purchased my strings and headed back to the "band house" trailer. "Man! That was the best neck I've ever had my hands on!" $1200 between me and the most buttery playing neck I've ever felt.
The next day I was back there again trying out all the other fine, classic guitars he had. Fender Strats and Telecasters, each one an absolute jewel to play. The young man came in and hooked me up to a Marshall half stack. I was now in guitar heaven. Gibsons and Gretches of all kinds but I kept coming back to that tobacco Paul.
I slept on it again and decided to put it on layaway as the band would be back in 4 months at that same gig. I cut back on EVERYTHING. I stretched my Copenhagen by cutting down to five "dips" a day, did without weed, drank the cheapest beer, lived on peanut butter sandwiches and 4 months later I had the last installment in my pocket.
Meanwhile all that excessive snow was melting and causing flooding all along the Red River and I -90 was flooded in spots. It looked like we might be delayed getting back to New Ulm until another 4 months. Damn it, man.
Then Mother Nature showed up with a late season blizzard and froze the flood solid. The locals called it a flizzard. Forced us to put chains back on the van again to make it to the New Ulm gig thus allowing my anxious hands to pick up the '84 Gibson Les Paul Custom Tobacco Burst finish with the EMG pick-ups and Schaler tuning heads with built in speed winders. The best playing/sounding guitar I've had the pleasure to play.
The story doesn't end there.
The young Mr. Brown came to see the band that night and asked what I had under the unsightly pile of shipping blankets. It was my 10 year old Fender Twin Reverb with broken nobs and scars from the road. It was so LOUD I had to mic it up and put shipping blankets over it to keep the bar manager happy. "Why didn't you just turn it down?" you might ask. Simply put, some amplifiers don't sound good until they are turned up to a point where all the components are in their "optimal" operating range which is always louder than the bar manager likes.
Evidently Fender Twins are the preferred amplifier for electric accordion players and the young Mr. Brown offered to trade me even for that new Marshall half stack. My Twin cost $850 new at Ace Music in Orlando, Fl 10 years earlier and the sale price for the Marshall was $1250. Even in the road worn condition of my Twin Mr. Brown assured me he would be able to double his money on it and get rid of that Marshall rig that he couldn't sell to someone who wanted it.
That's how I became a Les Paul through a Marshall convert. Rock and Roll!
Peace and Love!
I call her "Brownie".
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