I am a musical aficianado of sorts, an obsessive appreciator. I can talk musical history, appreciation, origins, even throw in a few technical terms, but that is where my musical ability ends - in appreciation, not creation. I am not adding to the catalogue, I am not making music, I am not furthering the cause. I play no musical instrument and hence keys and chords mystify me and I look upon those who know a major from a minor with an air of reverance and more than a little envy.
And so with this sense of enigma in mind, I set off with a friend to find him a guitar. After looking in a catalogue, and deciding that a £60 Argos guitar with complimentary carry case was totally un-rock 'n roll, we headed to Denmark Street. Located behind Tottenham Court Road station, it is like Harry Potter's Diagon Ally - a hidden gem lined with guitar shops and musical book stores.
From the windows of half a dozen shops gleam the wood and paint of every type of 'axe'. Electric and acoustic jostle for elbow room and my eyes darted back and forth, taking in metallic paint jobs, inlaid wooden roses, straggles of strings and pedals ripe for pushing. Outside most of the shops a rock veteran or two lurk, pinching their cigarettes between calloused, nicotene stained fingers.
Some of the stores cater purely to the professional, and they smirk at our beginners uncertainty, but others patiently take down Fender after Fender and encourage us to hold them, pluck them, strum them. Shyly we make our first tentative sounds, listening to the difference in woods, in strings, in necks. We know nothing and yet nod appreciatively as one after the other's sound is described to our novice ears.
They are beautiful, and I feel like I am at the pound and should take each and every one of them home. I wonder which ones will belong to owners who will take a few lessons and cast them aside, and which ones will be used to sing a lullabye, write the next Stairway to Heaven or smashed in a fit of punk rage. I hope they will comfort lost adolescents and be toted belovedly across countries, and that they will be used to make more great rock 'n roll so an appreciator like me can keep appreciating. My friend didn't buy the guitar that day, decisions like this take time. But it looked so comfortable in his arms I hope he does soon.
"Years will come, years will go and politicians will do fuck all to make the world a better place. But all over the world young men and young women will always dream dreams and they will put those dreams into song...in future years there will be so many fantastic songs...they will be written, they will be sung, and they will be the wonder of the world..."
- The Count in The Boat that Rocked
