Welcome to Fret5

Greetings. I hope that you’ve found this site because, like me, you love guitars, guitar music, and guitar gear. I love to play, I love to learn and deconstruct music, I love to scout out and scope new gear. As Steve Vai once said, “there’s fun in every little nuance.” My main goal with this site is to collect, showcase, and discuss guitar with like-minded folks.

A little about me. I’d describe myself as a veteran amateur or hobbyist player. I started out singing, and wedged my way into a band my high school friends started. We played a few parties and gigs. My pitch was pretty good, but I have a pretty narrow range and was frustrated by the limitations of my voice. My friend Tim let me borrow his electric guitar over a weekend and I was hooked by the magic of distortion and the fact that I could apply myself and get better with practice.

When I was a teenager it was the 1980s and when I started to get really interested in music I listened to Andy Taylor from Duran Duran, Neal Schon from Journey, Alex Lifeson from Rush, The Edge from U2, and of course Edward Van Halen. Once I really started learning to play I got really into Steve Vai, John Frusciante, Hendrix, and countless others.

In my college years, I practiced a lot. Sometimes at the expense of my studies. Guys like Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert were constantly in Guitar Player, Guitar World, and Guitar For The Practicing Musician, so I had plenty to work on. I played in a few bands in my twenties, and had developed a style informed by funk, blues, and metal, somewhere between John Frusciante and Nuno Bettencourt with maybe 5% of the expected chops. I wrote and recorded some song demos, nothing very polished.

For the past couple of decades I’ve been playing casually on my own, no pressure, most of my energy going into family and work. But I play most every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. I look forward to talking more about guitars with you, thanks for stopping by.