Retro cool? It's ALWAYS been cool.

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well in these challenging times. It's been a while since I've been on the forum, but I wanted to swing by, check things, out, and share a funny Westone story.

I'm a high school teacher, and every year we have a faculty talent show the day before winter break. I'm by nature a shy person, but this year I thought "why not?" and signed up. Since the theme was "winter and the holidays," I decided to play a metal version of the Game of Thrones theme (after all, winter is coming!). There is a version of the song that is on YouTube that has Scotty Ian, Nuno Bettencourt, Tom Morello, and others shredding to the song - that was my reference point. I learned to play the song on my EVH Wolfgang, but the day of the show I decided to break my Westone Spectrum out of semi-retirement and use it instead.

The performance was fun... but even better was how many compliments the Westone got! "I've never heard of Westone - that's a beautiful guitar!" was a common theme from staff and students. After the show, a couple of kids who play guitar asked to try it out, and they were all impressed with the neck as well. One student said, "Your guitar is retro cool!" 

Thanks, kid. But as someone who has owned the guitar since 1992... it's always been cool. 

Nice to see you again Derek.

Yup, as I and others have often said, the Spectrum has perhaps the finest production neck both for its time and even today.

Even though I know that, I keep re-discovering that fact every time I have one out on rotation and I pick it up.

Thanks for the welcome back, Barry. I'm glad I came back.

As for the neck... there really isn't anything like it. Maybe the closest I've played is the Ibanez Wizard neck (the one on the JEM 7V), but even that one doesn't feel "right" to me. I like my Wolfgang as an everyday guitar (since I'm trying to preserve my Spectrum and not play it too much - it's not getting any younger), but there's something about the Westone neck that can't be beat. When I was learning that Game of Thrones song, I came up with a little phrase around the 15-19th frets on the high E and A strings, and no matter how much I practiced it on the EVH, I couldn't quite play it accurately. I picked up the Westone and played it no problem on the first try.

...When I was learning that Game of Thrones song...

Which reminds me, I still haven't finished watching the final season!
With Covid-19 still lurking about I guess I have no excuse not to crank it up, eh?

Barry wrote:

...When I was learning that Game of Thrones song...

Which reminds me, I still haven't finished watching the final season!
With Covid-19 still lurking about I guess I have no excuse not to crank it up, eh?

Personally, I'd say you're better off finishing with season 7, and pretending that the season finale of Danaerys sailing toward Westeros is how the show ends...