This is my guitar. It’s my guitar being reglued for the second time. I left it in a hot car this summer. Don’t do that.
I used to own a run-of-the-mill Taylor but when I played this 1981 Guild D-25 in the back room of Willie’s American Guitars, I immediately sold it one craigslist and bought the Guild. When my son, Judah, was 9 months old and moving around the house by holding on to things, he grabbed the Guild, which I had irresponsibly set against a radiator in the kitchen, and they both tumbled. The baby was okay, the Guild was not. The headstock snapped off.
I got a couple quotes on fixing it, but we had two kids under two and no money to fix a guitar that was older than me, so it went in the case and then in our basement and then in my parents’ garage when we moved to Iowa. I bought a different Guild—a mahogany 84 D-5–but it just never spoke to me in the same way.
Then one day I told Laremy about the headless Guild and he said, “We should glue it.”
What did I have to lose?
We did. And it came back to life and I know how dumb this is but it was like hearing the voice of an old friend who you haven’t spoken to in years. I sold the other Guild to pay for a neck reset and when the luthier, super good dude, J. Rieck, saw the headstock, he said in his most serious and deadpan voice, “I wish you wouldn’t have done that.” But it wouldn’t have been in his shop if we hadn’t.
It feels like blogs are supposed to have a point? Sometimes it’s best to just throw yourself into something. Or maybe it’s never too late to come back to life. Or maybe: Second wind? Try third.