Photo: Me (age 17) with my fake Beatle bass

[thetworegs]

Great photo Ted

[StephenM]

way cool.... my kind of rocker... head back, hair flying and letting it all go!  You still rock Ted!

[kenny mac]

I love old photos, excellent stuff.

[Jean Pierre]

ah beautiful picture et good memory
s
Unfortunately I don't have any photos from when I was 17 and playing in a teenage band (the red roosters ) in my country (france) and region (Lyon).
At the time, I had in my hands
-a fender jaguar
- and sometimes a "chet atkins" gretch

...these two legendary guitars ...were not mine, they were only lent to me

...because these guitars, not imported from the USA at the time, were worth their weight in gold, and all the rock bands in the region wanted to hire me to play with them ...just for the prestige of having a guitarist, the only one in the region to have such guitars. When I told them it wasn't mine, they shrugged and turned on their heels.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Ted]

Great photo Ted

Here's another one, taken within a year of the first one.

This was the first time I'd ever played in front of an audience.

I'm playing the Fender Jazz Bass that belonged to my high school. My friends Mike and Paul are doing a Blues Brothers bit, obviously.

Over on the left, just off stage, the girl on the right side of the door, that's Colleen. The girl who not only friendzoned me for years, but also the girl who denied me the chance to see Tom Waits. That's her, Trevor.

[Zoltan]

This is what i want. And i hope i'm speaking on behalf off most everyone here. Nostalgia, old pics. Stories. Out with the new stuff. I want to dwelve on these things. The original pic raised the bar high yet you managed to throw in another banger.

I wish a was this cool at your age. I was probably playing with Dungeons & Dragons and listening to hair metal.

[Ted]

I want to dwelve on these things.

Speaking of dwelling on things. That was a high school talent show. We thought we were a shoo-in for the musical category. You know who won??? Some girl who lip-synched to record. Not that I'm bitter after 43 years.

[StephenM]

cool stuff men... I don't have many photos but I have one... I will try and add that here.  here is a story from HS... there were these twin brothers that loved to rock and they were younger than me so I didn't really know them but one of my classmates was a good rhythm guitarist and singer...
they did a Bowie song for the schools talent show (about 250 in attendance)... Suffrajet City... I was sitting there thinking how cool that was and how good they sounded..
I played in a really decent cover band in the Charleston, SC area for about 2 years.  We actually played in places that Hootie and the Blowfish played starting out.  Nobody knew who they were then.  I was in the Navy though and at shore duty at that time and was smart enough to know I was never going to pay the bills with music.  So back to sea I went...
I did do something though very few people can ever say they did.  I played in a real band underwater (ok we used a drum machine but otherwise 3 of us)... and we usually won first prize in the half way night (half way through the patrol) talent show... It is not all work underwater... sometimes we did fun things like build an 9 hole putt putt golf course etc... played horse raising, casino nights, etc etc.

[Ted]

I played in a real band underwater

That's really cool. Were the acoustics as awful as I imagine they were?

[StephenM]

and then some

cracked me up... you're right ... I did not explain this well...lol