“Stratotone Score”

c. 2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(4-20)

Note: During the COVID-19 pandemic, old ideas have resurfaced to fill the void created by social distancing and self-isolation. Here is one such tale from around 1985.

I have always been a fan of the Rolling Stones.

An early childhood memory is that of hearing their interpretation of the Buddy Holly classic ‘Not Fade Away’ on my Silvertone radio. I was living in Chandlersville, Ohio, a distant point-at-the-crossroads near Zanesville. My device was a simple, plastic unit that still utilized vacuum tubes for operation. But it provided a portal to the outside world, one I barely knew as a child in the 1960’s.

Group leader Brian Jones was captured in photographs from their early days with a Harmony ‘Stratotone’ guitar. A pedestrian tool, very working-class and earthy. But one that stuck in my memory. The group would soon graduate to finer instruments manufactured by Gibson, Vox, and other companies. Yet the budget twanger from Harmony stayed in my thoughts. Like a relic of that primal era for myself as a kid, and for the band.

After my television experience in the Finger Lakes region of New York, I returned home to Ohio with a guitar fever of sorts. In the early 80’s, there was still an untapped wealth of coveted instruments in pawn shops and thrift stores east of Cleveland. I managed to find a few examples that were worth claiming with my limited funds. A Kay acoustic with an accessory DeArmond pickup installed. An orange Supro arch-top. A Crescendo copy of the ‘teardrop’ Vox. A repainted Hagstrom II from Sweden. Each had its own funky vibe. Each was perfect for jam sessions with my unconventional friend and television cohort Paul Race, who still lived around Corning, a short drive from Ithaca.

But the jewel of my collection appeared in an unlikely manner – while having coffee.

I had traveled northeast with a friend named Tim, to the city of Ashtabula. A place known for economic woes and crumbling infrastructure. Shady, stained and in decline. He recommended that I meet with a fellow guitar enthusiast. One supposedly more interested in new models of the day. We would share a catalog of Carvin instruments, which could be custom-ordered. Later I would trade for an Applause ‘roundback’ acoustic from his collection, a product of Ovation.

We met at a Perkins restaurant on West Prospect Road. They had a traditional counter up front, and we sat in a row, each of us ordering a mug of black gold with breakfast. A long mirror lined the wall in front of us, so I looked over a carryall of salt, pepper, ketchup and pancake syrup, to see my own reflection. But there was something more, something that widened my eyes… a store across the street, visible through the restaurant’s front windows.

The shop was called “New York Surplus.’

I stared at the building with the tempo of my pulse beginning to rise. It was a tower of peeling paint and dislodged lumber. Wholly suited to its surroundings. The business name appeared to have been painted by hand, with a brush. The glass underneath was dirty and cracked. But across the front hung a collection of shapes I could not ignore. Familiar, friendly, figures that aroused a sense of primal lust in my heart.

Guitars!

I could see enough to partially gauge the value of their collection. Several were common, low-buck acoustic models. One was a junker Les Paul copy, nearly ubiquitous in that era. Another was a Japanese Silvertone. But on the right side there was something out of place. A genuine museum artifact. One that plugged my cerebrum into an electric stream-of-consciousness.

The Brian Jones guitar!

Tim and his friend, who I learned carried the everyday moniker of Bill, continued to drink coffee. I excused myself as if a bathroom visit was needed. My hands trembled. Would this new contact recognize my intended prey and sprint across the street to interrupt the purchase? I held my breath and prayed to the plectrum gods.

“Let my feet be swift, let my aim be true...”

The fellow at ‘New York Surplus’ looked disinterested in my patronage. He reeked of cigarettes. His unmanaged hair was thick, gray and greasy, like his baseball cap.

I asked about the Harmony and he grunted out a price.

“Fourteen dollars,” he said.

I nearly soiled my jeans. The guitar was almost perfect, except for a missing knob. I strummed out a few chords, while he fumbled through a pile of refuse for the chipboard case. Our transaction was completed in only a couple of minutes.

The Japanese Silvertone made me look back with a twinge of regret. I swore an oath to return again, after payday. For now, my wallet had gone empty. Still, I felt relieved.

The Harmony Stratotone was mine.

Back at Perkins, Tim and Bill were discussing the genius of Eddie Van Halen. I reckoned that neither of them had noticed the shop across from our restaurant. It even seemed possible that they would not care about the vintage axe, now stashed under the hatch of my Chevy Chevette. But I could not be sure. So I said nothing about my six-string escapade.

Nothing.

Some 35 years later, I would see photographs in a Facebook group about Brian Jones, taken at a recording session in 1963. Brian was shown with his Harmony, looking youthful, energetic, and unencumbered with the trappings of fame that would follow.

I pondered my iconoclastic friend Paul, from Corning, now deceased. And the Harmony, packed away at the back of a closet, behind clothes that no longer fit. Though the joy of conquest had lasted for only a moment, my prize retained its luster.

Now in my late fifties, disabled and retired, I still felt a childlike sense of awe when remembering that day.

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