'It's A Shame About Ray'

I wish there was a way to correlate guitar sales with what type of guitar rock music was popular at the time.

My point: It's my theory that easily attainable rock music spurs guitar sales. Young men (and women) hear the music, find that it's incredibly simple to pull off and thus a bunch of 14-year-old kids want guitars for Christmas.

In the 1990s, nothing got my mojo rishing like lush, crisp guitar power pop. I'm talking the Lemonheads, Matthew Sweet, Soul Asylum, Gin Blossoms, Teenage Fanclub, The Smithereens, The Posies, Redd Kross, Weezer and Sloan. Uhhhh. I lived and breathed on that stuff. Every album purchased when I could procure the cash.

These artists are who I cut my teeth on and between them and the The Beatles and the 1960s rock bands, I was dying for a guitar. I got one in the eighth grade and I found myself listening to these CDs over and over trying to figure them out. Or copying off buddies. Eventually, the Internet happened and finding tablature online was the easiest thing in the world.

My favorite Evan Dando, lead singer/turd of the Lemonheads, story is when the band first started with he and Ben Deily. Dando had left the band, but they had a good single out and a European tour to undertake. Dando re-joined the group. However, during the tour, Dando would apparently play the guitar riff from Guns 'n' Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine." And Deily left the band.