On the Dot
I have someone in my life that has been there longer than most.
It's my green Fender Eric Clapton model Stratocaster
You might think this is an odd thing to write about, a gearhead kind of thing that only musicians will care about but bear with me, there's far more to the story than you think.
There is a lot behind this guitar. She's my pride and joy and her name is Dot.
This goes back years . . . to roughly 1989 or 1990. I spent every gig, nearly every week, saving my money and squirreling it away in the hopes that I could save enough to get the same guitar and - hopefully - tone as my idol, Eric Clapton. Slowhand himself.
No one in Omaha, Nebraska had an EC Strat in-stock so I found a dealer in Kansas City, drove down to Quigley Music there, and found one. A bright green one. At the time it cost more money than almost any other new Stratocaster, and because it was green it had sat on the shelf for over a year.
Now...I like green so this was perfect for me. I bought Dot and drove back home, the nearly 3 hour drive, and was thoroughly excited to use it on my next gig.
First gig was with the band Drastic Measures, who in my bio I list as having had the dubious distinction of opening for Foghat. (They still owe us after what was one of the worst gigs . . . ever . . . and they stiffed us. After being total d**ks to us. Can't listen to them ever. Those scars run deep, man) Prior to said in-distinction I had the green EC. My bass player stepped on my guitar stand and she tumbled forward.
Now . . . bear in mind . . . I have seen Hendrix set a Strat on fire and still play it. Stevie Ray Vaughan stood on the body and lifted himself up by the neck and threw it in the air. None of that made a difference other than cosmetic dents.
Mine . . . after a soft little fall face-first onto the stage . . . was un-playable.
The neck, seen here attached to the body, had a hairline split right along the grain of the wood. It should never have happened.
I called Quigley, a mere couple weeks after my purchase, and they said "not our problem. It's your own fault." That short, that rude. Never mind that Dot was supposed to have a tweed case and they claimed it never came with one, just the cheaper, molded plastic they didn't even want to give me . . . for the exorbitant amount of money I paid.
Dejected, I eventually typed a letter (yes...this was an era where we still used typewriters) to Fender and asked them what to do. Then one day, at my desk at work, I got a call. I believe his name was Alex Ramirez, and he wanted to know what happened. I told him the accident on stage and he simply said "well . . . that shouldn't have happened." When I told him what the dealership said he asked "what was the dealership's name? I need to have a talk with them!"
I boxed up the guitar and shipped it to California to Alex's attention. It took a couple weeks . . . but he called again and told me what had happened.
Apparently, the EC's from that year had some sort of design or routing problem. The neck joint was just enough off-center it putt a tremendous amount of stress on the neck. They adjusted the design because of my EC. I had electronics from 1988...they had grabbed a new neck for me, which was at the end of 1989 I believe, and then by 1990 had the body.
"What color do you want," he asked me . . . and of course I said green.
It wasn't until much later that I came to know that Alex worked in the Fender Custom Shop. He basically built a new custom shop EC Strat for me and shipped it back. Someone from Quigley tried calling not long after I got the EC back...I hung up on them.
When I had it back, my older brother was visiting and saw the guitar.
"It's, like, 7-Up green," he told me. "Like the stuff with the dot on the commercials." At that point 7-Up had a long commercial campaign with the red Dot on a green background and it may even have worn sunglasses.
We named the well-worn, mongrel Stratocaster "Dot" in that honor. She has been called that ever since.
Dot is my go-to guitar. I have another EC, a black one, and several others. I had girlfriends, was married, and she since passed away. But nothing has been with me longer than Dot.
She'll always be my girl, I suppose.
