There’s no other feeling that compares to when you’ve finally found the right guitar. The way the neck feels cradled in the palm of your hand, how your fingertips slide across the fretboard, and the warmth you feel when the sound comes—everything has to be just right.
Locals searching for the perfect axe for their next band or album, or to finally start up some lessons, will have a ton of choices at the Central Coast Guitar Show happening on April 21. It marks the sixth year of the show, explained Ed Miller, who started the annual event under his organization Unfinished Business Productions.
“I do the best I can to attract as many vendors as I can,” Miller said. “This year I’m really happy to have Ernie Ball Music Man is going to do a booth and they’re sponsoring our door prizes.”
The Central Coast Guitar Show features a number of vendors, from manufacturers like Ernie Ball to dealers of used and vintage guitars. The venue this year is the Veterans Memorial Building in San Luis Obispo.
Rows of acoustic guitars, electric guitars, amplifiers, and other gear line the tables in the hall where visitors and collectors pack the space. But the vendors aren’t the only ones selling, Miller explained. Locals can bring an instrument to possibly sell or trade, he said, and even get $1 off admission for bringing an instrument of their own.
“It’s kind of a walk-in market too for the people inside, the dealers and buyers interested in what these people that walk in want to sell,” Miller said.
The event fills with “an energy and an excitement,” Miller said, even though it’s a “small town version” of guitar shows you might see in LA or the Bay Area. Some vendors bring exceptionally rare and valuable guitars, he said, that may go for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But other vendors are looking to make some sales, and have affordable options as well.
Some are “looking to clean out their closet,” Miller said, and others want to sell their own work. One guitar maker out of Guadalupe, Justin Abernethy, will bring his custom electric guitars, which he sells under the name Bottom Line Guitars.
For die-hard guitar fans like Miller, the chance to catch a sight of a classic sunburst Les Paul or a Fender made in the 1950s or ’60s makes the Central Coast Guitar Show a destination. But you never know if it’s the right guitar until you hold it and play it, he said.
“It’s kind of like that magic, you either hear it or you feel it,” he said. “As a player, there are a lot of variables. … But it’s the electronics, the pickups, the way they made them back then, the materials, the woods the guitars were made of.”
Miller plays lead guitar for his band, Unfinished Business, which recently performed a Beatles and British Invasion themed concert in Nipomo. Playing the Beatles well as a lead guitarist requires a certain instrument, he said, depending on the song or era of the band’s output.
“There’s just a certain sound to them, depending on the player and the amp you’re playing it through,” he said. “I have a ’64 Gretsch Tennessean, which I use in our Beatle shows, and it’s the real thing. Whether you think it sounds good or not, that’s the sound George Harrison got, that’s the guitar he played.”
Miller said he started the Central Coast Guitar Show so that locals would have the chance to find their perfect guitar without having to drive hours to a guitar show or large-scale retailer. Every year has been different, he said, but there’s always a solid crowd of excited musicians looking to explore the inventory or bring their own to sell or trade.
“They love guitar, probably the most popular musical instrument in the world,” he said, “and they have an opportunity on the Central Coast to do something they couldn’t do unless they went to the big city.”
Managing Editor Joe Payne already has too many guitars. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 19-26, 2018.