The Red Guitar

It's been really busy lately for your favorite outta-the-garage-but-hasn't-yet-hit-the-big-time band, so I'm just a tad late in writing about this, but with our next Cafe Mueller gig coming up, I just had to share an experience we had at last month's Cafe Mueller gig.

For those of you who have been fans with us from the early days, you know that Johnny has been through a few guitars before landing on his current, awesome, custom Moniker guitars:

In our earliest years, when we were Johnny Austin, Johnny played a butterscotch Fender Telecaster:

The time came when he wanted a guitar that had some capabilities that the Tele didn't have, and it didn't make sense to try and upgrade the Tele. So, he bought a beautiful cherry burst Parker Dragonfly (now called a Maxxfly):

He had the Parker for a couple of years, deciding at one point that he wanted to have it painted Ferrari red. That's when he found the Moniker guys. They said they normally built guitars, rather than just painting them, but they were just starting out and were willing to make an exception, so they painted the Parker for him.

It was a great guitar, but despite its fabulous paint job, its electronics couldn't quite handle the workout of Johnny's sweaty performance. So after a while, he sold the Parker and turned back to the Moniker guys - this time to build him a guitar.

Well, you rarely know what happens to your guitars after they leave you, but last month, a man walked up to Johnny as we were setting up at Cafe Mueller, and he pulled a guitar out of a case and asked, "Was this your guitar, by any chance?" (or something to that effect) It was the Parker.