My search for a new guitar

When I made the decision to take this position in Nepal, I had contemplated bringing my guitar. I thought it would be a nice “comfort” of home that I could use for entertainment and to pass the time should I need to. After thinking things through a bit more, it became obvious that it was too much of a “luxury” to bring along considering how much luggage we were allowed and all of the other things that I would “need” rather than just “want”. So, when it came time to pack, Jenn and I made the hard decision that my guitar would remain behind. Jenn reasoned that it would likely cost more to ship than to buy a new one in Nepal.

Not long after we settled into our apartment, I started my search for a new guitar. This was in part precipitated by the fact that we live next to a drug rehabilitation center. How does having a drug rehabilitation center across the street from you make one want a guitar? Well, as it turns out the guys at the drug rehab center apparently have a lot of time on their hands and to pass the time they pull out their guitars and sing. These songs range from Hindi pop songs to The Eagles. Fittingly, there is one song that they sing that our neighbour swears contains the words Feliz Navidad in it, but I’m not sure… Their concerts occur every day (and into the night) and we have heard songs from Nirvana, The Cranberries, Neil Young, Guns n’ Roses, the list goes on.

So, as you can see I have been listening to them play their guitars for weeks and it makes me want to play (in part to drown out some of the terrible songs they play…). So it was a couple weeks back when I started my search to purchase a guitar. We were not sure where to go, so we started out in Thamel where all of the tourists go to shop. I ran across a couple shops that sell instruments and they had a variety of guitars.

As many of you know, some of the big name brands of guitars include Gibson, Epiphone, Alvarez and a number of lesser known brands like Horner, Ibanez etc. As I looked upon the racks of guitars it became apparent that the guitars they sold were cheap knock offs of brand name guitars. One shop I walked into, the shopkeeper happily told me that he sold “real Gibson” guitars. I said to him, “Gibson?” and he responded yes “real Givson”. As I looked up at the wall with the guitars displayed, on the neck of the guitar sure enough it said “Givson”. It seems the guitar manufacturers were smart enough to realize that they would run into trademark law problems using the real names, so they adjust them slightly. Thus, Gibson became Givson, Epiphone became Epephone, and Alvarez became Alvariz.

As for price, guitars in Canada start around $200 for a very beginner model. Others can be had for less, but they tend not to be playable and do not stay in tune. The shops in Thamel were asking for about 8000 rupees, which amounts to approximately $133 Cad. I figured I could talk them down to $100, but I thought I would leave it for another day as I wanted to a do a bit of price shopping. So, on Sunday I went out with Jenn to the area in Kathmandu called New Road,where the streets are jammed with little shops selling everything from computers to sewing machines to freshly butchered meat. I was told by a co-worker that there were a couple of music shops in the area. We wandered around for a bit and asked a few locals for directions. At last we finally found the music shops. We walked in and found the Epephone and Alvariz guitars and I was told there were better guitars upstairs. Upstairs we found the “real” guitars where they sold Takamine guitars with a starting price tag of 35000 rupees or $583 Cad… Ouch! Realizing that I cannot afford a “real” guitar, I settled upon a nice Hovner (rip off Horner) that sounded pretty good and seems to stay in tune. The nice surprise was that getting out of the tourist area paid off as I ended up spending only 2500 rupees or $42 Cad for it.

So, now I can compete with the drug rehab guys across the street or perhaps just go over and jam with them. I will have to brush up on my Guns n’ Roses though….