The Art Of The Deal.

One in a series of essays about how to successfully negotiate anything. Or not.

I walked into the only pawn shop in my town and went to the back where they have their musical instruments (four no-name brand Strat copies, a violin, two basses and a 40-watt guitar amplifier).

"Can you do anything about the price of this bass?" I asked one of the staff, opening the door to negotiation.

But she had been raised in a house where her dad yelled at her to shut the door.

"No, the owner isn't here and we can't change prices," she said, unapologetically. "You could ask him" - she pointed to someone behind the counter - "but he'll probably tell you the same thing."

I did, and he did.

"This has been here quite a while," I observed. The little yellow sticker on it showed that it arrived eight months earlier. "And it's kind of beat up," I said. A previous owner had plastered stickers all over it, there were a couple of dings in the paint and it was missing a control knob.

"Yeah," said the man behind the counter. "But it's an Ibanez."

I put the bass back on its stand. I'd have felt guilty paying the price they wanted and depriving the pawn shop of the cachet of having an Ibanez in stock.

Careful With That Axe, Eugene.

I'm still certain that the Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet has no idea what she's in for, but she wanted - heck, she insisted - that my Christmas present this year be a guitar.

An electric guitar.

She said, "I want to hear you play again." Before I met her, I owned a couple of electric guitars, but by the time we met, they were both gone and in their places I had a pair of acoustic guitars - a six-string Harmony and a twelve-string Takamine that was a gift from a previous girlfriend.

I seldom played the twelve-string; it was hard (for me) to play and hard (for me) to keep in tune. We sold it one month when we were short of cash. I felt little regret at letting it go, figuring that it would be better off in the hands of someone who knew what he or she was doing with it.

The six-string was easier to play, but when I moved from Canada to the US I left it behind, accidentally on purpose, in the old apartment. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have done that, but it made sense at the time. But here we are now, seven years removed from the last time she heard me play a guitar, long enough for the memories of buzzy strings, missed notes, atonal chords and (inevitably) the same bits played again and again and again to fade from her memory, leaving only the sweetly romanticized notion of me playing an instrument.

So I said "No, thanks."

That was my first mistake. You don't say no to the Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet. (Well, maybe you say no to her, but I sure don't.) So, after a few days, I carefully considered the error of my ways and said, "Let's go look at guitars."

Now it's five days later and I'm the proud daddy of a Squier Deluxe Stratocaster and a Vox Pathfinder 10 practice amp.



And you should see the look on the cats' faces when I turn up the gain.

The Band With Nearly As Many Names As Members

We saw an excellent show in Pittsburgh's Club Cafe last night, billed as "An Evening With The Minus 5, The Baseball Project and The Steve Wynn IV," which was really just a bit of crafty misdirection inasmuch as the same four people comprised all three bands, making it just about impossible to tell which group was playing which song.

(Readers who require a more rigid structure may wish to imagine that The Minus 5 opened, playing an energetic and muscular set during which Scott McCaughey and Steve Wynn's guitars provided churning, roaring, jangling melodies on top of bassist Peter Buck's steady hand on a vintage-style Eastwood Airline Map bass, throbbing along with Linda Pitmon's thundering and rock-steady drumbeat. The Minus 5 were followed by The Baseball Project, featuring Scott McCaughey and Steve Wynn singing about baseball legends like Fernando Valenzuela, Satchel Paige and Harvey Haddix while their guitars provided churning, roaring, jangling melodies on top of bassist Peter Buck's steady hand on a vintage-style Eastwood Airline Map bass, throbbing along with Linda Pitmon's thundering and rock-steady drumbeat. The Steve Wynn IV showed its versatility in the second set, with the bandleader supplementing fiery licks and crunching chords on his Fender Jazzmaster with howling harmonica work, while Buck took turns playing rhythm guitar on a blue and white Rickenbacker twelve-string as McCaughey took over the role of the Airline pilot's with the steady hand on a vintage-style Eastwood Airline Map bass, throbbing along with Linda Pitmon's thundering and rock-steady drumbeat.)


Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey.

But no matter which band was playing, they were killing, their chops were great, and that they were having fun was obvious, as was the crowd in the Club Cafe. They played nearly forty songs during their three-plus hours on the stage, including a version of Neil Young's "Revolution Blues," a track on the band's sold-only-at-gigs Butcher Covered disc.


Steve Wynn.

Between the first and second sets, the band members signed autographs, chatted with fans, posed for pictures and sold a little merchandise. (Peter Buck was an especially convincing salesperson - if the whole rock'n'roll thing doen't work out for him, he might have a future on QVC.)

And have I mentioned that Scott McCaughey and Steve Wynn's guitars provided churning, roaring, jangling melodies on top of bassist Peter Buck's steady hand on a vintage-style Eastwood Airline Map bass, throbbing along with Linda Pitmon's thundering and rock-steady drumbeat?


Linda Pitmon.

Now, if only they could pick one band name and stick with it.