Episode 3: A Song Even Heavier Than METALLICA
Completely under METALLICA's spell now, I even practiced holding the guitar in front of the mirror. But the Mockingbird's head was so heavy, it was just impossible to play comfortably.
As for the amp, back then I was using something that looked more like a toy than an amplifier. About a month after I started playing, a friend and I went to visit RockInn, a music shop that used to be in Ogikubo. I desperately wanted a Floyd Rose-style guitar like Kirk Hammett's — what I ended up buying wasn't quite that, but I picked up a used white Fernandes Stratocaster-type with a built-in sustainer, complete with a Floyd Rose-licensed tremolo.
For the amp, I found a used Charvel amp in Ochanomizu. I was getting more and more obsessed with music by the day.
Around that time, I formed a band with some classmates, and we got together a few times in a rented meeting room at Sesion-Suginami, each bringing our own songs to play. But a bunch of beginners couldn't really pull off playing anything properly together, and the band quietly fizzled out before long.
Those days of practicing at home continued. Then one day at school, a friend let me listen to a single song on his CD Walkman. It hit me hard — heavy in a completely different way from METALLICA, and it blew me away.
"This is amazing. What band is this?"
I asked him...
To be continued.
