So I’m trying to get back into a band. If they’ll have me, the band that I tried to start a few years ago that carried on quite nicely without me after I bowed out might be willing to take me back. Still just talking, but I’ve got a list of covers to learn and we are trying to schedule a meeting.

It’s got me doing something I shouldn’t be doing. It’s got one of the medical conditions I suffer from flaring up.

G.A.S… Better known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

The last time I played in a band for reals, I had a bunch of stomp boxes. The obligatory Dunlop Wah, a Morley volume pedal, a DoD flanger, a Boss digital delay, a DoD octave divider, and a Boss chromatic tuner, along with my Marshall combo’s channel/reverb switch. I would string them together, all with 9 volt batteries, on the floor at my feet whenever we played. I was always kicking them around to get them in and out of my way, depending on the song.

The other day I started looking at pedal boards to sit all of these things on so that I would have less to set up and break down. It’d be nice to have a power supply too, in place of all those batteries.

That lead to thinking of what additional pedals I could acquire. I use things in GarageBand that would be nice to have in real life. An MXR phaser. A univibe. A pitch shifter. Those are realistic, but thinking of them lead to unrealistic things like harmonizers and tape echoes (drool).

Next thing I know I’m bouncing between eBay and musiciansfriend and guitar center looking at amplifiers. The last time I was in a band for reals with Mike the Bass player I played through a Fender Combo. After that I used a sweet Marshall combo in Break Even. Today I was thinking that an old Fender Twin Reverb would be awesome. I’d need to get a Fuzz Face too. Then I thought, I’ve never owned a stack before, what does Fender have for stacks? How much does a decent Marshall stack with two 4×12 cabinets cost?

Oh goodness gracious, please stop me now.

G.A.S. There is no cure.