Uncle Larry's Cure for G.A.S

Gear acquisition syndrome comes on strong with the smallest invitation: a sound, a song, an album, a picture, a positive (paid) review — anything can set us down the path to righteous tone!

But wait...

Good ol' Tom Bukovac, a.k.a Uncle Larry might just have the cure... He was in conversation with Tim Pierce, and when I heard the following, I felt my neural networks breaking apart and remapping in real time!

“That’s the sort of stuff that I’d use to do like I’d just get lost in these wormholes looking at gear. And then in the end you realise…you sound like you no matter what you play. All these years of fishing around and all this money I’ve wasted hunted for the perfect guitars and amps — I could’ve stopped with the first shit I had and practised more and I would have still sounded exactly like me. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing, we all sound like who we are. I could get a million different amps and I could make them all sound like me. So what is this compulsion we all have to keep thinking that there is something better out there? What is this? What is this black hole burning inside of us right — to acquire the ultimate sword in the stone, it doesn’t really exit, you know?”

So good!

Of course we are right to be curious about gear, I know I am, but let's not kid ourselves: New gear won't make you better. Playing and practising is what makes you better, and it always has. Just use whatever shit gear you have and spend time making music. It's kind of a liberating mindset, don't you think?