I gave my cousin his first guitar. At least I hope I didn't charge any money for it. When he was fourteen or fifteen or thereabouts his mother asked me if I'd sell her one of my old guitars, to give to my cousin for a birthday present.
As a bonus, I decided to refinish it. after attacking it for a couple of days with everything in my arsenal including a power sander, I was forced to conclude that the original finish was made of material intended for the heat tiles on the space shuttle. I had it about half-sanded off when I gave up. I painted the remainder with ordinary deck stain. My God, this surely would have qualified as a war crime, if anyone cared about cheap guitars, that is. Like I said, I hope she didn't give me any money for it.
Fast forward a couple of years, and my cousin has now found himself an electric guitar. We were living on opposite ends of the city, so didn't see each other that often; but the first time I was over he treated me to a screaming heavy-metal version of the "Hockey Night In Canada" theme. That was impressive enough; but he also seemed to have mastered every guitar lick that AC/DC and Rush had ever recorded, and a few that they probably had rejected as "too difficult."
A few years later, one day I asked my cousin what had become of the guitar. "That old thing? I got into an argument with (his younger brother) Marty and smashed it over his head."
This was recorded, as best as I can place, around the beginning of 1980 (these early tapes are somewhat mixed up chronologically). I know it rekindled my interest in songwriting, because there was suddenly someone in the picture with far more musical chops than me. This song was largely improvised (ya think?) and got its title from the fact that I was, indeed, singing into a silver bowl. (Actually, a large -- about two feet in diameter -- aluminum salad bowl). I figured it'd add some resonance to my vocal (it didn't) and more importantly, it disguised the fact that I was -- so to speak -- singing in public, which kind of weirded me out at the time.
Oh, that strange young fellow at the beginning, shouting lame jokes, incomprehensible ravings and manical laughter? That would be Marty, trying to do my job before I could wrest the mike away. So you can see why he was getting occasionally clonked in the head with guitars. You never ever steal the frontman's spotlight (even if he's hiding behind a salad bowl at the time).