I was a Tech at Steve's Music in Toronto, Canada, from late 78' to 83; where I met Herschel Blankenship. We talked about the products and components at length. He was a very friendly guy, and through our conversations he told me he had Fender repro Decals for most Fender guitars, well I was very interested at the time, as I was doing restorations on many a vintage Strat, as the Strat craze was in it's glory, so I bought a stack of them from him, and to this day I still have a bunch.
One of my claim to meet fame, was working on Pete Townsends Gold Top Tele. It came in to Steve's due to the fact that Steve's was tied in in some way with CPI Concert Prod. International, and we got all the service work from the biggest acts to come through Toronto.
Pete's guitar had a defective Vol. pot, and we did not have that model in stock, It was a RUIDO so It was flown in over night for me to install it for the show on Dec 16th 1982 I still have the defective original. The service staff and our manager were given passes to see the sold out show, as well after we got to go back stage with the road manager Alan Rogan and see all of Pete's guitars.
I had the great pleasure to hold everyone that was in the big shipping cases. I also got to setup a Gretsch Country Gentleman for Pete as well. The only pictures I have was me in the shop with the Tele and the Gretsch, as back in the day you could not bring a camera to these shows. I did not get to meet the band, but did get a signed show catalog. Great times , and fond memories.
Frank Toth.
