(continued) Going back to the company Founders:
Dave Schecter:
After graduating high school in ’62 Dave worked in auto body shops. He was into cars along with several close friends. His friends were good street racers and Dave was good at tuning cars. He built himself a 63 Corvette and drove it to San Francisco in 1967 planning to stay. Whatever plans he had for that trip didn’t pan out and he returned to Boston.
Dave gave San Francisco another try in early 1968, which turned into 3-year stay. Dave lived in a small apartment and Haight / Ashbury was 17 blocks away. He would mostly hang out and be a San Francisco hippy. He arrived with some money and lived simply. He only worked 3 months at an auto body shop the entire 3 years.
It was during this time in San Francisco Dave acquired his first guitar, a Hagstrom. He couldn’t afford an amp, so he bought a 3 dollar device from Radio Shack and played trough his girlfriend’s TV speaker. The neighbors were not thrilled. Dave really got into the Blues and Taj Mahal was one of his favorites.
In 1970 Dave returned to Boston and worked at Concord Auto body. He wanted another guitar but couldn’t justify the price, so he built himself one. He built it mostly on the floor of the auto body shop after hours. It was made of white pine and finished with auto painting products.
Soon Dave was living on Westland Ave in Boston and building guitars for clients. He had a small apartment with tall ceilings and a large bay window looking out over Westland. It was minimally furnished and Dave would spend his days building guitars by hand. He was using small hand tools; a jig saw, a draw plane, drill. He could work on metal parts back at his old body shop. He really enjoyed the view from that apartment and that time of his life.
Dave’s neighbors were interesting, one was Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Dave and Jeff became friends. They met at a guitar shop run by Ed Murray and Bob Hoffer called EMU on Burbank Street, one block over from Dave and Jeff who both lived on Westland. EMU was one of the branches of the famous E.U Wurlitzer music store in Boston. Near E.U. Wurlitzer was a recording studio owned and operated by Ray Peret. Jeff’s band was the house band at that studio.
Dave Schecter