As of today, I listed my last remaining electric guitar and one amp for sale on craigslist. It's weird, but I guess I have arrived at the conclusion that guitar has too great of a danger of being self-indulgent. For me anyway.

These days, I can sing, play guitar, drums, and bass capably, and it's been a long time since I've played much on the electric. But recently I came across a situation where I might be best suited to play electric guitar again, and I found myself starting to obsess about guitar and losing sight of the larger musical goals. And I became a bit more egocentric about music and how I would need to make sure I was heard properly.

Quite frankly, that's not an attitude I ever have when filling any other musical role. I believe, above all, that any musician should be making the song the best f-ing song it could possibly be, and anything less is simply unacceptable. But putting myself above the song is something I just can't help but do when I pick up an electric guitar. I start thinking more about my guitar lines and less about the overall song. Some would call that passion, but I call it self-indulgence. To that end, I listed my remaining guitar gear on CL today. I love music as much as almost anything in life, but I can no longer do it the disservice of keeping the black hole of electric guitar as a viable option for me.

The sad part, of course, is that I love the electric guitar and most of my musical tastes and influences are very heavily based around electric guitar (STP, King's X, Beatles, Radiohead, etc.). But you do what you have to do.

For those of you who will continue to play it (and believe me, there are plenty), do me the favor of being responsible with your volume, understanding you are part of the picture and not the picture itself, and listen to and working with the other musicians with whom you play. You owe it to the gift of music to act responsibly in that way.

That's all. Sorry to be a wet blanket, but even though this forum is dying, I still feel like many of you know me better than a lot of people I have met and would consider to be my friends.