Brand Awareness

Neville Marten recalls moments when his gear, no matter how fantastic its pedigree, was not quite enough to impress certain onlookers

- Neville Marten

Some years ago Mick Taylor (of That Pedal Show fame) and I did a few gigs as an acoustic duo, and sometimes as a trio with our late lamented bassist friend Roger Newell. The three of us also had a decent pub rock band with another mate on drums. On one occasion it was just Mick and me playing our hotch‑potch of numbers to a happy audience in a village pub near Bath. I had borrowed a Martin 000‑18 from World Guitars, just to see if I got on with it and whether it worked in this context. It had a quality pickup fitted and, of course, it played and sounded great – but was hardly a killer in the looks department. Mick had a much more imposing looking Taylor (yes, Marten with a Martin and Taylor with a Taylor – how we laughed!). It was a 714ce in sunburst, with pretty fingerboard and headstock inlays and altogether a more striking‑looking piece of kit.

Two middle‑aged guys had watched us intently all night. At the end of the evening they came over to chat and enthuse over our performance. The quieter of the two finally piped up to me with, “I’ve got a guitar just like that one.” “Oh yeah, nice,” I responded. “190 quid from Argos, wasn’t it?” His unintended sleight on my guitar was the coup de grâce. Next day I took the Martin back and bought a (cheaper but much more visually commanding) Gibson J‑185, in sunburst, with double parallelogram fretboard inlays and Maltese crosses on the bridge.