Agustin Sanchez>

My Mom bought my Dad this guitar for their first year anniversary, or so the story goes. It’s the guitar I can remember my dad playing when I was growing up, sitting with him on saturday mornings while he recorded songs into two white ceramic Sony mics straight into a tapedeck.

Somewhere along the line the guitar became mine. I was 13 or so and got a decent amount of cash (well, for a 13 year old) and “bought” the guitar off my dad. This is the guitar I learned countless Nirvana songs on by watching Kurt Cobain’s hands on the MTV unplugged performace. It’s the guitar that roamed the halls of high school, serenading pretty girls and jamming with friends from the Jazz Band.

This guitar is as much a part of me as anything I can think of. It’s been around for as long as I can remember, and helped to define a main part of my skillset and in some ways personality. It’s a gorgeous instrument. It has the best action of any acoustic or electric I’ve played in my life and a chuggy tone that completely compliments my playing style.

Somewhere in college the guitar fell by accident and started developing a crack in the heel of the headstock. I’ve always favoured heavier gauge strings, which in turn means higher tension on the guitar overall. Over the course of 5 years the neck bowed more and more until it started fretting out, making it harder to play. In respect for the instrument, the strings were slackened I stopped playing it. It became an heirloom of my past, no longer functional, but a pretty hunk of wood on the wall.

When Meli and I married we decided to use the guitar as the sign-in book for the reception. The guitar was placed on a table surrounded by river rocks, candles, and a ton of silver sharpies. The guitar had come full circle, once a present from my mom to my dad, it was now a historical document for my new family with my wife. Its face pockmarked with years of use and memories, and just a layer above all the signatures of loved ones and family rest, sealing the guitars journey thus far.

I’ll probably have a luthier look at the guitar and have it fixed at some point. My goal is to play it at some far off wedding anniversary, pass it on to a son or daughter, etc etc.

I’m guilty. I’ve been a bad blogger. You caught me red handed. If you look below my last post was May 13th, which to me seems like a lifetime ago. Part of my Birthday Resolution is to use this blog more. My birthday is October 24, this saturday (you can wish me a happy birthday by giving me money), & I say part, because I’ve made myself other promises… promises i’ll keep to myself.

So, let me atone for my sins… let’s go through some updates on who I am, what I do, & what makes me tick:

• I’m an Art Director at AgencyNet. I create, craft & manipulate pixels everyday for some really cool brands, doing exciting things everyday. Creating is my passion, whatever the medium. The fact I’m able to do this daily, on exciting projects, surrounded by like-minded professionals makes me feel extremely blessed.Some new passions at work, are designing for the iPhone and composing audio, both things that 6 months ago were not on my plate to the extent they are now.
• I continue to play guitar on a regular basis, eventually keeping releasing some collection of songs in the back of my mind. Through work I’ve been able to experiment and grow my skills technically to include composing music using Apple’s Logic Suite. While I own a tub amp and love the warmth of a vinyl record, there’s something extremely liberating about recording digitally, sequencing drums, layering multiple guitars & basses and adding effects and textures, all without costly setups and equipment.
• Photography has overtaken my life outside of work. I’ve been able to slowly get better equipment, playing with light and composition. You can check out my photography portfolio or flickr to see some of my work. The interesting thing is training my eye to see things differently, and learning new photo manipulation and cleanup techniques actually expands my skillset with daily photoshop work.
• I consume far too much music and like to make mixtapes. I have an hour drive so in some ways it’s essential to my mental health. You can check out mixtapes.
• I live what I consider a blessed life, sharing it with my extraordinary wife Meli and my two Boston Terriers. True love exists. We’re currently house hunting, looking for the next step in a series of next steps of maturation.I grew up in the SF Bay Area; owning a house seems like the oddest thing to me at times. Growing up with such high property prices and taxes, renting was the only option I ever knew, so it’s a complete novelty to be “house hunting”

So, photos, sparkling water, pizza, guitars, boston terriers, camera clicks, IKEA, cigarettes, and dirty trucks… that’s me in a nutshell.

Some of those other resolutions I talked about earlier are to create more content, things that make me happy. posters, tshirts, custom designed sneakers, screen prints, flyers, and photography. It’s high time I start bringing all these disparate *hobbies* I have, and start making some truly memorable stuff…

More posts to come on a regular basis.