The fix-it men
They are in the business of fixing guitars and related equipment – and loving every minute of it, well into their senior years.
THE aged often find themselves categorised as either loving, doting grandparents or unfriendly, disgruntled old quacks with chips on their shoulders. And, their interests seem to be relegated to gardening, going for morning/ evening walks, watching television and reading the papers ... oh, the perils of stereotyping.
However, there is a clutch of like-likeminded senior citizens who have thethe honour of being unique in their respective fields – they all repair and restore guitar and guitar-related equipment for a living, and still do so into their 60s.
Meet Seow Sow Feng, Greg Tan and Richard Lee – men who indulge in a lifetime of playing music and appreciation of the arts.
“I have always been interested in electronics,” Seow, 61, admits. Even though he may have been tempted to fiddle about with the equipment available to him at that time, he decided to educate himself first on the intricacies and dangers involved. The then 18-year-old lad from Tanjung Malim, Perak, enrolled at the Kota Institute of Electronics in Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur. The institute has long folded, but his interest in electronics remains as strong as it was the day he studied the subject back in 1970.
Tan, 61, also tinkers with guitars and electronics. Sit down and have a chat with him, and you’re likely to learn a lot more than just guitars. Calling him a guitar “professor” wouldn’t be too far off the mark.
Tan’s first brush with the electric guitar came in the mid-1950s, when his dad dragged him (as alibi) to a party where a band was playing.
“I was stunned and amazed by the electric guitar, with its shiny body and buttons, and that’s when my life-long love affair with the instru-instrument began,” the Penang-born musician concedes.
According to him, the party had a mix of rock n’ roll and twist songs ... all the party tunes of the time.
“My dad looked at the girls while I was riveted to the guitar,” he says, laughing.
Music culture of the 60s
Lee was simply swept away by the music culture of the 1960s, when most young boys harboured hopes of playing in bands.
“It was a cool thing to be in a band then. In fact, my band Skylarks, played Stadium Negara a couple of times, and we even took part in RTM’s Radio Talent Time competition,” Lee, 65, shares.
Like most bands that plied the band route in the 1960s, Skylarks played instrumental music from the repertoire of The Shadows and The Ventures, until The Beatles and The Rolling Stones came along.
Seow concurs with Lee, but his experience takes in some regional acts, too. “We used to play songs by The Saints (Kluang, Johor), The Quests (Singapore), The Stylers and Chinese pops songs by Wang Ching Yuen (Hong Kong),” Seow says.
Lee remembers his first guitar fondly. “It was a German-made Hofner which I later converted to a bass guitar, making the instrument’s neck myself,” he reveals, suggesting how his interest in repairing and customising began.
Tan recalls how he ogled one for the longest time during his school days: “While walking to my school, St Xavier’s Institution, I would pass by this store, Cheng Lee Sports & Music, and stare at a Fender Stratocaster (electric guitar) and Fender Showman amp in the display window. Then I began drawing that guitar while in class.” His first guitar though, was an Excelsior acoustic from Europe which his father gave him.
More than a few curious eye-eyebrows are raised when people learnlearn of these sexagenarians’ passion and indulgence, taking their age into consideration. “People are surprised that I specialise in this field, especially at my age. But I’ve been getting customers from as far north as Alor Setar and Johor Baru, so that must say something about my work,” Seow contests.
Tan, who is also an inventor of great repute (he designed a guitar bridge in the mid-1970s and had it accepted by the Gibson Musical Instruments company in the United States, also serving as a consultant for the company for a while), has stunned his audience into submission. “I suppose it must be surprising for a lot of people that I’ve invested my life in this, but what is often overlooked is that it takes many lifetimes to make something,” he says.
Tan theorises that as an inventor, he is part of many generations of research and knowledge, tipping his hat to the works of his predecessors.
Lee, on the other hand, has reputation to back him up: “People know me for my work and by word-ofmouth.”
Tan apart, the others had held regular jobs, though none of them miss it today. Seow worked in maintenance at the music faculty of a government-run institute of higher education till he retired at 55. Lee quit his sales job when he hit 38, citing the endless travelling as his reason to call time on that career. “I had started another business by then, making customised trophies while supplementing income with the guitar repair business,” Lee informs.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and Seow, Tan and Lee all got