u/randomjeep654

As a complete gear nerd, I wanted to display the guitar that shaped TFF's sound in the 80s: Roland's 1982 Fender Walnut "The Strat". This was Roland's main guitar between 1984-1989, one which he spoke very highly of. While he admitted that he initally bought the guitar for the looks, the sound of this thing is UNMATCHED. The X-1 bridge pickup made for some slightly hotter tones in the solos. A good amount of SFTBC was recorded on this guitar (majority on the neck pickup through a Roland JC120). Most of the Big Chair tour was also done using this guitar. Eventually however, the guitar sorta just vanished off the face of the earth. After 1993, it was never seen publicly again, however a 2024 interview with about the creation of EWTRTW confirmed that it's still in his collection. I created a little brief history of it too:

1983: Roland makes the first live appearance with the Strat, a mimed performance of Pale Shelter in Italy, and a live performance at Pop Carnival In London. Neil taylor also used it in the "In my Mind's Eye" video which was recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in December of that year. It's possible that Roland used it to record songs on "The Hurting", but it's likely that most of the album was his red Telecaster.

1984: The time rolls around to record Songs From The Big Chair, and Roland has a few guitars by this point. A good amount of it was recorded on this guitar. The most notable one being, of course, Everybody Wants To Rule The World, which was Roland on the Strat's neck pickup through a JC120. This by far is one of my favourite guitar tones out there, which I have really only been able to recreate using Strats through Jazz Choruses.

1985: During the Big chair tour, the Strat was Roland's main guitar. While I do enjoy hearing it, I feel like some of the tones through the JC were a bit too thin. This was the last time Roland was seen using it for a plugged in performance.

1989: Roland was seen with the guitar two times this year, once for the music video for Woman In Chains, and once for a performance of Woman In Chains on TV. The means that a good amount of The Seeds Of Love may have been recorded with the Strat.

1990: TFF start touring for The Seeds Of Love tour, and Roland has mostly switched to two other guitars, those being mid 70s Strats (One blue and one Olympic white). Neil Taylor, however, used the Strat on this tour. This was where I think the guitar shined the most. TFF had switched to using Mesa-Boogie amps on this tour, and it sounded amazing through them. Knebworth 1990 was the last time it was publicly plugged in from the best of my knowledge.

1993: The guitar was seen two times this year, both for mimed performances of Break It Down Again, after which, the guitar was never seen again publicly.

Alright, to start this off, by the fact that I'm posting this right now, I am alive at least. This happened last night.

Around 7:00, Autumn got a call from her father. Her mother had a health scare, and we decided we should go check up on them. Her parents live just outside of Boston. We threw our essentials into Autumn's car and hauled ass down the backroads to get to their place. This had already been a bad night for us. We had gotten into Mass at about 9:00 PM, and were just past Lowell when we rounded a corner. I was staring out the passenger window and suddenly just had the dreadful urge to look in front of me. An ETK F-Series crossed over the center line, apparently misjudging how to pass a Nile Gold truck (illegally, I may add), and slammed into us  almost head on. Had Autumn not gasped and yanked the wheel to the right, whilst applying the brakes, I'm almost certain we would have both been killed. I don't know how fast the ETK guy was going, but he was definitely well over the limit. I blacked out pretty much instantly after the impact.

When I woke up, Autumn was completely unconscious, slumped toward the steering wheel. The airbag had failed to deploy on her old Ibishu Prodigy. I tried to wake her up, but I couldn't. I was barely conscious and in extreme pain too. Some guy in a van stumbled upon the wreck fortunately, and pulled me out of the car. I stood up and saw the damage. The whole front driver side of the car was crumpled in. I saw the ETK wrecked a few hundred feet down the road. I was shaking BAD, and the van driver, an older man in maybe his mid-50s (my parent's age) who told me his name was Rodney, comforted me as I just broke down. A few minutes later, Massachusetts State Police and an ambulance showed up. I watched as they put Autumn on a stretcher, and that's when I started having even more of a sinking feeling in my stomach. I was able to walk, so I rode along in the ambulance, and watched the paramedics do everything they could.

I am currently writing this from a hospital room in Boston. We were driven there. I have a bruised rib, cuts and scratches everywhere, and a broken left leg. I don't really even care about that. I wanted to know how Autumn was doing. The doctors told me she is in serious condition, but stable. She suffered moderate head trauma from hitting the dashboard. Their concern right now is preventing brain damage.

I'm scared beyond belief. This is the most terrifying time of my life. Please, any advice is appreciated. I'm just worried about my girlfriend at the moment, I don't care about the car. I have no clue what happened to the ETK driver by the way.

(Meta: this is by far the most effort I have ever put in a post here. It is truly fun, but annoying to edit lol)

I'm sad to see the D-15 go, but I think I made a smart trade. I did what I had to do after all. Autumn loves the new truck already as well, we both very quickly discovered that it handles so much better than the D-15 did. The turning radius is miles better as well. This will make both of our jobs so much easier. Autumn needs to move some stuff around at her job next week, so she's gonna take the Lakewood and get it done. I'm not sure how many boxes the old D-15 would have held as opposed to this, so great timing.

Alright, this is going to be a difficult sale for me, but unfortunately, the stepside bed just isn't working for me anymore. I love this truck, but sadly, it's time for me to move on to something that will work for me and my lifestyle better. I'd love to see this truck go to someone who will use it better than I can right now!

This is a 1996 Gavril D-15 Custom Classic in beautiful condition. I like to keep my cars in as best of shape as I possibly can. Freshly washed, cleaned and everything! This particular one is painted in stunning a stunning Royal Blue/Cream two-tone paint job, it's a real head-turner, trust me!

It's powered by a 5.5L V8 motor (one of the last good D-series motors IMO) paired with a smooth-shifting 5-speed manual transmission. Clutch has plenty of life left. The truck itself has 165,392 miles on it, however it has been taken the utmost care of the entire time i've owned it. I've had this truck since December 2020, and it has never let me down! Spent a while in California (Belasco specifically) so rust is minimal. Original radio is still installed. No rips or tears on the interior. Manual windows, locks, and mirrors. The previous owner installed aftermarket cruise control.

I'd like to make a decent profit off of this sale, in order to put that towards a newer, better suiting truck for me, however this is still a sad thing for me to do. I'd love to see this truck go to a loving new owner!

I'm asking $5,500 OBO for this truck. Please get in contact if interested! Thanks!

-Neil, FIRWOOD, MAINE

So....much....to....do. This is insanity. I heard from Justin Thyme that the search effort is still well underway. That's the first good news i've heard in a few days. Everyone here is doing great, I love that it's such a tight-knit community here in Firwood county. I couldn't find that in Belasco, so I had to move back. I grew up with it.

We've all been affected by this fire, but i'm sure we will overcome it, i'm sure of it. I'm just glad that so many people have been found safe.

Well, I have never seen something like this, EVER, in my years of living in Firwood. I was visiting family up in the Boothbay area recently when I heard that there were large fires down in Firwood county. My girlfriend, Autumn, and I, along with my sister and my cousin who all live in Firwood county decided to return a day early, since we had been getting constant alerts on our phones these past 2 days. Autumn has been worried that our yard and our home weren't still going to be there when we returned. Fortunately, both still exist, and I got back to work.

Thanks to a previous update post by u/RichProgrammer9820, I was able to positively confirm where two of these vehicles came from, so if you or someone you know is the owner of the grey Burnside Majesty van or the tan Hirochi Heritage wagon, please contact me as I have your car.

A note for first responders: I may have a missing persons case here, but I wish to make sure first. Inside a backpack in a 2003 Hirochi Heritage wagon, I found two campground passes for two women named Avery Reynalds, and Jessica Dalworth. I want to make sure they are accounted for, I can hand over the vehicle, the bag, anything necessary. Alongside the passes was a few camping supplies, and a reciept for a convience store up in Waldoboro, about a 2 hour drive from Firwood, and a 1 hour and 15 minute drive from Portland.

Never seen anything even remotely like this, It's terrifying. I'm glad it wasn't worse than it was, and i'm sad for everyone who lost vehicles and homes.

This is an odd occurance. Two cars, once being 26 years old and the other nearly 20 had their original window stickers in them. It's really cool collecting these, especially since you get to see how much brand new cars costed a while back, and realize that there's no way you could get that nowadays. It also appears the Strecke may have been repainted at some point in its life? It was done well though, I can't even tell that it was (maybe) gold once!

My girlfriend had picked me up from the junkyard, and we were on our way to grab something for dinner before I had to close up shop at work. There was apparently a crash involving a stolen Pigeon downtown in Firwood, I sorta wonder if this was related. It's unsual to see such a large response involving a crime scene investigation van in tiny little Firwood.

I've been keeping these 2 cars for about 7 months, and they haven't sold. I'll keep them around for 1 more day. If they haven't sold by Wednesday, 6/17/26, they're going in the crusher Thursday, 6/18/26. It's not worth keeping them around, and since I dragged them here from California, i'd like to make some profit on them, whether that be with a sale or scrap metal.

I didn't stop as I was already tired and just wanted to get home, but it looked pretty bad. Firwood PD, if you need my dashcam footage I can provide it. Looked to be a white Gavril Roamer, XT trim maybe?

Well this is certainly the most interesting car i've gotten in a while.

I'm glad to finally be operating at a decent pace again. We're also in the middle of making some changes to our home, so it's all coming together. Not to mention it's finally getting warm and feeling like summer here in Maine, so it's actually somewhat pleasant to work.

Like always, if you need parts, you know who to contact!

I hope this helps some at least:

*Roland started using it somewhere around 2010, so it can't be any newer than that

*In the photos of the rear, you can see the custom shop decal on the back of the headstock, and on the neckplate. it looks like the neckplate says "limited edition" but I can't be completley sure

*The pickups ARE NOT STOCK, I am 80% sure of this. He appears to have replaced the original pickups with EMG DG Gilmour Lace Sensor pickups, and added some sort of toggle switch near the pickup selector. I am not sure what it does.

Any help is greatly appeciated. I just want to know what exact model and year it is, but i'm totally stumped at the moment! I also love his Fender Walnut "The Strat", but he seems to have retired it from live useage after 1993 (he still owns it as far as I know though).