One night, Mad Max Volume was in the living room of his house working out a new song on his ax. The title of the song was Makin' Mischief.

Mad Max Volume had his amp cranked up to 152, or so it seemed to his poor wife, and was making mischief while writing and playing Makin’ Mischief:

He duck-walked across the room, played his cheap Acme guitar with his teeth, stuck it between his legs, thrusted, and let his freak-flag and wild, freak-hair fly.

When he demolished his wife's favorite lamp while windmilling his right arm playing power chords like Pete Townsend of The Who, she zoomed from frazzled to furious in 6.2 seconds.

She took his guitar away and sent him to their bedroom.

Mad Max Volume stormed in, skulked into the bathroom and stared into the mirror.

How could she? he thought. My rock n' roll gal's gone girly.

He went back into his room and stretched out on his bed. Suddenly, the room grew dark and he heard The Trogg's Wild Thing. Then he heard Willie Nelson sing On the Road Again.

Mad Max Volume looked over to his right and saw a tour van parked nearby with The Wild Guitar Things painted on its side. He got in. He drove off. He followed the signs:This Way to the Land of the Wild Guitar Things.

He finally reached the end of the road and saw a big sign: Welcome to Fretted Americana.

Mad Max got out of the van and was immediately surrounded by a gang of fearsome, raging, growling six-string beasts, flaming creatures, fretted fiends, stringed savages, solid body devils, hollow-body hellions, and assorted rogues, villains, and demons with headstocks and names like Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild and Rickenbacker.

"Never seen or heard great vintage guitars?" someone behind him said.

Mad Max Volume turned and beheld a merry, gray-bearded man with a bushy head of gray hair and an impish gleam in his eye.

"These are my Beastly Vintage Beauties. So great they're scary."

Mad Max believed him. Never had he seen to many totally fine and excellent guitars in one place. He’d heard and read about rare, vintage guitars but never thought he would have a chance to see or hear the real deal. He was, indeed, frightened by these monster instruments with their awesome, nasty sounds.

But, screwing his courage, he confronted the mob and stared down the biggest, baddest monster of all, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Burst so flamed-out that a fire extinguisher was kept handy in case of spontaneous combustion. He stared and stared and didn't blink twice.

"Who's afraid of the big, bad 'Burst, the big bad 'Burst, the big, bad 'Burst," Max sang in his best Mick Jagger-voice.

Suddenly, the guitar beasts fell silent and smiled, even the Big Bad Burst. Then, a bunch of them broke out into ZZ Top’s La Grange, while the rest danced up a storm. Max joined in the wild guitar jamboree.

He had so much fun! These vintage guitars really knew how to party.

But soon he was feeling tired, hungry, and ready to go home. So he got into the tour van and drove back to his bedroom.

And when he finally arrived and got out of the tour van, he saw a gorgeous ’57 Strat on his bed with a big red ribbon tied around the neck and two cards stuck in the strings.

One said: Fretted Americana: Where the Wild Guitar Things Are. The other one said: Go ahead, make some mischief. (Quietly, please?). Love, your ever lovin' rock n roll gal.

But though he now loved his wife more than ever, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do as she asked. How do you tame a Wild Guitar Thing like a '57 Strat and keep it quiet? Might as well ask a screaming eagle to shut up and stop flying.