What's in a username?
Back in the late '80s, when I first started to become a Serious Musician, I decided I needed some Serious Equipment. The cheap Peavey bass and amplifier I was using just wasn't going to cut it. I needed something more.
I walked into the new music store in town. I had started making friends with the owners, and had bought enough equipment to have earned a little special treatment. I explained that I was looking for a professional rig, something that would hold up in the bigger clubs and outdoor venues against the guitar amps in the band. The salesman showed me a few options, including this monstrosity of a rig with bright fluorescent green colors and a gaudy black light. I thought it was ridiculous. "That thing is ridiculous," I said. "Wait until you hear it," they said.
And they were right. It was a fantastic amp. It had everything I wanted and more. It was made by a company in the UK and at that time they only made this particular type of bass amplifier. I forgave the obnoxious color scheme and took it home. The company was called Trace Elliot.
A few years later I found myself in college. My second year composition professor required us to keep a journal, but as a character and not our actual selves. I thought that was great! I based my fictional personality on the eponymous character in one of my favorite books at the time, Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. My character needed a name, and with little difficulty I settled on "Elliot Trace". Elliot Trace was a holistic detective like Dirk Gently. An observer of life, a pointer-outer of weird or unusual phenomena that we as typical humans take for granted. It was a lot of fun to write as him.
A few years later, when the Internet became a thing, I found I needed user names and aliases and those kinds of things. Often the fields were limited to ten characters or fewer, so when I was able I was "EllioTrace". And when that was too long, I was "etrace". Sometimes shortened to just "et". Once, a guy in some chat room asked me, "Are you a bassist?" and it totally made my day!
The fortunes of Trace Elliot went up and down over the years. They eventually branched out and started a line of acoustic guitar amplifiers, and as the company changed hands, the quality of their products became less certain. I'm lucky to have one of the original high-end models and still use it to this day. Interestingly, Peavey bought Trace Elliot in 2005.
I walked into the new music store in town. I had started making friends with the owners, and had bought enough equipment to have earned a little special treatment. I explained that I was looking for a professional rig, something that would hold up in the bigger clubs and outdoor venues against the guitar amps in the band. The salesman showed me a few options, including this monstrosity of a rig with bright fluorescent green colors and a gaudy black light. I thought it was ridiculous. "That thing is ridiculous," I said. "Wait until you hear it," they said.
And they were right. It was a fantastic amp. It had everything I wanted and more. It was made by a company in the UK and at that time they only made this particular type of bass amplifier. I forgave the obnoxious color scheme and took it home. The company was called Trace Elliot.
A few years later I found myself in college. My second year composition professor required us to keep a journal, but as a character and not our actual selves. I thought that was great! I based my fictional personality on the eponymous character in one of my favorite books at the time, Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. My character needed a name, and with little difficulty I settled on "Elliot Trace". Elliot Trace was a holistic detective like Dirk Gently. An observer of life, a pointer-outer of weird or unusual phenomena that we as typical humans take for granted. It was a lot of fun to write as him.
A few years later, when the Internet became a thing, I found I needed user names and aliases and those kinds of things. Often the fields were limited to ten characters or fewer, so when I was able I was "EllioTrace". And when that was too long, I was "etrace". Sometimes shortened to just "et". Once, a guy in some chat room asked me, "Are you a bassist?" and it totally made my day!
The fortunes of Trace Elliot went up and down over the years. They eventually branched out and started a line of acoustic guitar amplifiers, and as the company changed hands, the quality of their products became less certain. I'm lucky to have one of the original high-end models and still use it to this day. Interestingly, Peavey bought Trace Elliot in 2005.