San Diego Reader

Aaron Bowen took up the violin in the first grade, but the guitar became his instrument of choice. Aaron suffered a work-related injury in 1999, severing tendons in his right hand. After several surgeries and a lot of physical therapy, he regained 40 percent movement in his right thumb. Aaron had to relearn the guitar and come up with his own technique and hung up the electric for the acoustic.

A noted player in underground guitar circles, Bowen has toured with Crimson Glory and formed the band Red Square Black. His father Richard Bowen played with the famed Mother Goose band of the 1960s.

He says, "I have a Dana Bourgeois acoustic guitar, a Northwood 12-fret 000 acoustic, a custom handmade Tele, a 1923 tenor banjo, 1930s Electromuse lap steel, a cheap $100 Martin knockoff (one of my faves), a 1970s Japanese P-Bass copy, and an autoharp."

Bowen was a maintenance man for a San Diego apartment complex and entered a unit for a repair while the tenant was gone and saw empty KFC buckets and some memorable guitars — quickly realizing who the tenant was, just as Buckethead and DJ Disk came home. As it turned out, Aaron attended GIT at Musicians Institute with Brian Carroll, aka Buckethead.