Was That Greeny?

I posted the video of Rush playing at the Juno Awards Ceremony the other night. Being the guitar nerd that I am, while 99% of me was consumed with bliss over seeing Rush again, 1% of me was noticing that Alex Lifeson was playing a Les Paul that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with before.

It looked like a vintage burst. Something made between 1958 and 1960. It was faded from sunburst to yellow the way a lot of ‘58’s and ‘59’s are. I assumed it was the real deal, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alex play a real burst before. I know Geddy Lee owns (owned?) one, but Alex usually plays newer models. Even back in the 70’s, before vintage Les Pauls became too enormously expensive, he played 70’s models.

So as I was watching the video I was wondering whether the guitar was a reissue or the real thing. There was something about it though… something familiar…

Holy shit, was he playing Greeny? Possibly the most famous of all Les Pauls? Arguably the finest example of the finest electric guitars ever made? Was he playing Peter Green’s Les Paul? The one Peter Green played in Fleetwood Mac and sold to Gary Moore for whatever Gary happend to have in his wallet at the time? The one that Moore sold to pay medical bills (at least that’s what I heard) and then years later a collector sold to Kirk Hammett of Metallica? The one with the out of phase neck pick up that inspired guitarists world ‘round to install their neck pick ups upside down to try to replicate?

Gary Moore, Peter Green, Kirk Hammett, all playing Greeny

So was Alex Lifeson playing Greeny?

I can’t find a good picture of the spots near the bridge pick up where the paint is warn away, but you can see it in some of the low res pics I’ve seen and in the video. The worn spots are there. You can see in these pics that it has the mismatched knobs and the neck pickup is upside down. The visual things are there.

The question then is, is this the real guitar or is it a replica? If it is a replica the question then is, is it the $50,000 replica that Gibson released in a very limited run a few years ago, or is it the $20,000 version that they released in a slightly less limited run, or is it the mass produced Gibson USA version that sold for… I can’t remember… was it $6,000? $8,000? Something like that.

There are stories out there reporting Alex and Kirk Hammett hanging out together. I know Kirk is a fan of Alex and Rush and I think I’ve read that Alex is a fan of Kirk and Metallica (I know I’ve read about Geddy Lee being a Metallica fan).

I hope it’s the real thing. My guitar nerd brain also hopes that Hammett sells it to Lifeson and he takes it on the road with him and I get to see him play it when we see Rush in New York in July. That would be awesome. If I had to guess though… it’s probably a reissue.

I hope it’s the real thing though. That would be so cool.

They’re Back, Babie!

Last night was the Juno Awards ceremony. That’s the Canadian version of the Grammy’s. The show included this one ditty from this little Toronto based rock and roll combo…

They are back! For really reals, Rush is back!

Maybe an odd choice of song, but it was the first song on their first album so it was sort of fitting that the first public appearance with their two new people, Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards, was that same first song… though if they were going to go with literal first songs they should have gone with their cover of Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away, which was their first single. But I digress. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson on stage again. We’re going to see them in New York in a couple of months and I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT!

Pedal Board

I did a little work on my band pedal board. Specifically, this is the pedal board that I usually keep at my band’s rehearsal space… even though the band kinda doesn’t exist anymore… and I don’t know what the future holds. Whatever.

I replaced the vibe pedal and the analog delay and both of the overdrive pedals and the wah pedal. I also added the little compressor. If only I could have replaced the dust. This thing sat out for a really long time.

I also went out and ran some more errands earlier. Another obligatory look at the downtown clock.

And that is my Sunday so far, as of about 2:30pm. What else will the day hold? Well, I’m heading over to the Apple Store to pay a little homage. Dig it.

Out Running Errands

I went out to run some errands today in Andover and Methuen, MA. I took my camera for some stop light theater pics.

Route 28 in Andover.

Same building from the opposite direction.

Downtown Methuen. Still route 28 but with the clock that I can’t ever stop taking pics of every time I am near it. It’s a compulsion. I should probably talk to a therapist about it or something.

The clock through the sunroof. Epic.

Baseball

I’m working from home today. I have about an hour left before quittin’ time. I have a radio broadcast streaming from my personal laptop to a pair of Apple HomePod Minis. What am I listening to?

I’m listening to opening day for the Boston Red Sox. They are playing the Cincinnati Reds on the road. We’re scoreless after one inning.

Baseball… Spring… finally.

Here’s hoping that my Red Sox build on last year’s playoff season and don’t suck this year. The experts are predicting a pretty good season for my team and lets hope they are right. I don’t see a championship team, but I do see a pretty good team.

The Bruins are looking like a playoff team. They beat first place Buffalo last night. I don’t know though… all of the maga bullshit that happened after the Olympics has left me mostly uninterested in the NHL. Fuck them if they wanna be fascists. I bet most major league baseball players are in the same boat politically, they are all millionaires after all, but I am choosing to not think about that until they make me. I was like that with hockey and then they made me. Fuck ‘em.

Anyway… remember when the Reds always had the first game of the mlb season? When did that stop? There was a Yankees/Giants game last night so the opening of the season did not happen in Cincinnati. The Reds were the world’s first professional baseball team, predating the formation of the National League, which was the first professional baseball league. That’s why they were traditionally the first team to play each year. I guess not anymore. I guess traditions go down the toilet when the home run king was a steroid freak. Fuck ’em, right?

I don’t mean for this post to be negative. I am really happy to have baseball back. Don’t doubt it. Let’s go Red Sox, am I right? World Series or bust!

Longest Week Ever

Man… I sure do bitch about work a lot, don’t I?

This has been the longest work week ever and it’s only 1:00pm on Wednesday. Why is that? Why am I so stressed? There’s nothing going on that requires my stress level to elevate out of control. It’s just been a reasonably normal week. Sure, my dining room did flood yesterday…

Did I mention that? We have an office water cooler in our dining room. It is exactly the thing you picture in your head when you hear people talking about being at work and talking around the water cooler. A great big five gallon jug of water sitting upside down and draining into a tall cooler. Yup, exactly what you think. Yesterday it seemed to spring a leak and we had a small lake forming on our dining room floor.

I unplugged the unit and pulled the full bottle off of the top. I had put a new bottle on that morning. There had never been any leaks before. Was it the cooler or was it the new bottle? I betcha you can guess. Once the bottle was out of the equation the leaking stopped. Yup, there was something wrong with the bottle. I put a new bottle on to see what happened and it’s been leak free for about 24 hours now. Problem solved, I think.

Anyway, outside of that and the ugly fact that it snowed twice this week, it’s been a normal few days. Why am I stressin’? Why am I bitchin’? Who knows.

I do know that we’re planning to go to a No Kings rally this weekend, so maybe it’s not so much work stress but it is actually excitement over the coming event. Maybe.

Until then… 2.5 days left in this already long, long, long work week. Crud.

More Spring Snow

Adding insult to injury, am I right?

I wrote yesterday about how we got a little snow on the third day of Spring. Wouldn’t you know it, today, the fourth day of Spring, we got more. I had brush snow and scrape ice off of the car when I left for work this morning. It was more than yesterday, but still basically just a dusting. That’s not the issue though. The issue is that snow in Springtime sucks the mighty ass.

I’m going to seriously be afraid to look out the window when I get out of bed tomorrow morning. We’re probably going to get a blizzard overnight tonight.

Spring Snow

I was up before dawn today. I went down cellar to do my morning exercise and have breakfast and just generally get the ball rolling after having a crappy nights sleep last night.

As I was wrapping things up and getting ready to go back upstairs to start the work day, I happened to catch a glimpse through the little cellar window that is near my desk. The view looked weird… odd, even. Why? Everything was white. Wait a second, I thought… is it… snowing?

Yes. Yes it was snowing. Snow. It is March 23rd, three days into the Spring and it was snowing in the Merrimack Valley of Eastern Massachusetts.

Bite me, mother nature. Kiss my fat ass.

There wasn’t a lot of snow. There was enough to cover the ground, but it wasn’t deep enough to bury the grass… if that makes sense. It was just a dusting, but it was a sticky dusting. By the time we got to my lunch break it had all melted away, even though the temperature is only in the mid-30’s. It’s cold but still above the freezing point.

That’s not the point though. The point is that it is Spring and we can still get snow. Just because the calendar says winter is over, it does not mean that winter is actually over. I expect we’ll get another storm or two before it all ends for real, and I expect one of those mythical storms to be fairly significant. I am basing this prediction on nothing beyond experience from previous winter/spring transitions, but I betcha I’m right. I hope I am wrong, but I am pretty sure I won’t be.

Winter sucks. Here is a photograph of a cat, Robin, making a rude gesture to artistically depict where my thinking lies on this the 23rd day of March in the year 2026. Bite me.