Oh yeah, I will play better at tomorrow’s practice. I will. Oh I will.
I’m taking a different guitar. Not because the 335 had anything to do with last week’s trouble, but because karma and the cosmos and shit. Yeah, Robbo’s on the desperate side.
And while I still haven’t shelled out the $1500 for a Fender Twin Reverb, I do still have a software simulation of a Fender Twin Reverb.
I told you all that I played really poorly at this past weekend’s practice, and that the pain in my hand was significantly worse than ever before.
Did I also tell you that I recorded most of the practice and didn’t notice until we were done that one of the two mics on the drums was muted on the mixing board? Other than that the recording is almost okay. Next week I have to turn my vocal mic WAY up and maybe nudge the PA output up a smidgen. Also maybe turn up the guitar a bit. As for the drums, un-mute the right channel (you fat idiot), pull the low end up a little more (again) and maybe turn both channels down a hair so that the crash cymbals don’t blow your brains out when you’re listening with headphones on.
Oh yeah, and don’t play the guitar like a quadriplegic with the IQ of a salmon egg. That will help improve the quality as well.
Here are a few songs from Sunday. I picked the ones with the fewest colossal guitar screw ups, although the guitar is a touch out of tune on the Gaga tune.
My guitar playing at practice tonight was probably the worst it’s ever been when other people were in the room. I’m stunned they didn’t sack me on the spot. My hands hurt so much I just couldn’t make them do what I needed them to do. It was just awful. What if this never goes away? What if it gets worse? What if I can’t play anymore? When does it get so bad I have to see a doctor, and what if the doctor tells me I’m done for good? I am literally scared.
I have a bad case of gear acquisition syndrome tonight. I’m starting to think about playing scratch cards at the lottery agent/gas station down the street from us. If I hit a big ticket I can get that $1500 Fender Twin Reverb and maybe one of the four or five distortion pedals I’m curious about. This is starting to annoy even me.
I think I’m falling out of love with my amp. I have a Marshall Valvestate VS265. My friend Larry owned one and it had a feature that I absolutely drooled over. Three switchable channels. One clean, two distorted. That’s not too unusual, but the part that I thought kicked ass was that all three channels had their own separate volume. Meaning I could use one channel for rhythm and another for leads and the leads could be at a significantly louder volume and not get buried in the mix. Abso-freakin-epically-lutely awesome.
I bought it in 2003 before my first gig with Break Even. At the time I felt it was a little toppy, but Steve the other guitarist played a little bassy and the two tones meshed together fairly well.
Today? I’m sick of being so trebly. I can’t seem to find any bottom end no matter what I do. It’s making me fall out of love with my amp. So what do I do? I’m considering buying a distortion pedal and only using one channel. If I can get a fatter, warmer sound that way, it might be good. The alternative is a new amp. I spent the evening watching sales videos for Fender Twin Reverbs. Yes they are usually on the top heavy side, and I’d need a distortion pedal, but something about it is making me want want want. Sadly I don’t have $1500 lying around.
Gear… My kryptonite.
It looked a lot worse last night, believe me. Note to self: practice guitar more often.
Just a few more pics from the Rush show last night. Epic, my friends. Utterly Epic.
They played four songs that I had never seen them do in person, one of which I had never heard them do on recording either. This is from that song, but no spoilers here. I had to take this because, is that a Paul Reed Smith 12-string???
I had read that during the break they took after the last tour Geddy Lee added a collecting obsession to his existing wine and baseball memorabilia collecting obsession. The new one being bass guitars. We saw a lot of new and interesting instruments last night. This of course is not one of them. I’m pretty sure the Green Fender Jazz made an appearance last tour. Oh well.
Ever since the late 80’s, Neil Peart has been playing with two drum kits. One, the great big sucker he always has in front of him, and the other a smaller mostly electric kit that would spin around to his front from time to time. Over the years the two kits sort of blended together into one 360 degree monster kit. This tour? There were two kits… just not at the same time. This is the first of the two, which he used during the first set.
This was the second kit. A replica of his old 1970’s kit, which he called “Chromey.” Note the tubular bells in the back. Ever since seeing the Exit Stage Left video from 1981 I have been wanting to see Neil stand up and play some damn tubular bells. Unfortunately, that was replaced by his MIDI marimba thingie before I managed to see my first show back in 1987. Last night though… dream fulfilled! Tubular Freakin’ Bells!
On the second song of the first set, Alex Lifeson played a Rickenbacker guitar. Later on, Geddy Lee played a Gibson Bass. It was like the 1970’s just flipped itself upside down and turned itself over backward. It was just so weird.
Is that one of those weird new Gibson ES-Les Pauls? A semi-hollow version of the ultimate solid body guitar. Not sure I get the point of that.
Geddy with a Rickenbacker. Back in the 80’s that was all I really wanted in this world. Just to have Geddy Lee stop playing those little Steinberger things, or that weird Wal thing. Just play a Rickenbacker.
Again, this is more like it. Alex with his Gibson ES-355. And all was right with the world.
Next week we see them again in New York. I can’t freakin’ wait!
I’ve known people who played guitar who insisted that certain songs should be played on a specific guitar. Usually that sort of thing comes down to genre. People feel that if you play a hollow bodied guitar you should be playing jazz or blues. If you play a souped up Kramer strat copy with active pick ups you should be playing metal. I call bullshit on that. I’ve seen plenty of heavy rock gods playing hollow guitars, and I’ve heard a good amount of smooth jazz coming from 80’s era shred machines. No, your choice of guitar comes down to two things, tone and feel. Genre is irrelevant. If you like the way it feels in your hand, and you like the sound you get out of it, then it’s yours. This discussion isn’t about that.
Years ago, while playing in a band with Mike the bass player and Maria the drummer, I graduated to the upper echelon of guitar skill by finally being able to fudge my way through the opening riff to “The Spirit of Radio” by Rush. You know, that sick speed demon little bastard that all guitar players dream of being able to play when they first start out? I could get through it, though not cleanly and… well… not well. Yeah, I sounded like crap, but at least I could get through it and have it be recognizable. That was when I only owned one guitar, my Les Paul. A couple of years later I bought my ES-335 and I couldn’t play that riff. I attributed it to the action, as it’s a touch higher on the 335 and I thought that was the source of my problem. After that, I never really worried about it again.
Now in the new band there is one wicked easy 80’s song we do by the Greg Kihn Band. Dude, I really hope I’m spelling your name right. During my first practice with the band I had the ES-335 (Mike the bass player said that seeing me with that guitar instead of the Les Paul was just wrong. I don’t disagree, but I do love that semi-hollow little sucker). I played through the Greg Kihn song pretty well. Not great. Not terribly clean, but okay. After a few weeks I decided that Les Paul was my #1. The upside of the 335 was the ease in producing quality, usable feedback. The downside being that the intonation on the low E string is a little funny, and one song we do has a little chromatic scale that sounds out of tune even when the guitar is tuned up correctly. When playing the Les Paul, for some reason that stupid little Greg Kihn riff just kills me. I mess it up constantly. Really, I feel so embarrassed playing that damn song at rehearsal. Seriously, every time we play it I expect them to fire me. After that first practice I have never been able to do it well.
After the sad passing of BB King last week I decided that I would honor his memory in a way that no one on Earth would ever recognize, realize, or care about. I decided to play my 335 at this week’s practice. I put knew strings on it and then played through my nemesis, the Greg Kihn song, for a solid 20-30 minutes. Just playing that stupid four bar phrase over and over…
And I got it just about right every time.
That’s kind of peculiar.
Then it hit me. One of my problems was that I loop my thumb around to play the first fret on the low e-string. The neck on the Les Paul seems to be wider than on the ES-335. Is that the reason? Is that the problem? Is that why I can get through it pretty well on one guitar but constantly blow it on the other? We played it at rehearsal with me using the 335 and it went pretty well. I think I might be on to something. I think the ES-335 might have to make an appearance at every show we do. Because of the iffy intonation, I don’t think it can supplant the Les Paul as the #1, but maybe it means that I don’t have a single #1, I have two of them. Maybe we have to make sure the Aerosmith song (I hate them so) and the Greg Kihn song cannot be played in the same set, so a Kihn set can be played on one guitar, and an aerosmith set (I hereby refuse to capitalize their name) can be played on a different guitar.
And the Stratocaster stays at home and only gets used on home demos.
Rest in peace B. B. King. He was better than all who came before him, and he is better than all who come after him. He is the definition of a genre. The best vocalist blues will ever know. The best guitarist blues will ever know. A peerless, passionate performer who will never be equalled. The world has lost a treasure.
The band had a rehearsal last night. I recorded the whole thing again. Know something? I am not a good guitar player. I listened back and it was just painful. There were times when I sucked worse than I did on the first day I picked up the instrument. I’m actually in the process of drafting formal letters of apology to the artists who wrote the songs that I demolished last night. The first one goes to Greg Kihn. There were two Aerosmith songs that were especially molested too, but I really hate that band so they don’t get letters. Yeah, screw them.
That stupid Greg Kihn song is going to haunt me forever. The Breakup Song. Ridiculously simple. It has a little arpeggiated phrase that opens up the song and then pops in and out over time. When I first decided to join the band it was on the list of songs they wanted me to do. I’d never played it before, but in one listen I knew it was Amin -> Fmaj ->Gmaj and the picking pattern and fingering was pretty straightforward. I ran through it once or twice, then played it at my first band practice and all was well. Fast forward a month or two and I decided I could maybe play it a little cleaner. I went online to find some guitar tabs (music cheat sheets for guitarists who can’t read music. I can read music, I’m just lazy so I cheat and use tabs). I found a couple and set out to learn one of them. It made the song 10000000000000 times harder. I stuck with it for about a week and then canned it and went back to my old fingerings… and now I can’t f#$%^&g play my old fingerings either. Argh! I hate it when I suck up an easy song! Damn it!
Inside the Red Head's Head 