Category: Guitar

Omega

As a guitar player who is also a prog rock fan and an obsessed Rush fanatic, I have always wanted to get my hands on one of the Omega guitar stands Alex Lifeson uses on stage. You know, the stand that he sits his acoustic guitar on to so he cam play it without taking off his electric? Here’s a really bad pic of it, taken from the back row…

ello-25275899-f58c-4ee6-8dfa-26f843222c00.jpeg

and here is a really bad pic of it with that lute thingie he played on “Workin’ Them Angels”…

ello-b18ef079-774f-4d75-8a8b-6ada9340cf56.jpeg

And here’s another really bad pic of him actually playing the lute thingie while still wearing his Les Paul…

ello-d5a5f57f-a6cb-43ed-841f-039d5004c71a.jpeg

You can see why such a thing is beyond awesome for a nerdy prog loving guitar player, right? It allows you to play both electric and acoustic guitars on the same song without having to stop playing to take one off and put the other one on. It’s a pretty ingenious device.

I swear I used to see ads for them in guitar magazines back in the 80’s. Omega Stands. I never considered buying one then because I never had any money. I also never owned a decent acoustic guitar. When I started playing in a cover band back in 2003 I started poking around the internet looking for them but any search for Omega Stand just brought up pictures of Alex Lifeson playing “Closer to the Heart” or “The Trees”. I never had any luck.

Until today!

I found one for sale on sweetwater.com, a site I have to admit never having looked at before. It’s a K&M Performer Walk Up Guitar Stand – Acoustic and if it didn’t cost an amazing $300 I’d be pulling out my credit card and ordering one right now. I won’t though, because I would probably never ever use it. Even though I am playing in a band again, it would still be more trouble than it’s worth. It would just be a fanboy expense that would be better to be used for other things. Like repairs.

Both of my Gibson guitars need work. The pick up switch on the Les Paul Custom can’t select the neck pickup. It can do bridge, it can do both, but it can’t do neck. Also, the tone pot for the neck pick up doesn’t work. There are similar problems with the ES-335 Pro. The pickup switch works in all three positions, but there is something funky with the neck pick up. Either a wire is lose or there is so much dust that the contact is being blocked. There’s also lose/dirty connections for the tone pots as well. The big problem with the 335 is that the neck is slowly pulling off of the body. Either it broke off once before and wasn’t pushed in all the way when it was glued back on, or the glue is slowly, slowly, slowly giving up the fight. The neck broke off of my Les Paul once too, back in ’98 I think. That was terrifying. Even the repair guy I brought it to was afraid to work on it. It took him forever, but eventually he fixed it, and did a really good job too. It’s like new.

It turns out that the little guitar shop near my house does repairs. I was optimistic at first until I read their website. It says they do major and minor repairs. That’s good. It lists off some of the things they do. Wiring is on the list, which is good. Broken necks are not on the list, which is bad. The disturbing thing is that the list includes string replacement. Yeah. Maybe I won’t go to them.

I Over Did It

I got home from some errands at about 2:00ish today. I went downstairs and took out my Fender. I changed the strings, then noodled around a little. I then played through a bunch of songs that the band has been working on. I hit most of them twice. At 4:00 I stopped and cooked dinner. After dinner I went to band practice. At some point, a little after 7:00, I hit the wall. My left hand stopped working for a little while. I couldn’t get my ring and pinkie fingers to do what I wanted them to do. They just cramped up and told me to go screw. We took five and after that I was better, but the communication between the brain and each hand was off for the rest of the practice. I felt seriously uncoordinated.

That, my friends, is why musicians practice. It’s not just to learn their parts. It is also to build up stamina. There is a tipping point where your skill level disappears. Back in 2005 I could play four 45 minute sets over four hours and not break down. There was a time in the early 90’s where I could probably play for 10 hours or more without a break and not lose it. Today? I probably crash after 45-60 minutes if I’m lucky. I must practice more. I must.

So how did the Strat do tonight? The single coil pickups didn’t make nearly as much noise as I feared they would. They also didn’t feedback. My amp was on the floor. I think if I had it on a stand, a couple of feet higher, it would have been easier. All in all though, the sound of the new guitar was very… stratty. Thin and brittle, like Strats often are. When it comes right down to it, I think the ES-335 is still my #1 guitar. Next practice I’ll bring the Les Paul Custom and see how that feels. It does seem though, that I am still a Gibson man through and through.

Plugin’ In

I have owned my Fender Stratocaster for about six months now. The nature of my goofy little music projects is such that I do everything with headphones. I have yet to plug my Fender into my Marshall amp. Today at band practice will be the first time. I’m looking forward to finding out how it feeds back. I’m also ready to be shocked by how much noise the single coil pickups make. Oh and there’s the whammy bar to consider too. Feedback plus dive bombs equals glorious noise.

Band Practice

I played with a band tonight. I asked if I was good enough to come back next week and was told I was in the band.

So I am in a band again.

Heading to my first band practice in more than two years.

I have a clear memory of riding my bicycle to a band practice back in the 80’s. I had my little Peavy amp hanging off one handle bar, and my old Les Paul Deluxe hanging off the other. The distance was probably a little more than two miles.

Now when I look at the mountain of stuff I truck back and forth to rehearsals, it’s hard to believe the bicycle days ever existed.

50/90 is now 33/50

Song #17 is complete.

I wrote the lyrics and melody and recorded the vocals before work this morning, and mixed the track after work tonight. The music was written and recorded on Sunday during a pretty productive weekend.

The lyrics are about depression and the inspiration was Robin Williams. I will never condone suicide, but maybe if we all take the time to learn a little bit about what he was going through, and how to treat people in the same boat… then maybe we can find something worthwhile in the loss.