I accomplished two things tonight with a little guitar playing. First, I made myself a tiny bit less sad over Bellana going away, even if it was for only a few minutes. Second, I think I may have convinced myself to not use retail therapy to make myself feel better even if only for a few minutes. Well… I avoided retail therapy again. I went to the Rush website earlier and bought a couple of t-shirts. As stated in a previous post today, I am in a rare period of my existence where I feel the need to resupply the wardrobe as it were. Whatever, I almost bought a new Fuzz Face pedal (the Joe Bonamassa signature. It’s supposed to be geared toward humbuckers where Fuzz Faces are more traditionally geared toward single coils even though I am pretty sure that is just bullshit based on Jimi Hendrix, but I digress) but instead I took the little mini Fuzz Face I already had and put it into the signal chain and used the shit out of it.

The only things I had ready for recording were leads on the two January Record Every Month songs, and on one re-recording. I decided that all tracks recorded this evening would be with great big gooey gobs of fuzz. The Fuzz Face on the two January songs and a Big Muff clone on the re-recording. I always always always have a Big Muff on every board at all times. I love fuzz pedals, and Muffs (despite their awful, terrible, horribly sexist name) are my favorites. They are the smoothest and the filthiest, both at the same time. Fuzz Faces have that spitty quality that really bugs me when I am playing chords (usually) but is okay when I am playing leads. Big Muffs are awesome for rhythm too, but only if there’s an overdrive pedal in the chain after them that boosts the mid range frequencies. Something like a Tube Screamer or (preferably) a Klon. So I don’t keep the little Fuzz Face on the board and only pull it out when I am in the mood. Today I was very much in the mood. Actually, I have been since before Christmas, which is when I started jonzing for a new one, but today was the day I decided to act on it.

So when the time came to play tonight, I gave in to the urge to go ape shit on the fuzz. While my playing was particularly shitty, the tones were pretty effin’ gnarly and they made me happy.

Here is a shitty little blurry (why?) pick of the Fuzz Face pedal. It’s a Dunlop Band of Gypsies Fuzz Face Mini that is supposed to be modeled after the pedal Jimi Hendrix used on the live album Band of Gypsies, which may actually not have been a Fuzz Face at all but instead a custom octave fuzz with the octave circuit removed that was just stuck inside Fuzz Face enclosure. If’n you believe the stories and all.

And here we have a picture of my very dusty Wren and Cuff Super Russian. It’s been sitting on that spot on my bedroom floor since February and I really should dust all this stuff before the knobs get all noisy and scratchy. This is my second favorite Big Muff clone. My favorite is on the big pedal board in the cellar. It’s a Wren and Cuff Tri Pi ’70 and it’s probably pretty dusty too. It’s based on the original Big Muff Pi pedals that Electro Harmonix made in the early 70’s. The Super Russian is based on a Russian made Sovtek model from the early 90’s. They are both viscous little bastards and I love playing them.

The Bruins are spanking the Washington Capitals tonight and it’s glorious. I started watching season two of The Witcher, even though I am kinda over the whole fantasy sword and sorcery thing. This show’s not bad though.

None of this is making me miss Bellana less, even though she hasn’t even left the state yet, never mind the continent. It’s going to be a long six months.

And that, boys and girls, is what you call a long and rambling blog post that uses a lot of words to say very little. Enjoy.