Two Rush Items to Note

I have two things I want to comment on that refer to members of Rush.

First, I watched the second episode of Are Bass Players Human Too this morning before work. It focused on Robert Trujillo of Metallica. I knew nothing about this guy as I’m not much of a metal fan, never mind a Metallica fan. I saw them in 1989 when Jason Newsted was their bass player. I guess Robert Trujillo played for Ozzy Osbourne back in the 90’s. I saw Ozzy in the 90’s but Geezer Butler was playing bass at that time. I guess I sort of missed him twice then? Not really.

Anyway, Robert Trujillo is the current owner of Jaco Pastorius’ Fender Jazz bass. The one he ripped the frets out of to turn it into a fretless bass (but what did he put into the gaps? How did that work?). Watching Geddy Lee play Jaco’s bass, even if just for a few seconds, was something that I did not realize I needed in my life. It was a quietly magical moment.

On a side note, Metallica’s bass player owns Jaco Pastorius’ bass, which to many is the holy grail of electric bass guitars, and Metallica’s guitar player, Kirk Hammett, owns Peter Green/Gary Moore’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which to many (including me*) is the holy grail of electric guitars. How did that happen? Does Metallica’s drummer own Keith Moon’s kit or anything? That would be too weird for my tiny brain to process.

Anyway, on to Alex Lifeson. I mentioned yesterday that Lerxst has released an overdrive pedal. It’s called By Tor. The first write up I read said that it had two channels that shared drive and tone controls. I don’t think that’s the case. I think one channel is just a volume boost and only has a level control. The other channel is an overdrive which has level, gain, and tone controls. That makes more sense.

Check out this demo from (the youtube legend) Andy from Reverb. I started watching this last night but had to shut it off before I finished. I’m posting it here so that I won’t forget to watch the rest of it later tonight.

*Peter Green’s Les Paul is probably my definition of The Guitar Holy Grail. The only guitar that might challenge for that tile would be Eric Clapton’s 1960 Les Paul Standard that is generally known as The Beano Burst. It was stolen in 1966 and has never resurfaced. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, but unless some collector gives it back to Clapton we will probably never see it again. The reason it might not supersede Greeny is simply that I prefer the spec of a 1959 Les Paul Standard to the spec of a 1960. The neck is supposed to be thicker on 1959’s. By that logic I would probably prefer 1958’s to 1959’s as the neck is supposed to be even thicker on 1958’s. How’s that for cork sniffing? A little too much, maybe? Nope. It’s never too much.

Cardinal

My wife bought a new ornament for our christmas tree. It’s a cardinal. She said that cardinals can represent people who have passed away trying to communicate with us. Having a cardinal on our christmas tree is a way to have my mother be with us this christmas. I nearly teared up when she gave it to me.

I love my wife so much. She is amazing. She is my rock. I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the past few years without her.

98/365

Searching for a Positive

Daily writing prompt
What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?
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Just over a year ago my mother’s older sister, my Aunt Joan, passed away after a long battle with dementia. In February my mother passed away after a long battle with dementia. A few months later my mother’s older brother, my Uncle Jim, passed away after a long battle with kidney and heart problems. Suffice to say the last year has not exactly been teeming with positivity.

We also caught Covid-19 after successfully avoiding it for three years and it ruined a Florida vacation. The negatives just keep piling up, right? Fortunately, there was one particular event that was very positive. An event that for most of us is a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

My step daughter, Bellana, graduated from the University of Vermont with her Bachelors Degree. She will have other graduation ceremonies, assuming she stays on her current academic path, but there probably won’t be another Bachelors. I can’t put into words how proud I am. She’s amazing and everyone who meets her can see it. That kid is going places.

As positive events go, her graduation is the big one from the past year.

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263/365

Are Bass Players Human Too?

I just watched the first episode of Geddy Lee’s TV show, called Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?

I freakin’ loved it!

It was about 20 minutes of Geddy and Les Claypool of Primus just hanging out. The two of them are just plain goofy and it was kinda delightful.

I’ll admit that when Geddy was reading from a script he didn’t sound particularly… professional. It’s clear that reading copy is not something that he generally does. When he and Claypool were just talking to each other it felt natural and… I’ll say it again, delightfully goofy.

There are three episodes left. One is the new guy in Metallica, one is (I think) a former member of Hole, and the third is some guy who used to be in some band called Nirvana or something.

I’m looking forward to all of them. I now need to know, are bass players human too?

By-Tor Overdrive Pedal

After announcing two new amplifiers made in partnership with Mojotone and sold under the name Lerxst, Alex Lifeson unveiled an overdrive pedal today, again made by Lerxst/Mojotone, called the By-Tor.

It’s a duel pedal with an overdrive and a boost. You can select the order they run in, which is a nice feature. The two channels share drive and tone controls though. I’m not sure how that works. Also, the price is $300 which is a little too ouchie for me these days. The $2k+ Omega is crazy expensive but about normal for a 50 watt tube head. $300 for a drive/boost feels a smidge high to me.

I’m in This Video

My step son Harry and I are in this video clip. Look to the right of the goal. We are in the second row. I’m the guy who looks happy that Lowell scored… unlike everyone else in the stands.

Kids

I got to spend some time with my step son over the weekend when we went to a hockey game together. Today, my wife got to spend some time with my step daughter. It’s almost like we both got an early xmas present. I wish I could have seen my step daughter today, and I wish my wife could have come with me to see my step son this weekend, but when you add it all up we both got a nice bit of bonus kid time. I’m looking forward to the holiday break as both kids will be home for a little while at least. That makes me happy. I just thought I should let you all know.

Five Corners

Google Maps took me the long way around to get to the highway this morning. I had to go through what is known as the five corners intersection (it’s just a five way intersection, nothing more exotic than that) which passes the oldest fire station in the city. I was stopped at the light so I took today’s photo a day pic. I can see how fascinated you all are.

97/365
97/365

Wild Kingdom

Daily writing prompt
Do you ever see wild animals?
View all responses

Would ya look at that! The bugs in the daily writing prompt system have been fixed! The text box with the responses link is back again, and the question is in sync between the web and the mobile app. Excellent! Thanks, dev staff!

Do I ever see wild animals? Yes, yes I do. My home is technically in a city, a small city at least, but my house is in a very sub-urban neighborhood complete with a patch of woods behind our back yard. We get the usual suburban rodents, squirrels (I hate them) and chipmunks (adorable) and stuff like that. We have a groundhog in our back yard. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but he/she/whatever is exceptionally cute when waddling around. We get skunks who only come out at night too, but we’ve never had an issue with them.

We have tons of birds. The usual fare, robins and blue jays and crows and chickadees and little guys like that. I am a big fan of cardinals and we get a few. We’ve had a whole flock of turkeys visit us. We also get little yellow finches (adorable) and woodpeckers (awesome). The best birds though are the hawks. Redtail hawks mostly, but there have been others that I don’t recognize. I saw something once that might have been a falcon but I’m not sure. I saw an eagle in the distance once, but it didn’t hang out in our yard at all.

We’ve had some bigger, less New England suburb common animals too. I woke up to find a grey fox terrorizing my bird feeders once. I saw something in the woods in the distance that I think was a bobcat. I know we get them around here, but it never came close enough to be sure. I saw a coyote once in the pre-dawn hours. He/she/whatever was hanging out down the street from us a ways, but it was definitely a coyote.

The best non-rodent/non-bird visitors, and the most common (though not that common) are the deer. I love the deer. I want them to be our best friends. I want them to let us feed them and ride them and sing xmas carols with them. The deer are the best. I’ve seen as many as eight or nine at once before, but that large a group is rare. Usually it’s only 1-3 at a time. I don’t care how many we get, I love them all.

2011-11-02 - Deer in the Yard 001