Tracking is finished. I added lead guitars to the last three songs and then started mixing. I’ve plowed through three mixes already but there are still five left to do. The phrase that pays as far as mixing goes is “quick and dirty.” I just want something to upload, it is not going to be anything particularly good but it will exist and that’s good enough for me today.
This was the last song I started working on, and the last song to get vocals, and the last song to get lead guitars, and the 11th song to be mixed.
Also, I played my Les Paul Custom today and it came through for me on this song. I actually enjoy the leads here. That’s not normal for me on this year’s project.
Sometimes I feel like Gibson will create a replica of any Gibson guitar that Eric Clapton ever looked at. Oh, Clapton was in the same building as that Les Paul back in 1968? Let’s make a copy and sell it!
This one though… this one, I am down for. His custom three pick up. The Black Beauty from those Disreali Gears photos and from all of those Delany and Bonnie photos and, I think(?) from some of those early Derek and the Dominoes concert photos too. Yeah… sign me up. $19,999? I’m sure I have that laying around here somewhere.
Shoveling, I mean. I felt okay when I first came back inside after shoveling, but now that a few hours have passed… Ouch town, population me, bro. Every inch of me is sore, and despite having two of the best nights sleep I’ve had in ages over the last two nights, I am completely exhausted.
I don’t know if I have the energy to do anything other than sit on the couch for the rest of the night. I think we were already planning on ordering out for dinner tonight. Maybe I’ll be able to crawl to the door to bring the delivery in.* I mean, really… that’s asking a lot.
It is a good thing I managed to put rhythm guitar tracks onto two RPM Challenge songs this morning before I shoveled. I don’t know if I will be able to do any more than that tonight, though I really need to. We’ll see how the pain goes. For now though, it’s just couch time. Much needed couch time, believe me.
Here’s a few guitar pictures to hold us over until next time.
*Obviously I exaggerate. I mean, it’s still laundry day after all.
May 8, 2021. The musical nerd moment I lived today has been inevitable since May 8, 2021. On that day, my 50th birthday, my beloved bride bought me the best birthday present ever. A new guitar. A Gibson Les Paul Standard 50’s. Since that day I have been living the life of a glutton who owns two, that’s right, two Gibson Les Pauls. I’ve had a Les Paul Custom since 1990, and now I have two. From that day on it has been inevitable that I was going to be a total nerd and record some music with the guitar parts doubled using both Les Pauls together.
Today became that day, of course. I put rhythm guitars onto five RPM Challenge songs. In each case, the guitar coming out of the left speaker is my Les Paul Custom and the guitar coming out of the right speaker is my Les Paul Standard.
It’s Friday. One week from today I am going to be writing about how I only have an eight hour work day standing between me and a full week’s vacation. I am already hyper focusing on it. Crazy.
I just watched the season two finale of Silo. It was very good. I sort of screwed things up though. The show is based on a series of books. A few weeks ago I got tired of waiting to see what was going to happen on the show so I started reading. I’m going to finish the third and final book probably this weekend. When the super confusing twist happened in today’s episode I knew what it was and I knew it was coming. I spoiled myself. I don’t care though because the books are good, the show is good, and the books and the show are just different enough that I can still feel engaged with both.
This week I also watched the season (series?) finale of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and I am down to the second season (series?) finale of The Alienist which I am enjoying a lot even though it’s creepy as hell. Fortunately season two of Severance came out today. I’ll watch that tonight before bed, I think. Silo is over, but I still have a Friday show to watch out for. That’s nice.
Last night I watched a video on the youtubes. Five Watt World’s Short History of the Les Paul Deluxe. My first “real” guitar was a Les Paul Deluxe. I didn’t learn how to figure out the date on a Les Paul until years later so I have no idea what year it was made. I think it was very late 70’s or very early 80’s. I bought it in 1988 at Russo’s Music in Lowell, MA. All of the knobs had cracked off of it and I never replaced them. I was a kid. I didn’t have the money or even the know how of how to get replacements that would fit. It also had a nasty gash in one of the frets, and I seem to remember that one of the inlays was coming unglued. I didn’t care. I loved that guitar. I adored that guitar.
On a Sunday night/Monday morning in November or December (pretty sure it was December) of 1990 it was stolen out of my car. That was pretty much the end of the world for me. I have never really recovered from the violation of it all. I bought my Les Paul Custom a short time later and that is still my number one guitar… but some days I really find myself missing that Deluxe. I would have loved to have taken it to a good shop and had all of the negatives fixed up. It would have been epic, mini-humbuckers and all.
Watching this video made me feel all the feels. Steve Hackett, Pete Townsend, and me. All of us, Les Paul Deluxe veterans.
Okay. Time to stop farting around and get ready for work. Happy Friday, everyone. The weekend awaits.
Finally… I played guitar today. Just for a little while (and pretty poorly), but I played. I used the new pedal board with the amp sim pedal (TC Combo Deluxe ’65) and for the first time… ever(?) I used a compressor pedal (MXR Dyna Comp mini).
I feel pretty good about the state of the world right now.
Here’s a photo of me playing this guitar on stage with Lizardfish on July 2, 2016.
Here’s a crazy low-res pic of me playing the guitar with Break Even at some point between 2003 and 2005.
Here’s another one for luck. Same bar but maybe a different date? No, probably the same date. If I had to guess it was August 1, 2003 at J Rags in Tewksbury, MA. Pretty sure that was the date. It was our first gig together.
The guitar is a 1979 Gibson ES-335 Pro that I bought off eBay in 2000 for a smidge less than $800. It was a mess when I first got it. It has no finish on the back. It’s stamped a factory second. Most important, some previous owner was a heavy, heavy smoker and it was covered in cigarette grime and sludge. I managed to clean it (mostly) and I just fell in love with it.
A few minutes ago, the Trogly’s Guitar Show posted a video to youtube of a 1979 Gibson ES-335 Pro! My guitar! Well, not my guitar but my year, make, and model! Even the same color! Awesome! Trogly’s 335 Pro was a mess too, and all the greater for it!
Did you see that the fuhrer-elect was advertising a guitar brand? $10k for what I can only imagine is a $200 Chinese knock off of a Gibson Les Paul (that’s just a theory, of course. I don’t care to investigate whether it’s true or not so I am not saying it is or is not true, dig?). When I first heard of this it was a headline with an image of the fucking slime ball holding one of the guitars. My first thought was I hope it’s not an actual Gibson. My second thought was, if it is an actual Gibson I will never give them my money ever again.
Fortunately a related story hit the presses yesterday that soothed my company-loyalty fears:
Just for clarity’s sake, I should mention that I have not read this article. Reading anything about that fucking nazi piece of shit makes me physically ill. I got the rundown via social media yesterday. I linked to this article because it came up first for me on a Google News search. There. Transparency.
Anyway, I just want to thank Gibson for not releasing a $10,000 nazi signature model and for going after the trademark infringing assholes who are trying to scam guitar playing fascist collaborators. Not that the guitar playing fascist collaborators haven’t earned a good scamming. Well… they voted for the nazi piece of filth so they’ve already been scammed once. Let’s say they’ve earned a second thorough scamming. Whatever.
Learning that Gibson has not aligned itself with evil kinda makes me actually want to buy a new guitar. How about a Les Paul Junior, or a Les Paul Deluxe, or a Firebird? You know, something to show my thanks.
Inside the Red Head's Head 