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.
I did it again. I messed up my morning routine. Big time. I overslept, then I had a problem that came up and screwed up my morning exercise. I am just off today… again.
I did work on some music though. I put rhythm guitars onto two songs. I used my SG for both of them.
Then I switched to my Les Paul Custom and put leads onto one song.
Musically speaking, what’s next for today? I haven’t a clue. I’ll let you know once I straighten out my brain. Maybe in 25 years or something? Who knows.
Well, I ran out of guitar tracks this morning. I put leads onto two songs (and boy, are the two songs bad. Baaaad songs, bad) and those are the only two things I had that were ready for any guitar tracks. Time to start writing and recording vocals and adding some new songs to the 50/90 challenge worklist.
I played all right today, but the songs I worked on are just bottom of the barrel crap-o-la. Oh well. That’s how it goes with these song writing challenge things. Lots of bad stuff cranked out in the hopes of accidentally coming up with one or two keepers.
I played some guitar this morning. I put rhythm and lead tracks onto one 50/90 song, and leads onto two more. I played very poorly and my finger tips have been torn to shreds. Serves me right for going almost a week without playing at all.
Here is a photo to prove that I don’t always have my guitar’s volume controls maxed…
356/365
(I was doing the Clapton thing where you use both pickups but roll the neck pickup’s volume off a little. It’s not as famous as his “woman tone” thing [dude, come up with better names for this stuff] but it’s something he did when he was still playing Gibsons. Oh, and the woman tone thing? Play the neck pickup and just turn the tone knob all the way down. He sometimes did it with both picksups as well, turning both tone controls all the way down)
No guitar playing today. I’m in the office again and there wasn’t time before work and there likely won’t be time after work. I expect the same tomorrow as I’ll be in the office again. That will be three days this week. Ouch.
Thursday though. Expect good news on Thursday (but don’t bank on it).
Inside the Red Head's Head 