Gibson

Is the hashtag supposed to be #GibsonDay or is it #GibSunday? They both work. Should I just use both of them?

I haven’t played today, but I did get a couple of pics for whichever hashtag is the right one. I am so unhip.

Five More

I put rhythm guitars onto five more songs this morning. My schedule is all topsy turvy and I’m not sure if I will be able to do anything more today, but five songs worth of guitar tracks is a nice haul for the morning.

I am actually out of songs that need rhythm guitars now. I still have two that need leads, but we’ll be getting to those soon enough. I want to write some lyrics tonight so that I can have at least five songs ready for a car vocals in the morning.

Musical Friday Morning

It is Friday, at last. Every single day this week has tried to trick me into thinking it was Friday (there must be something wrong with my brain’s calendar function) but this time it’s real. This time it actually is Friday.

Insert the sound of an emphatic sigh of relief here.

The weekend is one 8.5 hour work day away. The best part? My step daughter is coming over tonight! She’s going to a work conference tomorrow and is stopping here on the way to it. We haven’t seen her in ages. I’m really looking forward to her visit.

Musically speaking? I played some guitar before work this morning. 50/90 progress. I put rhythm guitars on two songs and leads on one. I took a bunch of pictures with my Nikon. I had the 28mm lens on it for all but one. I swapped to the 40mm and took one more pic just to make sure it was working. It was. That lens is so much better than the 28mm. I’ll keep the 40 on there for a while. I really love that little sucker.

Here’s the one 40mm pic. It’s the choice for the photo a day thing for today.

Note the guitar case in the blurry background. That’s my other Les Paul. The one Jen got me for my 50th birthday. I’ll be swapping them out the next time I record guitars. The birthday Les Paul is the only one of my electric guitars that hasn’t made it onto a 50/90 track yet. That will change, probably tomorrow morning.

Now for a bunch of faux artsy pics with the 28mm lens.

Yeah, I ran a Klon into a King of Tone. Unobtanium, bitches.

A Good Start

I had another crummy night’s sleep last night, but today is looking okay so far.

Taking it With Me

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When I die, this sucker is going into the casket with me.

I’m probably taking most of this stuff with me too.

I Don’t Hate It

The Gibson Theodore… a lot of people hate it. I… I guess I… I guess I don’t hate it. I sure don’t love it, but I don’t think I hate it. I almost think it’s cool.

I’ll embed a video below that goes into depth, but the deal is that a few years ago Gibson unearthed a guitar design that was unused back in the golden era of the 1950’s and did a short, very expensive, run out of their custom shop. Recently they released a standard production model that is also grossly expensive, but a whole lot less expensive than the original version.

Yeah the body shape is kinda dumb. I liked the custom shop’s use of P90 pickups rather than the USA version’s use of humbuckers. I like the four knobs on the custom shop over the two master controls on the USA. I very much greatly prefer the bridge on the USA version.

I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t love it but I don’t really hate it. Weird, huh?

Change of subject: unrelated, both the Bruins and the Red Sox won today. The Red Sox snapped a really ugly four game losing streak. The Bruins… I think… clinched the Atlantic Division title… I think… didn’t they? No… did they? I knew they needed a win over Pittsburgh tonight, but I can’t remember if it was a win OR a Florida Panthers loss would clinch things, or was it a win AND a Panthers loss? Also, did the Panthers need to lose, or lose in regulation? I don’t remember. The Bruins won in regulation and the Panthers won in overtime. I guess I’ll find out the answer to this question in the morning. Whatevs, both of my teams won today. Happiness.

Back to the main topic. Where does the Theodore sit on my Gibson Guitar I-Want-One list?

Les Paul Junior
Les Paul Standard 50’s with P90 pickups
Firebird, but not a studio. I want the Firebird mini-humbuckers, not standard humbuckers
Les Paul Deluxe
Insert the Theodore here? Maybe.
Les Paul Special, or SG Special, or SG Junior
ES-330

Damn… that’s a long list. It’s also an insanely expensive list. Come on, Gibson USA. Help a brother out. Bring those prices down. I don’t want to start thinking about Epiphones. I’m a Gibson snob after all.

Friday Morning Guitars

I promised myself I was going to do it on Thursday and then failed to do it. I did not fail on Friday though. I played guitar this morning. I put rhythm guitars onto three songs. Breath that sigh of relief!

Xmas Eve Les Paul

I didn’t play guitar at all today, but I did take a few Hipstamatic pic of my #1, my Les Paul Custom. Shake to Shuffle and all that stuff.

HoHoHo

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.