Tag: Guitar

Musical Stuff

Band practice was a bust last night.  Mike’s bass was slightly damaged during his cellar flood a couple of weeks ago.  It’s in the shop.  We are hopeful it will survive, but maybe a little part of us is also hopeful that it won’t survive and he’ll be forced to buy that Rickenbacker 4001 he’s been dreaming of since high school.  I brought my cheapo-ebay special Squire P-Bass so he could use it if needed, but my bass is actually in worse shape than his.  Playing in tune was out of the question, so we sat around for two hours throwing out ideas for new songs to cover.

I was listening to a podcast on the drive home tonight.  It’s put out by the fine folks at CD Baby and it’s called DIY Musician Podcast.  The topic this week is, Is your age an obstacle to music success.  I guess, and the podcast agreed, that the answer to that question depends on how you define success.  Is success being able to make music full time?  Is success being able to tour the world?  Is success being able to bang groupies while doing blow off a passed out hooker’s behind like an 80’s hair metal band?  Not for me.

If I get to define what success is for me, then I am an unbelievably successful musician.  I’m a couple of weeks shy of my 46th birthday and I played four gigs in the last year.  That’s more than most of my bands played during their entire lifetime back during my 20’s.  If I remember correctly, the next gig will tie Lizardfish for the most gigs ever played by any band I’ve been in.  Break Even played five.  I’m really stretching my memory here, but I think the band I played in in High School might have done eight or nine.  However, four were with the one main line up.  The four or five others were with variations on that lineup.  The band Mike and I had with Maria the drummer as well as a number of different singers was by far the best band for my taste as it was the only one that was all original, but it only played two gigs.  El Pez Lagarto has played four gigs since I joined, and has three more booked.  That’s amazing to me.  In my eyes that makes us supremely successful!  Now if we could just start doing the occasional original song.  That would be icing on the cake.

I am going to start mic’ing up the room during band practices again and trying to make decent sounding rehearsal tapes.  I haven’t mentioned it to the band yet, but I think I might want to try recording a show as well.  All the more reason to start slipping in original songs.  How about an EP of original music titled, Live at Racks: Bootleg.  I see a hit in our future.  Now I just need to get those songs written and rehearsed and my little idea for recording a show needs to be practical and the band has to go along with it.  No problem.  (yes, problems.  everywhere problems.)

Steve Hackett has a new album.  It’s on Spotify.  After me posting all of my crappy songs back in February, here is an example of what a real guitar player sounds like.

Enjoy.

Two Amps

I don’t have an A/B switch, or an A/B/Y switch, but I do have a DoD Flanger with a stereo output.  I’ve never used it with two amps though.  I’ve always wanted to play with it.  I have both of my tube amps at home right now, a 22 watt Fender Deluxe Reverb and a 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker.  This weekend might be time to experiment a little.  Two Fender amps kinda defeats the purpose, but they do sound very different so it won’t be a total loss.

Here are a couple of videos, for research purposes…

 

Boy Scout Fail aka Gig Recap

The band played out last night. It was our fourth show at Racks Bar in Plaistow, NH. Overall it was a decent show. The two day long snow storm kept a lot of people away so the turnout was lower than we’ve gotten at previous shows. Also, I think the success of the first three shows has left me a little over confident.

Mike the bass player owns one bass guitar. I own a cheap bass too and I’ve brought it to all of our shows so Mike would have a back up. I forgot to bring it last night. That was dumb of me. That was one thing that I look back on and wish I could do over.

There was one other thing that I felt was a bad move done in the spirit of over confidence. Picks. At every gig I’ve ever done in my entire life I have had a pick in my right hand and a bunch of spare picks in my pocket. In some cases there were picks taped to my microphone stand too.

Last night during one of the first couple of songs it occurred to me that I didn’t have any spare picks on me. I had a box full of them in one of my guitar cases, but nothing up on stage with me. I told myself that before the second set started I would fill up my pocket with spares.

A couple of songs into the second set it dawned on my that I never grabbed that box of picks. I started getting nervous. What the hell am I going to do if I drop this pick and can’t find it? There was another pick with my second guitar, I could grab that one if I needed to. Still, that would suck. I told myself I’d get that box out of my Les Paul case before the third set.

Fast forward to the third set. Did I get those picks out of the case? Of course not. Sure enough, we were playing one song that has a great solo section where I always try to come as close as physically possible to shredding like a demon. As the moment approached, I stepped on the pedal I was using as a volume boost for solos and…

Whoosh, out of my hand went the pick. I knew it was going to happen eventually, and there it was. Fortunately it landed right at my feet and didn’t get lost, but I had to finger pick through the rest of the song. I lost my chance to shred like a madman and then I had to get down on my knees and pick the stupid thing up. I should have just been able to pull another pick out of my pocket and keep going like nothing happened.

I did screw up a lot last night. There were some small miscues all through the first two sets. The third set… I train-wrecked a little. The other guys held it together but I was off the rails once or twice. I think I know what happened to me. We had a lot of snow overnight Friday and I was planning on getting up pretty early to dig out so that we could drive up to see my step daughter perform with the all-state choir in Concord, NH at 1:30. The stress of it all must have popped me awake at about 3:30 am. I couldn’t get back to sleep no matter what I did. So when the third set came around I was at about the 20 hour mark. I didn’t feel tired. There is too much adrenaline pumping for that, but I think I was really mentally fatigued. Things that I usually do without a second thought suddenly escaped me. Guitar parts that I usually nail became challenging, or I just flat out forgot them. It pissed me off, but I took out my frustration on a couple of solos and it got better. Still, stupid snow storm.

We booked two more shows for later in the year so we have three booked now. Every show we’ve done and every one we have booked has been at the same bar. That’s not really a good sign, but I am too old to care about such things. My days of seeing music as a career are so far gone that I can barely remember when it was an actual thing.

The next show is in early June. I promise I will have spare picks at all times.

Sawdust


That’s my amplifier, just before I packed it up after the show last night.  See all those little white flecks?  I thought maybe we were rocking so hard the ceiling was coming down a spec at a time.  My drummer corrected me.  It’s sawdust from his drumsticks.  

Awesome.

Dirt Problems

Considering that these are the fuzz and overdrive pedals that are not on the pedal board I will bring to the gig tomorrow, and that the gig board has three fuzz pedals and two overdrive pedals…

I think I might have a dirt pedal problem.

Untitled

Hello my name is Robert and I’m a distortion-aholic.

Oh and while we’re on the topic, let’s enjoy the warm glowing warming glow of some vacuum tubes…

Untitled

RPM Challenge Global Listening Day

Today is a big day for RPM Challenge participants.  Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s community radio station, WSCA, 106.1 FM has declared today as the RPM Global Listening Day.  They are going to play one song from each of the 500 or so albums submitted this year.  They are literally playing music from all across the planet.  You can listen to their audio stream at this link right here.

Check it out.  There will be some great music, some not so great music, some music that lives somewhere in between, but all of it was made by people who felt the need to put the rest of the world on hold for a few weeks and let their own creativity shine for a while.  I applaud everyone who finished, and everyone who gave it a shot but didn’t finish, and everyone who thought about starting but never did (because next year they will own this thing).

Everyone, that is, except me.  My project was crap this year.  If you listen to the stream and you hear this song… then you know it’s me.

RIP Chuck Berry

They called Elvis Presley the King of Rock and Roll, but I think everyone always knew that was bullshit.  Yes, Elvis was amazing and yes he did more to spread Rock and Roll to the masses than anyone.  He is deserving of all the praise he’s received.

But let’s be honest.  Chuck Berry is the King of Rock and Roll.  When you line up all the greats who were there at the start, and there are a lot of them, Chuck Berry stands out the most.  He wrote tremendous riffs.  His lyrics were poetry at a time when most of his contemporaries were writing nonesense.  Most important to me, a guitar player, Chuck Berry was Rock and Roll’s first true instrumental hero.  Even with all the things that have come since, his playing still stands out.  He is a legitimate guitar hero.  Don’t believe me?  Go ask Keith Richards his opinion.  Go ask Eric Clapton.  If we still had them with us I’d say go ask George Harrison or Jimi Hendrix.  Chuck’s playing stands the test of time.

Chuck Berry died today at the age of 90.  Yes, 90 years is a pretty good run, but I was hoping we’d get to keep him around for another 40-50 years at least.

Rest in Peace, Chuck Berry.