I spent some more time this afternoon playing guitar. Just adding parts to some 50/90 Challenge songs, that’s all.
My finger tips hurt. Maybe I’ll have calluses again by the time the 50/90 challenge ends in October. That would be nice.
Yesterday I mentioned that watching a YouTube video lead me to want to buy a Gibson Firebird.
That was yesterday. Today a YouTube video is leading me to want to buy another Gibson Les Paul.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.) is a bitch, people. It’s a serious problem.
I said I was hoping to get a little more than just MIDI tracking done for 50/90 today.
Four songs worth of rhythm guitars are done. Hopefully that’s more like four songs and counting for today, but we’ll see. My finger tips are hurting a little.
That Pedal Show on YouTube released a new episode yesterday and it is about 90 minutes exclusively on the Gibson Firebird.
I haven’t quite watched all of it yet, but I’m down to the last few minutes.
Seriously… for the good of society (as well as my bank account) please… whatever you do… don’t let me go near a music store for a few days at least. If I walk into a Guitar Center (or something similar) I am absolutely not going to be able to stop myself and I am 100% walking out of that store with a Firebird.
For the love of all that is good in this universe, don’t let me go into a music store.
Overall, tonight’s band practice went well. Well… as well as could be expected. My fingers hurt a lot and my arms got really tired, really quickly. My playing was pretty piss poor, but on the whole it went well. We probably won’t practice next week, but we should be back the week after that. There was serious talk of looking for a gig around Halloween.
I’m loving the Les Paul Standard into the AC15. Last time I had some pedal issues, but I cleared it all up tonight. The Ryra Klon clone into the Mr Vermin Rat clone was -chef’s kiss-. The Tri Pi ’70 Big Muff clone into the Ryra though… -chef’s kiss times 10-.
There will be a band practice tonight. Oh, happy day!
Homework for this week was to learn a song. It is arguably the worst song every written. “I Was Made for Loving You” by Kiss.
Oh my, what pandora’s box of hellness are we opening?
A few years ago I found a website that lets you use the serial number from your Gibson guitar to get information about your Gibson guitar. At the time I had two Gibson guitars. I’ll look them up again, then I will look up my two newer Gibson guitars.
First, my Les Paul Custom:
Your guitar was made at the
Nashville Plant, TN, USA
on September 18th, 1978
Production Number: 27
Next, my ES-335 Pro:
Your guitar was made at the
Kalamazoo Plant, MI, USA
on December 5th, 1979
Production Number: 127
Okay then, those are my two older guitars which might technically be considered “vintage.” Now let us check on the two guitars from the 21st century.
Start with my SG Standard:
Well… this is weird. There are two hits.
Your guitar was made at the
Nashville Plant, TN, USA
on March 10th, 2012
Production Number: 286
Your guitar was made at the
Nashville Plant, TN, USA
in 2018
Production Number: 2258
Right. I bought this one new after Gibson declared bankruptcy in 2018. It actually has a stamp on the back of the headstock right under the serial number that says, “Made in USA 2018 Model.” I guess that means it’s a 2018.
Okay, now lastly my Les Paul Standard 50’s:
Your guitar was made at the
Nashville Plant, TN, USA
in 2023
Production Number: 210004
Huh… right… so the guitar that my wife bought me for my 50th birthday back in 2021 was made in 2023… huh… so looks like the app doesn’t know how to handle the serial numbers from 2021. I guess I should Google it to see if I can find anything…
Turns out they changed the serial number format in 2019 and now we have this info:
It was made on November 16, 2020 and is production number 42.
I can tell by the look on all of your faces that you are fascinated by this.
The search for a new singer for the band is over. The new singer is our old singer. He’s back and it’s fantastic! It probably means we won’t be changing the name now, but I can get over that.
It was like riding a bike tonight, especially given that my guitar playing sucked. Well, I was doing fine for about 25 minutes and then my fingers decided they were toast and they stopped doing what I wanted them to do. I expect that my sloppy playing on Stevie Wonder’s Superstition will cause the ghosts of Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughn to haunt me tonight.
That’s okay, We’ll get back into shape soon enough. I seriously want us to book a gig for October or November, just to push us back into form. We had one practice tonight and now we’ll be off for the next two weeks. We need to spark some serious motivation, you know? Let’s book a gig!
As for gear notes, I played my Les Paul Standard through my Vox AC15. I have a sneaking suspicion that is going to be my primary rig for the near future. I put my clone of a ProCo Rat pedal onto the board and completely forgot that it, like the Vox amp, has it’s tone control backward (it cuts rather than boosts) so when I was trying to make the tone less trebly I was actually making it more trebly. I’ll fix that next time… if I remember that I did things backwards. We’ll see.
There is a high potential that tonight will be a big night for the band. If things work out the way they seem to be working out (and there are still a couple of hours for it to go wrong), tonight will be the first band practice with all four of us since before the last gig on February 1, 2020.
Now I know I’ve said this a bunch of times before, but it sounds like whatever was keeping our singer away has been resolved and he seems to be fully on board again. Like I said, it could all blow up any minute now, but at this particular instant in time, it’s happening.
I put new strings on the Les Paul Standard. I’m nearly ready to go. I just have to pack a few things into a bag to take along with me. My fingers are firmly crossed.
I also used the Gibson branded multi-tool that came with the guitar for the first time. Cool, eh?
I had to take the back cover off of the pickup selector switch to spin the whole thing a little in the counter clockwise direction and then tighten it all up. The switch came a little loose recently and when I tightened it by hand from the face of the guitar, the switch moved a little and it was facing in a new, slightly awkward direction. I think it’s all set now. In further 2020 Les Paul Standard 50’s news, is there a little issue brewing with the nut near the high E string? Maybe. It’s tough to tell. At least I have a relationship with a luthier now so if it needs help I know where to take it.
I mixed a song a couple of nights ago but didn’t get around to posting it to my alonetone or hearthis.at accounts so it just sat there on my laptop. Now it is out there for the whole wide world to ignore.
I think it kinda sounds like crap, but the song itself is okay, I think. You can probably hear the edits in the chorus because I wrote a melody without leaving any space for that pesky little breathing thing. Oops.
The lead guitar was through a nearly cranked amp. That was fun. Noisy as hell, but fun.
Inside the Red Head's Head 