I put rhythm guitars onto two songs tonight! The playing was rotten but I feel so good about it I could burst! It’s been too long. Way too long.
I played my SG through my new pedal board. I also tuned down to Eb for some reason. It felt good.
The Les Paul might come out tomorrow. We will see.
Two nights in a row.
Two nights in a row I had the opportunity to play the guitar and work on some recording. Harry was at work, Jen was in the office playing World of Warcraft. I could have gone downstairs and mic’d up my AC15 and tracked some guitar parts. I have one record every month song and three great re-recordings going. There’s plenty to do.
I didn’t play though, I just stayed upstairs watching television. I very much want to play. I very much want to get back into the swing of it. I very much want to start being me again. I very much want to be musical and creative again.
If the opportunity arises tonight, I will try and make myself go for it.
I am sitting here thinking about retail therapy and guitar gear and all of that and I am trying so very hard not to do it. I want to, but I don’t want to, but I want to.
For the pedal board, I want an MXR Brick and an MXR Phase 95 and one of those cheap little Mooer E-Lady flangers.
I want to trade in my Strat and do… something. Trade it for a Les Paul Jr? Trade it for a ’68 Deluxe Reverb? The money won’t work out for either of those, but what about trade it in for money and then…
Take the ES-335 to a repair shop and redo the frets and the wiring.
Or take the Les Paul Custom to a repair shop and redo the frets and change the pickups to something nice and boutique and redo the wiring.
Or take my gorgeous new Les Paul Standard to a repair shop and change the pickups to something nice and boutique and see if there is anything else that a professional would recommend doing.
Or take my SG Standard to a repair shop and change the pickups to something either nice and boutique, or something high output and mean sounding and see if there is anything else that a professional would recommend doing, specifically to the height of the action.
AAAHHHH!!!!!
I played a little today. Nothing serious. I just plugged straight into an amp and noodled. I did do a small experiment. I am thinking of taking my Vox AC15 to the next Lizardfish practice (whenever that might be) but I have never really pushed the volume. Is it loud enough to compete with the rest of the band? More importantly, if I get it up to band practice volume, is the tone still clean?
I dimed the master volume and then brought the channel volume up a little at a time. I got up to 92 decibels (according to my AppleWatch) and it was still clean as a bell. The band does get louder than that, but my channel volume (I was using the amp’s Normal channel, not the Top Boost) was only on about four, so there is still some room available. I don’t know when that channel starts breaking up, but I wasn’t even close. I think my band practice plans are good to go.
The question then is, do I use the Normal channel or the Top Boost channel? That’s still undecided.
I’ve seen a couple of things online over the last few days that reference a Yes song from the second album that I’ve always wanted to figure out but I never quite nailed.
Remember the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge thingie that I did all last year but failed to finish anything in March or April this year?
I just threw together a simple, quick, and dirty little thing that could end up being a May submission.
I went exactly two months without playing guitar…
…before I played today.
I played my SG because it’s the lightest guitar with the smallest body and I figured it would be the easiest to deal with against my recently sliced open gut.
There were no issues.
Life is good.
New decor?
Two weeks ago at about this time, I think I was being moved from the operating room to the recovery room. I’m trying to find some way to commemorate this historic anniversary and I am coming up with nothing. I’m in the cellar, watching Breaking Bad again and surfing online music stores on my laptop. I don’t want to spend money on gitter stuff but what can you do? Pedal boards and random gear are just fun to daydream about. I have made sure to avoid looking at actual guitars though. Amps too. Just pedals and non-bank breaking stuff.
As for the post-surgical update, I had a weird experience today. I ate my delicious tuna fish puree at lunch time. When I was done I… well… it’s so odd… I felt… hungry. As in, damn I could go for another ounce of that fun stuff. It was just a weird feeling.
I am still not giving any details on the subject, but my mother is still in the hospital. I still can’t do anything about it, and likely won’t be able to for another 2-3 weeks. I feel less than useless. Again, no details are coming but I just needed to state that publicly for my own guilt ridden reasons. That is all.
Happy two-week birthday to my little baby stomach*.
* In his book Ghost Rider, Neil Peart, while dealing with the deaths of his wife and daughter, refers to parts of his recovery as feeding his little baby soul. My soul is okay, but my little baby stomach needs constant attention.
I’ll take the Mooer E-Lady flanger off the big board, and the MXR Phase 95 that’s at Mike’s house and fill the space on the right. I’ll also take the MXR power brick on the board at Mike’s house and replace the daisy chained power supply.
Someday.
Let’s build ourselves a new pedal board. What do you say?
I’m thinking the wah will go on the floor.
Inside the Red Head's Head 