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.
Inside the Red Head's Head 