• Tag Archives Gibson

  • “You silly twisted boy.” Spike Milligan

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    So, PBR and Advil – bad idea?

    My TMJ is killing me. Thanks to a hellaciously stressful week at work, my jawbone muscles are sore and aching. Rather than do my facial exercises (yes, they do look as goofy as you’re imagining right now), I’m opting for the beer and Advil relaxation method. Maybe I’ll call it PBAdvil. Or Advipbr.

    I don’t really feel like detailing my boring work. Let’s just boil it down to: Troubleshooting.

    After five days of solving severe, severe problems, (well, severe in my line of business anyway) I took a long lunch and went to Guitar Center.  Managed to get my hands on a doublecut Gibson that I’d been curious about the neck on.

    tv2_doublecut
    Ole Yeller

    I’m not a fan of doublecuts. At all. I was interested in the neck, and the P90. (PBR90?) The P90 sounded cool, but was missing some bottom end. *DING* The lightbulb goes on over my head.  That’s what the bass guitar is for. Duhhh.  For some reason I’ve had it in my head that some of that bass *thunk* should be pushed out of whatever guitar I’ve been playing. Duh (again). Sometimes I don’t know why my brain works that way, I swear. I would borrow the kiddo’s bass, but it’s a lefty. Last time I faked some bass I used one of my guitars and an octave pedal. Bleah.

    Some of my recording equipment has made it out near the amps; I’ve now realized that I’m never going to practice enough that I feel comfortable recording – so I might as well practice while I’m writing songs and recording.
    So here is my pet peeve for today: Removable Trailer Hitches

    If you live anywhere in the Southern States, you’re likely to see them on the backs of big trucks. Also to be found on cars of People-who-need-to-get-stuff-done™.

    hitch_tha_bitch

    Here’s my problem with them. They’re REMOVABLE. So why the HELL doesn’t anyone remove them??

    When I was in my slight fender bender a while back,  the truck that hit the car that hit me had one. There was a mid-size SUV behind him, impaled onto his trailer hitch.  I vividly remember him jamming on the accelerator dragging her car with him (dangerous) while she had her wheels screaming in reverse (unsafe). He was obviously a working dude, so I’m not going to fault his hitch-ness.  When I’m driving home, however, I have to consciously think about the truck in front of me – whether I need to possibly plan for a 6-8 inch metal spear that may pierce my radiator should I happen to rear end anyone.  There was also a time at one of my old apartments where a dude in huge truck had backed up to the mailboxes, and I caught his (removable) hitch with my shin.

    You know pain, right? The blinding, cripping, I’m-not-moving and unable to even cry out in pain kind of pain?

    My shin had that pain. Boy oh boy did I have that pain. Luckily I was a nice guy and swore under my breath. I’m pretty sure I blamed myself for running into it.  I should have….uh….ok, I’m not posting that on the internet.

    My point is that there is only a small percentage of people who use trailer hitches on a daily basis. Just take the damn things off your trucks if you’re a weekend warrior or something. You really need to leave it on 24/7? Are you going to lose it if you take it off? You must have bigger problems.


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  • “I think there’s nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock ‘n’ roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs.” Joan Jett

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Saaaay….you’re mighty fancy. What’s a purty little thing like you doin’ in a place like this?

    So I’ve managed to maintain my composure and not go blindly seeking this his one guitar (and the case, c’mon, how can you resist a leopard print case?) mainly because I have so many damn guitars already. The other fact is that I don’t use any one of them enough to justify another purchase (and really, isn’t that what I said about the last one?). I’m so lame that I almost didn’t even realize that could upgrade the pickup in one of the SG’s to a P90 and get pretty close without having to get another guitar. Although…..I really like the white…..

    One of the realities that one has to face eventually is that there isn’t a piece of gear that’s going to make you play any better than just  straight old-fashioned woodshedding.  In the case of the above guitar, I’m not even sure how it plays. The RI series that I’ve played lately have had baseball bat necks (which I hate). The one above is a sig model, the Billie Joe Armstrong and it’s supposed to have  a “play fast” neck (like my 61 SG RI). Which of course I find intriguing.

    Here’s the part where I admit that I’ve got kind of a man-crush on Billie Joe. My daughter (should she ever read this) will give the obligatory “ewwwwwwww”.  It sounds really stupid, but I’m a huge fan of his songwriting.  Back in the 90’s, I listened to Dookie (like everybody else) and gradually fell off in interest as some of the later albums kind of kept going. At the AstroArena, we watched Billie Joe slobber all over the stage – good show.  It wasn’t until American Idiot came out that I became a reborn fan.

    Here’s the thing that REALLY freaks my daughter out. All the guys in Green Day are pretty much the same age as me. It’s hard to believe, but while they were singing about being burned out on a couch, I was sitting there burned out on a couch watching them sing about it.  Not that I think, “Hey that could have been me!” because obviously I wasn’t driven enough to really push myself with my guitar playing.  It’s just easy to relate to an artist that’s almost the exact same age as you. Oops. So Tre Cool has the same birthday as me. I knew I was forgetting something.  But they were all born the same year as me.

    Geez! These Geezers…..

    How come THEY don’t have grey hair?


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