BAMD – Bad Ass Mail Day
- Tag Archives Guitar
-
-
“Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn’t even the star of his own Halloween special.” Chris Rock
Holy crap, you people got lucky. I just realized that about 60 posts that I had imported from another blogging service were still public/visible. I took care of that, you won’t have to go back and read those. Not that anyone is ever really digging into my blog any earlier than 2009 anyway….
But these were pretty bad. Stories of defeat, alcohol, guitars, death, depression, overcoming the hurdles and then finally redemption. Redemption, or at least the very least my blog posts became readable and I started taking it semi-seriously. I left a few posts here and there, but starting here, you can work your way forward. Not worth clicking, but you can see the progression. Lookit me now, custom header and everything. Big time. Thanks Abe Lincoln.
***///***
As I was looking through some of the old blog pictures, I ran across some of my teen pictures. And wow, do I really feel old now. That stuff about feeling better when you get older, “I’ve never felt better in my life!” is a bunch of deluded crap. Or boomers trying to convince themselves it’s true. The only reason I feel better is because I work out now instead of letting my youthful metabolism do all the work. Shoot. This is getting depressing. Let’s try something else.
***///***
Since I’ve been unusually quiet about guitar related matters, I’ll should note that my buddy let me try his copy of Rocksmith. This is the guitar-hero type game that you plug in your own guitar and play along to. He kept telling me how much he was playing, like hours a day. Anything that gets a guitar into your hands for hours a day is freaking great as far as I’m concerned. So I tried it out. Since I’ve (depressingly) been playing since the 80’s, I managed to barrel through a few of the songs in his game until it adjusted the difficulty mid-song. Seeing a C#7 chord get thrown in out of the blue (a chord I don’t think I’ve played in YEARS) was pretty crazy. It ramped up the speed and chord/single note difficulty on me until I just jacked the entire song up. Then it backed the speed down until I could just keep up. I liked that, although the main reason I ended up picking up the game was for the technique drills and scale practice. So far I’ve had the guitar in my hands for stretches up to two hours. It’s a really nice practice tool – even for players like me who have been playing for years (and admittedly have some rough spots technique wise). I’m getting a little lag on my system which is throwing me off a bit, but it’s still working out okay.
Rock on Peoples!
-
“You silly twisted boy.” Spike Milligan
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.
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 HitchesIf 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™.
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.
-
“Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.” Paul Valery
I’m killing time before we head out to the “company picnic”. Great idea, although the loner in me tried to avoid committing to it for as long as possible. Avoidance for good reason, while they wisely moved the start time from 4pm to 6pm, it’s still looking to be about 98 degrees when we get there. Ouch.
So, not only do I get to be sociable while sweating, I have to lose about 6 hours of my day attending this thing.
Hence, I’m just killing time.
I got one of my guitars worked on last week and picked it up today. It’s my first/oldest and it had been playing very badly for a while now. So badly that I’ve been considering cutting it loose if I couldn’t get it to “act right”.
I’m pretty spoiled (okay, very spoiled) but my previous guitar techs would do the work for about $25 while I would wait. This was a new guy that I’m not sure I trust yet. The end result cost twice as much as I thought it would. It plays tremendously better (saved from the block!) but I’m not sure that it really required that much work.
I know the ins and outs of setups, I’m just not good with truss rod adjustment so that’s primarily what I figured the problem was. It got a nice polish and he oiled the fretboard – but I can do that myself. I just didn’t want to fight the guitar every time I played it.
There’s a new show on Discovery called “Fast and Loud” that’s based on a shop here in Dallas. They put together some cool rides, and for sure it makes me miss my old ’69 Camaro. I’ve been hunting up Craigslist and found some really nice Chevelles (cheap). I’ve come to my senses for the most part. My current money pit (house) trumps a new money pit (classic car). Since I’m a dude, I can pretty much justify sticking a classic in the garage for future restoration, but as much fun as it is planning a restoration…..it’s freaking hard work. And expensive. Hard to justify sheet metal repair, but I guess that’s the trick. Find the good bodied cars that just need the engine work – which is relatively easy.
Soo…that about wraps it up for me right now. Pretty quiet.
-
“Sometimes, I even freak myself out!” – Dimebag Darrell
I don’t know about you, but my new year has been pretty cool so far.
So far I’ve gotten a lot done in the garage and my music room. Strapped on a guitar here and there and even fired up an old distortion pedal that I kind of like now.
I’m trying to make an effort not to pay so much attention to my blog stats – although I can usually tell when some guitar forum posts a link to the guitar columns.
Unusually enough, I get quite a bit of traffic for searches on Edgar Oliver. You know, the “straaightjacket” guy from that show Oddities (and numerous other projects as his IMDB attests)
In honor of Edgar, I present:
“Is that a straaaaight jacket?” – Edgar Oliver
-
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. – John Barrymore
Having a puppy made me realize how much extra time that I had that I was squandering. Of course, the irony is that now that I have the dog I don’t have any spare time to squander.
I’m starting to get that feeling….the one that says, “You need to take some time to enjoy doing some things that you enjoy doing – playing guitar and recording songs”. I’ve been reading some recording books at work so that I can try and capture that mindset again. While walking the dog I’ve had some song ideas float through my head. Granted, now that I have a smartphone I could make verbal notes to myself but since it’s a smartphone, I haven’t figured it out yet.
My dad’s birthday was October 4th.
I didn’t do anything in his memory although I had a fleeting thought of having a drink in his honor. But I’m pretty sure I was out of scotch (which wasn’t his drink) and had no orange juice (for a screwdriver that he once admitted that he drank in college). It’s very hard for me to drink his beer (Budweiser = rusty nails).
Honestly, I think I was too tired to do it.
Walking a more-than-energetic dog twice a day is pretty draining. And time consuming. He’s still a puppy but luckily he’s learning fast. And a fast learner.
Here he is in his upcoming costume, “Bat with 100-mph-tail”.
-
“Up to now, the worst fears have not been realized. He has found another style.” Hans Kung
I spent a little time yesterday figuring out the theme song to “I Dream of Jeannie” on my guitar –
From there, I moved on to “The Munsters” –
All in all, it wasn’t a long exercise – it took me about 10 minutes each song to figure and match the horn and guitar parts. Of course, the horn parts were actually a lot more fun to play.
It was nice to be laying hands on a guitar. I haven’t done that in a while.
Playing TV theme songs took me back quite a ways – I used to have a small collection of TV Theme tapes. As a child, I wasn’t interested in “guitar” music per se – as the 80’s lollygagged around with synthesizers and electronic drums, the guitar was relegated to 70’s fuzz rock. Speaking of which, back in the 90’s, my mother told me that she was “scared” of the Stray Cats. Seriously? Scared? The upshot of this is that I was not exposed to very many guitar based kinds of music in my youth. As I have previously blogged, my first record albums (you know, the large black plastic disks) were Meet The Beatles and Beach Boys.
As I’ve been unemployed a while, and I always said, “If I had more time, I’d be practicing guitar a meeelion hours a day!”. Of course, that didn’t happen. Neither did working out, but I digress. So in following flickr and several Facebook accounts, I find myself relatively irritated when I see pictures of teenagers in bands.
I think to myself, “Why didn’t I ever do that?”. As I meditated on writing this entry, I think I stumbled onto the reason….well, kind of.
When I started playing guitar, I lived in New Zealand. As many teen bands have in common, “not much else” was going on in the area. This left them plenty of time to practice their craft. As such, I spent many hours playing along with the radio there (80’s – true), E-A-D, etc, etc. BUT, shortly after I started those lessons, I moved back to the US.
As my guitar teacher would say (ask him! I’m still friends with him after 20 years….) I never applied myself. BUT, I still had a great ear. And I also had a multitude of things to distract me from practicing my guitar. Because of my good ear, in one of my early lessons, I tabbed out a Jimi Hendrix solo (Wind Cries Mary?) by ear, but couldn’t play it. My guitar teacher was like, “Whaaaa?”. What a waste of my talent.
Here’s a picture of a guitar that I somehow convinced my mother to purchase early in my playing career ($599?) – an Ovation Celebrity. With a locking nut, floyd rose, and reverse tuners, I was WAYYYY out of my league in terms of even knowing what to do with it. I barely touched it.
So my later teen years I spent countless hours in poolhalls. Not so much that I won any money hustling pool, but it was a good distraction. I beat myself up for a few years, wondering ‘what if I had spent less time in the poolhalls, and more practicing guitar?’. Having all this time off recently told me all I needed to know – that I’m too distracted for my own good. Even if I hadn’t been playing pool, I wouldn’t have been hustling on the guitar.
While I can regret not having ever really put myself out there (beyond a few open mics), I can rest easy that had I the chance as a teen, I still wouldn’t have done it right. Seclusion (New Zealand) would have been the answer.
To my relief though, I can still write, I can record, and I can somewhat play.
And I’ve still got a good ear.
-
“No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life” Samuel Goldwyn
I’m pretty enthused about the number of companies contacting me that are relevant (and fiscally responsible) to my work experience. Being unemployed – while good for resting, is not so good for the checking account.
It turns out that the mortgage company still wants me to pay? Crazy – I know.
While I’ve been passed over for jobs that I know I would excel at so far – better job offers have come my way anyway. My skill set is relatively confined while being broad enough to appeal to many aspects of the industry.
I can’t tell if that scares them more than helps me.
This has been a week of getting back into the groove. New Orleans was such a blast, it’s hard not to bring the spirit of it back.
While NOLA is known for “getting your drink on”, we really didn’t partake that much while we were there. That possibly is what tagged us as “locals” because we weren’t staggering around clutching a Hand Grenade nor a Hurricane. Being that Texas is a pretty close neighbor to the Big Easy, we did pick up a King Cake when we got back.
Since I’m not religulous at all (great movie BTW), the King Cake really doesn’t mean much more to me than “party with your friends and enjoy life”. Or more specifically, “enjoy as breakfast”.
-
“She’s a killer, she’s a thriller, Spookshow Baby” ~ Rob Zombie
I wish I could find the Youtube video I saw a while back. It was a vintage interview with White Zombie, in the early days. Rob ends up talking about “Lead Singers Disease” – meaning, the singer gets too “big” for the band. In the video – he seems to scoff at the notion that would happen to White Zombie.
[Edit: Found it]
Watching the White Zombie videos – from the box set, consecutively……..it does kind of appear that way. I mean, by the time you get to (I’m Your) Boogieman, if I recall, is the rest of the band even in the video? Unless maybe it’s subliminal? It’s all Rob.
To me, it’s funny because from down here (in the pit, or better yet – in the back by the bar), it looks as though LSD is exactly what happened. Now, I’m going to disclaim – I know bands are like marriages. There’s sides to every story, and sometimes, you just fade apart. Being in a band means compromise. Each member has their own compromises to make in order for the “whole” to work.
I am of the opinion that White Zombie was always a much better band than Rob’s solo work – and I’ve spent the last two days listening to Hellbilly Deluxe to see if I can understand why. There are parts I think I understand now. White Zombie had songs, grooves and riffs. Rob Zombie (solo) has riffs, and establishes an almost disco/metal rhythm. I haven’t seen them live, but other than raw blasting low E (or D, or C, or whatever they’re tuned down to) chords it seems to me that it would be more or less….uh….boring to play? There is much more dynamic movement in the White Zombie stuff – although Rob’s vocal style seems less dynamic. WZ has more of a swing, or groove, while the RZ stuff is just…..crushing? Relentlessly crushing? I bought Hellbilly Deluxe probably in 2005? Listened to it once and put it away. I’ve been cruising and listening to it yesterday. All the songs have their interesting sample hooks, and (again) crushing guitar. Horror-themed lyrics that make me want to grow dredlocks and wear sunglasses all the time. But I digress.
Not super odd or anything, but I like Scum of the Earth better. So does my twelve year old daughter. SOTE, to me, is the best substitute to WZ that I can find. Their first album is killer, but the second I’m so-so on. Is it because I’m a guitar player that I like more dynamic songs?Edit: 1/29/11 – I wrote this post well before Sean’s book “I’m in the Band” came out, and since it has, my thoughts were more or less confirmed. (Great book by the way.) For the end of White Zombie, it was mentioned in multiple interviews that more and more samples were brought in (ala Charlie Clouser) and less focus was on the live music . Though I didn’t say in my original post, with his solo career, it seemed like Rob Zombie wanted to be the Trent Reznor of low-brow metal. Put most simply, I guess I was right.
Edit: 5/15/16 – So now that I’ve read the (excellent) notes included with the really early recordings (remastered) from Numero Group, I’ll revise my stance on the whole L.S.D. thing. What I got from those notes is that White Zombie as a band was always a struggle. Even when they were super successful, it’s not like everybody was buddy-buddy. I read the liner and immediately thought to myself, “Well, the Ramones hated each other too, so I guess it makes sense”. Check out the set, the audio is EXCELLENT and the book is a great read – Numero Group. White Zombie was an amazing band, a band of its time. I doubt they could have made a third album without imploding in some way so I think it worked for the best.
-
“It’s going to have to be at Torino, … If it isn’t, I think time will work against us.” Don Porter
Okay, second attempt. I didn’t work on the first song very much, but I’m taking a break from it for a day or two.
In the meantime, I came up with this (including samples!! whoo!!)
I’m getting better on the volume (I think). This went a lot smoother, and would go smoother still if I could actually play guitar.
