My Up-In-The-Air Life

We are going from a house that's full of expensive to an apartment that's full of cheaper. This should be a good and happy thing. Anyway, I am crazy looking forward to it, but tomorrow much of our stuff will be collected by some people who will auction it. Which should mean money but certainly means I won't have to move it or trip over it anymore. So, yay.

In the mean time, though, I am spending my days serving my community as a juror. Which is about the alpha and omega about what I can say about it.

But, right now, at this moment, I have my PCs shut down and packed up. I just have my netbook and my phone.

A Day In The Life

They have campus all jacked up. There's one main drag through campus, and they have it blocked off to build a new building. So, the main drag has been redirected in front of my building.

This leads to me following me like they're on the main drag when I'm looking for a parking space. As often happens, I have to go down to the end of the street to get a spot. I'm OK with that — it's a way for me to force myself to get exercise — but today, someone thought I was pulling into the right turn lane and pulled right in after me.

I am continually amused by my life.

I For One Welcome Our New Staff-Wielding Overlords

I play in a band that backs a choir. Or fronts, take your pick.

(I think I've made it obvious what my gig is.)

And, think of it, most of the time, they back us. The songs where they take the lead, they sing to tape. But we're changing that.

This means we're going from chord sheets to staff. Well, I think the term is lead sheets. Not full orchestration. Which trends toward me needing to learn to read.

I can mostly get pitches. Counting sharps and flats gives you key, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, and such. But I fail to understand the rhythm of the dots.

I'll have to hit the scanner to go to the example I have. Listening, I hear seven notes. I see ... nine? (I don't have the music in front of me.) I may put up specific examples later but right now, I need general guidance about reading the rhythm of music. Anyone have good pointers?

New Digs

The main room has the good sound. The main room has the playback setup. It has the Aviom system and piano and the glass cage for the drums. The choir is starting to do songs with the band rather than going along with pre-recorded tracks. So the choir is getting the main room, and Wednesday service is going to ... well, until this week, it was called "the choir room."

I didn't know how good I had it. Seriously.

Instead of a real piano, we have the kind of digital piano that people who want to start learning piano get. We have the drum set we had before we got the drumset before we got the drum set before we got the drum set. And the monitors. This is the first time I played there without earbuds, and the monitors were just nowhere near enough.

About a third of the way through the set, I noticed that I couldn't hear the bassist. This, unfortunately, is not an uncommon thing. I motioned to the sound man to turn up the bass. At least, I meant to. Thumb up, thumb down, that's universal for volume up, volume down, and I tried to do plucking like a bass instead of strumming, but he turned me up, then turned me back down. Then he dragged in a bass amp for him, and finally, for the first time in years(!) we could clearly hear the bass.

To the extent I heard myself, I guess I did well, but I knew we'd have technical issues, and there were.

Notes From The Front

At this point, because I'm not working from a strong theme of hardware geeking like Stratoblogster and I'm more the student than the teacher, this has devolved into a nearly entirely diary blog. I am sorry.

That being said:

• The leader's out-of-town — out-of-state, even — so we will not have practice this week, again! If we were touring and could just hit the same setlist over and over again, that would be one thing. I hate being so reliable.
• My eldest had his first concert as a high school student this evening. I love my children and want to encourage them, but honestly, going to the middle school concerts was a chore. But this time, every band, from low to high, was just really good. Kudos!
• I've found a decent tone on my multipedal. Reasonably close to the Steve Stevens Top Gun tone, as featured above. At least to my ears. I will put together a video soon.
• Years ago, there was an all-gear magazine called Guitar Shop. In one issue, they wrote about what it would take to convert a standard-scale guitar to a baritone. I can't find my copy, but I have wanted to make a baritone guitar for over a decade. This concept was at the forefront of my mind when I got the Rondo. And now, I have it intonated to be tuned BEADF#B. I think I'd have to move the bridge back further to get below that. Again, I shall have to make a video.

Tales from the life of an "almost professional" musician

I play on Sunday. I was supposed to know what songs we're playing by Monday. I don't yet. But, on Tuesday, we were supposed to practice, starting at 7PM. The boys wanted to go to the library, and so I said "As long as you get back by 6:35 or 6:40, I'll be able to get there on time." At 7:05, I sent a reminder. They got home at 7:20, and I got to practice at 7:30, feeling angry and bad.

And found the room dark.

Practice was canceled due to the leader having health issues in the family. The email telling me this was sent around 5:30pm and arrived around 9:30pm. So, that was annoying, frustrating, and, finally, saddening.

That's the sad story.

We play through DI boxes. The other guitarist and I use multieffects boxes to juice our signal a little, but the bassist doesn't, and so, it is a rare and unusual thing for him to be noticable in the mix. But tonight, he was out in front, which was fun.

Before we started, he was playing the E on the B string. "Bonk!" he'd go, wait a little, then go "Bonk!" again. A bass is one octave lower than a guitar, and he's playing one octave up, so next time he went "Bonk!", I followed with my own "Bonk!" He didn't figure it out at first, so whenever he went "Bonk!", I went "Bonk!"

Soon, he got it. The other guitarist joined in, going an octave up, to "Bink!"

Bonk!
Bonk!
Bink!

Bonk!
Bonk!
Bink!

Not funny in the telling, I suppose, but it was funny at the time.

Victor Wooten at Sweetwater

On Monday, I took my two biggest sons to Sweetwater Sound in Fort Wayne to see a clinic with Victor Wooten and J.D. Blair.

OK, just in case you don't know, Wooten plays bass for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. He plays Fodera basses and Hartke amps. He has been featured before on this blog, in the inaugural post of the 'man that's deep' label. There's also some points to add to the 'how to not suck' label. But we'll get to that.

On improvisation vs. repertoire:"The fewer songs you recognize, the better night we're having."

Of course, he's a massive player. He, a looper pedal, and a great drummer can make all the music you'd want.

Gearhead Paragraph: He had two bassists, one a 4-string yin/yang bass tuned EADG with a Hipshot D-tuner and another bass tuned ADGC: a 'tenor bass' in his terminology. Both have 24-fret necks. He uses nickel strings, a Boss RC50 loop pedal, a Peterson tuner pedal and had a Hartke stack with a 4x10 cab for high notes and a 1x15 for the low. He uses a hair tie to mute the open strings — I call it the Greg Howe trick because that's where I saw it first — He has basses with Kahler tremolos, fretless basses, five-string basses with MIDI pickups, but he didn't have them there that night. But that is what he uses. If you try what he likes and don't like it, he doesn't want the blame, and if you try what he likes and like it too, he doesn't want the credit.

On endorsements "Don't buy something because someone uses it. Try it out because they use it, but only buy it if you like it."

On the transitive nature of instruments "Bass is more a role than an instrument."

The coolest thing, the thing I want most to try, is his groove/rhythm exercise. Set up a long drum pattern on your drum machine. Set your drum machine so it plays that measure four times. Find your groove in that. Get into it.

Then replace the fourth measure to silence.

This will tell you your tendencies, if you tend to rush the beat or lag. And, if you know, you can start to work against it.

This is when you swap out the third measure.

Then the second.

Then just have one beat, one note floating in a sea of silence.

I have yet to try that exercise. But it sounds like a perfect get-the-groove don't-suck kind of exercise, doesn't it?

On warming up "I'm 45 years old. I've been playing for 43. I should be warmed up by now."

If you get a chance to see him playing with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, do it. If you get a chance to see him playing in duo format with J.D. Blair, do that. But especially, if you get the chance to do a workshop with him, jump on that.

The final point: it is far more pleasant to be in the electric guitar room at Sweetwater after a Victor Wooten clinic than after a John 5 clinic. Bassists who play with each other are much more pleasant to be in a room with than guitarists who don't.

That's Gotta Hurt

Perhaps this is a lesson in ergonomics.

Phil Collins was the drummer for Genesis, and when Peter Gabriel left, he took over the singing duties, but he always saw himself as a drummer first.

But no more. Due to spinal injury, he's giving up the drums. Evidently, it's hooked to how he sits on the drum throne.

I've never really looked into ergonomics, especially the ergonomics of guitar. I know that I used to sit at an ergonomic desk with a keyboard extender that sat below my knees. That desk actually hurt me until I took off the keyboard extender.

Anyway, I always liked a bunch of his work. Sad to see him leaving the drum kit.

I Love The 70s....

I was playing my son some Supertramp. I don't know why Breakfast In America came back to my attention recently, but there it is. This evening, it came up because the family saw the Star Trek reboot, and when you think Spock, you should think of "The Logical Song".

But this brought to mind an element of my youth. I remember stopping by a friend's place, and his brother was there, long-haired and shirtless, airbrushing a mermaid on the side of his van, with Supertramp on the boom-box. At this moment, I cannot think of a more late-1970s moment than that. Can anyone one-up me?

This Week In Review 2009/08/28

My Top 11 Artists

1. The Replacements - 65 tracks
2. Simon & Garfunkel - 61 tracks
3. Paul Simon - 53 tracks
4. Chris Thile - 52 tracks
5. Nickel Creek - 41 tracks
6. The White Stripes - 31 tracks
7. The Raconteurs - 14 tracks
8. Converge - 12 tracks
9. At the Drive-In - 12 tracks
10. Mike Marshall & Chris Thile - 10 tracks
11. Punch Brothers - 7 tracks

Those are high numbers, but justified. I had a Chris Thile (plus Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers) day, two days of Paul Simon +/- Art Garfunkel, a day of the Replacements and today was Jack White (White Stripes and the Raconteurs).

I haven't finished the Jack White playlist yet. I could've done more, but there was big networking fun through much of the day today, so I was largely away from my desk. There's been talk in the forums I frequent about the movie It Might Get Loud, which is about Jimmy Page, the Edge, Jack White and the Cult of the Guitar. Listening today, it struck me that Jack and Jimmy have styles that are very similar, and that much of the WS/Raconteurs work wouldn't have sounded too out of place on an early Led Zep album.

Maybe more later.

This Week in Review 2009-08-07

My Top 5 Artists:

1. Warren Zevon 116 Plays
2. The Smiths 26 Plays
3. David Bowie 20 Plays
4. Mad Mix Mustang 16 Plays
5. George Harrison 6 Plays

My Top "5" Tracks:

1. Warren Zevon, Splendid Isolation 3 Plays
1. Warren Zevon, Boom Boom Mancini 3 Plays
1. Warren Zevon, Hasten Down The Wind 3 Plays
4. The Smiths, Ask 2 Plays
4. The Smiths, Unloveable 2 Plays
4. Elastica, Stutter 2 Plays
4. MadMixMustang, Smells Like Love (Twice) 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, The French Inhaler 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns And Money 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Searching For A Heart 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Accidentally Like A Martyr 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Long Of The Law 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Mr. Bad Example 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Carmelita 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Desperados Under The Eaves 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Play It All Night Long 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, Tenderness On The Block 2 Plays
4. Warren Zevon, I Was in the House When the House Burned Down 2 Plays

Clearly, I was on a Zevon kick. I borrowed I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the Warren Zevon biography, and it made me think of him again and queue him up a lot. Evidently, he considered "Tenderness on the Block" to be one of the best songs he ever wrote. I'll have to give it a few more listens.

Report

Parents are in town, so I've been away from the computer a lot. I have, instead, been in the yard, taking down a lot of stuff I should've taken down a while ago, and trying to get my lawnmower working again.

But, we had practice for Sunday on Tuesday, and I'll be playing electric then, which I love. There's one funk-inspired song that really screamed out Nile Rodgers to me, so that's what I'm bringing to the table. And on Wednesday, our normal lead guitar stayed home and crashed (he wakes up for work at 4am or something) so I got to play lead. Or only -- when you're backing a singer, you're going to be playing more harmony and rhythm than taking on lead/melody lines yourself. I tried a double-stop harmonizing bit, as shown in a recent Arlen Roth lesson. I first read about it in one of his instructional books years ago. I'm not sure it sounded right, which makes me wish we could record these things. I might bring along my laptop and hook to a spare position with the in-ear and try to record some of this. That might be cool, but it certainly be instructive.

See you later@

At least I was amused

The office goes to lunch on Fridays, and today we were talking about the Kindle. If you haven't been paying attention, there's a company that released a version of George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. Amazon released it on the Kindle, but, as it turned out, had no rights for that. In the paper world, Amazon would probably pulp their remaining stock and pay a higher rate for the stuff they sold, but in the electronic world, they could tell your Kindle to delete it. (And credited your account for what you spent.)

It was decided that the big annoyance is the annotations. With the Kindle, you an evidently you can write notes and store them with the source, but whatever you had went away when they deleted it. And that thought inspired a line.

"I've found and elegant solution, but it is too large to fit in the buffer of my Kindle"

That's the joke. That's why I brought it up.

Sad, isn't it?

This evening, I started playing and I noticed that a scratchy, sitar-like tone was coming out when I hit the G on the low E string. Not of F#, not on G#, not on another string. So I poke, and I raise the saddle and reintonate. Problem didn't go away.

I was plugged in. My fretless acoustic was leaning on the side of my amp, but the strings were open. I was vibrating an open string.

How was your day?

Strapped Redux

I have it. Sweetwater said "keep it". And it is longer than the previous strap. Happy!

Strapped

Meet Johnny Depp.

I can't have that hair. I couldn't grow a goatee to save my life. I can't have a blackguard Tele. I suppose I can have the slightly post-grunge wardrobe, but on me, it'd look more like Tad than Depp. But I could have that strap. Which was one of my goals for going to Gearfest.

But, as I said in the post, they kinda accidentally sold that one out from under me. Which was OK, because the guy in the warehouse gave me this strap. Depp is 5'9" and skinny. I am 6'3" and rotund. The strap rides a little shorter than I would like, but I am happy enough with it. (And I am aware that the Planet Waves is about $10 more expensive, but I'm not going to make a big deal about that.)

But I got an email from Sweetwater. It says that they have sent me a Fender vintage-style strap.

Um...

It would be so easy for me to just be quiet and say "Free strap!" But that would be Wrong.

When I have the strap, when I'm sure it's not just a phantom weirdness, I will email Sweetwater and say "I have a strap."

Which should be this evening, by their tracking page.

ETA: I have emailed them. They are pondering. We'll see how it goes.

Boy, Are My Fingers Tired, a GearFest Review

Before I start, let me introduce you to Darol Anger. He played on the first David Grisman Quintet album, he played on "Manzanita", which is one of the most beautiful tunes to come out of bluegrass. A great player of the fiddle, an instrument that I am trying to learn. He played Fiddlers' Gathering today. And, in general, I try to attend the Fiddlers' Gathering.

But instead, I went to Gearfest.

Some high points:

The Keyboard Room: I went in there after attending a course on ProTools. That course of course made me want

• ProTools
• A Mac
• A mixing board
• microphone and direct input interfaces
• microphones
• Lots of other stuff I can't afford

What I saw and loved most was the Moog Etherwave theremin. There's two main touchstones in the modern mind for the theremin: The Song Remains The Same and The Day The Earth Stood Still. The good stuff for the theremin, the stuff that proves it's more than a tone generator, is done by Clara Rockmore. I played this to my wife, who asked "The woman singing, why is she so sad?" But more with Moog later.
The item most coveted by me, the one I wish most that I could take home, is the Yamaha MM6 keyboard. Let it be known throughout the land that Sans Direction is a big classic rock keyboard fan. Hammond, Rhodes, Clavinet, Wurlitzer, the sounds that made rock rock. It is known that, in 2009, if you want those tones and you're playing out (rather than a studio or your own bedroom), you rock a Nord, but that's if you have several thousand dollars. If you're more a hundredaire (Thank you, Greg Koch), the MM6 has good sounds at lower prices. I specifically pick out one stereo Rhodes tone that I think I've heard on Steely Dan tracks and I know is the starting keyboard sound on Pink Floyd's "Sheep" as a tone the MM6 does perfectly. If I could have brought home one piece of gear from Gearfest, the MM6 is what I would bring.

Let it be understood that, as a keyboard player, I'm a good guitarist. But I want to learn, and I can't without an instrument. The other theremin I played (and be it noted, not touched) was at the Moog booth in the Gear tent. They tweeted that people should go and say hi to Linda in the Moog booth, and I did. I played a Little Phatty, which was cool. I also took the demo, seeing how to connect the Etherwave to the Little Phatty to make it synthier. That was cool. That was way cool.

I also played a Moog guitar. The Moog guitar has been discussed here before, but I have not until this day touched one. And, well, it's a beautiful enough guitar, and it plays well. But recently, I read an account of Adrian Belew trying out for Zappa's band. He was in the middle of Zappa's rehearsal studio during the lead-up to a tour, and Belew tried to play and be impressive while everyone around him was packing stuff up and moving it out. In the end, Belew said he thought he blew it and thought the interview would've been different, and asked to try again in a quieter environment. I think that, in a quiet room where I could turn up to taste, I could bring the Moog guitar to life. The wah-like setting sounded more like a ring modulator to my ears, and I couldn't get the autowah setting to work. What I did get to work was the mute, which is the reverse of a sustain function. I am not sure I found a useful way to use the mute function. It's different enough from my slab-with-a-neck Telecaster to make it difficult to just switch over what I usually do. So, just because I couldn't make it work for me, that doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

Patrick, I have a Keep Your Hands Off My Theremin shirt, and you cannot have it. I have some Moog pocket protectors, and next time we see each other, I will give you one.

Fender Fender Fender: I visited the guitar tents, where I met John Grabowski, the man who tweets for Sweetwater, plus a bunch of the Fender guys. A great bunch of guys. I played the blue-flamed James Burton Tele, and that's something. 3 pickups. 5-way switch, with an S1 switch, too. Here's where it gets weird. Positions 1 and 5 are neck and bridge. Positions 2 and 4 are neck/middle and bridge/middle. The S1 switch switches between middle and neck/bridge in position 3. And, officially, I am not sure that the James Burton sounds like a Tele, but it sounds good, I gotta say.

I didn't take a crappy cellphone pic of that.

I took a crappy cellphone pic of a Fender Custom Shop Telecaster with S1 switching and sparkles. Relic sparkles. Yes, someone took the time and effort to make a great modern Sparklecaster, and then beat it up. As Greg Koch said, some people get it and some people don't. For the most part, I don't. I think Steve Dikkers' Sparklecasters are much more sparklier than this one, which took a moment for me to recognize as sparkley. Not that I didn't live playing the thing.

Dee-Uh-Dar-Eee-Oh: D'Addario had free string changing. I know two guys with Steinberger copies, and I tried to get them to come along, because double-ball strings are not cheap and not really common, but oh well. I had the strings changed on my black Tele, which I will play on tomorrow. Changed from Ernie Ball. We'll see how they go.

Effecting: I have decided as of right now that the next effect I get will be the Boss NS2 Noise Suppressor. I plugged in a Tele (not mine), dimed a compressor and played with the NS2, which got it all out. I play with an Aviom in-ear system, and I get an earful of the hum. I'm not too sure that the house finds it noticeable, but in my ears, I feel the need to stomp that buzz. Especially if I want to have the compression on all the time.

The Talks: Chet Chambers, talking about recording, confirmed by belief that the acoustic guitar in an electric band context is essentially a tuned snare drum. Sean Halley showed how easy it is to put together tracks in ProTools. Nick Catanese and Chris Cannella can play, and I'd love to see both of them in longer presentations than they had here.

And then there's Greg Koch.

He is truly a mutant. If tomorrow he woke up and his hands and guitars didn't like each other, he'd make a killing as a standup. He was mostly showing off the Roadworn guitars and the Vintage Modified amps.

The VM combines the digital wonderfulness of the Cyber-Twin with the tube joy of a classic Fender amp. 40 watts, which as Greg says, "is all you need and deserve". Nearly 20 years ago, I saw something online where a guy talked about a gig. "Your stack is louder than the PA", the sound man said. I can't recall if the response was "Thank you" or "You're welcome", but either one gets to the point, which is that guitarists are undisciplined, can't be trusted and need to limit themselves to small 40 watt amps. Also, light and portable.

I suppose I should've gone with this earlier. The Joe Campilongo-approved Princeton, with an attenuator built in. I fell in strong like with this one.

Final Thought: I desired this strap. I saw a picture of Johnny Depp with that kind of vintage strap going onto a blackguard Tele and it just looked great, so I decided I wanted one like that for my SX. But somewhere between 11am (when I made the order) and 5:30pm, when I left, the single Fender vintage strap with the shoulder pad had been sold. But the shipping guys made sure I didn't walk home empty-handed.

The only downer of the day was the impromptu relicing my eldest did to my #1, which I don't like but I'm not really mad about.

Now, good night. I have to get up and play in the morning.

"What Am I Doing Here?"

Inspired by a great track I remember from my youth:

Larry Verne, "Mr. Custer"

So, what am I doing here? What is the purpose of this blog? I've been kinda floundering recently, and I think a statement of purpose would be a good thing.

Gear Lust

There's two thoughts involved with Gear Lust. There's "I want to collect pretty things" and "this will make me a better player." Gear Lust drives the aptly-named Gear Acquisition Syndrome (or GAS) that plagues so many players. Just to make it clear, I think it's fine to collect gear and to appreciate gear. I think it's a fallacy to believe that, beyond a certain point, playing another guitar will make you a better guitar player. That certain point being the point where you go from a poor instrument that doesn't intonate, doesn't stay in tune and doesn't sound good to a good instrument that intonates, stays in tune and sounds decent. I would suggest that this point is relatively low, lower with electrics than with acoustics, and with the advent of CDC, is dropping lower and lower every day. You can get a great sounding, beautiful, hand-crafted instrument, but if all you do is pluck open strings and say "Wow! That tone!", nobody's gonna want to hear it.

But it's always fun to look.

Mindless Link Propagation

The Gear Lust posts are a subset of the MLP group. We all like looking at shiny new instruments. We all like seeing and hearing great bands play great songs.

Community

This is a big part of it all. I know some musicians locally, but they cover a small part of the possible gamut of music. By being online, by participating, I get to know more musicians, learn more techniques and find more about general musicianship than I could otherwise.

Giving It All Away

One of my first inspirations for this blog was Adam Gussow of Satan and Adam, who posts blues harp instruction on YouTube.



He developed a body of knowledge of blues, of harmonica, of musicianship, over years of playing and gigging, and he decided to create the video series to "give it all away", as he says above.

I do not have Adam's experience. I don't claim to. But certainly if I have something I can give away, to help the next guy along, I want to do that.

Logging Progress

Blog is short for web-log. I try to use this to keep track of how I improve and how my playing life is going. Cameron Mizell: "If I set a goal for myself and then write about it, I’m more likely to follow through."

I won't stop posting pics of interesting instruments, vids of great songs and the like. But I hope and plan to post more about what I'm doing and what I'm learning.

Jackson Bloodlines Tour Hits Indiana

I am not a metal guy, and I haven't been for nearly 20 years. Yeah, of course, you dig out out some AC/DC or Van Halen or Metallica or Iron Maiden, I'm there, but when it comes to things I want to pick up, I'm much more about above-the-nut bends and clean compressed Tele tones than about high-gain, whammy bars, hammer-ons and deep bends. But I like to know what's out there, and I always want to bring more to the table. This is why I went to see John 5 at Sweetwater.

I have always been a fan of Jackson guitars, going back to when they were joined at the hip with Charvel. Jackson is sponsoring the Bloodline seminar tour.

Despite his intense and intimidating appearance, (Product Manager Chris) Cannella is a soft-spoken walking encyclopedia of metal in general and Jackson in particular. Musicians and music fans are invited to join Chris as he demonstrates and explains his lightening-fast guitar techniques, not by using his own gear, but rather whatever's in the store at the time. Additionally, he'll provide tone tricks and overall guitar setup tips.

Cannella will also explain Jackson's dark yet colorful past; explain the brand's unique Bloodline and genre-defining, groundbreaking firsts—such as the advent of the original Rhoads guitar, insane custom paint jobs, and compound radius fingerboards. He'll show how Jackson can find a home in other musical genres, share a little music theory, and discuss soloing styles and speed. Through all of it, he'll open the floor to answer any questions you might have regarding all-things Jackson.

It's cool, comprehensive and captivating. It's Jackson, connecting with musicians at Jackson retailers nationwide.

Now that sounds cool.

Here's the problem: He's at R&R Music in Brownsburg, just west of Indy, on June 24, which is a Wednesday. He is at Sight & Sound Music Center in Muncie on June 25, which might be doable, and he's at Sweetwater for their big GearFest thing, and that's the weekend where Darol Anger will be at Fiddlers' Gathering in Battleground. I don't know what I can swing.

I of course would love to go to all of it.

No Pictures Today

The non-orange of the maple is apparent now. The first four buttons are now totally gone. I went to Hobby Lobby today, hoping to find the right kind of dowel to fit in there and replace the buttons, but guess what? Hobby Lobby is closed on Sunday. I also need them for the logo.

StewMac also has buttons. Lots and lots and lots of buttons. I don't know if pearl or abalone buttons will show up on a maple neck that well, but that's how I'm leaning.

I showed the neck to a friend who works with wood on occasion, and he suggested hitting the fretboard (and the fretboard only) with another blast of stripper, because there's filler or something fairly thick on there.

It's worth it to order a set of StewMac buttons, I think, because I'll have to end up getting a new nut anyway, and that'll just add $7 to the order.

Cat Power and the Raconteurs on WFYI's feed of Austin City Limits this evening. It makes crazy sense to me for the Raconteurs to play ACL, as there's a lot of Jack Black (Correction: Jack White) stuff that sounds to me like it could easily be 13th Floor Elevators.

The worship leader is leading a band for National Day of Prayer, and has asked me to play at noon. I'm unsure, as I'll be working at noon. I can probably arrange something. The biggest amp I have is a Frontman 25R, which is not big enough to play out with. Most of the time, I play going DI. But I think I'd enjoy it, and should I really say no when people give me a chance to play out. So, I'll see.

And tomorrow, I will try to first saw up and second take pictures of the thing I hope/plan to make into my first home-made instrument. Well, it'll still be homemade if I order the pickups from Guitar Fetish or something, right?

Scenes from a Musical Parenthood

Large , a 14-year-old boy: Do you have any more Frank Zappa I can listen to.

Sans , his parent: I have Make A Jazz Noise Here. I have Best Band ... no, wait. That's on cassette. Sorry. I have Yellow Shark, which he composed but didn't actually play on. And, if you want, I have Shut Up And Play Your Guitar on my hard drive. But it's difficult listening.

Large : (enthused) Difficult? How so?

Sans : (cues up "Five Five Five") This is two measures of ... I think 5/4, then a measure of 5/8. I have problems finding the beat on it, and end up just getting lost in it.

(track plays to completion)

Large : Ummm. Yeah. Can I just take Make A Jazz Noise?