Apparently the R&R HoF has blinders on because once again their nominations have come out and once again, the Misfits are not on it. How can you nominate Kiss and not the Misfits?
This makes me want to start my OWN hall of fame. The 5th Fret Hall of Fame and the very FIRST inductees would be the Misfits among three others. I figure if it could be handled on a quarterly basis, then it could be spread out over the whole year and no artist would outshine another like we see with the R&R HoF. I remember Metallica made it last year but I don't remember anyone else. That won't happen with my hall of fame.
I'll need to think about it for a while, but I don't see any reason NOT to do it.
Maybe voting will happen... I don't know, there's a few questions springing up already but in January I'll announce either the defeat of this idea or give the go-ahead.
Until then, my head is shaking for you R&R HoF!
-Pappy
Tabs
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Laments
Growing up playing guitar, I never failed to notice that the guitars that I wanted and wanted to try out were the ones that were hardly ever stocked in shops. There were the few occasions where that wasn't the case: a great shop in a mall in Hawaii stocked Parker guitars, another shop in Hawaii stocked an Ibanez seven string that I ended up walking out of the store with, but more often than not, the guitars I bought were ordered by me without playing them first.
I think this is why I'm not nearly as gun shy as some people about ordering online. I admit, sometimes it's a little less than pleasant when the only place you can go that seems reputable is the big box stores, but sometimes you find a shop you really like to deal with that stocks the gear you want.
In my case, those shops are never near me.
I went to high school in Mississippi and was into Metallica in a big way. I told myself I would not consider myself a guitarist unless I could play "Fight Fire With Fire's" rhythm part and I wouldn't call myself a musician until I could improvise and know what I'm doing.
I was able to call myself a guitarist. I'm still working on becoming a musician.
And while I was able to find an old LTD (ESP's little brother company, like Fender's Squier or Gibson's Epiphone) Explorer with the appropriate body shape that matched James Hetfield's (in 2000 this shape was retired amongst rumors that Gibson sued ESP because ESP's was selling much better than Gibson's with it's relocated pickup selector and lack of awful-looking pickguard that left you with a sleeker, more mean looking guitar. Later this was a little better documented in the case where Gibson sued PRS because people could get confused in a "smoky club" that a PRS singlecut and a Gibson Les Paul were really the same guitar. The whole thing smelled fishy to most guitar enthusiasts) that was placed on the top hanging rack at a music store by a fifteen-year-old boy who did not replace the guard on the hanger and the headstock twisted as Explorer headstocks do, and fell all the way down to the ground damaging two guitars and an amp. The boy then looked at the shop owner, shrugged with a smirk and said "I'm fifteen," and walked out. The Explorer was undamaged for the most part though the neck had been separated from the body. For years it lay in pieces in the back of the shop until I remarked that I was looking for it but no one online had one.
They had one.
The broken one. And for five hundred bucks they'll put it back together and paint it for me.
Let me say right now that even though the Explorer looks like an amazing guitar, the balance on it was just awful and more often than not my left hand suffered fatigue because it was too busy holding the neck up than just playing.
And the whole time I was looking on eBay for a KH2. Kirk Hammett, Metallica's lead guitar player more often than not favored an ESP Strat style body (funny how Fender doesn't go after them specifically for the shape...) with skull and cross bone inlays in the neck. Over the years he has had no less than four signature guitars and a couple of different finishing and inlay options. The KH2 being the most prevalent, that was the one I was always looking for. Hopefully I would catch one that everyone else had missed and snatch it up for a good price.
It never happened.
What a bummer.
Thinking back on this, the best part was I was putting in bids for fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars and I had never played one.
Ever.
To this day I haven't played an ESP KH2. I've played a couple of LTD versions which now feature prices that are awfully close to the original ESP models' back in 2001-2002 and it's sad to know that a real ESP is all but out of my grasp. I mean, I COULD save up for it but honestly I don't think I could live with myself spending that much on a plank guitar with so little visual pop.
Now, the new KH2 Ouija... I'll admit, it had always been my favorite. And now it's September, and in three more months the guitar will cease being made. What better time to get in a band and get really popular overnight and give ESP a call and say that while the black one is really cool, the WHITE one is where it's at and could I get one for the road?
I think this is why I'm not nearly as gun shy as some people about ordering online. I admit, sometimes it's a little less than pleasant when the only place you can go that seems reputable is the big box stores, but sometimes you find a shop you really like to deal with that stocks the gear you want.
In my case, those shops are never near me.
I went to high school in Mississippi and was into Metallica in a big way. I told myself I would not consider myself a guitarist unless I could play "Fight Fire With Fire's" rhythm part and I wouldn't call myself a musician until I could improvise and know what I'm doing.
I was able to call myself a guitarist. I'm still working on becoming a musician.
And while I was able to find an old LTD (ESP's little brother company, like Fender's Squier or Gibson's Epiphone) Explorer with the appropriate body shape that matched James Hetfield's (in 2000 this shape was retired amongst rumors that Gibson sued ESP because ESP's was selling much better than Gibson's with it's relocated pickup selector and lack of awful-looking pickguard that left you with a sleeker, more mean looking guitar. Later this was a little better documented in the case where Gibson sued PRS because people could get confused in a "smoky club" that a PRS singlecut and a Gibson Les Paul were really the same guitar. The whole thing smelled fishy to most guitar enthusiasts) that was placed on the top hanging rack at a music store by a fifteen-year-old boy who did not replace the guard on the hanger and the headstock twisted as Explorer headstocks do, and fell all the way down to the ground damaging two guitars and an amp. The boy then looked at the shop owner, shrugged with a smirk and said "I'm fifteen," and walked out. The Explorer was undamaged for the most part though the neck had been separated from the body. For years it lay in pieces in the back of the shop until I remarked that I was looking for it but no one online had one.
They had one.
The broken one. And for five hundred bucks they'll put it back together and paint it for me.
Let me say right now that even though the Explorer looks like an amazing guitar, the balance on it was just awful and more often than not my left hand suffered fatigue because it was too busy holding the neck up than just playing.
And the whole time I was looking on eBay for a KH2. Kirk Hammett, Metallica's lead guitar player more often than not favored an ESP Strat style body (funny how Fender doesn't go after them specifically for the shape...) with skull and cross bone inlays in the neck. Over the years he has had no less than four signature guitars and a couple of different finishing and inlay options. The KH2 being the most prevalent, that was the one I was always looking for. Hopefully I would catch one that everyone else had missed and snatch it up for a good price.
It never happened.
What a bummer.
Thinking back on this, the best part was I was putting in bids for fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars and I had never played one.
Ever.
To this day I haven't played an ESP KH2. I've played a couple of LTD versions which now feature prices that are awfully close to the original ESP models' back in 2001-2002 and it's sad to know that a real ESP is all but out of my grasp. I mean, I COULD save up for it but honestly I don't think I could live with myself spending that much on a plank guitar with so little visual pop.
Now, the new KH2 Ouija... I'll admit, it had always been my favorite. And now it's September, and in three more months the guitar will cease being made. What better time to get in a band and get really popular overnight and give ESP a call and say that while the black one is really cool, the WHITE one is where it's at and could I get one for the road?
The white one is awesome in my opinion. Too often do metal players resort to boring old black. Black goes with everything, sure, but when you're already wearing black, what's the point? If I'm going to spend a thousand bucks on a plank guitar, it had better LOOK as well as sound good.
I've always been intrigued by Kirk's signature guitars. I'm trying to find out official information about them to write something a little more concrete, kind of a look where it started and look where it went kind of thing. We'll see how that works out.
As for right now, I just wanted to say that today, GAS is present and hitting hard. That LTD Ouija is looking mighty fine right now.
I played one when I went up to Atlanta the other month but for the life of me can't figure out why I didn't give it more time. I think ti was because I plugged in that Les Paul and instantly got on a P90 kick and the active EMG 81s just weren't doing it for me right then. Right now though, all I want to do is play loud and fast and on a guitar I've wanted for a very long time.
I'm sure we all feel that way sometimes.
-Pappy
Friday, September 25, 2009
DeLisle Guitars And Amps
Following along with our innovators thread of thinking, we bring to you DeLisle Guitars and Amps. Not satisfied with what he was playing he decided to make his own amps and guitars and as a result, there's one more brilliantly made, and affordable priced guitar and amp company out there.
Enjoy!
How long have you been playing guitar?
More than twenty-years now.
What was your first guitar?
My first guitar was a maroon, single-pickup Crestline. It originally belonged to a friend of mine. I was over at his house one weekend when he knocked out a few Cinderella and INXS songs. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. After he moved up to a JB Player (it was the 80's after all), I made an offer on the Crestline--$100, if I remember correctly.
While on the way home with my new prize, I stopped by a drugstore to pick up a Guitar Player magazine, which included the tab to "Sweet Child O' Mine." I made everyone in the house hate that song...or what I did to it anyway. I'd practice, cramp up, practice some more, and then come out to play for my brother: Plink-plank-plunk. "Can you tell what song that is?" He'd glance up say, "No!," and go back to watching basketball.
I don't remember what happened to the Crestline, but it was soon replaced by a Series 10 hairband guitar with a Floyd Rose and a huge locking nut. It had an ugly blue crackle finish that I sprayed over with Porsche Summer Yellow. The Series 10 hasn't seen any action since bands like Warrant and Bulletboys left the airwaves. My musical taste quickly changed after I spent a week on a boat with a couple of Dylan records.
What made you want to start building your own guitars and amps?
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Both my father and brother started their own businesses like my grandfather before them. My love has always been music, so it just seemed natural to make it my vocation in some form or another. (I also had much support and encouragement from my lovely wife.) You know the saying: "Find something you love to do, and you'll never have to work a day in your life." It's true. Starting and running a business isn't easy. There's a lot of busy work associated with it that I don't enjoy, but I do love making wood chips and melting solder. To design something on paper and then to create it...that's hard to beat.
Which came first?
Guitars.
What inspired the unique Delisle circuits?
The Nickel Box, our first design, was originally going to be my personal practice amp: a non-trem version of an old British EF86/EL84 4 watt. After much fiddling, I still didn't like the results--specifically the EF86. How it sounded in that circuit just didn't work for me. I kept the EF86 and EL84, but threw everything else out. I started over from standard (and non-standard) references and data sheets. I even wrote software to speed up gain, frequency and other calculations. The amp went through numerous revisions before it got the ok, including the addition of a 12AX7 in front of the EF86, an expanded tone stack and a 12" speaker. Nothing remains of the vintage 4 watt design, but it did provide a starting point. Our larger amps, the 15P and 30P, share the same basic preamp with the Nickel Box. EL84s again make up the output section. Although these de Lisle amps are not recreations of existing designs, they do share in the "British" tradition. Thank you, Mr. Denney.
What convinced you to offer more traditional circuits as well?
We started offering those classic amps while ours where in development. With our amps, we build and cover the cabinets, punch the chassis, make the turret boards, etc. all by hand. There's a lot of labor involved before it gets wired up. On the other hand, many of the parts are readily available for classic tube amps, which means they are easier and faster to build. But building a straight copy of a vintage circuit isn't as interesting to me. I really enjoy the design process, so we may phase out the American classic style amps.
What about your unique amps? Are there more ideas rolling around?
Absolutely! I'm always working on something.
What is your opinion on modern amps or amp construction that make boutiques like yourself shine?
Many people are happy with off the shelf amps--I have a few myself--but there is something about buying an amp from a small business that's a whole other experience. In our case, the customer deals with me directly, and it's my family name on the control panel. So, there's a unique relationship between the builder and the player that one can't get at big-box stores or from big corporations. The customer gets personal service, personal accountability, and a unique amp made in the States from top-shelf components. And, since we sell direct, our amps are less expensive than hand-wired vintage style imports. As far as construction, I prefer simple, hand-wired circuits. There's a reason that vintage tube amps are still around: they sound great and they are easy to service.
What was the goal when you started Delisle?
Pretty simple: to provide for my family by doing something I enjoy. The rest is gravy.
Let's talk about your guitars. Where did the ideas come from?
I knew that I did not want to build "T" or "S" style guitars, but I didn't want to a complete break from tradition either. A lot of instruments have passed through my hands which helped inspire the de Lisle electric guitar. There's a little bit of Orville, Leo, Fred and even Mario in our design. I drew from numerous guitars--all but the pointy ones. I used a flexible curve instead of a broken plate.
Is there any particular reason you chose the woods you did?
The standard woods happen to be my preferences based on tone, aesthetics and workability. Of course, we can accommodate players with different tastes: I'm a fan of lighter, "swamp" ash bodies. They look great under a stain, but not overdone. A little bit of flame maple is nice, but too much quilt can make me go cross-eyed. Moderate figure is a better match for our styling. Mahogany is the wood of choice for our hand-shaped necks. It's easy to "machine" and provides a good, stable neck when finished.
I could never bond with maple boards, so rosewood has been my preference for years.
_______________________________
Many thanks for DeLisle for taking the time and answering my questions. If you would like to learn more about DeLisle guitars and amps, check them out here: .
-Pappy
Enjoy!
How long have you been playing guitar?
More than twenty-years now.
What was your first guitar?
My first guitar was a maroon, single-pickup Crestline. It originally belonged to a friend of mine. I was over at his house one weekend when he knocked out a few Cinderella and INXS songs. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. After he moved up to a JB Player (it was the 80's after all), I made an offer on the Crestline--$100, if I remember correctly.
While on the way home with my new prize, I stopped by a drugstore to pick up a Guitar Player magazine, which included the tab to "Sweet Child O' Mine." I made everyone in the house hate that song...or what I did to it anyway. I'd practice, cramp up, practice some more, and then come out to play for my brother: Plink-plank-plunk. "Can you tell what song that is?" He'd glance up say, "No!," and go back to watching basketball.
I don't remember what happened to the Crestline, but it was soon replaced by a Series 10 hairband guitar with a Floyd Rose and a huge locking nut. It had an ugly blue crackle finish that I sprayed over with Porsche Summer Yellow. The Series 10 hasn't seen any action since bands like Warrant and Bulletboys left the airwaves. My musical taste quickly changed after I spent a week on a boat with a couple of Dylan records.
What made you want to start building your own guitars and amps?
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Both my father and brother started their own businesses like my grandfather before them. My love has always been music, so it just seemed natural to make it my vocation in some form or another. (I also had much support and encouragement from my lovely wife.) You know the saying: "Find something you love to do, and you'll never have to work a day in your life." It's true. Starting and running a business isn't easy. There's a lot of busy work associated with it that I don't enjoy, but I do love making wood chips and melting solder. To design something on paper and then to create it...that's hard to beat.
Which came first?
Guitars.
What inspired the unique Delisle circuits?
The Nickel Box, our first design, was originally going to be my personal practice amp: a non-trem version of an old British EF86/EL84 4 watt. After much fiddling, I still didn't like the results--specifically the EF86. How it sounded in that circuit just didn't work for me. I kept the EF86 and EL84, but threw everything else out. I started over from standard (and non-standard) references and data sheets. I even wrote software to speed up gain, frequency and other calculations. The amp went through numerous revisions before it got the ok, including the addition of a 12AX7 in front of the EF86, an expanded tone stack and a 12" speaker. Nothing remains of the vintage 4 watt design, but it did provide a starting point. Our larger amps, the 15P and 30P, share the same basic preamp with the Nickel Box. EL84s again make up the output section. Although these de Lisle amps are not recreations of existing designs, they do share in the "British" tradition. Thank you, Mr. Denney.
What convinced you to offer more traditional circuits as well?
We started offering those classic amps while ours where in development. With our amps, we build and cover the cabinets, punch the chassis, make the turret boards, etc. all by hand. There's a lot of labor involved before it gets wired up. On the other hand, many of the parts are readily available for classic tube amps, which means they are easier and faster to build. But building a straight copy of a vintage circuit isn't as interesting to me. I really enjoy the design process, so we may phase out the American classic style amps.
What about your unique amps? Are there more ideas rolling around?
Absolutely! I'm always working on something.
What is your opinion on modern amps or amp construction that make boutiques like yourself shine?
Many people are happy with off the shelf amps--I have a few myself--but there is something about buying an amp from a small business that's a whole other experience. In our case, the customer deals with me directly, and it's my family name on the control panel. So, there's a unique relationship between the builder and the player that one can't get at big-box stores or from big corporations. The customer gets personal service, personal accountability, and a unique amp made in the States from top-shelf components. And, since we sell direct, our amps are less expensive than hand-wired vintage style imports. As far as construction, I prefer simple, hand-wired circuits. There's a reason that vintage tube amps are still around: they sound great and they are easy to service.
What was the goal when you started Delisle?
Pretty simple: to provide for my family by doing something I enjoy. The rest is gravy.
Let's talk about your guitars. Where did the ideas come from?
I knew that I did not want to build "T" or "S" style guitars, but I didn't want to a complete break from tradition either. A lot of instruments have passed through my hands which helped inspire the de Lisle electric guitar. There's a little bit of Orville, Leo, Fred and even Mario in our design. I drew from numerous guitars--all but the pointy ones. I used a flexible curve instead of a broken plate.
Is there any particular reason you chose the woods you did?
The standard woods happen to be my preferences based on tone, aesthetics and workability. Of course, we can accommodate players with different tastes: I'm a fan of lighter, "swamp" ash bodies. They look great under a stain, but not overdone. A little bit of flame maple is nice, but too much quilt can make me go cross-eyed. Moderate figure is a better match for our styling. Mahogany is the wood of choice for our hand-shaped necks. It's easy to "machine" and provides a good, stable neck when finished.
I could never bond with maple boards, so rosewood has been my preference for years.
_______________________________
Many thanks for DeLisle for taking the time and answering my questions. If you would like to learn more about DeLisle guitars and amps, check them out here: .
-Pappy
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Jeff Beck
Here are a couple of interesting things about Jeff Beck:
1) He’s incredibly underrated.
2) He can make a Strat sound good.
3) He doesn’t use a pick, instead relying on his thumb.
4) He can tear your head off with his playing.
Growing up I always heard about the same handful of guitarists: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Angus Young, Duane Allman and that’s about it. It took more than two years of reading Guitar World before I saw this guy named Jeff Beck and to be honest I dismissed him. It’s OK, I wouldn’t have known what to do with his music at the time anyway. I was heavily into metal and he was not.
But musical tastes change or mature and I’ve heard quite a bit more from Mr. Beck and like a lot of it. His techno is actually the best techno I’ve ever heard and a lot of people that are into that scene can take a lesson from his book. I’m exactly a huge fan of the genre but I’ll listen to Beck play all day long.
You’ll have to excuse the Strat comment. I know that some people have made a Strat sound amazing, but I’m not a fan of the guitar. I don’t know why. And the tones people get out of them most of the time isn’t BAD, it’s just… well, there’s a lot of Strat players so there’s a common tone to them and constantly hearing the same tone can get boring.
But Beck can turn a Strat inside out not only by his amazing playing but using the whammy bar and knobs in ways that would make the punkers who believe you need zero knobs or at the most one knob (volume) stand up and take notice. It’s unbelievable watching what he can do with his guitar.
The great thing though is you can watch him do it. I recently saw Jeff Beck: Live at Ronnie Scott’s and it was amazing. I’m not a huge fan of his jazz fusion style, but there was no doubt that he was doing amazing things to his guitar and I was hypnotized. It felt so weird since the music wasn’t really reaching me but what he was doing to the guitar left me slack jawed.
He uses a slide like I have NEVER seen one used before. I won’t go too much into it because you really need to see it for yourself.
If you haven’t seen it, you need to. No kidding, you NEED to see this. Rent it, set your DVR to record it on VH1 Classic, buy it, whatever it takes to watch it, DO it. It will knock your socks off.
And the whole time watching this I saw him using just his thumb and was shocked at the tone. When you say “he plays with his thumb” I immediately think of Wes Montgomery and a smooth, soft, slightly muffled tone that one would naturally get using skin as a pick, but Beck’s is just as articulate as any player that uses a pick.
While it’s easy having watched the DVD to claim that he’s an Amazing Guitarist, it isn’t JUST that that cements him in the top places of guitar playing history.
Oh no.
As a fan of rockabilly I was weaned on Brian Setzer. I got into Stray Cats, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, ’68 Comeback Special, and from them spread out to different great bands like Tiger Army, the Reverend Horton Heat, Skinny Jim and the Number Nine Blacktops, etc. I’ll be honest, I had no idea Brian Setzer played so many covers.
I was turned onto Jeff Beck’s album Crazy Legs which features his amazing looking Gretsch Jet on the cover and bought it this morning. I listened to it and Beck’s love and respect for Cliff Gallup is obvious and Beck’s playing just KILLS me. Clean as clean can possibly be and I’m still convinced that he HAS to be using a pick to record it. There’s NO way you can play THAT fast and clean with such a sharp attack and clarity to the notes with a thumb and just a thumb at that. Perhaps he went to more of a fingerstyle or adopted Travis picking, but whatever he’s doing on the album is staggering. If you like rockabilly, you need to own this album.
You need it. I can’t say it enough. You need it. If you like rockabilly this needs to be in it. If you like amazing guitar with catchy hooks you still need it.
Rockabilly to me, basic rockabilly I mean, not the subgenres of horrobilly, psychobilly, punkabilly, all of that, is basically divided into two groups. Classic and modern. Classic rockabilly features very little gain, sometimes flat-out amazing playing but just about equally features solos that don’t have that many notes instead letting the notes that are there speak well for themselves. The whole one soulful note is better than a million nonsense ones mentality.
Modern rockabilly features quite a bit more gain and little more rough and modern with the lyrics like the Stray Cats and Skinny Jim. They’re prime examples of modern rockabilly. If you know you like one, you should try out the other. If you like modern rockabilly and would like to get a taste of classic rockabilly that has high production quality (meaning it wasn’t recorded in the 50’s) Beck’s Crazy Legs is where to go.
If you like classic rockabilly and are looking to try out more modern rockabilly, I firstly recommend Skinny Jim’s album Horsepower! Horsepower! It’s loaded with great songs from front to back.
Yes, Beck is unbelievable in every way possible with the guitar and even though he’s amazing he’s so underrated it’s not even funny. Check him out and see what I mean. He’s the only guitarist I’ve ever seen that I could not like the music (by the way, Beck has crossed over into several genres over the years so there’s little he hasn’t touched musically) but still watch because he’s just that good.
You owe it to yourself.
-Pappy
1) He’s incredibly underrated.
2) He can make a Strat sound good.
3) He doesn’t use a pick, instead relying on his thumb.
4) He can tear your head off with his playing.
Growing up I always heard about the same handful of guitarists: Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Angus Young, Duane Allman and that’s about it. It took more than two years of reading Guitar World before I saw this guy named Jeff Beck and to be honest I dismissed him. It’s OK, I wouldn’t have known what to do with his music at the time anyway. I was heavily into metal and he was not.
But musical tastes change or mature and I’ve heard quite a bit more from Mr. Beck and like a lot of it. His techno is actually the best techno I’ve ever heard and a lot of people that are into that scene can take a lesson from his book. I’m exactly a huge fan of the genre but I’ll listen to Beck play all day long.
You’ll have to excuse the Strat comment. I know that some people have made a Strat sound amazing, but I’m not a fan of the guitar. I don’t know why. And the tones people get out of them most of the time isn’t BAD, it’s just… well, there’s a lot of Strat players so there’s a common tone to them and constantly hearing the same tone can get boring.
But Beck can turn a Strat inside out not only by his amazing playing but using the whammy bar and knobs in ways that would make the punkers who believe you need zero knobs or at the most one knob (volume) stand up and take notice. It’s unbelievable watching what he can do with his guitar.
The great thing though is you can watch him do it. I recently saw Jeff Beck: Live at Ronnie Scott’s and it was amazing. I’m not a huge fan of his jazz fusion style, but there was no doubt that he was doing amazing things to his guitar and I was hypnotized. It felt so weird since the music wasn’t really reaching me but what he was doing to the guitar left me slack jawed.
He uses a slide like I have NEVER seen one used before. I won’t go too much into it because you really need to see it for yourself.
If you haven’t seen it, you need to. No kidding, you NEED to see this. Rent it, set your DVR to record it on VH1 Classic, buy it, whatever it takes to watch it, DO it. It will knock your socks off.
And the whole time watching this I saw him using just his thumb and was shocked at the tone. When you say “he plays with his thumb” I immediately think of Wes Montgomery and a smooth, soft, slightly muffled tone that one would naturally get using skin as a pick, but Beck’s is just as articulate as any player that uses a pick.
While it’s easy having watched the DVD to claim that he’s an Amazing Guitarist, it isn’t JUST that that cements him in the top places of guitar playing history.
Oh no.
As a fan of rockabilly I was weaned on Brian Setzer. I got into Stray Cats, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, ’68 Comeback Special, and from them spread out to different great bands like Tiger Army, the Reverend Horton Heat, Skinny Jim and the Number Nine Blacktops, etc. I’ll be honest, I had no idea Brian Setzer played so many covers.
I was turned onto Jeff Beck’s album Crazy Legs which features his amazing looking Gretsch Jet on the cover and bought it this morning. I listened to it and Beck’s love and respect for Cliff Gallup is obvious and Beck’s playing just KILLS me. Clean as clean can possibly be and I’m still convinced that he HAS to be using a pick to record it. There’s NO way you can play THAT fast and clean with such a sharp attack and clarity to the notes with a thumb and just a thumb at that. Perhaps he went to more of a fingerstyle or adopted Travis picking, but whatever he’s doing on the album is staggering. If you like rockabilly, you need to own this album.
You need it. I can’t say it enough. You need it. If you like rockabilly this needs to be in it. If you like amazing guitar with catchy hooks you still need it.
Rockabilly to me, basic rockabilly I mean, not the subgenres of horrobilly, psychobilly, punkabilly, all of that, is basically divided into two groups. Classic and modern. Classic rockabilly features very little gain, sometimes flat-out amazing playing but just about equally features solos that don’t have that many notes instead letting the notes that are there speak well for themselves. The whole one soulful note is better than a million nonsense ones mentality.
Modern rockabilly features quite a bit more gain and little more rough and modern with the lyrics like the Stray Cats and Skinny Jim. They’re prime examples of modern rockabilly. If you know you like one, you should try out the other. If you like modern rockabilly and would like to get a taste of classic rockabilly that has high production quality (meaning it wasn’t recorded in the 50’s) Beck’s Crazy Legs is where to go.
If you like classic rockabilly and are looking to try out more modern rockabilly, I firstly recommend Skinny Jim’s album Horsepower! Horsepower! It’s loaded with great songs from front to back.
Yes, Beck is unbelievable in every way possible with the guitar and even though he’s amazing he’s so underrated it’s not even funny. Check him out and see what I mean. He’s the only guitarist I’ve ever seen that I could not like the music (by the way, Beck has crossed over into several genres over the years so there’s little he hasn’t touched musically) but still watch because he’s just that good.
You owe it to yourself.
-Pappy
Monday, September 21, 2009
Netflix Revisited
If you’ve been reading for a while you may remember WAY back when the 5th Fret first started I wrote about how anyone who subscribes to Netflix can add instructional DVDs to their queue and work through them at their own pace (after all there are no late fees).
Since writing that my instructional movies on my queue stayed at the very bottom of the list. I have a ridiculously long queue of movies that my wife wants to see, movies I want to see and movies I want my wife to see. When the latter movies come, there’s usually quite a lag in the coming and going of Netflix movies as I’m convincing her that something like Hot Rod is worth watching (to anyone who likes comedy, especially modern comedy, it is most definitely worth watching). As a result, none have entered the house.
But recently I decided enough was enough. I sent back a movie and put the Brian Setzer Hot Licks DVD at the top of the queue and soon I received it.
That DVD, by the way, is pretty great to watch and if you are really into slowing it down and constantly going back and watching something over and over again, you can learn a lot from it. If you are not into that kind of thing, it’s just fun to watch. At the very least it gives you ideas. For me specifically, I’ve always tried to play as clean as possible with a lot of deliberate movements and if I mess up I need to go back and practice until I don’t mess up anymore. Watching this DVD though, Setzer remarks that you don’t need to do it, that it’s all about the feel and basically it’s OK to get sloppy.
I’m not saying I’m giving up practice or anything, but there’s a little less stress to it.
I shipped the DVD back and soon received a rockabilly instructional video taught by a gentleman named Fred Sokolow and in contrast to the Setzer DVD, this IS incredibly easy to grasp. I like it and I’m picking up all sorts of stuff. Rockabilly to me, always seemed like the most impressive genre. It’s exciting and flamboyant at times, but there’s always this sense of complexity even if it’s just the IMPRESSION of complexity (like when you constantly pull off a note to the open string). Fingerstyle is great, jazz is great, but rockabilly blends complex chords and great single note runs, sounds complex, keeps the attention of any people watching and (more than likely) doesn’t sound like everyone else who plays guitar. Playing something like “Just Because” from Elvis is significantly different and played far less often than, say, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
It will definitely make you stand out in a crowd.
I will say though, that a rock DVD will be the next one to come because I do like to rock out and really want to get a better grip on solos and classic chords and whatnot.
The point here though, is that using Netflix for this is awesome. I can get a DVD, watch it to see if there’s anything I want to learn and if so, keep it and learn it, and if not, drop it back in the mail for the next one that will arrive in a day or two. That’s a guarantee you can’t beat.
So if you have Netlix, you may want to consider this. If you don’t, you may want to consider subscribing. Subscriptions are pretty cheap and if you’re only after learning from DVDs, it’s not like you have to do the $20.00 per month subscription. You can subscribe for much cheaper. Be warned though, it’s a little addictive. You may start just wanting to get instructional DVDs, but then you may want to watch concerts, maybe put It Might Get Loud on your queue, and eventually you’re up to three movies at a time. It’s still not that expensive though.
I think it’s worth it.
-Pappy
Since writing that my instructional movies on my queue stayed at the very bottom of the list. I have a ridiculously long queue of movies that my wife wants to see, movies I want to see and movies I want my wife to see. When the latter movies come, there’s usually quite a lag in the coming and going of Netflix movies as I’m convincing her that something like Hot Rod is worth watching (to anyone who likes comedy, especially modern comedy, it is most definitely worth watching). As a result, none have entered the house.
But recently I decided enough was enough. I sent back a movie and put the Brian Setzer Hot Licks DVD at the top of the queue and soon I received it.
That DVD, by the way, is pretty great to watch and if you are really into slowing it down and constantly going back and watching something over and over again, you can learn a lot from it. If you are not into that kind of thing, it’s just fun to watch. At the very least it gives you ideas. For me specifically, I’ve always tried to play as clean as possible with a lot of deliberate movements and if I mess up I need to go back and practice until I don’t mess up anymore. Watching this DVD though, Setzer remarks that you don’t need to do it, that it’s all about the feel and basically it’s OK to get sloppy.
I’m not saying I’m giving up practice or anything, but there’s a little less stress to it.
I shipped the DVD back and soon received a rockabilly instructional video taught by a gentleman named Fred Sokolow and in contrast to the Setzer DVD, this IS incredibly easy to grasp. I like it and I’m picking up all sorts of stuff. Rockabilly to me, always seemed like the most impressive genre. It’s exciting and flamboyant at times, but there’s always this sense of complexity even if it’s just the IMPRESSION of complexity (like when you constantly pull off a note to the open string). Fingerstyle is great, jazz is great, but rockabilly blends complex chords and great single note runs, sounds complex, keeps the attention of any people watching and (more than likely) doesn’t sound like everyone else who plays guitar. Playing something like “Just Because” from Elvis is significantly different and played far less often than, say, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
It will definitely make you stand out in a crowd.
I will say though, that a rock DVD will be the next one to come because I do like to rock out and really want to get a better grip on solos and classic chords and whatnot.
The point here though, is that using Netflix for this is awesome. I can get a DVD, watch it to see if there’s anything I want to learn and if so, keep it and learn it, and if not, drop it back in the mail for the next one that will arrive in a day or two. That’s a guarantee you can’t beat.
So if you have Netlix, you may want to consider this. If you don’t, you may want to consider subscribing. Subscriptions are pretty cheap and if you’re only after learning from DVDs, it’s not like you have to do the $20.00 per month subscription. You can subscribe for much cheaper. Be warned though, it’s a little addictive. You may start just wanting to get instructional DVDs, but then you may want to watch concerts, maybe put It Might Get Loud on your queue, and eventually you’re up to three movies at a time. It’s still not that expensive though.
I think it’s worth it.
-Pappy
Friday, September 18, 2009
Bone Hook
The Maori culture, the indigenous people of New Zealand that arrived there sometime before the 1300’s according to Wikipedia. Stereotypically, a lot are featured with ornate tattoos on their body and face and a fish hook made from bone is worn around the neck.
Of course, every person is different in every culture, so you can’t say ALL Maori’s wear bone hook necklaces and tattoos, just like you can’t say all white Anglo-Saxon Presbyterians are without tattoos but always wearing crosses. Out of all the world’s cultures that I have experience with, the Maori culture is my favorite. It’s the most interesting and I love it. I still need to look into converting to Ratan or Ringatu though.
Anything in New Zealand is very close to me. Somewhere on those islands lies my heart, and I miss it (as one would naturally miss the organ responsible for life). When I lived there, I lived in paradise and it never escaped me. The desire to go back and live there, to retire there, is WICKED strong.
I KNOW I’m going to go there on vacation during my life and take my family to see it and who knows, maybe one day I WILL live there. I would really love it if I could.
Anyway, the bone hook necklaces worn start out white (as bone would) and over time turns an amber color as the oils and sweat from your body are absorbed. Some Maoris believe that this is your soul entering the object. The belief is that you can’t own something for very long without a piece of yourself going into it.
I like that.
More importantly, I believe and agree with this. It’s undeniable that if you use something for long enough there are signs that it is not only owned but owned by YOU. You see it often in Sherlock Holmes books. Watson showed Sherlock a watch that he had that was given to him by his brother and Sherlock deduced just from looking at it that his brother was irresponsible and often in financial straits as well as a little careless and frankly, a douche. All of this from scratches and marks.
And even though I’m sure you’re leaning back thinking that it is a very interesting concept indeed that your soul can enter an inanimate object and become, for want of a better word, SPECIAL, I didn’t just write that to educate you.
I was thinking about guitars.
Initially this was inspired by a picture that was used in a Guitar Teacher’s Notebook shown below that displayed the common blood on the fretboard occurrence that happens when you play for too long for your fingers to handle. Bryan Adams sung about it in Summer of ’69, playing his first six string until his fingers bled.
I’ve done it. I’m sure a lot of you have done it too. It’s practically a prerequisite for calling yourself a guitarist.
Seeing the picture made me think of the bone hook necklaces and how in a… more gory way, perhaps the blood is your soul entering your guitar.
Then I said no way. Oils and sweat that get soaked into the bone come naturally, not in a one-time fit, and while you may think it would be the natural connection between man and guitar I think it’s far too sudden, far too quick and far too easy.
This isn’t to say you CAN’T put your soul in the guitar(s). I really, truly, honestly think you can.
I think it comes from playing it often and really learning the instrument. Using it to its full potential or just holding it in your hands. Those nicks and scratches, the wear from your forearm, the dirty notches in the fretboard, and the wear on the bridge. All of these things might be on someone else’s guitar, or may come from the factory with, but it won’t have that same soul. It won’t be yours, no matter how similar they look.
And while some may think this is me railing against Relics, I’m not. Even Relics can have soul though it won’t come any sooner or easier. Eventually though, those pre-fabricated wear marks will become real wear marks. Until then, they’re just more comfortable to play.
For instance, on my 6118T, there’s an area where my forearm always goes that is a little more smooth than every other place on the guitar. I can polish it back to the same feel of the rest of the guitar, but I like it. My forearm doesn’t stick to the guitar right there. It isn’t nearly as obvious as the patina on my bridge, but it’s still there and I think it’s just the beginning of the transition.
So in summary: I believe if you play a guitar for long enough and learn its ins and outs well enough, it will contain a part of you and be special. Maybe this is why people miss certain guitars they have sold in the past. I also think over time that connection will only grow stronger, which would be one more reason why some people that have owned a specific guitar or guitars for a very long time (so long they’ve become vintage) will say modern guitars just don’t have the same soul.
They’re right.
New ones don’t have the same soul. They don’t have YOUR soul.
They don’t have soul period. Not yet. But I believe that ANY guitar CAN have soul.
-Pappy
Of course, every person is different in every culture, so you can’t say ALL Maori’s wear bone hook necklaces and tattoos, just like you can’t say all white Anglo-Saxon Presbyterians are without tattoos but always wearing crosses. Out of all the world’s cultures that I have experience with, the Maori culture is my favorite. It’s the most interesting and I love it. I still need to look into converting to Ratan or Ringatu though.
Anything in New Zealand is very close to me. Somewhere on those islands lies my heart, and I miss it (as one would naturally miss the organ responsible for life). When I lived there, I lived in paradise and it never escaped me. The desire to go back and live there, to retire there, is WICKED strong.
I KNOW I’m going to go there on vacation during my life and take my family to see it and who knows, maybe one day I WILL live there. I would really love it if I could.
Anyway, the bone hook necklaces worn start out white (as bone would) and over time turns an amber color as the oils and sweat from your body are absorbed. Some Maoris believe that this is your soul entering the object. The belief is that you can’t own something for very long without a piece of yourself going into it.
I like that.
More importantly, I believe and agree with this. It’s undeniable that if you use something for long enough there are signs that it is not only owned but owned by YOU. You see it often in Sherlock Holmes books. Watson showed Sherlock a watch that he had that was given to him by his brother and Sherlock deduced just from looking at it that his brother was irresponsible and often in financial straits as well as a little careless and frankly, a douche. All of this from scratches and marks.
And even though I’m sure you’re leaning back thinking that it is a very interesting concept indeed that your soul can enter an inanimate object and become, for want of a better word, SPECIAL, I didn’t just write that to educate you.
I was thinking about guitars.
Initially this was inspired by a picture that was used in a Guitar Teacher’s Notebook shown below that displayed the common blood on the fretboard occurrence that happens when you play for too long for your fingers to handle. Bryan Adams sung about it in Summer of ’69, playing his first six string until his fingers bled.
I’ve done it. I’m sure a lot of you have done it too. It’s practically a prerequisite for calling yourself a guitarist.
Seeing the picture made me think of the bone hook necklaces and how in a… more gory way, perhaps the blood is your soul entering your guitar.
Then I said no way. Oils and sweat that get soaked into the bone come naturally, not in a one-time fit, and while you may think it would be the natural connection between man and guitar I think it’s far too sudden, far too quick and far too easy.
This isn’t to say you CAN’T put your soul in the guitar(s). I really, truly, honestly think you can.
I think it comes from playing it often and really learning the instrument. Using it to its full potential or just holding it in your hands. Those nicks and scratches, the wear from your forearm, the dirty notches in the fretboard, and the wear on the bridge. All of these things might be on someone else’s guitar, or may come from the factory with, but it won’t have that same soul. It won’t be yours, no matter how similar they look.
And while some may think this is me railing against Relics, I’m not. Even Relics can have soul though it won’t come any sooner or easier. Eventually though, those pre-fabricated wear marks will become real wear marks. Until then, they’re just more comfortable to play.
For instance, on my 6118T, there’s an area where my forearm always goes that is a little more smooth than every other place on the guitar. I can polish it back to the same feel of the rest of the guitar, but I like it. My forearm doesn’t stick to the guitar right there. It isn’t nearly as obvious as the patina on my bridge, but it’s still there and I think it’s just the beginning of the transition.
So in summary: I believe if you play a guitar for long enough and learn its ins and outs well enough, it will contain a part of you and be special. Maybe this is why people miss certain guitars they have sold in the past. I also think over time that connection will only grow stronger, which would be one more reason why some people that have owned a specific guitar or guitars for a very long time (so long they’ve become vintage) will say modern guitars just don’t have the same soul.
They’re right.
New ones don’t have the same soul. They don’t have YOUR soul.
They don’t have soul period. Not yet. But I believe that ANY guitar CAN have soul.
-Pappy
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
News Below The Fold: The 8th Can't Come Fast Enough
Well, as much as I would love to sit on it and keep it to myself from anyone that reads the 5th Fret and doesn't read the excellent blog Guitar Noize, I just can't. It wouldn't be fair to you the reader and I'm sure in some way it wouldn't be fair to me.
Karma might bite me.
Anyhoo, if you go over to Guitar Noize's blog post located here: http://www.guitarnoize.com/blog/comments/way-huge-pedals-giveaway/ you can enter the contest to receive one of three Way Huge pedals, the options being the Pork Loin, the Swollen Pickle and the Fat Sandwich. There's no competition to it, just leave a comment saying why you want one and random numbers will be chosen and three lucky people will walk away with pedals that honestly seem ridiculously cool. Clever names, wicked cool tone, even over the internet and sent through computer speakers.
It certainly doesn't help the GAS when Jon's talking about how you can go from Led Zeppelin to Randy Rhoades.
Anyhoo, the drawing is on October 8th so get your comment in now. There's already 57 comments as of this writing.
-Pappy
Karma might bite me.
Anyhoo, if you go over to Guitar Noize's blog post located here: http://www.guitarnoize.com/blog/comments/way-huge-pedals-giveaway/ you can enter the contest to receive one of three Way Huge pedals, the options being the Pork Loin, the Swollen Pickle and the Fat Sandwich. There's no competition to it, just leave a comment saying why you want one and random numbers will be chosen and three lucky people will walk away with pedals that honestly seem ridiculously cool. Clever names, wicked cool tone, even over the internet and sent through computer speakers.
It certainly doesn't help the GAS when Jon's talking about how you can go from Led Zeppelin to Randy Rhoades.
Anyhoo, the drawing is on October 8th so get your comment in now. There's already 57 comments as of this writing.
-Pappy
RhythmStrummer
I'm a huge fan of getting the gist of something. I'm a big believer in it with everything not JUST the guitar because once you get the gist you can start working on adding to it, supplementing that basic knowledge with more and more things until you don't just have the gist, you have the whole thing under command.
Last year I wrote about AC/DC's black book of songs that featured the chord names for a ton if not all of their songs and they provided just that for anyone that wanted to learn the bones of their songs.
Unfortunately, not everyone is itching to learn AC/DC (though I think you should learn at least one AC/DC song as a stellar example of what power that particular kind of rock has) and not every company out there is looking to give you song knowledge that's easy to understand. I love TAB, but can't STAND the kind of tab that you see in music store books. Just looking at it intimidates me and when I try to sit there and play it out slowly, it doesn't sound right at all.
Fortunately though, I'm not alone in my frustration.
I recently received an email from RhythmStrummer (http://rhythmstrummer.com) that asked me to take a look at their website and possibly provide a text link or review. Well, I'm not a fan of random text links popping up on the blogs I read and think that if I don't like it, there must be others that agree but I LOVE writing reviews so here I am with mine.
RhythmStrummer is a music education site that features video lessons that break down popular songs into easy to follow rhythm that you can sing to. That's one of the main points: you can sing to them. How many times have you played something that someone else in the room didn't know and asked you to sing to it? How many non-guitarists do you know aren't floored at all with fancy fretboard acrobatics but are wowed when you break out "What I Got" from Sublime? Complexity isn't an issue for them, whether they know the song and can sing to it/you can sing to it does. Because at the end of the day, people want to hear songs, not incredibly long solos because you didn't put the practice in to learn to play and sing at the same time.
The biggest thing that hit me with RS is their attitude toward the gist and fun. The acknowledge themselves in the "about" section that you can't have fun with a song until you can bang out the rhythm and chords and I completely agree with that. If I don't see immediate results with my playing, even it's just the vague SHAPE of the song, I get frustrated and more often than not, quit. That's probably a foul on me, but who honestly wants to learn something that 1) isn't fun and 2) even you can't tell what it is. I spent HOURS as a kid trying to transfer TAB from ...And Justice For All's solos and failed every single time because it just didn't sound like the real thing.
They're also fans of keeping everything fair. They have a free section on their website and it is stocked with public domain songs like "Baby Please Don't Go" and "House of the Rising Sun," but if you want to learn "All Shook Up" you're going to have to pay. The money not only goes to RS to and teachers, the site, and production, but also goes to paying royalties for the songs which is the first time I've ever heard of someone doing that instead of saying "it's 'inspired by' this song" and knowing if you move it all up or down two frets you'll have the real key.
So what are the lessons like?
Well, they're well produced with easy to follow instructors and diagrams. They show you up-down patterns for the song to help you get the gist as quickly as possible and build from there. I checked out "Baby Please Don't Go" on their free section and the video is almost a half-hour long and it builds in difficulty until at the end you're playing the whole song at speed. It's nice. While there are sections with difficulties on RS's site, how hard can they be if they start out playing as slow as can be, explaining every detail to the songs and moving the metronome up, so to speak?
As for buying the lessons, you can buy Elvis' All Shook Up for a month for $4.99 (and thirty days, which does mean there's a time limit but thirty days gives you plenty of time to learn a song). Five bucks for one song may seem like a bit much, but I'm sure once you check out their free section as a sample of just what you're buying (as well as the demo videos for the songs), you'll know you're putting your money into something valuable. If you were to tell me that I can have a lesson that takes as long as it needs to take, and I can watch this lesson as often as I want to for thirty days and learn something the CORRECT way and in the end be able to play and sing to an awesome song I would be HARD pressed to justify spending fifteen bucks for a half hour every week with an instructor. The cost/benefit ratio is out of this world. For one third of a normal guitar instructor's WEEKLY price, you get a lesson as often as you want for a whole month.
Honestly, there's no comparison. If I were a paid guitar instructor, I may be getting a little nervous now...
But as much as RS is a guitar instructional site, they have an added feature that I particularly like.
On a tangent: I don't spend a lot of time in front of the computer. I am often on my iPhone though and that's where I got the email asking me to look at the site and I looked at the site but the iPhone has a small screen compared to my computer and I didn't pay too much attention to it right then because I was wanting to hold off my reaction until I could see it on the big computer.
But before I closed the window I saw a word that caught me.
"Blog."
Ooooooohhhhhh, I LIKE blogs. I checked it out and they're amazing posts! I threw them into my blog reader and once I get done writing this, I'll be putting the address into the blog directory. It's WELL worth checking out and if, at the end of the day, ALL RS had on its site was this blog, it would STILL be a necessity to check out. These video lessons are really just icing on the cake, even if it's meant to be the meat of the site.
In summary, I really wish more companies like RhythmStrummer would contact me. This is too easy to review since everything is great. While I have no objections about saying a product or site or video is bad, it's something I doubt anyone would really enjoy doing. People put a lot of work into their products, even if their products aren't all that great and who wants to break those people's hearts? I don't, but I would. Integrity and all that.
But RhythmStrummer from top to bottom is a great site that should be bookmarked immediately by every guitarist. This is a great resource for folks who want to learn from the very beginning, to intermediate guitarists, to guitarists who know it all already, but they just want to learn a few more songs, to frat guys to only pull out the guitar when there's a frat/sorority mixer and they want to impress the ladies. For ALL guitarists, this is a site that needs to be checked out and in case you didn't click the link above, here is again: http://rhythmstrummer.com.
-Pappy
Last year I wrote about AC/DC's black book of songs that featured the chord names for a ton if not all of their songs and they provided just that for anyone that wanted to learn the bones of their songs.
Unfortunately, not everyone is itching to learn AC/DC (though I think you should learn at least one AC/DC song as a stellar example of what power that particular kind of rock has) and not every company out there is looking to give you song knowledge that's easy to understand. I love TAB, but can't STAND the kind of tab that you see in music store books. Just looking at it intimidates me and when I try to sit there and play it out slowly, it doesn't sound right at all.
Fortunately though, I'm not alone in my frustration.
I recently received an email from RhythmStrummer (http://rhythmstrummer.com) that asked me to take a look at their website and possibly provide a text link or review. Well, I'm not a fan of random text links popping up on the blogs I read and think that if I don't like it, there must be others that agree but I LOVE writing reviews so here I am with mine.
RhythmStrummer is a music education site that features video lessons that break down popular songs into easy to follow rhythm that you can sing to. That's one of the main points: you can sing to them. How many times have you played something that someone else in the room didn't know and asked you to sing to it? How many non-guitarists do you know aren't floored at all with fancy fretboard acrobatics but are wowed when you break out "What I Got" from Sublime? Complexity isn't an issue for them, whether they know the song and can sing to it/you can sing to it does. Because at the end of the day, people want to hear songs, not incredibly long solos because you didn't put the practice in to learn to play and sing at the same time.
The biggest thing that hit me with RS is their attitude toward the gist and fun. The acknowledge themselves in the "about" section that you can't have fun with a song until you can bang out the rhythm and chords and I completely agree with that. If I don't see immediate results with my playing, even it's just the vague SHAPE of the song, I get frustrated and more often than not, quit. That's probably a foul on me, but who honestly wants to learn something that 1) isn't fun and 2) even you can't tell what it is. I spent HOURS as a kid trying to transfer TAB from ...And Justice For All's solos and failed every single time because it just didn't sound like the real thing.
They're also fans of keeping everything fair. They have a free section on their website and it is stocked with public domain songs like "Baby Please Don't Go" and "House of the Rising Sun," but if you want to learn "All Shook Up" you're going to have to pay. The money not only goes to RS to and teachers, the site, and production, but also goes to paying royalties for the songs which is the first time I've ever heard of someone doing that instead of saying "it's 'inspired by' this song" and knowing if you move it all up or down two frets you'll have the real key.
So what are the lessons like?
Well, they're well produced with easy to follow instructors and diagrams. They show you up-down patterns for the song to help you get the gist as quickly as possible and build from there. I checked out "Baby Please Don't Go" on their free section and the video is almost a half-hour long and it builds in difficulty until at the end you're playing the whole song at speed. It's nice. While there are sections with difficulties on RS's site, how hard can they be if they start out playing as slow as can be, explaining every detail to the songs and moving the metronome up, so to speak?
As for buying the lessons, you can buy Elvis' All Shook Up for a month for $4.99 (and thirty days, which does mean there's a time limit but thirty days gives you plenty of time to learn a song). Five bucks for one song may seem like a bit much, but I'm sure once you check out their free section as a sample of just what you're buying (as well as the demo videos for the songs), you'll know you're putting your money into something valuable. If you were to tell me that I can have a lesson that takes as long as it needs to take, and I can watch this lesson as often as I want to for thirty days and learn something the CORRECT way and in the end be able to play and sing to an awesome song I would be HARD pressed to justify spending fifteen bucks for a half hour every week with an instructor. The cost/benefit ratio is out of this world. For one third of a normal guitar instructor's WEEKLY price, you get a lesson as often as you want for a whole month.
Honestly, there's no comparison. If I were a paid guitar instructor, I may be getting a little nervous now...
But as much as RS is a guitar instructional site, they have an added feature that I particularly like.
On a tangent: I don't spend a lot of time in front of the computer. I am often on my iPhone though and that's where I got the email asking me to look at the site and I looked at the site but the iPhone has a small screen compared to my computer and I didn't pay too much attention to it right then because I was wanting to hold off my reaction until I could see it on the big computer.
But before I closed the window I saw a word that caught me.
"Blog."
Ooooooohhhhhh, I LIKE blogs. I checked it out and they're amazing posts! I threw them into my blog reader and once I get done writing this, I'll be putting the address into the blog directory. It's WELL worth checking out and if, at the end of the day, ALL RS had on its site was this blog, it would STILL be a necessity to check out. These video lessons are really just icing on the cake, even if it's meant to be the meat of the site.
In summary, I really wish more companies like RhythmStrummer would contact me. This is too easy to review since everything is great. While I have no objections about saying a product or site or video is bad, it's something I doubt anyone would really enjoy doing. People put a lot of work into their products, even if their products aren't all that great and who wants to break those people's hearts? I don't, but I would. Integrity and all that.
But RhythmStrummer from top to bottom is a great site that should be bookmarked immediately by every guitarist. This is a great resource for folks who want to learn from the very beginning, to intermediate guitarists, to guitarists who know it all already, but they just want to learn a few more songs, to frat guys to only pull out the guitar when there's a frat/sorority mixer and they want to impress the ladies. For ALL guitarists, this is a site that needs to be checked out and in case you didn't click the link above, here is again: http://rhythmstrummer.com.
-Pappy
Monday, September 14, 2009
Recycling Trip #1
If you remember, I decided to do something crazy and recycle cans and save up the money earned from this to buy a piece of gear. The gear started out as a Gretsch Executive amp, then moved to a Gibson Les Paul 1956 Gold Top Custom Shop VOS (that’s a mouth full).
I had thought that it would be incredibly difficult to get up to the $3,000.00+ that each of those items cost but not necessarily impossible. After all, one can will get you a nickel so I would only need to recycle sixty-thousand cans. I know what you’re thinking: 60,000 cans is a TON (maybe even literally) of cans – a RIDICULOUS amount of cans for anyone to think about collecting, especially someone that’s not privy to a ton of free cans, like, say, someone who works at a Coca-Cola plant or a bar that serves cans.
But I said I think I can do it. I’ll tell my friends and coworkers about the project and anyone that wants to help by giving up their cans will be greatly appreciated. I also did a little research and found out that Georgia is NOT a state that offers five cents per can, oh no, they offer about a penny per can.
60,000 cans just became 300,000 cans. If 60,000 was nuts, 300,000 is certifiable – just put the strait-jacket on and throw them in a padded cell.
So I started to think I would lower the cost of the product I wanted to buy and started looking for things under the two thousand dollar mark, hopefully under the fifteen-hundred dollar mark and optimistically at items that are under the thousand dollar mark. I had previously said that I wanted to buy new because it would show to everyone that this is a real possibility if you’re nuts enough to do it, but now think that used will be the way to go.
Because of all of this, I have no set goal as to what I want. I’m just here saving my cans and saving the money because honestly, at a penny a can, I have all the time in the world to contemplate purchases.
In the time since the first post about this I have saved and smashed a lot of cans. I can tell you that you can fit about three to four hundred smashed cans in a bag and significantly less if they aren’t smashed (and even less, obviously, if they are the larger cans you see stuff like Monster Energy Drink housed in). And yesterday, while my wife was busy doing household chores or updating her blog (I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep since then and my memory is a little foggy), my son was asleep for his nap and my daughter was out playing with new friends, I loaded up one full bag of smashed cans, one bag half-filled with smashed and half-filled with non-smashed cans, and three bags of non-smashed cans that a friend gave me and drove to the recycling center. There are a lot around me and this one happens to be right down the road so it doesn’t take long to get there.
However, once I did get there I saw the line and even though it only consisted of seven or so cars in a line, each car had to have its occupant park, unload the many, many, MANY bags or trash cans filled with cans or scraps from broken cars and then take it into the building to the conveyor belt where it was separated from someone else’s junk, conveyed and weighed. Then that person was given a slip of paper with the net weight and waited in another line to receive their money.
It was an interesting place to go. I wouldn’t say I grew up in the worst part of towns, but I grew up in the military and bases are often surrounded by bad neighborhoods and it’s just something you come to live with. I’m not scared to be very many places now, so I guess it isn’t entirely bad. This recycling center is obviously a place where interesting people hang out. On a wall visible from the loop where everyone waits in their car to be helped, a swastika has been spray painted and a bunch of clover signs have been circled and slashed through.
Do the nearby residents not like the Irish? Or is that a gang sign?
Ah, the questions random errands will lead a person to create...
The people in front of me were interesting as well. All walks of life seemed to be out on this beautiful Tuesday morning from a retired military man, to a couple old ladies, to a guy who apparently owned a bar nearby or drank QUITE a bit by himself and lived nearby because he walked his huge trash bags over to get weighed filled with nothing but Icehouse beer cans. There was a guy who enjoyed very colorful clothing getting out of his car and walking around barefoot.
Handy tip: Don’t walk around barefoot at a recycling center. There was all sorts of metal and jagged things on the ground. Unless you’re really into getting tetanus shots, I guess.
Anyway, I was waved forward and a gentleman helped get my trash bags of cans and they were given the treatment and it came out to be sixteen pounds in net weight. That’s pretty sweet.
I was given my paper slip and waited in line with everyone else for my free money and signed my name at the window and was handed $6.72 for the trouble.
Now, $6.72 isn’t enough to write home about, barely enough to write a blog about, but this is the first time, I’m just getting the ball rolling. One day it will grow into a more substantial sum, but for right now, I’m just putting it in the jar. I’m not worried, though I am rethinking how much money I want to save. I pocketed the cash and thought “maybe a nice pedal will do…”
-Pappy
I had thought that it would be incredibly difficult to get up to the $3,000.00+ that each of those items cost but not necessarily impossible. After all, one can will get you a nickel so I would only need to recycle sixty-thousand cans. I know what you’re thinking: 60,000 cans is a TON (maybe even literally) of cans – a RIDICULOUS amount of cans for anyone to think about collecting, especially someone that’s not privy to a ton of free cans, like, say, someone who works at a Coca-Cola plant or a bar that serves cans.
But I said I think I can do it. I’ll tell my friends and coworkers about the project and anyone that wants to help by giving up their cans will be greatly appreciated. I also did a little research and found out that Georgia is NOT a state that offers five cents per can, oh no, they offer about a penny per can.
60,000 cans just became 300,000 cans. If 60,000 was nuts, 300,000 is certifiable – just put the strait-jacket on and throw them in a padded cell.
So I started to think I would lower the cost of the product I wanted to buy and started looking for things under the two thousand dollar mark, hopefully under the fifteen-hundred dollar mark and optimistically at items that are under the thousand dollar mark. I had previously said that I wanted to buy new because it would show to everyone that this is a real possibility if you’re nuts enough to do it, but now think that used will be the way to go.
Because of all of this, I have no set goal as to what I want. I’m just here saving my cans and saving the money because honestly, at a penny a can, I have all the time in the world to contemplate purchases.
In the time since the first post about this I have saved and smashed a lot of cans. I can tell you that you can fit about three to four hundred smashed cans in a bag and significantly less if they aren’t smashed (and even less, obviously, if they are the larger cans you see stuff like Monster Energy Drink housed in). And yesterday, while my wife was busy doing household chores or updating her blog (I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep since then and my memory is a little foggy), my son was asleep for his nap and my daughter was out playing with new friends, I loaded up one full bag of smashed cans, one bag half-filled with smashed and half-filled with non-smashed cans, and three bags of non-smashed cans that a friend gave me and drove to the recycling center. There are a lot around me and this one happens to be right down the road so it doesn’t take long to get there.
However, once I did get there I saw the line and even though it only consisted of seven or so cars in a line, each car had to have its occupant park, unload the many, many, MANY bags or trash cans filled with cans or scraps from broken cars and then take it into the building to the conveyor belt where it was separated from someone else’s junk, conveyed and weighed. Then that person was given a slip of paper with the net weight and waited in another line to receive their money.
It was an interesting place to go. I wouldn’t say I grew up in the worst part of towns, but I grew up in the military and bases are often surrounded by bad neighborhoods and it’s just something you come to live with. I’m not scared to be very many places now, so I guess it isn’t entirely bad. This recycling center is obviously a place where interesting people hang out. On a wall visible from the loop where everyone waits in their car to be helped, a swastika has been spray painted and a bunch of clover signs have been circled and slashed through.
Do the nearby residents not like the Irish? Or is that a gang sign?
Ah, the questions random errands will lead a person to create...
The people in front of me were interesting as well. All walks of life seemed to be out on this beautiful Tuesday morning from a retired military man, to a couple old ladies, to a guy who apparently owned a bar nearby or drank QUITE a bit by himself and lived nearby because he walked his huge trash bags over to get weighed filled with nothing but Icehouse beer cans. There was a guy who enjoyed very colorful clothing getting out of his car and walking around barefoot.
Handy tip: Don’t walk around barefoot at a recycling center. There was all sorts of metal and jagged things on the ground. Unless you’re really into getting tetanus shots, I guess.
Anyway, I was waved forward and a gentleman helped get my trash bags of cans and they were given the treatment and it came out to be sixteen pounds in net weight. That’s pretty sweet.
I was given my paper slip and waited in line with everyone else for my free money and signed my name at the window and was handed $6.72 for the trouble.
Now, $6.72 isn’t enough to write home about, barely enough to write a blog about, but this is the first time, I’m just getting the ball rolling. One day it will grow into a more substantial sum, but for right now, I’m just putting it in the jar. I’m not worried, though I am rethinking how much money I want to save. I pocketed the cash and thought “maybe a nice pedal will do…”
-Pappy
Friday, September 11, 2009
Chris Cheney
I have a few guitarists that I rank as favorites. I like Jim Heath from the Reverend Horton Heat because he’s just an amazing guitarist who can play better than I ever will. I like Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio. He’s a great song writer and his tone is pretty amazing too. Not the flashiest of players, but a shining example of how you don’t necessarily NEED flash (and he does this while fronting a three piece band so it’s all the more obvious).
But I’d say my absolute, tip top favorite guitarist is Chris Cheney. He made me want to play guitar, he made me want to get into hollowbody guitars and Gretsch specifically, and then when I had the opportunity to get one, I chose a 6118 because of him. He’s responsible for everything I’ve done guitar-wise and guitar related (like this blog) because he was the initial motivation and really got that love of the guitar instilled early. I’m eternally grateful.
But I’d say my absolute, tip top favorite guitarist is Chris Cheney. He made me want to play guitar, he made me want to get into hollowbody guitars and Gretsch specifically, and then when I had the opportunity to get one, I chose a 6118 because of him. He’s responsible for everything I’ve done guitar-wise and guitar related (like this blog) because he was the initial motivation and really got that love of the guitar instilled early. I’m eternally grateful.
So who is Chris Cheney? Well, he’s the frontman for the Australian band The Living End. He sings and plays guitar and is joined by a drummer and bassist. A tricky problem with three piece bands is filling the sonic landscape, but TLE have no problems doing so. Not only is Cheney an amazing rhythm player that keeps the songs going, but he does great lead work too so the songs always feel fleshed out to the maximum potential.
He’s been known to say he appreciates being taught fingerstyle guitar first as it opened up his playing quite a bit. While tough to learn at first, it does open up quite a few doors playing-wise and as far as tools go, it’s a pretty great one to have in your arsenal.
In the early 1990’s, Cheney and school-friend Scott Owen (who plays stand up bass) formed the Runaway Boys and Cheney expressed a little frustration with their first original works saying they sounded like the Stray Cats. While the Stray Cats is often cited as an influence, Cheney wanted to do his own thing and The Living End was born. Their first couple of EPs (Hellbound and It’s For Your Own Good) and their self-titled album have a distinct retro feel to them. This isn’t to say they sound dated or anything, if anything TLE is one of the few bands that succeed in injecting modern feel and youth to a classic rockabilly sound and is credited by some sources as starting the subgenre “punkabilly.” Usually fast, often distorted, but almost always with a catchy rhythm and great guitar work, the genre has everything needed to succeed with rock fans. This isn’t to say that this description fits all of their stuff as some songs feature jazzy interludes or clean instrumental tracks that really showcase Cheney’s playing outside of the loud and distorted rock world.
Their first single in the US was “Prisoner Of Society” from their self-titled album and this is the song and video that made me want to play guitar. It had always been a dream to play guitar but there was never any fire to do so until the first time I saw that video and that was it. It looked like it was going to catch and the band was going to be a hit, but unfortunately there were some serious competitors on the radio at that time. You had Metallica playing the hits “Turn The Page” and “Whiskey In The Jar” from Garage Inc. and it seemed the whole of the US was shifting to heavier, slower, detuned, angry rock like Godsmack, Korn, Limp Bizkit and such.
I feel bad for both the US and TLE. Think about it: Godsmack broke up, Metallica lost a slew of fans with Napster and St. Anger, Limp Bizkit sometimes has Wes, sometimes not but no matter what they seem incapable of getting a foothold in the rock mainstream now, Korn is a shadow of what it once was, and the US has generally moved away from that anyway. We’ve been depressed long enough and now it’s time for more… upbeat rock. I can’t help but think if TLE came out with the support that was given them in 1998 right now, they would probably be a hit.
Their brief time on MTV (when MTV played videos) was enough for TLE to gain some fans though and when they come here there are folks who come to the shows even though it’s painfully obvious the band deserves a much larger stage and a much larger fan base. Being a tad selfish, this isn’t so bad for American audiences because they can experience TLE in a more intimate setting in a club instead of a football field away with binoculars.
Life didn’t stop for TLE in 1998 though. They went into the studio to record their follow up album Roll On and Cheney used this opportunity to show critics that they are not a simple, three chord kind of band. The result was an album that is complicated to say the least. Whereas their self-titled was chock full of anthems that were fairly straightforward, Roll On featured many twists and turns in the writing and the ends of the songs were often far cries from the beginnings. It also featured a distinctly more rock sound than rockabilly.
To be completely honest, I was a fan of the straightforward stuff from their past and Roll On was not my favorite album of theirs at all. It turns out I just needed to be a little more open-minded when it came to music. At the time ALL I wanted to listen to was their self-titled album, a retrospective from Stray Cats, Holy Roller from the Reverend Horton Heat and Tiger Army’s first album. That’s it. But as time went on I found myself wanting some rock and after YEARS, I found myself listening more and more to this album and liking more and more of the songs. As of today’s writing, it’s actually my favorite album ever. Maybe it holds that position because the time it took to like the whole album was slow enough to truly appreciate every part of the song. Kind of like if a band released one song every month for a year and then at the end of the year gave you the songs in one collection. During each month you could really pore over the music and get as much as possible out of it instead of immediately comparing the tracks.
After Roll On came out a lot of press began comparing TLE to the Clash and while they were probably talking about an open use of reggae or ska within rock song structures, TLE often took it as a compliment for not resting on one bankable kind of sound or style. You see it with bands all over the place that keep trying to recreate the magic from their first album that had just as much to do with where the listener was at the time as it did what the band was doing at the time, but as a result their sound keeps getting more and more diluted and TLE really didn’t have any interest in putting out five copies of their self-titled with different song names and album covers. For that, I say kudos.
I’ve grown to like the tracks because they aren’t simple. Too many bands are releasing easily digestible and disposable tracks and while those are sometimes amazing (The Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious comes to mind) they aren’t “favorite album” material to me.
Unfortunately for me, this development with Roll On being my favorite album took so long that I have not been able to check out the albums released after that (Modern ARTillery, State of Emergency, and White Noise) but I’m excited to start checking them out and I’ll be happy to report back with my opinions but honestly, they might be a little off. I mean, if it took nine years to grow to love Roll On, it may be a while for the others if they’re anything similar. They’ll be bought regardless though. I’m sold as far as TLE goes that even if I don’t like it immediately, that doesn’t mean it will always be that way.
In 2005 Cheney was in a serious car accident caused by another driver speeding in the wrong lane, crushing his right leg and forcing him into bed and then to walking with a cane while his leg recovered and was not allowed to play guitar until he was fully recovered. In an interview he said that when he was finally able to pick up the guitar again it was like learning to play all over again which was tough and frustrating, but also a great thing because he could iron away all of the mistakes that he had made the first time he learned how to play.
In a way, that’s a pretty awesome opportunity. What would you change if you could go back? When I first started playing I held a pick with my thumb, index AND middle finger to keep it from slipping away and while it did help keep the pick steady, it also killed my speed and here I am, eleven years of playing later, relearning how to hold a pick which is something so frustrating it isn’t even funny, but I’m so glad I’m doing it because I am already seeing better performance stamina-wise.
In the end though, Cheney recovered and came back with a vengeance and the rock world is better for it.
As far as gear goes if you go to http://www.chrischeneygear.com/index.html you can see a slew of his stuff. He’s played a ton of amps through the years and has been able to maintain the same general sound and is protective of the settings of his amp which I don’t necessarily agree with but respect. As far as guitars, he seemed to favor 6118s in the beginning and moved to the White Falcon and then started using Gretsch Power Tennys and an SSLVO until Gretsch unveiled the Chris Cheney Falcon. This Falcon is different in one MAJOR way and a couple other smaller ways than the other Falcons in Gretsch’s Falcon coop.
The difference?
Body size.
The standard Falcon is 17” wide at its widest which is pretty wide but certainly nothing that Cheney hadn’t been used to but before making his guitar he started using the 6118 again and remarked on how great it felt and how easy it was to play and thus, the CC Falcon was born. It has a smaller body (16” which may sound like a small difference but trust me, you can definitely feel the difference) and can be seen here: http://5th-fret.blogspot.com/2008/11/gretsch-chris-cheney-signature-guitar.html.
Unfortunately for the US, the Cheney model is not available Stateside but who knows? Maybe one day. Personally I think releasing it in the US would be a way to get more people interested in Cheney and TLE by way of seeing this amazingly beautiful guitar hanging on walls and finding out it’s a signature model. I know I’m incredibly interested when I see a cool guitar and find out it’s attached to someone. It’s usually not long at all until I’m on the internet looking for information about the band and samples of music.
I will say though, many thanks to Gretsch for not limiting the amount of guitars available though. That makes the idea of Cheney Falcons in the US much more possible. I hope Gretsch reads this and sees that there’s a desire for this model in the States. I know I want one, even if it’s very close spec-wise to my 6118T. I can’t help it. Not only do I like signature guitars, but Cheney’s responsible for my entire playing, so it seems I’m doomed to save up for this guitar. I won’t go so far as to say I’ll save up enough to import it from Australia because the amount of money to buy a Gretsch there and import it to the States is considered enough to have you committed in forty-seven of the fifty States. As nuts as Georgia is, I still think it’s included in the forty-seven.
If you haven’t heard of Cheney or TLE, you really need to check him/them out. Check out this video:
I can’t say enough good things about Cheney and TLE. Everything I do and love now and have loved for the past eleven years probably comes from music, guitar, conversations about the guitar, making bands, playing for crowds, blogging about music, wanting to delve more into the unknown artist’s catalog, it’s all because of Chris Cheney.
So to Chris, MANY thanks. You’ve really helped shape a guy’s life and it’s turned out pretty good, so thanks very much.
To everyone else, be sure to check out The Living End. If you’re looking for guidance on discography, check out their self-titled and Roll On and see what I mean about the differences and if you don’t like Roll On, just give it a little bit of time. I’m sure you’ll come around.
-Pappy
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tavo Vega Nocturne Update
Many thanks to Tavo for recording this video directly comparing his Nocturne pedal to the Roland 301 Space Echo. Also, thanks for sending me this picture of an amazing looking relic'd Nocturne.
Check this out!
Check this out!
I think I've decided what my recycling money is going to go toward...
-Pappy
News Below The Fold: Nablopomo
What is Nablopomo?
Nablopomo stands for National Blog Posting Month and it’s a little bit of a competition. You are supposed to post one new blog every day for all of November.
The rules are simple: you have to publish one new blog every day with no required length or content (you could post a picture every day and be good), but it has to be written or taken THAT day. You aren’t allowed to schedule blogs to be released on a certain day and you can’t back post either.
You can win things too, from doing this.
But I immediately disqualify myself because I will schedule posts to be posted so I don’t have to worry about writing every day. I’ll be incredibly busy from the beginning of October until about the middle of next year (or longer) so posts will be written and scheduled as I can write them. Usually this means every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I’m all for scheduling new posts for every day in November.
I was thinking though, that I need a formula though that would give the reader a sense of flow and continuity. I decided to do top five lists for every day. I’m a huge fan of High Fidelity and top five lists are fun to come up with and explaining them would be equally fun.
I urge other guitar bloggers to give the challenge a shot, whether it be actually participating in the challenge or quasi-participating like I will.
I’m giving you a ton of notice here in case you do want to start hoarding blog posts like acorns.
Personally, I’m curious how many visits I’ll get by the end of November.
Take it easy!
-Pappy
Nablopomo stands for National Blog Posting Month and it’s a little bit of a competition. You are supposed to post one new blog every day for all of November.
The rules are simple: you have to publish one new blog every day with no required length or content (you could post a picture every day and be good), but it has to be written or taken THAT day. You aren’t allowed to schedule blogs to be released on a certain day and you can’t back post either.
You can win things too, from doing this.
But I immediately disqualify myself because I will schedule posts to be posted so I don’t have to worry about writing every day. I’ll be incredibly busy from the beginning of October until about the middle of next year (or longer) so posts will be written and scheduled as I can write them. Usually this means every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I’m all for scheduling new posts for every day in November.
I was thinking though, that I need a formula though that would give the reader a sense of flow and continuity. I decided to do top five lists for every day. I’m a huge fan of High Fidelity and top five lists are fun to come up with and explaining them would be equally fun.
I urge other guitar bloggers to give the challenge a shot, whether it be actually participating in the challenge or quasi-participating like I will.
I’m giving you a ton of notice here in case you do want to start hoarding blog posts like acorns.
Personally, I’m curious how many visits I’ll get by the end of November.
Take it easy!
-Pappy
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Just Give Me Some Time And I'll Come Around
I grew up as a lot of my peers grew up, with my dad listening to rock and roll. Not the normal suspects of the Beatles or Cream, no Who or the Yardbirds, none of that. No, I grew up with him listening to bands like Molly Hatchet and .38 Special. Queen was a favorite as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Queen. News of the World is an AMAZING album that shows just how varied the members were as song writers. Half the time I had no idea I was listening to Queen at all because it didn’t have that voice that’s so instantly recognized that we associate with Bohemian Rhapsody, or We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions (because one is never played without the other).
I am not a fan of Southern Rock though. Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, etc. etc. just never really struck my fancy or maintained my attention. There was just something about it that I did not like. And to this day I’m not a fan.
Growing up I was an impressionable youth as all are and I would ask my dad why he didn’t have any Beatles albums. The Beatles were huge after all. He said he just didn’t like it. Personally I think it was a matter of not identifying with the later material that almost insists on being high to get (I would think).
So I adopted a similar grudge toward the Beatles, and a ton of other classic artists that, without them, the world of rock would be a drastically different place today.
I feel bad that I had never really given the Who a chance when I was always listening to music and when I think I might have appreciated them more. I think if I hadn’t adopted this insane mentality of not liking the bands my dad didn’t like (all while not liking most of the bands he DID like leaving me to the more modern bands that I still love like Tool or Metallica), I might have been QUITE the classic rock fan in high school.
Things change though. I was at a friend’s house as a junior in high school and heard White Room by Cream and it was like a light went on. I loved it. That same night I also heard Hendrix and while it is cool to say you don’t like Hendrix, it occurred to me that night that I’m just not a fan of everything of his that’s on the radio. It makes me wonder why radio people play those songs when the real treasures lie within the grooves of the LP.
I shelved that night in my mind though and stuck with my modern music. It’s great stuff. I did go back more and more to the 80’s as time went on to bands like the Stray Cats or a ton of New Wave and pop (Corey Hart’s I Wear My Sunglasses At Night is actually a very important song in my life). In the case of the Stray Cats I wanted to hear the original stuff that inspired the band so I went back, completely skipping the 70’s and the 60’s in favor of the 50’s (and some early 60’s I guess). I was happy listening to these two extremes for a while, but everyone was inspired by someone, right? So I went back even further to artists like Django and Charlie Parker.
The first time I went out looking for a Django album I had no idea it was pronounced Jango. I thought it was pronounced Deeyango and when I asked for it, the guy behind the counter had no idea who I was talking about until I told him gypsy jazz, paralyzed fingers, and he looked at me and said “you mean Django?” I think that was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. The fact my wife was there to witness and make fun of me later (it still comes up in conversation) only rubbed salt in the wound.
But even as I went back through all of this great music it was obvious that there was a huge chunk missing and eventually Guitar Hero had a commercial where they played a Led Zeppelin song that wasn’t Whole Lotta Love or Stairway to Heaven. I didn’t know who it was as just the music was playing until Robert Plant started to sing. He has a very unique voice and even I could pull it out of a crowd. I wanted to hear that song. More importantly, I wanted to hear from that band.
Hearing this, MASK burned me a DVD of all of their stuff to listen to. Some of the tracks were not able to be put on iTunes which was a little odd but completely beside the point but it bummed me out that No Quarter was one of them. Tool did an absolutely stunning cover of this song on their Salival album which comes highly recommended by me.
And today, as I pulled away from my house for work I turned on I (one) and turned up the radio. I figured you’ve got to listen to it loud. Oh, I was right. And I loved it right away. I’ve been missing out for a LONG time and that bums me out but I feel great knowing I didn’t go my whole life without listening to it, just my whole life until now. Hopefully there will be more years of knowing Led Zeppelin’s catalog than there was NOT knowing it in the end.
So while I may not be a fan of this band or that, I bet if you just give me some time and ample sources, I’ll come around. Who knows? I may even start liking Southern Rock after a while.
-Pappy
Don’t get me wrong, I like Queen. News of the World is an AMAZING album that shows just how varied the members were as song writers. Half the time I had no idea I was listening to Queen at all because it didn’t have that voice that’s so instantly recognized that we associate with Bohemian Rhapsody, or We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions (because one is never played without the other).
I am not a fan of Southern Rock though. Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, etc. etc. just never really struck my fancy or maintained my attention. There was just something about it that I did not like. And to this day I’m not a fan.
Growing up I was an impressionable youth as all are and I would ask my dad why he didn’t have any Beatles albums. The Beatles were huge after all. He said he just didn’t like it. Personally I think it was a matter of not identifying with the later material that almost insists on being high to get (I would think).
So I adopted a similar grudge toward the Beatles, and a ton of other classic artists that, without them, the world of rock would be a drastically different place today.
I feel bad that I had never really given the Who a chance when I was always listening to music and when I think I might have appreciated them more. I think if I hadn’t adopted this insane mentality of not liking the bands my dad didn’t like (all while not liking most of the bands he DID like leaving me to the more modern bands that I still love like Tool or Metallica), I might have been QUITE the classic rock fan in high school.
Things change though. I was at a friend’s house as a junior in high school and heard White Room by Cream and it was like a light went on. I loved it. That same night I also heard Hendrix and while it is cool to say you don’t like Hendrix, it occurred to me that night that I’m just not a fan of everything of his that’s on the radio. It makes me wonder why radio people play those songs when the real treasures lie within the grooves of the LP.
I shelved that night in my mind though and stuck with my modern music. It’s great stuff. I did go back more and more to the 80’s as time went on to bands like the Stray Cats or a ton of New Wave and pop (Corey Hart’s I Wear My Sunglasses At Night is actually a very important song in my life). In the case of the Stray Cats I wanted to hear the original stuff that inspired the band so I went back, completely skipping the 70’s and the 60’s in favor of the 50’s (and some early 60’s I guess). I was happy listening to these two extremes for a while, but everyone was inspired by someone, right? So I went back even further to artists like Django and Charlie Parker.
The first time I went out looking for a Django album I had no idea it was pronounced Jango. I thought it was pronounced Deeyango and when I asked for it, the guy behind the counter had no idea who I was talking about until I told him gypsy jazz, paralyzed fingers, and he looked at me and said “you mean Django?” I think that was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. The fact my wife was there to witness and make fun of me later (it still comes up in conversation) only rubbed salt in the wound.
But even as I went back through all of this great music it was obvious that there was a huge chunk missing and eventually Guitar Hero had a commercial where they played a Led Zeppelin song that wasn’t Whole Lotta Love or Stairway to Heaven. I didn’t know who it was as just the music was playing until Robert Plant started to sing. He has a very unique voice and even I could pull it out of a crowd. I wanted to hear that song. More importantly, I wanted to hear from that band.
Hearing this, MASK burned me a DVD of all of their stuff to listen to. Some of the tracks were not able to be put on iTunes which was a little odd but completely beside the point but it bummed me out that No Quarter was one of them. Tool did an absolutely stunning cover of this song on their Salival album which comes highly recommended by me.
And today, as I pulled away from my house for work I turned on I (one) and turned up the radio. I figured you’ve got to listen to it loud. Oh, I was right. And I loved it right away. I’ve been missing out for a LONG time and that bums me out but I feel great knowing I didn’t go my whole life without listening to it, just my whole life until now. Hopefully there will be more years of knowing Led Zeppelin’s catalog than there was NOT knowing it in the end.
So while I may not be a fan of this band or that, I bet if you just give me some time and ample sources, I’ll come around. Who knows? I may even start liking Southern Rock after a while.
-Pappy
Monday, September 7, 2009
The First Guitar
We all have our first guitars and our opinions on what should be someone's first guitars. Maybe we formed our opinions based on the lessons we learned as beginning guitarists and we all want to pass those lessons down to new players in an effort to keep them from making the same mistakes we did. We're like parents trying to teach life lessons.
This is just my opinion of course, and it probably varies quite a bit from those out there, but I think it makes sense if you just hear it out.
Your first guitar is either saved for or bought for you from someone that probably cares about you so price is always an issue. Ease of play is always an issue. Sound is always an issue. Looks is an issue only half the time (when the new player is concerned. Looks seem to rarely count when someone else is buying the guitar).
In my opinion the best first guitar is a Gretsch 5120 and I'll tell you why:
The Ol' Acoustic Mentality
A ton of people say you should learn on an acoustic because it isn't easy. It builds finger strength, and makes it ridiculously easy to play an electric guitar. While that's true, why on earth should that be considered a logical reason to get an acoustic? You want someone new to play an acoustic because it's HARD? Do you not want them to KEEP playing? The argument for easier electric playing is a valid one of course, but if you just start out on an electric, it's already easy and you can build from that. Finger strength will come eventually whether you play an electric or acoustic.
The 5120 is as easy to play as an electric or as difficult to play as an acoustic, all based on how high you raise the bridge (which is ridiculously easy to do). Say you the parent subscribe to this "making it difficult to learn is the best way" mentality. You can raise the bridge and make it downright painful for your child to play. If you're of the more sympathetic mentality, you can lower the bridge until the strings are very close to the frets and very easy to play.
Moms and Dads out there: electrics are harder to hear acoustically so while your child can be playing and hearing himself, you will probably be spared the repeated scales and licks that are just being learned and therefore maybe not that great sounding. If you're REALLY worried about hearing butchered scales your best bet would be something in a Stratocaster or Telecaster variety. If you aren't and you know how to palm mute, teach your child that right away and say that's how they should practice out in the living room. If neither of you know how to palm mute, tell your child to get on YouTube and learn.
As for the 5120 and volume, it is practically an acoustic guitar when it's unplugged but lacks quite the same volume and brashness associated with cheap acoustics. Chords, once they're learned well, will sound great unplugged and even better plugged in. You also save money by not buying an acoustic AND an electric down the road or vice versa. Two for one and it sounds better, what more could you want? A new player can impress the opposite sex with intimate acoustic ballads and then rock out plugged in with his friends on the same guitar.
Plugged In
The 5120 comes standard with humbuckers. The good thing about these humbuckers is that they're actually pretty good. In a lot of guitars and almost all "cheap" guitars, the pickups and hardware is where the company saves money that translates into a lower cost. While Gretsch may very well save money on the pickups, it's not like they put junk in there. The bridge pickup is clear and bright and when the overdrive is cranked can pull off a very impressive metal tone. The neck pickup, when played clean, provides a very pleasant jazz tone to it. A little dark sounding but not overwhelmingly so and overall a very nice sound to it. With overdrive it's a little bassy and notes can become lost, but in the middle position with both pickups on, there's a great balance of clarity from the bridge and oomph from the neck and a great rock/metal sound is there. Adjust the gain to determine eras of rock from garage to classic to NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), to more modern metal. It's an incredibly versatile set.
Now that we've established that it sounds good, let's talk about why this is important. A new player will probably not want to change out their pickups because they either think it can't be done (or it might not even pop into their head that the bad sound they're hearing is mechanical and not coming from them per se) or they don't want to take the challenge of changing pickups. Either way, if they hear a bad sound coming from the amp they will not want to keep playing and they'll quit. Think about it: if you wanted to learn how to play basketball and was given a half inflated ball, it wouldn't be fun to play, right? I know I would quit.
So yeah, tone is important. If someone hears something good it will inspire them to keep playing and play better and if they keep sounding better they'll only keep progressing. Yes, there will be hard times but they won't be coming from the pickups.
Looks
Looks are always a tricky thing. You want to stand apart from the crowd but you don't want to play an ugly guitar. You don't want the same guitar your best friend has, yet that guitar might have an awesome tone to it.
Well, the 5120, while Gretsch's best selling guitar is NOT the standard guitar when it comes to what the youth are playing and yet it still looks amazing. Everything on it looks classy and balanced. The F holes aren't too big or small, the hardware isn't overpowering, even the inlays have a subtle elegance to them while still looking badass. While most people choose the orange 5120, the black is both classy and understated (don't forget about the sunburst model either) and well suited for any sort of rock or any genre really. Remember, black goes with everything.
Growing Up
The thing about cheap guitars is they don't grow with the player. If you had a guitar that you bought cheap because it was made with inferior woods, had an uncomfortable neck, shoddy electronics and it won't stay in tune, once you learn your way around the thing, where's the motivation to try to make it better? To upgrade it?
That's the problem with cheap guitars. They just aren't worth upgrading. Yes, you may change the pickups but then you would just be hearing bad tone from the wood and you would still have the previous issues. It's just smart to buy a whole new guitar as an upgrade.
This isn't so with the 5120. Tons of people have money and keep this guitar around. They can swap out the electronics, the pickups, the bridge, the Bigsby, the nut, the tuners, pretty much anything, leaving just the shell of the guitar at the end. It can grow piece by piece with the player but the beauty is it doesn't HAVE to since it starts out so good anyway. It's completely optional to upgrade which is something anyone can appreciate.
Hot Rod!
And speaking of customization, the 5120 is set up to be a great guitar to customize. The standard humbucker slots will obviously fit any other standard-sized humbucker and there are a TON of those to choose from out there, with just a little bit of this, or that, this magnet or that magnet, wound hot, wound low, etc. etc. Options are limitless OR you can buy a spacer and accommodate a smaller pickup, something the size of a Filtertron (Gretsch's first humbucker and what most people upgrade to) or even smaller to a Dynasonic pickup. Or you could just bolt a couple of P90s on it and call it a day. You can add a middle pickup. You can add all sorts of switches (the beauty of a big guitar is that there's a lot of room to play with).
Price
The logical thing to do is buy the cheapest guitar you can at the end of the day, regardless of what I've said above. I understand that. There's no guarantee that a new player will stick with it. Tons of people try to pick up the guitar and give up (probably because they were trying to learn on an acoustic) so why not try to mitigate the risk and put as little money into it as possible?
Because THAT makes the investment that much easier to throw away. If you go out and spend a hundred dollars on a guitar and find out you don't like it immediately, hey, it's only a hundred dollars right? That's worth trying out a dream and finding out it's not right for you, right? Time to move on to something else. But if you invested the 5-600.00 on a 5120 you would be a whole lot more hesitant to give up so easily. That's half or more of a thousand bucks and that's way harder to sneeze at. Besides, you would be learning on a quality guitar, not one that would serve better as a canoe paddle.
Last Call
So if you're looking for your first guitar, check this one out. They're easy to play, sound good, look good, are fully upgradable, can act as acoustic or an electric, and are expensive enough to keep you playing but not expensive enough to completely break the bank.
-Pappy
This is just my opinion of course, and it probably varies quite a bit from those out there, but I think it makes sense if you just hear it out.
Your first guitar is either saved for or bought for you from someone that probably cares about you so price is always an issue. Ease of play is always an issue. Sound is always an issue. Looks is an issue only half the time (when the new player is concerned. Looks seem to rarely count when someone else is buying the guitar).
In my opinion the best first guitar is a Gretsch 5120 and I'll tell you why:
The Ol' Acoustic Mentality
A ton of people say you should learn on an acoustic because it isn't easy. It builds finger strength, and makes it ridiculously easy to play an electric guitar. While that's true, why on earth should that be considered a logical reason to get an acoustic? You want someone new to play an acoustic because it's HARD? Do you not want them to KEEP playing? The argument for easier electric playing is a valid one of course, but if you just start out on an electric, it's already easy and you can build from that. Finger strength will come eventually whether you play an electric or acoustic.
The 5120 is as easy to play as an electric or as difficult to play as an acoustic, all based on how high you raise the bridge (which is ridiculously easy to do). Say you the parent subscribe to this "making it difficult to learn is the best way" mentality. You can raise the bridge and make it downright painful for your child to play. If you're of the more sympathetic mentality, you can lower the bridge until the strings are very close to the frets and very easy to play.
Moms and Dads out there: electrics are harder to hear acoustically so while your child can be playing and hearing himself, you will probably be spared the repeated scales and licks that are just being learned and therefore maybe not that great sounding. If you're REALLY worried about hearing butchered scales your best bet would be something in a Stratocaster or Telecaster variety. If you aren't and you know how to palm mute, teach your child that right away and say that's how they should practice out in the living room. If neither of you know how to palm mute, tell your child to get on YouTube and learn.
As for the 5120 and volume, it is practically an acoustic guitar when it's unplugged but lacks quite the same volume and brashness associated with cheap acoustics. Chords, once they're learned well, will sound great unplugged and even better plugged in. You also save money by not buying an acoustic AND an electric down the road or vice versa. Two for one and it sounds better, what more could you want? A new player can impress the opposite sex with intimate acoustic ballads and then rock out plugged in with his friends on the same guitar.
Plugged In
The 5120 comes standard with humbuckers. The good thing about these humbuckers is that they're actually pretty good. In a lot of guitars and almost all "cheap" guitars, the pickups and hardware is where the company saves money that translates into a lower cost. While Gretsch may very well save money on the pickups, it's not like they put junk in there. The bridge pickup is clear and bright and when the overdrive is cranked can pull off a very impressive metal tone. The neck pickup, when played clean, provides a very pleasant jazz tone to it. A little dark sounding but not overwhelmingly so and overall a very nice sound to it. With overdrive it's a little bassy and notes can become lost, but in the middle position with both pickups on, there's a great balance of clarity from the bridge and oomph from the neck and a great rock/metal sound is there. Adjust the gain to determine eras of rock from garage to classic to NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), to more modern metal. It's an incredibly versatile set.
Now that we've established that it sounds good, let's talk about why this is important. A new player will probably not want to change out their pickups because they either think it can't be done (or it might not even pop into their head that the bad sound they're hearing is mechanical and not coming from them per se) or they don't want to take the challenge of changing pickups. Either way, if they hear a bad sound coming from the amp they will not want to keep playing and they'll quit. Think about it: if you wanted to learn how to play basketball and was given a half inflated ball, it wouldn't be fun to play, right? I know I would quit.
So yeah, tone is important. If someone hears something good it will inspire them to keep playing and play better and if they keep sounding better they'll only keep progressing. Yes, there will be hard times but they won't be coming from the pickups.
Looks
Looks are always a tricky thing. You want to stand apart from the crowd but you don't want to play an ugly guitar. You don't want the same guitar your best friend has, yet that guitar might have an awesome tone to it.
Well, the 5120, while Gretsch's best selling guitar is NOT the standard guitar when it comes to what the youth are playing and yet it still looks amazing. Everything on it looks classy and balanced. The F holes aren't too big or small, the hardware isn't overpowering, even the inlays have a subtle elegance to them while still looking badass. While most people choose the orange 5120, the black is both classy and understated (don't forget about the sunburst model either) and well suited for any sort of rock or any genre really. Remember, black goes with everything.
Growing Up
The thing about cheap guitars is they don't grow with the player. If you had a guitar that you bought cheap because it was made with inferior woods, had an uncomfortable neck, shoddy electronics and it won't stay in tune, once you learn your way around the thing, where's the motivation to try to make it better? To upgrade it?
That's the problem with cheap guitars. They just aren't worth upgrading. Yes, you may change the pickups but then you would just be hearing bad tone from the wood and you would still have the previous issues. It's just smart to buy a whole new guitar as an upgrade.
This isn't so with the 5120. Tons of people have money and keep this guitar around. They can swap out the electronics, the pickups, the bridge, the Bigsby, the nut, the tuners, pretty much anything, leaving just the shell of the guitar at the end. It can grow piece by piece with the player but the beauty is it doesn't HAVE to since it starts out so good anyway. It's completely optional to upgrade which is something anyone can appreciate.
Hot Rod!
And speaking of customization, the 5120 is set up to be a great guitar to customize. The standard humbucker slots will obviously fit any other standard-sized humbucker and there are a TON of those to choose from out there, with just a little bit of this, or that, this magnet or that magnet, wound hot, wound low, etc. etc. Options are limitless OR you can buy a spacer and accommodate a smaller pickup, something the size of a Filtertron (Gretsch's first humbucker and what most people upgrade to) or even smaller to a Dynasonic pickup. Or you could just bolt a couple of P90s on it and call it a day. You can add a middle pickup. You can add all sorts of switches (the beauty of a big guitar is that there's a lot of room to play with).
Price
The logical thing to do is buy the cheapest guitar you can at the end of the day, regardless of what I've said above. I understand that. There's no guarantee that a new player will stick with it. Tons of people try to pick up the guitar and give up (probably because they were trying to learn on an acoustic) so why not try to mitigate the risk and put as little money into it as possible?
Because THAT makes the investment that much easier to throw away. If you go out and spend a hundred dollars on a guitar and find out you don't like it immediately, hey, it's only a hundred dollars right? That's worth trying out a dream and finding out it's not right for you, right? Time to move on to something else. But if you invested the 5-600.00 on a 5120 you would be a whole lot more hesitant to give up so easily. That's half or more of a thousand bucks and that's way harder to sneeze at. Besides, you would be learning on a quality guitar, not one that would serve better as a canoe paddle.
Last Call
So if you're looking for your first guitar, check this one out. They're easy to play, sound good, look good, are fully upgradable, can act as acoustic or an electric, and are expensive enough to keep you playing but not expensive enough to completely break the bank.
-Pappy
Friday, September 4, 2009
Brain Seltzer Nocturne
If there’s one thing I like in humanity it’s ingenuity. I love it. I love when someone says “that doesn’t work,” or “that doesn’t work for ME,” or “I can do better,” and they actually do something about it. This is what made Les Paul the force that he was, and how names like Grover Jackson became famous. After all, how would EVH’s guitar sound if he played his Marshall stock?
I am constantly fascinated by people taking the reins and doing something special and something that THEY want, not necessarily something that they want to sell to the public though that’s certainly cool in its own right.
Tavo Vega is one of these people.
He’s been on the quest to nail the tone that Brian Setzer has when he goes from flat picking to finger picking and as a result he now has the Nocturne pedal that was available in the limited number of twenty-five but due to technical difficulties, couldn’t turn off the PayPal order form soon enough and now has a back log of pedals to make. What started off as something he thought MAYBE some other Setzer fanatics would be interested quickly proved to be more popular than he could have imagined.
Tavo was willing to sit down and answer some questions from the 5th Fret about how this whole pedal making thing started and where he hopes to go and what got him into playing. Enjoy!
How old were you when you first started playing guitar?
My dad taught me to sing and play gospel standards in the style of Elvis and Johnny Cash, basic little first position stuff around age 9 or 10. In fifth grade I was taking "official" lessons that I disliked by a proper professor; Zolts Bayor, the school’s violin teacher.
What made you want to play?
I used to watch my Dad and uncle sit on the front porch with a big silverface Bassman. I remember my uncle with the bass in one channel and my Dad with a Fender Coronado II he built, plugged in to the other channel singin’ and rockin’. That was his outlet once I came into the world and he had to quit playing in his rockabilly band. He worked for Fender in the 60s at the time Leo was bowing out and CBS was taking over. I can just barely remember my mom and me picking him up at those old quonset hut buildings in Fullerton (we grew up in orange county). Then he'd come home and play that guitar then listen to Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins, Elvis, The Ventures and Tony Mattola.
As I mentioned above, it was 5th grade that it became more of a focus and pushed by my parents to be trained formally. I think I fought it for a year or so, because I wanted to play rock n roll by ear and he wanted me to learn the correct way. I won out though when my let me take his Coronado to school for a lesson with a Magnatone Varsity amp and when I was setting it up some girls walked by and spotted that Fender guitar. When they giggled and smiled at my power chords, that was it. It became my life at that moment, been at it ever since...
What was your first guitar?
Very first was a plastic electric from Sears at age 4, ha! First real guitar was a classical student guitars for lessons, but I played my dad's Montgomery Wards Airline loaded with fender jaguar pickups until he let me use his Fender Coronado II in my high school rockabilly band ‘till my senior year when I bought a candy apple Strat copy and a Peavey 1x12 combo. I guess technically my first electric was the Airline my dad finally gave to me.
How did your band get together?
Been in too many bands to begin to mention since the early 80s. I started with vintage rock n’ roll and I've been back at it now for a while as I started feeling the urge to play "real" gigs again - to play clubs and bars with my own rockabilly music and vintage gospel so I've had some younger cats backin' me on and off since. Got my current Album on iTunes "Songs of Justice" by my trio called Tavo and The Flat Black Thrillers and Ol' Skool Rodz magazine just gave me a great review in the latest issue #35 Sept. 09 (had to blow the horn, it was exciting to be in my favorite hot rod mag).
I hope to start giggin’ again this holiday season, I dig Xmas.
What inspired you to make the Brain Seltzer Nocturne?
One thing I could never get out of my guitar and amp when I folded the pick in my palm to do finger pickin' like Setzer..was that punchy, twangy sheen that seemed to pop off the notes in that BSO (Brian Setzer Orchestra – ed.) Dirty Boogie album. I'm not talking about his talent or what his fingers can do that my dumb hands will never muster, I'm talking about how his finger picking tone almost seems to jump out of the guitar amp more than his picking tone. Obviously each sounds different than the other but when Setzer does it through his rig, it gets all dynamically woody and twangy at the same time. Kinda the sound when you put your ear down against the body to the Gretsch's upper bout while you play.. One ear is hearing the inside of the guitar and the other hears the amp. I love that.
I KNEW there was something special about his use of the exact Roland Space Echo "RE-301".. So I bought an RE-150, RE-201 and an RE-301(the one I have now still own, was a big gift from a secret friend)..tore ‘em apart, studied them and then had a local tech repair them and sell them off. I found out that the RE-301 uses Op-amps instead of Transistors, and they also dumped the use of carbon comp resistors for carbon film. The RE-301 is much cleaner and dynamic in its mids sonic spectrum, low to high. This got me thinking about my recording and live sound experience with microphones and mic pre's. It’s always a challenge to reproduce an accurate acoustic sound from pianos, violins, accordions, etc and a good mic is not good enough, you need a solid pre-amp.
So I kept this in mind reminding myself that a mic needs to have roughly 10x its own impedance from a mic pre to do its best and THAT told me SETZER's funky Filtertrons are wacky little microphones that pickup both string and body vibration in a strange blend of semi-microphonic, humbucking duty, but then the PRE AMP of that particular space echo is coloring, enhancing and emphasizing how well they are hearing what the musicians hands are doing! That’s the freakin’ mystery revealed to me... So now the RE-301s pre-amp is artfully recreated and its mojo lives in a beautiful little pedal box and you can decide to use analog or digital echoes with it. Both are enhanced dramatically with it. I'm tired of guitar effects pedals, so now I have an effects box made for my amp and it’s got true bypass and a 1 meg ohm impedance buffer. Time to learn how to play better melodic Travis picking.
How many prototypes did you make until you found THE sound?
I am constantly fascinated by people taking the reins and doing something special and something that THEY want, not necessarily something that they want to sell to the public though that’s certainly cool in its own right.
Tavo Vega is one of these people.
He’s been on the quest to nail the tone that Brian Setzer has when he goes from flat picking to finger picking and as a result he now has the Nocturne pedal that was available in the limited number of twenty-five but due to technical difficulties, couldn’t turn off the PayPal order form soon enough and now has a back log of pedals to make. What started off as something he thought MAYBE some other Setzer fanatics would be interested quickly proved to be more popular than he could have imagined.
Tavo was willing to sit down and answer some questions from the 5th Fret about how this whole pedal making thing started and where he hopes to go and what got him into playing. Enjoy!
How old were you when you first started playing guitar?
My dad taught me to sing and play gospel standards in the style of Elvis and Johnny Cash, basic little first position stuff around age 9 or 10. In fifth grade I was taking "official" lessons that I disliked by a proper professor; Zolts Bayor, the school’s violin teacher.
What made you want to play?
I used to watch my Dad and uncle sit on the front porch with a big silverface Bassman. I remember my uncle with the bass in one channel and my Dad with a Fender Coronado II he built, plugged in to the other channel singin’ and rockin’. That was his outlet once I came into the world and he had to quit playing in his rockabilly band. He worked for Fender in the 60s at the time Leo was bowing out and CBS was taking over. I can just barely remember my mom and me picking him up at those old quonset hut buildings in Fullerton (we grew up in orange county). Then he'd come home and play that guitar then listen to Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins, Elvis, The Ventures and Tony Mattola.
As I mentioned above, it was 5th grade that it became more of a focus and pushed by my parents to be trained formally. I think I fought it for a year or so, because I wanted to play rock n roll by ear and he wanted me to learn the correct way. I won out though when my let me take his Coronado to school for a lesson with a Magnatone Varsity amp and when I was setting it up some girls walked by and spotted that Fender guitar. When they giggled and smiled at my power chords, that was it. It became my life at that moment, been at it ever since...
What was your first guitar?
Very first was a plastic electric from Sears at age 4, ha! First real guitar was a classical student guitars for lessons, but I played my dad's Montgomery Wards Airline loaded with fender jaguar pickups until he let me use his Fender Coronado II in my high school rockabilly band ‘till my senior year when I bought a candy apple Strat copy and a Peavey 1x12 combo. I guess technically my first electric was the Airline my dad finally gave to me.
How did your band get together?
Been in too many bands to begin to mention since the early 80s. I started with vintage rock n’ roll and I've been back at it now for a while as I started feeling the urge to play "real" gigs again - to play clubs and bars with my own rockabilly music and vintage gospel so I've had some younger cats backin' me on and off since. Got my current Album on iTunes "Songs of Justice" by my trio called Tavo and The Flat Black Thrillers and Ol' Skool Rodz magazine just gave me a great review in the latest issue #35 Sept. 09 (had to blow the horn, it was exciting to be in my favorite hot rod mag).
I hope to start giggin’ again this holiday season, I dig Xmas.
What inspired you to make the Brain Seltzer Nocturne?
One thing I could never get out of my guitar and amp when I folded the pick in my palm to do finger pickin' like Setzer..was that punchy, twangy sheen that seemed to pop off the notes in that BSO (Brian Setzer Orchestra – ed.) Dirty Boogie album. I'm not talking about his talent or what his fingers can do that my dumb hands will never muster, I'm talking about how his finger picking tone almost seems to jump out of the guitar amp more than his picking tone. Obviously each sounds different than the other but when Setzer does it through his rig, it gets all dynamically woody and twangy at the same time. Kinda the sound when you put your ear down against the body to the Gretsch's upper bout while you play.. One ear is hearing the inside of the guitar and the other hears the amp. I love that.
I KNEW there was something special about his use of the exact Roland Space Echo "RE-301".. So I bought an RE-150, RE-201 and an RE-301(the one I have now still own, was a big gift from a secret friend)..tore ‘em apart, studied them and then had a local tech repair them and sell them off. I found out that the RE-301 uses Op-amps instead of Transistors, and they also dumped the use of carbon comp resistors for carbon film. The RE-301 is much cleaner and dynamic in its mids sonic spectrum, low to high. This got me thinking about my recording and live sound experience with microphones and mic pre's. It’s always a challenge to reproduce an accurate acoustic sound from pianos, violins, accordions, etc and a good mic is not good enough, you need a solid pre-amp.
So I kept this in mind reminding myself that a mic needs to have roughly 10x its own impedance from a mic pre to do its best and THAT told me SETZER's funky Filtertrons are wacky little microphones that pickup both string and body vibration in a strange blend of semi-microphonic, humbucking duty, but then the PRE AMP of that particular space echo is coloring, enhancing and emphasizing how well they are hearing what the musicians hands are doing! That’s the freakin’ mystery revealed to me... So now the RE-301s pre-amp is artfully recreated and its mojo lives in a beautiful little pedal box and you can decide to use analog or digital echoes with it. Both are enhanced dramatically with it. I'm tired of guitar effects pedals, so now I have an effects box made for my amp and it’s got true bypass and a 1 meg ohm impedance buffer. Time to learn how to play better melodic Travis picking.
How many prototypes did you make until you found THE sound?
Two of them.. The first was some guitar amp tech's idea of the re-301s schematic but he fuddled it with too many extra parts and didn’t even use the correct op-amp. Charged me crazy money and took way too long (he still is an excellent vintage fender amp guy though, the bomb). Ironically when my new buddy Lou took over, he scrapped most of the other's parts, but liked the idea of using the weird out of date op-amp from the previous version. I told him I needed the circuit to stay true to everything happening in the re-301, but I didn’t want to be cloning something or stealing anything, so it’s a "re-invention" that is meant to let the guitarist have what’s going on in Setzer's set-up without turning a damn Bassman all the way up to 6 to get it. My Nocturne box will kick your amp in the teeth right around 3-4 o’clock. A Healthy level that won’t get you in trouble with the stage manager. It’s what I always wanted and dreamed about. I made it for me so I could play the sounds I hear in Setzer's recordings, and as well the sounds that I hear The Edge getting with his Gretsch.
Yes I am a secret U2 worshipper since I saw "New Years Day" the minute MTV came to my television in the early 80s.
Yes I am a secret U2 worshipper since I saw "New Years Day" the minute MTV came to my television in the early 80s.
How did you make the jump from one for yourself to a limited run of 25?
Uh..My poor dental hygienist wife having to go to work fulltime and one really benevolent friend(gave me a RE-301) kickin’ me to use some other talents in life and stop moping around like a sad-ass out of work musician. Figured if I could sell a few to friends with the same obsession, maybe I'd recover the money I'd taken from our family budget to develop the Nocturne. I ended up making a total of 25 because that was the price break on the boxes. I thought it was nutty to order anymore than 15 but now that’s history.
Are they selling faster than you thought they would?
Sheeze... I was hoping maybe 5 would sell and I could slowly pawn off the others on eBay but they freakin’ all sold out in less than 3 weeks. BLEW my mind but I have this warm feeling inside because now I know I am not alone in wanting this thing. Everyone that bought one of the first 25 is part of a very long journey and I think that is what makes me shed a quiet tear late at night as I lay awake in terror thinking about how I am gonna finish all twenty five boxes in a 4 week time frame. I was dumb to put up the blog site with only one pedal done, but eh, now I've learned to solder tiny, tiny solder joints faster than I first did 4 weeks ago. It’s a major learning experience. Prior to this I've just been modding guitars, amps, building Teles ‘n fixing upright basses and broken pedals. Crazy.
The big question: Are you planning to make more?
I wasn’t, no waaay...until last week, so as of this moment now… Ironically yes. For some reason I lost the password to my Blogspot and that damn Google won’t return my emails so the PayPal button couldn’t be shut off quick enough when the pedals ran out..so uh.. now I'm back ordered. I even had to sell Vince Ray my own kandy orange version.
This led to an immediate sit down with the family. The wife now is the inventory clerk, the 13yr old is the circuit board stuffer and the 6 yr old makes the shipping boxes. This ol’ dude sits back in the air condition-less (100 degrees) shop/rehearsal studio, sanding, drilling, grinding and soldering endlessly with hillbilly and country music blasting. Can’t complain, there is a fridge full of good beer and no boss to verbally beat me up anymore.
Allllll to sayyyy... I in fact just ordered 25 more blank boxes and we go for round two. Round two!! I can’t believe the whole thing. It would be very cool if it turned into something I could count on. Then my family and I could finally move to Nashville like we planned before the So. Cal. housing economy crashed (our 1900sqft home is now worth half of what we owe).
Will you perhaps be adopting Charvel's practice of changing the colors based on run/year of release?
I never knew Charvel did that but it’s a good idea, thanks. My buddy Pistol Pete, the uber-kustom car painter/artist wants me to settle down and just do the pearl orange "tangelo" w/ cream pinstripes only. We do want to keep the looks totally about hotrods and '59 era Vegas though: vintage 'rods meets the rat pack but stays faithful to the Gretsch guitar and
greaser rockabilly/vintage country music we love so dang much.
Are you having thoughts of diving deeper into this pedal making business and hanging your shingle permanently?
I dropped out of college in my 3rd year, got Married and then bought a 28yr old commercial sign and acrylic fab co. that made me more money than I'd ever had before and then I got robbed of everything in one evening, all within 3 yrs. It screwed us up financially so bad early in our marriage, I had to file chapter 11 and I vowed to never ever go into commercial manufacturing again. What do you do with that, and now this new fun thing happening to our family? Maybe the good Lord is saying my days on stage in front of a band are winding down now that I'm 44. That scares me. My whole identity has been wrapped around a mic and a guitar for decades.
I don’t know, other than I want to give anyone that needs a Brain for their Blonde, a Nocturne.. so it’s one pedal at a time?
If you plan on making more, will the price remain the same at $165.00 plus an optional $65.00 for kandy or flake colors?
Well I don’t know what to say into that other than darn PayPal takes $7 dollars of that $165 and free USA priority shipping another $10. If you notice my unique pedal boxes are purposefully made by a hardworking American in NY and they cost triple what the crap offshore $5 Hammond boxes do. You can literally drive a truck over these double thick jobbies. Plus having Pistol Pete, a local Kustom Car painter shoot hot rod paint on these, hand pinstripe and then slather poly over that with my vintage style water decals made by a former employee of the Stardust hotel (gotta dig that font)… The cost is high. But can you put a price on American made art that makes your Gretsch do what mine does now?
I guess you can, and for now its $165, unless you want a trophy pedal and let Pete do his chopper gas tank treatment. I never intended to create a company, never planned to get "paid," but I guess I need to do some kind of planning SOON.
Just off the cuff, a few close friends are giving me the shoulder shrug like "what about us, where's my pedal?" Same with my son, so I thought it'd be sweet to make a Kandy champagne sparkle and Silver sparkle around the holidays, maybe push the Stardust hotel schtick with a 60s aluminum Xmas tree vibe. I'm gonna at least make 2 like that this month as a friend
said she'd do the photo shoot for me. I can have a thousand ideas and be an art fart, being a business man is no fun.
What do you do for a living?
Since I recently quit my two decade long vocation as a church Music Director this last summer and took a break from the band thing to write another album, I've been working at nights doing my guitar biz and taking care of my two boys during the day. That is until this wacky pedal thing started up, now it’s all I do(beside caring for my kids of course). Still have a half-built Tele on the bench all by its lonesome.
What is your experience with electronics and pedal making?
My electronics knowledge for the guitar biz started in magazines back in high school and then internet when I got online to learn how to fix friends’ rigs. I know enough about top grade guitar equipment to cause some folks to trust me helping them have better tone . The only previous experience with pedals was hopping up Tube Screamers, wahs, fuzzes, etc, nothing to speak of. I have no interest in being part of that whole boutique builders guild. Again, I'm a musician with just enough tech knowledge to be as dangerous as needed to have fun guitar toys. :)
What gear do you use live?
My live rig for the last 5 yrs has been a 6120SSU, a Spectrasonic (sold that to pay for all this Nocturne stuff) and a late 63' 6G6-B transitional blonde Bassman (I recapped it with orange drop, F&T and Sprague caps using c5 series Ruby preamp tubes and NOS 6L6WGB Phillips). The cab is a Fender custom shop Tonemaster cab loaded with Celestion V30. My basic pedal board is a Peterson Strobostomp, Nocturne, Fulltone Supatrem, TIM pedal, 80s DM-3 analog delay and Maxon cs550 chorus in b-mode for SRV Vibrotone sounds.
As a player, what are you gassing for right now?
I'd like to be able to afford to get my Gretsch Spectrasonic back and as well my Tophat Super-deluxe 212 back. That is the ultimate modern guitar-amp combo in my book. Plus I kinda miss my post-Fender Roundup.. so light and twangy compared to my 89' Sparklejet clunker.
Just going by the video you posted on your site (located at http://thenocturnebrainseltzer.blogspot.com/) you did an amazing job with the pedal. It was particularly crazy how the great tone sneaks in and then when you pull the plug at the end of the video and plug back in to the amp you're left with an empty feeling, and you know that your pedal REALLY adds something to the mix.
It’s something I am proud to finally own and share..maybe even Mr. Setzer might try one someday.
Many thanks to Tavo for taking time out of his busy day to come into the A/C and answer our questions. A lot of the writers here are fans of Brian Setzer’s tone but know that 301’s are pricey so not everyone is as privy to that kind of tone.
Until now.
Be sure to check out his blog and watch the videos. Like I said, it’s amazing to hear how much that great tone sneaks up on you. If you’re like me, you’ll be saying “oh that doesn’t sound too different” and then he pulls the plug and goes back into the amp and you realize that there was a HUGE difference after all.
Keep it up, Tavo!
-Pappy
P.S. Here are a couple of pictures from Tavo's next run of Nocturnes. They look awesome!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Six String Bliss Review For Vets
SIX STRING BLISS TEAMS WITH PETERSON STROBE TUNERSTO BRING MUSIC TO INJURED AND AILING
CHICAGO, IL (September 1, 2009) – Six-String Bliss, the premier guitar-talk podcast since 2004, has teamed with Peterson Strobe Tuners to raise funds for Guitars For Vets, a non-profit organization that provides musical instruments and education for Veterans.
Six-String Bliss reviewed the Peterson StroboStomp 2 on Episode 164 of their podcast released on August 31st. Thanks to the generosity of Peterson Electro-Musical Products, this piece of gear will be the first step in a fund-raising effort for Guitars For Vets.
“We wanted to do something that would benefit this great cause,” says Six-String Bliss host Andy ‘Pipes’ Piper. “Times are tight, and giving is down for all non-profits. We wanted to give our listeners a way to donate and get some great gear.”
Here’s how the Reviews for Vets program will work: Six-String Bliss reviews a piece of guitar-related equipment from a participating manufacturer. The gear is then placed on eBay through ‘Giving Works’, an online non-profit fundraising tool. The entire selling price of the gear will then be donated to Guitars For Vets.
Six-String Bliss co-host PT Hylton hopes this will be the first of many ‘Reviews for Vets’. “It’s really a win-win situation,” says Hylton. “Our listeners get the chance to bid on a great piece of gear, and a deserving organization gets to receive the raised funds.”
The Peterson StroboStomp 2 auction will start on September 6th and run through September 13th.
____________________________________________
To get involved with the Reviews for Vets program, please contact Andy ‘Pipes’ Piper at pipes@sixstringbliss.com
About Guitars For Vets:Guitars For Vets is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Milwaukee, WI, that provides ailing and injured veterens with guitars and instruction. The hope of Guitars For Vets is that self expression through the gift of music will restore the feelings of joy and purpose that can be lost after suffering trauma.
About Peterson:Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc. is a Chicago-based, family-owned company that has been manufacturing electronic tuners since 1948. Most commonly recognized for their mechanical strobe tuning products, Peterson also offers a digital line of instrument tuners. The Virtual Strobe™ series was introduced in 2001, followed by the first ever True-Bypass tuner of any kind, the Peterson StroboStomp™ in 2004. StroboSoft™, Peterson's strobe tuning software for PC/Mac, was released in 2005 followed up the major release of StroboSoft 2.0 in 2008. iStroboSoft™ for the iPhone™ and iPod touch® was introduced in 2009.
About Six-String Bliss: Six-String Bliss is the internet’s longest running guitar talk podcast. Since 2004, the Bliss has brought together a worldwide community of passionate guitarists in a weekly discussion designed to share our passion for guitars and delivered directly to our listeners’ computers. Visit them at www.sixstringbliss.com.
CHICAGO, IL (September 1, 2009) – Six-String Bliss, the premier guitar-talk podcast since 2004, has teamed with Peterson Strobe Tuners to raise funds for Guitars For Vets, a non-profit organization that provides musical instruments and education for Veterans.
Six-String Bliss reviewed the Peterson StroboStomp 2 on Episode 164 of their podcast released on August 31st. Thanks to the generosity of Peterson Electro-Musical Products, this piece of gear will be the first step in a fund-raising effort for Guitars For Vets.
“We wanted to do something that would benefit this great cause,” says Six-String Bliss host Andy ‘Pipes’ Piper. “Times are tight, and giving is down for all non-profits. We wanted to give our listeners a way to donate and get some great gear.”
Here’s how the Reviews for Vets program will work: Six-String Bliss reviews a piece of guitar-related equipment from a participating manufacturer. The gear is then placed on eBay through ‘Giving Works’, an online non-profit fundraising tool. The entire selling price of the gear will then be donated to Guitars For Vets.
Six-String Bliss co-host PT Hylton hopes this will be the first of many ‘Reviews for Vets’. “It’s really a win-win situation,” says Hylton. “Our listeners get the chance to bid on a great piece of gear, and a deserving organization gets to receive the raised funds.”
The Peterson StroboStomp 2 auction will start on September 6th and run through September 13th.
____________________________________________
To get involved with the Reviews for Vets program, please contact Andy ‘Pipes’ Piper at pipes@sixstringbliss.com
About Guitars For Vets:Guitars For Vets is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Milwaukee, WI, that provides ailing and injured veterens with guitars and instruction. The hope of Guitars For Vets is that self expression through the gift of music will restore the feelings of joy and purpose that can be lost after suffering trauma.
About Peterson:Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc. is a Chicago-based, family-owned company that has been manufacturing electronic tuners since 1948. Most commonly recognized for their mechanical strobe tuning products, Peterson also offers a digital line of instrument tuners. The Virtual Strobe™ series was introduced in 2001, followed by the first ever True-Bypass tuner of any kind, the Peterson StroboStomp™ in 2004. StroboSoft™, Peterson's strobe tuning software for PC/Mac, was released in 2005 followed up the major release of StroboSoft 2.0 in 2008. iStroboSoft™ for the iPhone™ and iPod touch® was introduced in 2009.
About Six-String Bliss: Six-String Bliss is the internet’s longest running guitar talk podcast. Since 2004, the Bliss has brought together a worldwide community of passionate guitarists in a weekly discussion designed to share our passion for guitars and delivered directly to our listeners’ computers. Visit them at www.sixstringbliss.com.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Why Not A Different Sample CD?
In college I worked at Hot Topic and would pick up sample CDs from Epitaph and Fat Wreck Records partly because I loved hearing bands like NOFX, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, the Mad Caddies, and Bad Religion, but mostly because it was there and after staring at something for five hours while you work a cash register you might start wanting it. They're something like five dollars so really, how could you turn it down?
But sample CDs, while being a good way to put new bands in a spotlight on the record, can be offered in a different way.
For one thing they can be offered online for the same price, but that's not my main point here.
No, I was thinking for bands that have been around for a while like all the bands I mentioned above, that have a large catalog of CDs, there should be sample CDs with one or two songs from each of the CDs. This could give the buyer a taste that is longer than thirty seconds of the general feel of the album those songs are from and gauge whether they like it or not. It would really help with picking out which CDs to buy.
For instance: I picked up a sampler from Epitaph with Shattered Faith by Bad Religion on it. I had never heard Bad Religion but LOVED the song and a few years later I had a chance to burn all sorts of their CDs to try out and none of them sounded like it was THAT Bad Religion. It turns out this may have more to do with the guitarist that was brought in in 1996, Brian Baker, because all of the songs after he arrived sounded more like the Bad Religion I knew and loved.
So here I am, four years after listening to album after album and eventually deleting them and going without only to find out that what I was interested in was the seven albums Baker played on. I genuinely feel like I've been missing out.
But if there had been a Bad Religion sample CD this wouldn't have happened. If it was five bucks like other sample CDs I would also be more inclined to check out more bands because having a one song snapshot of a band is OK, but having a whole sample CD of the band would provide a greater feeling of knowing what you're buying and then they may buy more CDs.
I am not saying you should get rid of the record label sample CD as we know it right now though, because it would serve as an excellent first step. Hearing "Leavin" by the Mad Caddies (a GREAT song, by the way) would make me interested in the band and then a sample CD of all of their albums would show me that every single CD they have is worth listening to and I would have to go out and buy them all, but I would buy them knowing that there are good songs on each and the whole process of discovery and verification would have cost me ten bucks.
-Pappy
But sample CDs, while being a good way to put new bands in a spotlight on the record, can be offered in a different way.
For one thing they can be offered online for the same price, but that's not my main point here.
No, I was thinking for bands that have been around for a while like all the bands I mentioned above, that have a large catalog of CDs, there should be sample CDs with one or two songs from each of the CDs. This could give the buyer a taste that is longer than thirty seconds of the general feel of the album those songs are from and gauge whether they like it or not. It would really help with picking out which CDs to buy.
For instance: I picked up a sampler from Epitaph with Shattered Faith by Bad Religion on it. I had never heard Bad Religion but LOVED the song and a few years later I had a chance to burn all sorts of their CDs to try out and none of them sounded like it was THAT Bad Religion. It turns out this may have more to do with the guitarist that was brought in in 1996, Brian Baker, because all of the songs after he arrived sounded more like the Bad Religion I knew and loved.
So here I am, four years after listening to album after album and eventually deleting them and going without only to find out that what I was interested in was the seven albums Baker played on. I genuinely feel like I've been missing out.
But if there had been a Bad Religion sample CD this wouldn't have happened. If it was five bucks like other sample CDs I would also be more inclined to check out more bands because having a one song snapshot of a band is OK, but having a whole sample CD of the band would provide a greater feeling of knowing what you're buying and then they may buy more CDs.
I am not saying you should get rid of the record label sample CD as we know it right now though, because it would serve as an excellent first step. Hearing "Leavin" by the Mad Caddies (a GREAT song, by the way) would make me interested in the band and then a sample CD of all of their albums would show me that every single CD they have is worth listening to and I would have to go out and buy them all, but I would buy them knowing that there are good songs on each and the whole process of discovery and verification would have cost me ten bucks.
-Pappy
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