TV Jones "T-Armonds"

One of my favorite pickup makes, TV Jones, just recently released the news that he was finally putting into production his take on the DeArmond pickups used by numerous guitar companies in the past and are currently being used in certain Gretsch guitars. Of course, TV is putting his own spin on them and the announcement has a lot of interesting phrases and makes me wonder what it would sound like in not only my Gretsch 6118T, but also my Gibson Les Paul Studio.

Here's the press release (located here: http://www.tvjones.com/pickups/pickups_t_armond.html):

"Introducing an all-American made answer to the modern DynaSonic/DeArmond pickup. The TV Jones T-Armond uses all American-made magnets and an improved design that makes this pickup look and sound much better than a modern DeArmond. With adjustable cylinder magnets, each string can be dialed in for the perfect, sweet DeArmond tone.
Many players of modern DynaSonic pickups complain that the neck pickup has too much output and is too boomy, and the bridge pickup is too thin and bright. Our answer is the T-Armond, which has a clear, transparent and balanced tone in the neck position and a thicker sounding bridge version that has wider pole spacing, which places a magnet directly under each string, resulting in optimum string separation and output. Traditional DeArmonds (as well as most pickups) have the same pole spacing at the neck and bridge. All TV Jones bridge pickups are designed with this wider pole spacing and the T-Armond is no exception.

With the capabilities of making our own bobbins, we can, for the first time ever, offer a DeArmond style bass guitar pickup, with four adjustable magnets. Another innovation is the T-Armond in a P-90 soapbar mount. You can now replace a stock P-90 with a DeArmond style pickup without having to modify your guitar. A really cool combination is a P-90 in the neck and T-Armond in the bridge. This combo can add unmatched versatility and texture to your guitar.

The T-Armond comes with 2-conductor “switchable” wiring to solve any out-of-phase issues, and is available in the DeArmond mount and P-90 soapbar mount in black and cream. The T-Armond pickup series will be unveiled at Winter NAMM this January and available to the public shortly thereafter."

If you would like to be notified, there's a link to email the TV Jones crew so you can be among the first to know prices and details when they come out (scheduled for Winter NAAM).

TV Jones also released his version of the P90 (here's the link complete with video: http://www.tvjones.com/pickups/p90.html) which I DO want in my Gibson Les Paul, and while both of these pickups sound incredibly intriguing, I would really love a P90 in a filtertron mount so it could be a direct drop in on my Gretsch (Seymour Duncan offers one at a ridiculous price). The same goes with the T-Armond. I would really like direct drop ins for my Gretsch to increase efficiency and ease of pickup swaps so I could change my tone easily.

Be sure to take a look. Even though TV Jones is often associated with Gretsch, you'll find his pickups are nothing but quality and are used in all sorts of guitars. I've seen home hot rodders add them to Stratocasters and Fender uses them in the La Cabronita Especial so they work with other guitars.

-Pappy

Jemsite's Recommended Reading List

Hey everyone! I don’t know if you’ve been looking at Jemsite’s recommended reading list lately but if you have you’ll notice that the 5th Fret is on it! WHOO! This is awesome! I saw great blogs that had the medal (now on the right side of the page) and thought maybe someday but I never expected it to really happen. I’m just a guy tapping away at his keyboard about music and guitars.

The best part about this though isn’t that I was put on the list by some one person, but the fact that it was readers at Jemsite who recommended the blog as a “leading music blog.”

That’s wicked awesome and I would like to thank everyone that recommended the blog and those that keep coming back to read more. This is just really cool.

-Pappy

Rock N Roll Relics Interview

Billy at Rock N Roll Relics makes some of the best looking relics today. He's the one responsible for the Joe Strummer Tele that I showed here a little while ago. I emailed him and asked if he would be willing to sit down to an interview and he was kind enough to oblige. Check it out:

5th Fret: How old were you when you first started playing guitar?

Billy: I believe I was around 10 or 11, but I got serious about around 16 and actually had a pretty good career playing music in the 80's, and believe it or not I'm still at.

What kind of music do you play?

I play straight up Rock N' Roll! My style and band has a very AC/DC/Aerosmith feel with a bit of 70's punk thrown in. I also play slide guitar and my influence with that is Johnny Winter, Billy Gibons, Joe Perry, Joe Walsh, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Mick Taylor, Many Charlton etc .... You can hear songs from my band at: jetboyrocks/myspace.com

I love all styles of music as well from pop to rock to punk and metal to country and blues and so on!

What was your first guitar?

My first guitar was a Memphis Gibson Jr copy, heritage red .... I wish I still had it. Second guitar was a 1969 Gibson SG, I sure wish I still had that.

What's your current rig?

My current rig is a 1979 100 watt Marshall JMP running through a 4x12 Marshall cab with Celestian speakers. Guitars I use are: 1976 Gretsch 'White Falcon', 1975 Travis Bean, 1991 SG Junior, 1980 ?? Epiphone 'Sheraton', Gretsch 'Malcolm Young' Signature model, late 70's Greco black beauty and a reissue 10 string BC Rich (refinished Joe Perry Red with Bill Lawrence pickups).

Was your first relic built for yourself or someone else?

I built it for myself and ended up selling it which is where it all started, it was a blond Tele.

What kind of work goes in to one of your guitars?

I start with raw bodies, necks and parts and go from there. I use nitro on the bodies and necks and age up the hardware to whatever level the customer is after. It's the basic levels of work starting with prepping the body and neck then going from there.

What's your standard setup as far as pickups go for your guitars?

I've used several different pickups, I leave that up to the customer. But now I work exclusively with Nunley Custom unless the customer has a specific pickup they wanna use.

Are there general ballpark prices for your guitars? Are there tiers or prices based on amount of relicing?

The starting price for a Rock N' Roll Relic is $1,600.00 and will go up from there whether it's lots of relic work, certain pickups, a period piece or a clone of say a Micawber.

How long does it generally take to build a guitar?

I always say approx 4-6 weeks. It could take longer if I have a big work load in front of me but even then I usually can can get one done within that time frame.

Are there any limits on customer customization?

Not really, if the customer gives me a rough idea or photos of what they want I can work with that and nail it. I'll send photos as it gets to the relic stage to make sure it's looking to their liking as well.

Has anyone asked for a non relic guitar?

Yeah, I've done I think maybe two??? Not a big request.

How did the Joe Strummer tele come to be?

That came from from the customer who liked my work and was a huge Joe Strummer/Clash fan. Funny enough so am I so it was something I was way into doing and nailing it as close as I could. We did a lot of research and I was sent loads of photos of the guitar through Joe's career to analyze. It sure got a lot of attention, it was even shipped over to the UK for one of the Strummer camps they do every year. I heard it even fooled Joe's long time guitar tech for about 5 minuets LOL it's a shame that Fender didn't put as much into the Strummer signature model as they did some of the other ones they've done.

I think it's kind of sad that they didn't come to you first when the idea came to them to make a mass market Strummer Tele.

I wish they did, at least it would have been a realistic looking 'Strummer' relic let a lone pay respect to one of the greatest songwriters of all time! They've got it all backwards if you want my opinion with their signature relic builds.

Why do you think that? How would you handle it if you were running the Custom Shop?

I'm a big Clash/Joe Stummer fan and I feel he is partly responsible for the whole punk movement as for the Ramones, Sex Pistols etc .. And the Clash had a leading role in that movement who were just as important as Eric Clapton or the Police in my opinion, but that's my opinion. If I had been involved in the custom shop build I would have made sure it was just like Joe's Tele and made it look just like his guitar as they did with the Eddie Van Halen model.

The Strummer Tele is an obvious step up from the Fender model, but has anyone asked you to make a direct copy of another guitar and if so, how did you respond?

The Strummer guitar I did was about a year before Fender put theirs out so it was kinda funny to see it happen, especially after I saw it. I've had people ask about getting one made but no one has actually placed an order so that's still #1. I get a few request for a clone's of a certain guitar heroes guitar, I've done a few Micawbers and Sprigsteens.

Is there any practical reason to relic a finish or is it just a personal thing like preferring red shirts or green shirts?

Not really other than it looks cool if it's done right. For me, I've always been a fan of beat up guitars just like I love my beat up old converse tennis shoes, I guess that's part of the Rock N' Roll in me.

______________________________

Many thanks to Billy for sitting down and answering all of my questions for the interview and fielding my requests for quotes for dream guitars that were put to him out of sheer curiosity. If you would like to learn more about Rock N Roll Relics, be sure to visit http://www.rocknrollrelics.net/. There's even a section called "Pickers" on the left hand menu that will allow you to see an approximation of what S and T style guitars will look like with various options in different colors in the Relic light. Very cool thing to check out.

-Pappy

Question For The Readers!

I'm just curious, what are the general feelings toward the new header logo? Is it too big or small on your screens? Is the gray too much, font too light or dark, etc? Please let me know so I can amend it if necessary. I know on my computer screen it looks like there's a chunk of white space on either side of the picture but on my iPhone, that space is significantly smaller.

I would really appreciate any input you have!

Thanks for your time!

-Pappy

Let The Dead Lie

It's that time of year again. The wind is blowing, the lights are shining, all of the restaurants are bringing back their holiday flavored treats and Guitar World is once again putting out a magazine that deals with the untimely death of Dimebag Darrell.

Last year I bought it mainly because I was deployed and so very bored. It's not like I thought I would read anything new, I was just looking to read SOMETHING guitar related and to be completely fair, the article where GW interviewed Darrell's roadie was pretty interesting. OK, maybe he WASN'T his roadie throughout his whole career but it was still pretty illuminating as far as his technical stuff went. I thought it was interesting that such a loud and heavy guitarist wanted to use half stacks instead of full stacks and that he was always trying to short-change pawn shop owners on guitars he wanted to buy.

But the drama of his death and what caused it, frankly, needs to stop. It's not that no-one cares, because people do, it's more that anything that needs to be said has already been said and it's probably been said by the people that were more involved and NOT by hangers-on.

Look, Dimebag was a great guitarist and he had a great spirit and his musical mark is always going to be there, even if it might not be as big as it should be (drama overshadows musical talent ten out of ten times). His column taught people like me that you have to tune UP to pitch, not down because if you tune down from a sharp note, you'll only go flat after minimal picking. And Guitar World is of course free to publish whatever they want but I think if they're going to do an annual release mourning his death all over again they need to stick to releasing separate special issues filled with his column contributions, videos, interviews and lessons. Nothing else. I don't want to read what someone ELSE thought about him because what they think doesn't really matter to me.

Personally, I think one of Dimebag's sponsoring companies has it right by putting in an ad his birth and death dates and saying they miss him. Obviously it's still an ad, but there's no drama to it and it's a good reminder of who he was and what he played.

I think that the great dead should be remembered and respect given. That's why in the future you'll probably see a remembrance post, but it will be posted on it's own, not as a regularly scheduled blog post and unless I'm feeling particularly wordy, it will probably just include the dates and the picture.

Because I want to remind everyone, not try to make money off of it.

-Pappy

Top 5: Gretsch Signature Guitars

A while back I posted my top five list of NON Gretsch guitars but anyone who’s read this blog for any amount of time probably knows that I’m a huge fan of Gretsch. Given any chunk of money and asked to pick a guitar I would probably pick a Gretsch, even though there are other guitars I want as well. It’s just that there’s so many of them that I think are cool and sound so different from one another that it’s justifiable to me.

So let’s kick this off!

Patrick Stump Corvette

The Corvette is an unstoppable rock machine, but can be coerced into doing so much more. They clean up incredibly well and I strongly believe that they’re some of the best guitars that Gretsch is offering right now and at the price that they’re at, it’s an easy way to get great tone from a great company. Armed with three pickups and a switch system that must leave a spaghetti of wires under the pickguard, it is nowhere near “limited.” AND I didn’t hit the middle pickup with my pick which was the thing I was most concerned with.

Bo Diddley “Billy Bo”

I’m not a fan of the regular Bo Diddley model. I hear it’s comfortable to play standing up, but I just can’t get over the looks. And, all truth be told, I was not a fan of the Billy Bo either. I considered it way too ugly. Then I started thinking it’s so ugly it’s cool. Then I just plain thought it was cool. This was around the time that I got to play one. It had a wicked comfortable neck and the tone was as raunchy as raunchy can be. The body was very comfortable too. Nice and light and it had good balance. Unfortunately, it’s one of the more expensive models offered by Gretsch, but even so, it’s a VERY cool guitar. You can even find them in the rare white with gold sparkle trim ala White Falcon or in the even more rare black with silver sparkle trim ala Silver Falcon.

Out of the three, I actually dig the red the most but my favorite scheme I’ve seen came from a member of the Gretsch Discussion Pages who Photoshopped one with a single bridge pickup, kill switch and a killer taxi cab theme.

I will say though that these guitars do not need a pickguard. A pickguard has never interfered with my playing as much as the one on this model.

Black Phoenix

Armed with three basic signature guitars, Setzer has good odds of being featured on any top 5 signature Gretsch list, but the Phoenix is on this list not because there was any sort of shortage of signature models. It’s there because it’s an awesome guitar that really made me feel connected to it. Not in the traditional way of great tone or great feel (though both were great) but the lack of controls made me feel like it was just me and the guitar in a more intimate way. There wasn’t an option of a tone switch or changing volume for this pickup or that pickup, it was just me, two pickups and a selector and it also happened to be the most freeing experience I’ve ever had with a guitar. It felt like it was just me and the guitar suspended in space all alone. Never mind that I was in a huge room with dozens of people including Fred Gretsch III saying the Phoenix is a great guitar, none of that mattered and it was a stunning moment.

By the way, that feeling did not extend to the Hot Rod line at all. Something about that big body and long scale, I guess.

Chris Cheney

Gretsch does things sometimes that makes me sad to live in America. White Corvettes and Silver Sparkle 6118s are available in Japan, white 5124s were available in Europe and the Chris Cheney Falcon is available in Australia. It makes sense because the Living End is HUGE in Australia and here in the States, they are either on a festival circuit or in small clubs and that’s a bummer for them, but a benefit for me provided I’m living someplace that they’re coming and can see them.

I really wish them all the success in the world though. Chris Cheney is who made me want to play guitar in the first place. He was the first Guitar Hero of mine and has a special place in my heart because of it (and the fact he can play like a mother).

This Falcon should come to the States not only because TLE would get greater exposure and Gretsch would get more sales, but because I’m sure there are fans of the Falcon look but don’t want the Falcon size. This is basically a really dressed up 6120 and one of the few Falcons that are white and trimmed in something that isn’t gold. There’s an audience for this, Gretsch. Not everyone likes gold with white.

David Lee

Last but not least, another Falcon, the only other white Falcon that doesn’t come with gold trim. Oddly enough, David Lee posted a few pictures of his first prototype that had SILVER sparkle binding, not black and it was more akin to a Phoenix than a Falcon, but through whatever happened, the guitar ended up with black binding and block inlays and it’s a smoking-looking guitar. Unfortunately, they’re incredibly limited and I’ve even heard reports of people buying them and sticking them under their beds for future financial success. Nuts to that. Pull that thing out and 1) play it and 2) sell it because this is a guitar that NEEDS to be played. If Gretsch made this a production model, I would sell my blood on a regular basis to help fund the purchase because it looks so great and I imagine the tone is to die for. One day I hope to play one, not own, just PLAY one to see how it is.

So there we have it, one more Top 5 list. High Fidelity (great movie) really did a number on me and because of that movie, I’ve been making top 5 lists since I was in college so this probably won’t be the last.

-Pappy

Pickguard Contest

Sarssipius from the blog muzicosphere (http://www.muzicosphere.com) alerted me to his blog located here: http://www.muzicosphere.com/headline/2718?lang=en. He wanted me to pass it on to any readers who happen to not subscribe to his blog and I'm more than happy to. I hope anyone that's in the market for a new pickguard or just looking for something cool will check it out and get the details.

The guitar pickguard giveaway is located here: http://www.muzicosphere.com/geek-de-zic/2760?lang=en

And bassists aren't left out. Your details are here: http://www.muzicosphere.com/geek-de-zic/2764?lang=en

Entering is as easy as leaving a comment on the blog, but you should check out some of these pickguards. The use of real pictures on pickguards is a pretty cool idea.

-Pappy

The Free Market

Capitalism is an interesting thing, full of difficult decisions. Say I made guitars for a living. I probably put a ton of time and effort into each guitar and because of this, I'd like to get the maximum amount of return for the guitar. I want to make a profit. This is a completely natural thing and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it BUT one would have to consider heavily the price they are putting on the products they make.

Take the Fender La Cabronita Especial, for instance. It's a really cool guitar from the Fender Custom shop with pear Sperzel tuners, a TV Jones Powertron (or two) and interesting wiring. It LOOKS cool. The video I posted of it earlier is pretty awesome too. It's obvious that there's some amazing tone in the guitar.

Fender would like you to pay over five THOUSAND dollars for that tone though. According to Sweetwater.com, the price for a two pickup La Cabronita is $5,260.00.

And hey, if they want to charge that much for any guitar that's fine. That's their right. It's even OK for them to limit the model as tightly as they do (to date: 20 in black, 20 in gold, 20 in red, and 20 in blond). But there are those that think that any guitar that is based on a Telecaster with a bolt-on neck and the potential for you to buy the exact same parts and build it yourself for well under ONE thousand dollars depending on the parts you use or guitar you pick. Obviously if you buy a Roadworn Tele and route the pickup holes to accommodate Filtertrons and then pick up TV Jones' Telecaster bridge it will cost more than a thousand but you're still looking at 320.00 for the pickups and bridge and then the thousand for the Tele so even then, yes, it's a bit pricey but it isn't laughing at you from the realm of the impossible.

I'm curious where Fender gets the justification? TV Jones has been putting Filters in Teles for years, he even used to make bridge Telecaster pickups to match volume and strength for Filtertron neck pickups before he decided to make a new bridge. Fender's idea isn't new, so why the high price tag?

The risky thing about price is unless you have something that is hard or impossible for others to duplicate like a Parker guitar, you have to price your widget accordingly otherwise people will pass you by even though in all fairness that probably would have bought from you if your prices had been more reasonable. If Fender's La Cabronita was $2,000.00 I might be able to justify spending it because it has specs that I like, but at over five thousand dollars, it might as well not exist for me.

But the Tele shape is WIDELY known and used by everyone, be it big guitar companies like ESP or small independent luthiers like Steve Benford. There's also Billy, who made the amazing reproduction Joe Strummer Tele that looks spot on with the original who says he will make you one that looks exactly like the Fender one (save the headstock logo. That's illeagal and just plain wrong) custom built with your choice of the level of wear (and no one knows how to relic a guitar like Billy) and your choice of color for $1,900.00.

I've seen other people that are not really in the business and don't want to be named or pointed out for fear that the big F will start watching them closely that will make you the same thing with light wear (closet classic kind of wear) in your choice of any Fender color for $1,600.00.

So with these competitors who have no interest in limiting the guitars they make to only a certain number in a certain color and want to price the guitar so that it actually SELLS, how can you be shocked that they exist?

In all fairness, Fender probably isn't shocked. They've been at this game for a long time now and know that they release SRV's #1 tribute, a ton of people are going to do it to their guitar or to guitars to sell. Perhaps this is why they limited the numbers. It would be easy to price so high for a limited model and hopefully have collectors snatch them up and at 40 a year, well, that's only 40 guitars that need to get sold worldwide. I'm sure they can swing it.

But this is just an interesting thing to me. I would buy the Fender in a heartbeat because it's the first place I saw the amazing looking black La Cabronita and the red one looks pretty stunning too, but at that price, it just isn't going to happen and now that there are different avenues of approach for the exact same spec'd guitar for significantly less, I feel a lot better about this particular case of GAS. Fender priced me right out of their market so I needed to find a new market and lo and behold, there is one that has the same quality and even more options. It's something to keep in mind about the free market.

-Pappy

Guitar Goddess

Kudos to Strat-O-Blogster for tipping me off about this:

http://guitargoddess.com

You often hear people say "why don't female guitarists get more attention?" and it's a fair question. Personally, I hope that the overwhelmingly supportive number of voices that ask this question go out and buy the magazine to try it out, otherwise it may fade away and then we'll know the answer to the question:

Because no one was interested.

Personally, I'm interested. I want to see what kind of magazine this is so perhaps this weekend I'll be heading off to Barnes & Noble, the place where I'm most likely to find a magazine like this.

And while we're on the topic of female guitarists getting the shaft, I've never understood the Boy's Club mentality. Half of the popular guys associated with classic rock looked like girls anyway, so why do girls get the figurative shaft so often?

I have a small story about a female guitarist:

I started out self taught. AND I was (still am) a slow learner. When I started playing it took probably a month before I learned that I could strike a note and hammer on to another note without picking again. A huge light bulb went off in my head. I found out a girl in one of my classes was a guitarist and for some reason or another she came over to my house after school to jam with me. I happened to be borrowing another amp at the time so it was fine with me. She asked me if I knew how to palm mute.

"I don't know. I guess it's playing a chord and then silencing it completely with your palm, right?"

Her look to me said wrong.

She showed me how to palm mute and tore UP the fretboard like it wasn't going to be there in five minutes and she needed to make the most of the remaining time. She wailed away on punk and that was my first brush with the genre, taught me how to read TAB, wrote out the bass line for My Girl, and left. She never came back to jam but in that one afternoon I would say that my playing was shaped more than any other experimental formal lesson I would pay for.

I'm eternally grateful to this guitar player who happens to be a girl.

Now, let me tell you something about being completely humbled by a member of the opposite sex so early in your playing career: it doesn't (or shouldn't) hurt at all. She was a much better guitarist and with the first note played, her sex became irrelevant and I was merely a student with a TON to learn.

Perhaps this is why I don't get the elitist attitude that for some reason you need to be equipped with an extra whammy bar to be able to play well.

No matter. Sex doesn't matter to me just like it shouldn't matter to anyone else and ANY guitarist be they male, female or somewhere in between, is respected here based on chops and chops alone.

-Pappy

FTC's New Rules

The Federal Trade Commission instilled new rules saying that any blogger has to divulge whether the products they received were free from the company and what their financial relationship is with advertisers. This was put in place because companies were starting "blogs" where they would "review" products with unfair practices.

Good for the FTC for trying to crack down on this. I would hate to get burned trusting a reviewer only to find out they were lying and now I spent money on junk.

The products that I received for free to review so far for the 5th Fret have been:

1) The Brian Setzer Orchestra's Songs From Lonely Avenue

2) Paul Pigat's Boxcar Campfire

3) A template from bandwebsitetheme.com (in case I ever decide to leave Blogger) and

4) A Tavo Vega Brain Seltzer Nocturne

All of the reviews for the free products were written with 100% honesty and I just wanted to say that lying on a blog to satisfy a producer is stupid. It takes away all of whatever level of legitimacy you've gained to that point and you'll end up losing readers and if you lose readers you'll lose the sponsors and you'll be left with nothing.

As far as advertising, I don't take money for my ads. That would make taxes more of a hassle for me and I'm not a fan of doing taxes anyway, so why throw another wrench into the works? I do barter though and am willing to let ads run in exchange for goods to review so long as the producer acknowledges that the review will be completely honest, good or bad. I have no problem writing good reviews and very little problem writing bad ones.

More importantly, I would like to have ads that advertise what I believe in or use. Maybe one day after someone reads a ton of posts they might think that they are on a similar tone page that I am and say "well, he uses it." It's a bit of a reach, but it's what I'm going with.

In the meantime, you can rest assured that I think lying on a blog is absolutely ridiculous and an AMAZING way to kill your own potential for what will no doubt be a cheap price in the long run. Don't sell out, bloggers. That would be stupid.

-Pappy

Buddy Holly Tribute

Someone has reported that Mike Eldred from Fender's Custom Shop has released the scheduled products for 2010. Included are standards like normal relics, a few odd balls like new La Cabronita's and a snake head Tele, but what struck me the most was one listing that said "Buddy Holly Tribute."

I'm a fan of Buddy Holly. Out of the three that died in 1959 on the Day The Music Died (like zombies though, you can't keep good music down) he was definitely the one who had the most music that I personally listen to.

The idea of him getting a tribute model from the Custom Shop is a good one. A ton of the players we normally associate the Strat with all credit Holly with inspiring them to put it on, and besides that, Buddy could PLAY that thing. It's truly a tragedy that he didn't get more time to flesh out new music because it was obvious he wasn't staying in one place or interested in making the same records over and over again.

Not only that but he was a nice guy. According to John Page's website, the Holly family would let anyone come and visit their home and let each and every one of them play Holly's guitar if they wanted.

But what Strat are they going to tribute? John Page has the last Strat Holly ever played, the one he played for less than an hour with before leaving to catch his plane. Wear is minimal.

Still, I am excited to see this. It's nice for the Custom Shop to go back to the people that inspired the people that inspire us today.

-Pappy

Just Plain Cool

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the strange. I can't deny it. If a guitar comes out with a new wood or construction style, I can't help but want to try it. TV Jones' new Model 10 guitar feature an obeche neck, a wood I had never heard of in my life. You better believe I wish I lived in Washington right about now.

But I also love stories. It comes with being a writer, I guess. When I was a teen I saw the Toadies (great band, by the way) at a local radio festival and the singer lifted up his guitar to show off and said something to extent of "pretty cool huh? Made in 19XX here in the USA." I'll admit, that's kind of cool to be so proud of your gear that you bring it up to a crowd that features an unknown size of guitar players who would enjoy something like that.

Now, imagine if you said "In 1898 a barn was raised in the Southeast United States. The joists and beams were made of pine and through time the barn fell in and out of ownership and reliability as all that was once new becomes old and over time the barn was taken down. The good thing is that the shell of the barn protected the joists and beams from the harshness that is Mother Nature and a guitar builder, remembering that the first Telecasters (or Broadcasters as they were first known) were made of pine, purchased the aged wood and started making them guitars. He made them to vintage specs and finished them in a transparent lacquer so you can see the beauty that is natural pine and not have it swallowed by a finish. One of those guitars happens to be the one in my hands tonight."


Maybe it's the guitar geek in me, but if I were at a show and the frontman said that, I would be incredibly interested. I don't know if a non guitarist would. My wife said "yeah it's cool, but why would someone want an old piece of wood made into a guitar?" According to maker Ron Kirn, it all boils down to sap. Sap apparently takes years to crystallize and says this crystallization is what many tout as the reason that vintage guitars sound so good.


To be completely honest, I'm less concerned with WHY the guitar sounds good and more concerned with whether the guitar sounds good and while we're being honest, the story is just too great to ignore. It's such a unique experience to be able to say that YOUR guitar is basically older than any famous vintage guitar.


I won't lie, I like Teles. I think they're cool and the history behind the model is the most interesting to me out of just about any guitar (maybe the Gretsch 6120 comes close but this has more to do with Chet's hesitancy to sign up with Gretsch than it does the actual guitar). I can think of a couple of different Telecaster and Telecaster-style guitars that I would LOVE to own and it was just ONE last year, then it was two a couple of months ago and now it's up to THREE. I would stay off the Internet altogether to avoid the GAS, but then I would be depriving myself of two great hobbies of mine (writing here and... alright, giving myself GAS. It's fun).


All of these pictures are of Ron Kirn's Barn Buster taken completely without his permission and if you would like to see more of Ron's work or check out the LOW price of a guitar of this caliber (mind-blowing is a word that comes to mind regarding the price), check out his site at http://www.ronkirn.com/tele.htm.


-Pappy

bandwebsitetheme.com

These days every band needs a web site. The Internet has truly helped eliminate the middle man that was vetting a band through the process of playing local gigs until a record exec saw the band, had enough faith in the band to give them a record deal, record, publish and push the band via radio. There's all sorts of hazards with this of course because it isn't YOU doing the vetting, it's someone else and chances are they're more interested in the band's potential dollar earnings than the music that motivates, inspires and moves you.

But no more. This thing called the Internet lets you go right to the source and start looking for new music. You can search for genres, you can search for a band and thanks to Internet forums or the band's own site you can find other bands that exist in a similar vein. You could even sign up for a MySpace account and not block random bands from trying to befriend you. I promise you, it won't be long at all before they're sending you requests. You'll have more new bands to check out than you can shake a stick at.

But it really helps the band to have a good website. After all, you want your potential fans to have an easy time finding whatever information they're after, right? Of course you do. And whether you believe that a good/bad website design will win/lose fans, why not err on the side of caution?

This morning I received an email from http://www.bandwebsitetheme.com that expressed interest in advertising with us and while I had to politely decline that offer I checked out the site and was pretty impressed. Basically they take away all the coding issues you may have and give you a simple template that looks good and allows for easy to use and understand amendments.

The reason something like this can be used is because we're all musicians or hobbyists first, right? I write blogs, but I mainly play guitar and playing guitar is what made me want to write this blog, just like playing an instrument is what makes you eligible to be in a band that wants to succeed to whatever level you're aiming for. Computer courses don't necessarily come along the way. Some may be technically savvy, some might not and this is for both kinds of people because even if you're a whiz with coding, why not take an easier approach to it?

You can update pictures from Flickr, tweets and even upload your latest YouTube videos and they will all be visible from your site. You can also blog to your heart's content and add and update tour dates. Basically anything you would want your fans to access to, they do and it's easy to follow.

To take a look at a demo they have, you can go here: http://demo.bandwebsitetheme.com/

To be completely honest, I wasn't super interested in this for myself because I don't have a band now and it will probably be a very long time before I ever get in one, but looking at it, I'm thinking that perhaps it may be time for the 5th Fret to move...

But I digress. The good folks at http://www.bandwebsitetheme.com were kind enough to offer all 5th Fret readers a discount of more than 20% for their own code which comes with the web site template that's completely customizable and a guide filled with ideas and ways to promote your music online and in case you don't like it, there's a money back guarantee. You can't lose.

In order to get the discount, just enter "5thFret" as the promo code but it's best not to put this off. The offer expires December 21st.

Merry Christmas from bandwebsitetheme.com and the 5th Fret!

-Pappy

Paul Pigat's Boxcar Campfire

Like any broad musical genre be it metal, punk, rock, country, blues, etc. there are gray lines about where certain bands or specific albums fall in sub-genre wise. Take country for example: country to me is honest and simple. Not simple as in it can’t get complicated musically because it can, but simple as far as emotions go. To me country is all about stories, and being open with your feelings. Your woman left and broke your heart, the flood is drowning all the cotton and is rising up to the cabin, the train is moving along blowing its lonesome whistle. Open and honest.

Going acoustic helps with this. Over production of music makes it too shiny, too perfect and hey, no one’s perfect, right? Right. So why try to take something that should show a topic with warts and all and make it glitzy? If someone is bigger than life in their music and stage show than they aren’t exactly being honest. After all, they’re bigger than LIFE. Over the top. Exaggerating.

Also, to me, country is intimate. A country song should not feel out of place around a campfire or played on your porch or in your kitchen or even noodling around on the couch. You shouldn’t need a billion pedals and a custom guitar to channel honesty with a bit of twang.

Paul Pigat sent me his newest album Boxcar Campfire to review and I think it’s the epitome of country or what country should be. He calls it his acoustic album though there are some electric guitars here and there, and listening to it I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, when someone describes something as acoustic it could be anything, right? The Eagles had an acoustic album, as did Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and even Metallica. You have bands like the Lost Fingers too. Acoustic merely means unplugged so it was pretty exciting listening to it and since you’re reading this, I certainly hope you don’t mind me spoiling it a bit and labeling it “country.”

Ah, but calling it country seems like such a cop out. It’s more than that, really. There are some SERIOUS chops displayed throughout the album and the songwriting is top notch, and it has quite a bit of bluegrass to the feel of it, but it never strays too far from the things that happen to line up exactly with what I call country. Open and honest.

The album being mostly acoustic really helps with this. So does the production value. Let me explain this a bit: you can tell Paul’s playing his heart out but the recording itself doesn’t seem cheap or raw. There’s no buzzing in the backgrounds or extra noise. It’s just the instruments and you can hear every detail about it, even through stock Toyota Carolla speakers, and that’s what I like to hear. Nothing more open and honest than having every detail of your playing recorded perfectly and pumped through your speakers for the world to hear.

And believe me, the world should hear this album. It’s awesome. The songs span all sorts of topics but most of them are a little down. It’s not depressing, but there’s not a lot of happiness either. I really like it. If you turn on the radio the people singing are all extremes. They’re super happy, super in love, super angry, super miserable, etc. etc. While life certainly has these moments, most of your life is probably in an in-between mode where nothing’s too bad but it’s not too great either.

It’s pretty tough for me to review this album just because it’s so tough to describe. Maybe that’s why Paul called it an acoustic album. If I said it was country, comparisons to Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, or Brooks & Dunn might jump to mind and that is NOT what this album sounds like. What I said about it not being that happy of an album might make you think it’s a downer and THAT is not true either. Intimate might make you think slow and so on and so on and everything I could throw out there to describe it would probably make you think of something this album is not.

So to be simple, the album is complex. Emotionally, I mean. It’s the kind of album you listen to the first time and you really want to hear it again because you just have to go through them more and more to fully get the feeling, really listen to the words, really try to take it in. This is not a listen to once and it’s immediately digested. This is quality music that you just have to go back to.

And I have to say, having watched Paul’s instructional DVD and hearing him soft-spoken and humble, the vocals on this are pretty shocking. He’s got some serious soul to him and the vocals display that perfectly.

Everything, the everything-displayed playing, the soulful vocals, the great lyrics, the amazing production value, it all comes together and… well, it ENVELOPS you. That’s the best word to describe it. It’s really a total package and honestly, I’ve never heard anything like it. Paul should send this to Nashville to show them how it’s done.

-Pappy

Edit: After reading the review, I received this email from Paul and thought I would share it with you:

"Hey there,
I love the review. It seems like you really listened to the CD and found it equally as hard to categorize as I did (as you suspected that's why i just called it an acoustic album) It seems you and I share the same beliefs about what country music should be (and blues music for that matter!) Thanks again!
Paul"

Two points for Pappy!

Enlisting Help

If you have any blog ideas rolling around in your head and want to get them out for the world to see and they happen to deal with music, I'm collecting guest blogs to cover a period of time where getting to a computer might be a bit of a hassle for me. You can submit as many blogs as you like for approval, just please include the name you would like to go by at the bottom and please, no politics or profanity.

Word count isn't a huge deal either, but let's say at least three paragraphs (3-5 sentences) and you can write as much as you like. I'm not trying to hinder any writers, I'm just looking for something that take longer than 30 seconds to read.

Any submissions can be sent to rhythmandboos@gmail.com. I look forward to the entries.

Christmas Gift Ideas

When I was a kid, I would go through catalogs from American stores (I lived overseas) and circle what I wanted for Christmas and then I'd hand them to my parents. Christmas shopping was a breeze so long as the latest Lego catalog had arrived.

But growing up, you want gifts that might not be in catalogs or gifts that might be so specialized that your significant other has no clue what to get. My wife has said to me numerous times that she will rarely buy me anything guitar related because she just doesn't know what she's buying.

So regardless of how many times I leave a picture of a Gretsch Patrick Stump Corvette on the computer, she doesn't fall for it.

Now, I've been seeing a lot of gift ideas for guitarists blogs and have to wonder if anyone is actually seeking these pages out. Surely significant others are more inclined to go to their local guitar store and when the boyfriend/girlfriend says "that's an awesome guitar," the S.O. would say "why don't you get it then? MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

So the whole guitar gift idea pages seem a little self-serving. It really doesn't seem like it's helpful, trying to be top position in Google in case some clever person searches it out. It seems like it's there to remind guitarists of trinkets that we didn't know we wanted that may just be cheap enough to ask for fir Christmas.

So, with this in mind, I present my gift ideas for your significant other because you're the one that reads the blog, not them. With this in mind, you should be looking out for them.

There's only one, really.

Soap.

Ah, soap. Bath & Body Works kind of stuff where the only thing you have to keep in mind is what particular scent your partner DOESN'T like because everything else is a practical win.

Now, you obviously can't just go out and buy a bar of Zest and bring it home because that says you think they stink. And buying from Bath & Body Works at your local mall may feel a little last minute too, like you forgot that all those green trees and cardboard snowflakes meant Christmas.

Here's what you do: go to http://www.loveyourmama.com and buy some soap. Actually, buy them a gift set. For 35.00 you can get lotion, soap and a sugar scrub, all hand made in the US by a lovely lady named Emilie in Atlanta, GA.

I was torn for my wife's birthday. Should I get the relaxing scents, or the exhilarating scents? She would surely want to relax after a hard day with the kids, but maybe she would want to be exhilarated to tackle the day in the mornings. It was a tough call, so I chose both and the relaxing scent is her personal favorite. Included with the gift pack was a sample of the new Fresh scent and that was my favorite.

My wife loved it. She was a huge fan of the lotion in particular. Ever hour she would be putting it on again and then smell her hands and say something like "mmmmmmmmmmm. That smells GOOD!"

The gift sets even come in Chinese take out boxes (new ones, not used ones) so you don't even need to wrap them.

As for the quality of the soap, when you start using it, you don't ever really want to stop. It feels really good, smells really good and it's just a great gift.

It will show forethought on your part, it will show that you care, and there's all sorts of bragging rights involved (hand made, made in USA, all natural, support the small businessman, etc. etc.) but at the end of the day your significant other (because it's a good gift for both sexes) will appreciate that you got them a quality gift that works and works well.

And who knows? Maybe after getting a gift like that she'll pay closer attention to your ramblings on how great a Patrick Stump Corvette is play wise, tone wise and in feel...

:-)

Seriously folks, check out what Emilie has to offer. I think I've found an annual gift for my wife, and it's so great, I don't think she'll mind at all.

-Pappy