DigiTech Whammy Winner!

Congratulations to William D. for winning the DigiTech Whammy Wah! I can't thank everyone enough for writing in an participating and I hope it won't be too long before the next giveaway happens!

If you didn't win, don't be too down about it. I'm sure there will be more giveaways in the future. :-)

-Pappy

No White Zombie Reunion

Rob Zombie says he doesn't see the point in reuniting the band White Zombie.

I say good. It's not that I don't like WZ - I do. It's that I think that Rob Zombie has progressed in quality beyond WZ levels and I'm glad he's also reading the crowd. It's a great point that when he plays WZ songs the crowd doesn't really get it because they're too young to remember his old band.

Though I'm pretty sure "More Human Than Human" is still a top choice for any film or TV director with an exciting scene.

Anyway, I say kudos to Mr. Zombie. If the kids want to find out about WZ, let them buy the albums and if the older generation want to listen to music that's even better, they can listen to the band Rob Zombie. If they feel particularly nostalgic, they can throw on the ratty WZ shirt they picked up at Spencer Gifts when they were fourteen, turn on a black light and a horror movie on mute and turn that music UP and think about how their life is going to be SO much sweeter when they become an adult because then they won't have nearly the same level of responsibilities.

-Pappy

Where Did "Album" Come From?

I’ve been wading through the Stupid series (Stupid History, Stupid Christmas, Stupid American History) that deals with history and goofy things that have happened or things that have been twisted through the years into an outright lie. They’re basically trivia books, but they are very entertaining and in one of the facts the author went over the history of the word “album” and why we associate it with… well, albums.

It used to be that because records held so little audio, a recording of, say, an opera would include many records which would be “packaged in brown paper sleeves that fanned out from inside a leather-bound book that resembled a photo album.”

And now you know.

That’s taken from Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions. It’s a book I highly recommend. Actually, all of the Stupid series from Leland Gregory are well worth reading.

Let me know if you folks liked this post and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any more music trivia I happen upon.

-Pappy

Video Remakes

When a movie is really good (and sometimes when it’s not so good) it gets remade a decade or two later and released fresh to a new audience who hasn’t seen it before or the old fans who loved it so much (who will either love the new iteration as well or tear it to shreds saying the original was better).

This reminds me of cover songs, though with cover songs there isn’t nearly as big of a delay. The Arctic Monkeys came up saying they learned songs from their musical heroes like the White Stripes. The span of time between the White Stripes attaining popularity and the Arctic Monkeys doing the same is ridiculously short.

The other day my daughter woke me up saying she wanted to listen to music and I am always willing to oblige such a request (provided it’s at an appropriate time of day) and put on George Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set on You” which is a great song and one she liked. Within the first thirty seconds I remembered the video of the song and quickly figured that my daughter who is three years old, would love it. We cruised to YouTube and watched it and I was right, she did love it. I had a hunch because as a kid I had loved it too and she’s a lot like me.

But the video is cheesy and if it were shot today would look a LOT better.

Now, I know that even though artists have been known to say that the music video is a visual companion to the music or art on its own and therefore taken VERY seriously, I think they’re also viewed as commercials. It makes sense – you don’t even need to think about it – if you see the video and like the song, you’ll buy the song or album. When you get tired of seeing the video or you’ve already bought the song, then it’s time for a new video to be made. The whole process is very smash-and-grab. It doesn’t hurt that some people will equate “video” with “single” and “single” with “hit” so when the artist has six videos from the same album, that’s six hits on an album which could justify the money because at least HALF of the album is good, right?

So even though the first iteration was a commercial for the album, there is a strong possibility that an up-and-coming band will use the first hit as one of their first singles, hoping to stand on the shoulders of bigger acts and get noticed. Or they just genuinely love the music. Stone Sour’s cover of “Wicked Game” wasn’t really publicized at all (and served as a pleasant shock for those who didn’t know it was there). If the second, third, fourth, etc. band wants to cover the song and release a video to accompany it, why not release a remake of the original video? Everyone wants to make something timeless but if you think about it, updating or putting your spin on a classic is about as timeless as it gets.

I’m a little disappointed whenever I see bands with videos of covers that are uninspired tour videos (man, I hate music videos of bands on tour – seems like a waste of an opportunity to make something cool) when they could have done something better.

- Pappy

P.S. I think Slipknot offered something genius when they did the video for “Spit it Out” which featured the whole band acting out parts of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

Original? Not really (it’s a remake of a movie, after all) but it was both entertaining and now every time someone brings up the Shining, I think about it and how well it was handled, how much respect was used with the source material and now the two are intertwined. Something that seems like it’s perhaps a goal with a young band relying on a cover of a hit.

The Soul of Tone Book Review

I have a secret dream of teaching a college course on guitar. Not on guitar playing - Lord knows I am not nearly good enough for that - but on guitar culture. We would talk about the etiquette of jamming and techniques for testing gear. We would watch ‘Crossroads’. One of the books that would be required reading for the course is Tom Wheeler’s ‘The Soul of Tone: Celebrating 60 Years of Fender Amps’.

‘The Soul of Tone’ is more than a book for Fender enthusiasts. It has something for every guitarist who is interested in amplifiers, tone or the history of our instrument. The book is expensive, but it is also huge. It’s filled with beautiful photos of classic amps. If you are fan of gear photography, the book is worth a look for that alone. It also comes with two CDs of audio examples of the amps covered in the book.

To discuss this book, we can break it up into three sections: tube amp basics, the history of Fender amplifiers and the modern era of Fender amplifiers.

The first section - which explains the working of a tube amp - is utterly fascinating. Wheeler presents the topic in a way the layman can understand without dumbing it down. He respects his readers’ intelligence, but his clear prose simplifies the complex topic. After reading this section I understood things about amps I never have before. Things like the real difference between a Class A and Class AB amp. And why different types of tubes sound different. And why a 6V6 tube is called a 6V6. Really basic stuff that every guitarist should know, but stuff that has been over my head for years.

The second section covers the history of Fender amps. I went to a talk by Paul Reed Smith a couple years ago, and Smith went on and on about Tom Wheeler, calling him 'Our greatest guitar historian'. He wasn't lying. There is some really good stuff in here. The behind the scenes politics at Fender. The unsung heroes of the company. Old ads. A VERY detailed history of various classic models. Honestly, I am not a guy who needs to know which circuit was used on which year’s model of Bassman. But Wheeler had enough interviews and anecdotes to keep me interested. There is some great stuff on the CBS era and Fender’s first experiments with solid state during that dark time.

The last section is about modern Fender. Wheeler includes in depth interviews with the designers and builders working at Fender today. It is interesting to read their thought processes in developing today’s amps and their outlook on the future of the industry. Great stuff. Much more detailed than you’d find in an interview with one of these guys in a guitar magazine.

The Soul of Tone is a fascinating read and an excellent resource for guitarists who dig amps. And isn’t that pretty much all of us? The book retails for $60, but Amazon has it on sale for $37.80 right now in the US. That still seems like a lot for a book, I know. But with Tom Wheeler’s writing, the top notch gear photograph and the audio CDs, this one is worth it.

-PT

PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss and the Guitar News Podcast. He also writes fiction and has been known to throw a little disc golf. He lives in the birthplace of country music.

Great Guitar Players Part Two

While we all have our own ideas about what makes a great guitar player, I think we should back up a bit before delving too deeply into the topic and think about WHY we have these ideas.

In my opinion, guitar playing is a duality of hobbies. It is both introverted and extroverted in that you’ll spend hours and hours alone practicing and getting good enough to have the confidence needed to play outside to family, friends, perhaps perfect strangers in a band and later to perfect strangers in a crowd WITH your band. And with this, there’s a level of desired validation. We’re not all or always looking for ego-stroking compliments though those are certainly welcome but we’re basically looking to not get booed or insulted.

After all, we put in all this work, right? Who wants to put in that many hours of work and have someone NOT like it?

The problem here isn’t seeking validation in applause or complimentary words through your playing and development and have those accolades be a side-product of your hard work but treating the applause as an end and the practice as a means. When you start to practice and think “what will impress them?” or “what will get the most applause?” I think priorities have become a bit skewed.

But this is just me and I’ll admit, I’m not your average guitar player or person.

So when we think “what makes a great guitar player?” we all come up with our own ideas like clean playing, knowledge of theory, the ability to improvise or jam with others, amazing tone, etc. etc. and I think when you cut right down to it, that’s just a mirror and what you say you expect in a good player is what you expect of yourself.

The reason for this logic is that not everyone has the same grocery list of what makes a player great. We have what WE think makes a player great and therefore these are the things that we think would make US great should we ever get a handle on them.

So I say that perhaps instead of having this laundry list applied to OTHER players, we should just own up to the idea that this list is really meant for ourselves and start focusing it accordingly and ignoring the abilities of others – at least in the way where we apply OUR list to THEM.

Instead, I think we should embrace a bit of crunchy granola mentality and start asking guitarists (or even just observing and extrapolating based on their playing) what they’re looking for and congratulating accordingly.

Consider: if a guitarist is completely satisfied with crunchy two-finger power chords and doesn’t want to go anywhere else, who are we to say they’re NOT great? Perhaps they’re great at what they’re trying to do! Perhaps they’re not interested in being great to YOU and just wants to satisfy himself. I think that idea of playing what you want and being the best you can but just at what you want is pretty awesome and the idea of receiving compliments on being great at THAT and not locking yourself away so you can practice sweep picking that’s so fast time travel seems possible but only with your fretting hand is also pretty awesome. After all, this seems like it would lead to a higher sense of self-satisfaction and a whole lot more fun.

And really, that’s what guitar playing is all about, right? Some people get so bogged down and take it so seriously, but it’s really all about fun. No one picks up the guitar because they want to be miserable and antisocial through their teenage years. They want to have fun, they want to be great. Why give them your list to check off to get them there?

That’s just my armchair psychology though. It was inspired by a heated conversation I read on ESP’s forum (not the friendliest place to go, but certainly not the worst) where there was a debate over whether or not Max Cavalera was a great guitarist. Playing four strings and crushing your very BONES with metal seems to make him pretty great but there are others who say otherwise and I sat as an observer and asked myself if he was great and came back with “Great to who?”

-Pappy

Normandy Archtop Guitar Review

This is an interesting world we live in where a builder can build guitars out of just about anything around them. I’ve seen guitars made from cigar boxes and acrylic, I’ve even seen guitars made out of 50’s kitchen tables. One of the materials that get the most attention though, is aluminum and Normandy guitars sent me an aluminum Archtop Guitar to review.

Some guitar builders have built guitars made ENTIRELY of aluminum and they feel weird to me. The necks in particular. Guitar bodies in general are incredibly varied with different angles, flat tops, arched tops, wide bodies, thin bodies, etc. It’s hard to get as used to a body as you do a neck because necks are almost always made of wood and though they vary in small ways (radius, neck carve, compound radius, fret size etc etc) they’re generally the same and as a result, it’s easy to get used to the feeling of a normal neck. When you start playing an aluminum neck, things feel VERY different VERY fast and perhaps not in a good way (that’s left to the player, really).

Normandy guitars use wood necks though so the feeling is only half alien and the familiar half is the half you WANT to be familiar. The neck is on the thin side with a fairly flat fingerboard and frets that are big enough to be comfortable to play on, but not so huge your fingers will never touch the fret board. Overall it’s easy to go up and down the neck and like I said, the familiar feel of the neck leads to less time need to “get used to” the guitar.

The body is all aluminum and an odd attribute of the metal is that it was always cool temperature-wise. Perhaps this had something to do with the coolness of the season (the guitar arrived in November so it was chilly but not chilly enough to turn on the heater inside) but the body never warmed where my arm was while playing and it was pretty… cool. I liked it. It was oddly refreshing and reminded me of those pillows that are advertised to stay cool. I know it’s a weird thing to point out, but it was something that made me want to play it for as long as possible, partly because it felt good and partly because I wanted to see if it would warm up.

The finish on the review guitar that was sent to me was “raw” which I don’t see advertised on their site but it was like a natural aluminum, not chromed out or powder-coated and I think it looked pretty cool. The size of the body bridges the gap between the smaller size of solidbody guitars and the cavernous sizes of hollowbody guitars which makes it a good compromise for either player regardless if they’ve been playing a hollowbody their whole life or a Les Paul. It WILL feel different, but not AS different as most counterparts.

The guitar came with a Bigsby which is my favorite tailpiece for an archtop and a really nice rolling bridge to allow for easier string travel when you bend the Bigsby.

The construction of the guitar is expectedly solid. Everything feels like it’s meant to last and will be able to take whatever you throw at it. The hollow body is even braced with routed aluminum pieces to make it even stronger so if you’re the type that frets over a hollowbody not being able to take what you give it without collapsing in on itself, you can rest assured with this guitar. As far as weight goes, it’s about the same weight as my Les Paul Studio. For most people that’s no problem, but it’s no featherweight.

As for the SOUND of the guitar, it’s understandably bright, even in the neck position, but it was clear and had a great bluesy tone. When I wanted to delve into the smoky world of jazz, I just had to mess with the tone knob and I was able to get what I was after. Those who associate hollowbodies with twang will probably be disappointed as it has a definite PAF kind of sound but it’s still fun to play and sounds good to boot.

The guitar comes with a hard shell case that feels plenty secure and features a pretty comfortable handle too.

At about $2,000.00 the guitar isn’t the cheapest, but it’s far from being the most expensive and if you’re looking for something that is going to last forever. I’d love to see one of these guitars well into the future and see how they age because honestly, I can’t imagine they’ll change too much. If you’re looking for a guitar that stands out from the crowd in looks and tone without sacrificing the feel of a neck you’re used to, check this guitar out.

For more information, you can visit their website HERE.

Many thanks to Normandy Guitars for supplying this review guitar for me! I genuinely appreciate the time I was able to spend playing it!

-Pappy

What Makes a Great Guitar Player?

That's the question, folks! Feel free to answer below and I'll be back with my own ideas later on!

Another Tone, Lost

I’ve been thinking about Gary Moore a lot.

Every time a guitarist dies, you hear some of the same things. The music world has lost an icon. He was underrated. A unique voice has been silenced forever. And my knee-jerk reaction is to question some of those statements.

A death is more than a loss to the musical world. The guitarist was also a friend, a son, maybe a father. Music was a profession, not an identity.

Then you listen to music. Gary Moore’s tracks were not spun in my stereo on a regular basis, but something about death makes you listen and listen deeper. You listen, and you realize the music world HAS lost an icon.

Gary Moore played music professionally since the 1960s. He is often included in ‘best guitarist’ lists. He played for a number of iconic bands and released a plethora of successful albums. Can such a guitarist be underrated?

But then you listen to the music. The expression. The phrasing. The confident but not showy quality to the body of work. You listen, and you realize Gary Moore was underrated.

Gary Moore came from a time and a place that spawned many of our most beloved guitar heroes. He rose in a scene that was rife with talent. You wonder if his voice was in fact unique.

But then you listen to the music. A single lick, a solitary note even, and the question goes away. All we guitarists have are the notes we choose to play, the timing we play them in and the tone we use to present them to the world. Gary Moore excelled in all three areas. His tone is hot, modern, but as soulful as the most stripped down blues.

You listen, and you realize a unique voice HAS been silenced forever.

If what everyone says is true, if tone is in the fingers more than the gear, if a player’s tone cannot truly be replicated, the world has lost one of the all-time great tones.

In a 1985 interview with Guitarist magazine, Gary said: “I've been to concerts where I have reacted to someone's playing in the way my audiences react at those times. I get very emotional about it and it's difficult for me to be objective because I'm in front of the notes, so to speak. I'm putting as much into it as they're receiving.”

You listen, and you realized through Gary’s music, we have received much.

You listen and you realize another great tone has been lost forever.

- PT

PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss and the Guitar News Podcast. He also writes fiction and has been known to throw a little disc golf. He lives in the birthplace of country music.

Wicked Whiskey Review

Imagine the hue umbrella that is Rock. Rock encompasses all SORTS of genres and subgenres. It’s like a family tree turned upside-down, basically. And you would THINK that the further down (or up if you’re hip to the family tree imagery) you go, the more specific and narrow the focus. And rightly so because it’s logical and makes sense. But it really says something about the scope of Rock when even a small sub genre can also be huge as is the case with rockabilly. You have classic rockabilly, jazzy rockabilly, fast rockabilly, punk-ish rockabilly, goth rockabilly, horror rockabilly, country rockabilly, etc. etc. and these are all comfortably under the Rockabilly umbrella which is under the Rock umbrella (though I’m sure there are a lot of folks that would move it or at least say it also belongs under other genre umbrellas – that’s just what you get you fuse things together like rockabilly did).

Personally I’m most satisfied when an artist either doesn’t stay in the narrow sub-genre they’re known for or, better yet, takes a broad swipe at everything under a particular genre’s header.

The latter is epitomized by Wicked Whiskey who in one album managed to point out everything great about rockabilly not just in one sub-sub-genre, but across the whole field. The tones vary, but all of them are excellent, the subject matters differ, the style of playing changes and you’re left with something new and refreshing yet comfortable and familiar. It’s like a greatest hits compiled of songs you’ve never heard of.

And it’s awesome.

The singer has a gravelly voice that works well with the music and it’s far from being comically gravelly. The whole band steers clear of being a caricature of the genre which is nice. You can’t say that Wicked Whiskey is XXXXX-abilly besides rockabilly. They aren’t psychobilly nor jazzabilly, country-billy or whatever other label you may want to throw at them. They’re just a great band with great songs and great tone. My initial impression (which was rushed and I was quickly proven wrong) was that Wicked Whiskey is a band that sounds like the offspring of the Meteors and Social Distortion. Like I said, that was just my initial impression and as each song played through I could hear different influences or similarities, all while maintaining their own sound and a common thread throughout the whole album.

The album, Under the Gun, is packed from front to back with great songs, performed excellently and all displaying AMAZING guitar tone. Honestly, if you’re a guitarist, I think you should buy this album even if you’re not a fan of rockabilly because it’s a buffet of great guitar tones and is recorded in such a way that it feels like a treat to listen to. The guitarist said the guitars most used included a 67/68 Bassman and a 70's Bandmaster head with assorted cabs, a Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive (for overdrive) and an RE-20 for delay. The guitars used were a Gretsch 6120 Reverend Horton Heat with a Magnatron in the bridge and a Gretsch 5129. The RHH was used on most of the clean tones and the distorted, in-your-face tones came from the 5129, a guitar that was brought about as Gretsch's offer to the public as a way into the hollowbody world at a fairly low price. The fact that these great tones came from a guitar that was considered a budget guitar from the word “go” is an extra bit of inspiration for all those folks working hard on writing songs yet not swimming in dough like Scrooge McDuck and able to afford the top of the line.

And that’s about it. I strongly recommend all guitarists check this album out because it rocks. I don’t want to make the review too lengthy and have people turned off of buying the album because I wouldn’t shut up about it. It’s out on iTunes, it’s on Amazon. On Amazon it’s $8.99 US and worth way more so drop the cash and enjoy yourself!

You can also find out more and listen to songs HERE.

-Pappy

DigiTech Whammy Review

The Digitech Whammy has been on my wishlist since I started playing guitar because all of my favorite guitarists were quoted as using it. These guitarists, all creative musicians, were using it to get signature sounds and I wanted to recreate some of them. So approximately eleven years later, I finally have one to review.

The actual pedal is built like a tank, comes with a power supply (which is awesome), and is ridiculously easy to program. There are a ton of optionson it so you may want to find a way to highlight or remember how you’re going to use which setting in which song and how you’re going to move from setting to setting. It should be easy on a lit stage and if you’re on a dark stage you can be creative. How about using an LED reading light to shine on it? I think that would work.

But after you pull it out of the box and realize it’s certainly a durable pedal and plug in the power supply and adjust to the first setting you want to try out, things start getting a little harder. I was having a devil of time trying to incorporate it into my playing but I never claimed that I was a creative musician like my first guitar heroes. It was so frustrating that after going through the whole gamut of settings I stopped playing for the night and just thought about it. I called Tavo Vega of Nocturne fame about an unrelated topic and mentioned the Whammy and how it was making me feel and he suggested going back and listening to Rage Against The Machine again.

It was good advice. After listening to Evil Empire again I started to think that I was approaching the pedal wrong. Whereas I was just picking a setting and leaning in hoping to find something cool that jumped out at me, I started to think that I should be planning what I’m going to do and what I’m going to need. This little bit of thought really paid off. Usually when I write it’s just mucking about on the fretboard and hoping to stumble on something I like or build something I like from a note or chord. Instead of STARTING with the Whammy and trying to write, I added it to the process later on so I found a riff or lick that I liked and then started to think that at THIS point, raising it an octave would sound pretty cool and THEN I would try it. The fact I could vary the speed and impact of whatever setting I picked via the pedal was a huge bonus too. It gave me even more options and was very welcome. I’m glad that it isn’t just a programmable pedal with a click-switch where you go from normal pitch to one octave up. Slowly sliding up via the pedal made for some very interesting sounds.

Overall, the pedal is great and fun to mess with but it has the potential to be frustrating to a player, especially if they don’t put a little thought into what they’re going to play before rocking the pedal.

Do I recommend this pedal? I certainly do, especially if you’re an experimental guitarist. I’ll caveat this though, to say that before you buy it, perhaps you should spend some time with it at a shop or buy from a store with a return policy just in case this pedal isn’t for you. In the end, for $200.00 you’re getting a TON of potential and an amazing toolbox of new sounds to experiment and build your own sound with.

OR, you could just, you know, win it. And where would you win it from?

RIGHT HERE OF COURSE.

That’s right, Digitech said they were more interested in me giving it away than sending it back to them so Fifth Fret readers are in luck!

So how do you enter? It’s easy. Just send me an email at rhythmandboos@gmail.com with “Digitech Whammy” in the subject line with your realname and I’ll put them into an Excel spreadsheet and use a random number generator and PRESTO! We’ll have a winner. Please, only one email per person.

You have until 12:01 AM EST on Monday, February 21^st to enter and a winner will be announced soon after!

I know I have quite a few international readers and I am all about giving this opportunity to everyone but there’s just one more stipulation for you kind folks: you pay shipping (via PayPal).

Many, many thanks to DigiTech for supplying the Whammy to review and give away. I’m sure it will find a good home!

I look forward to your entries! Tell your friends!

-Pappy

Pick Punch Review

It is February. That means that, if you're in America, every store is swimming in pinks and reds and hearts and lovey-dovey stuff.

It also means that you've had time to spend the money you've received on gift cards.

I've always been a fan of gift cards. My wife says I'm tough to buy for so I believe it (I think I'm easy to buy for but I have a home-field advantage here) and she's not the only one, so I either get gift cards or presents where I remind myself it's the thought that counts.

This Christmas I received a $25.00 gift card for Amazon.com and while it was a great gift that I used to get an electronic copy of Fretboard Logic and a couple of other books, what was I supposed to do with the card after the code was uploaded, just throw it away?

No way!

Not when I have a Pick Punch!

$25.00 can get you your own and then you can have a way to make your own picks from then on out. My Amazon gift card made seven perfect picks from the gift card and when you cut off some sections to allow for greater access for the Pick Punch, I raised the number of usable picks to eleven.

ELEVEN picks from a gift card. If picks cost .25 then I just saved myself $2.75. Overseas, where picks cost substantially more (something like a whole dollar for a PICK) the savings REALLY starts to add up and you'll end up saving all sorts of money in the long run with this thing.

It's easy to use and the picks are great. When you first cut your picks, the edge is not tapered at all, but it starts to smooth out pretty quickly with playing so my advice is to not cut your picks as you're heading out to the stage, but you shouldn't be scared to use home-cut picks in a professional setting.

The Pick Punch can cut a variety of thicknesses with the manual saying simply if it's really hard to cut then don't cut it (smart advice).

Honestly, I consider this a must-buy for any guitarist. Not only does it save you money quickly (it pays for itself pretty fast considering the cost of it is so low) but it's made of high quality materials and feels like it will last forever and it will FINALLY solve the ever-present problem of losing picks. No more will you dig through pockets for change that just chews up your strings and gives you a tone that's at worst not very good and at best just not what you're used to. No more will you have to stop playing for an hour while you go through your laundry and digging under couch cushions. Now you can pull out old credit cards or gift cards - things that can be stored in any wallet - and punch out a pick and then put the card back in for emergencies such as this.

With any credit/debit card you can get five usable picks and the numbers make for AMAZING grips.

Honestly, this is a product that feels like it should have ALWAYS been there. It belongs in those player's packs that come with guitar, amp, cord, tuner, etc. There's even a jazz pick Pick Punch coming out soon if a normal-sized pick isn't your style. Pickpunch.com also sells material to make picks out of in case you don't have any credit cards you're willing to cut up.

That's a fix for the biggest issue that comes with these - knowing when to stop. It's fun to make your own picks and if you're anything like me you'll be standing there holding a valid credit card and thinking "well, I really don't use it very often..."

Many thanks to Pick Punch for sending a review unit! You can find out more about Pick Punch and their punches and material here.

-Pappy

Video Fatigue

When I was in my younger days, there were three ways to see cool new gear: 1) A music store 2) Know someone who owned it or 3) Read a review in a guitar magazine. If your buddies were broke and your music store didn’t carry it, you were stuck praying Guitar World or Guitar Player would decide to feature it.

Today? A quick visit to YouTube will yield anywhere from five to five thousand demos and opinions on almost any piece of gear. Video reviews are great, giving both your ears and your eyes a taste of the gear you crave.

My family is going to be buying a video camera in the near future, and I’ve been contemplating getting into the video review game. I could post video reviews here as my weekly blog and also post them on SixStringBliss.com to complement my audio reviews.

However, one thing is holding me back… the comments.

Let’s look at a few of comments from recent videos featured on Premier Guitar’s website:

“Why do these demos have to have so much friggin talking? 80% was talk and 20% playing. Just play and twistt the knobs. Hold a cord and twist the little tone, drive, curve, etc. so we can hear how they change the sound. And a few lead lines would be nice as well. Well at least we know what 12:00 and 2:00 on the knobs sounds like!”

“Unfortunately, that was a pretty lackluster review, with a moment or two of lukewarm enthusiasm.”

“Not sure how he got his current gig at PG. not the best player to be demoing this amp.”

“Not much of a demo of the amps range. "Here's my favorite setting" and never demonstrated the range of any of the controls. Made it sound like a one-trick-pony. Seemed like he was making it up as he went along without much preperation.”

In my opinion, Premier Guitar does an awesome job with their video content. Even so, nearly half the comments are fiercely negative. Check out the comments on any YouTube review for more of the same.

I know what you’re thinking. PT, they’ve got to expect a few complaints. Complaining is what the Internet was built for.

Look, I’m not scared of some negative comments. At the same time, these videos are done for free to let people see gear they might be interested in. I am confused by the negativity.

How about instead of saying something like: “Not much of a demo of the amps range. "Here's my favorite setting" and never demonstrated the range of any of the controls. Made it sound like a one-trick-pony.”, try saying: “Hey, thanks for the review! Any chance of a follow-up video showing a few more settings?”

Fifth Fret and Six-String Bliss have been both been lucky to have awesome listeners and readers. Most either say something nice or don’t say anything at all. I guess I am scared that video will bring out the haters.

So what do you think? Am I being curmudgeonly? Is a little respect in Internet comments too much to ask?

Now I’m off to post something nice for that poor guy over at Premier Guitar.

-PT

PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss and the Guitar News Podcast. He also writes fiction and has been known to throw a little disc golf. He lives in the birthplace of country music.

The Calm Before The Storm

I have a ton of stuff to review and I think February might be an insane month for Fifth Fret readers - especially those who like reviews because I'm thinking about stacking most of them on top of each other, not every Friday, but most Mondays and Wednesdays too.

If that works out, it's going to be nuts!

There is something I've noticed though in the last few months. When Earth turns and the sun goes down earlier and it gets colder outside it is a serious pain to take pictures of gear. I like to take pictures outside in the sunlight in nature. I think it looks cool. But I won't be doing that when it's as cold as it's getting because 1) I don't really like the cold in the first place and 2) I'd hate to damage any equipment.

The result of this epiphany is that there probably won't be a lot of stellar photography unless it comes from the company that makes the gear and for that, I apologize. I pride myself on the Fifth Fret having the best home-brew photography in the guitar blogosphere and it's a shame to go without it, but in the end, it will be just one more thing that makes Summer all that more special.

So anyway, in an effort to give you something wicked cool to read while I begin tapping away at the keyboard for Febreviewary (you like that?), I thought I would link to an article from the ever-entertaining Premier Guitar that features a guitar that is definitely among my favorite artist guitars. I've always loved how Dimebag looked with the ML - like it and him were made for one another but it's a shape that I could never get along with and I'm pretty sure I could never look as cool as the man himself.

Enjoy the article, everyone and I'll see you Monday with what will hopefully be the first review to kick off this glorious month.

-Pappy

Play Games With Pappy

Just a quick post to let everyone know that if you have an Xbox 360 and Xbox Live and perhaps want to play with me in the off chance that I’m on, my gamer tag is Fifth Fretter. I don’t have many games yet and right now I’m trying to get caught up on my writing and reviews, but by George, if you see me on, feel free to contact me.

-Pappy

White Stripes Are Done?

Doubtful.

How many times have we seen a band split up, disband, pursue solo fame or just flat out quit only to come back years later and reunite and take note that it feels so good (sounds like a good run of lyrics for a song. "Got back together and it feels so awesome," or something like that)? Or at the very least how many have gotten back together and realized that ticket prices could go up $100.00?

What the WS needed was more drama before the split! If they were fighting with each other all the time they could easily charge $200.00 per ticket, approximately $100.00 going to Meg and $100.00 going to Jack just for putting up with the other long enough to do a show.

Or they could pre-sell tickets to shows they'll never perform. I've heard of bands doing that.

But seriously, anyone who's a fan of the WS or Jack White knows that he's a prolific entertainer and that the WS specifically was always a little more unhinged and avant garde that other projects of his. Personally I never even considered them TOGETHER in the first place. It was just a happy accident when these two souls would gravitate toward each other and record or perform either by the winds of fate or the earth's magnetic pull.

So am I sad they're split up? Not in the least. I think they both know that they had something special that if it can even be reproduced, would be tricky to make again with new members and while they can go out and make different bands and sounds, I'm sure one day they'll be pulled back together and we'll reap the benefits, hopefully in a new album.

Even if they're serious about breaking up and have the gumption to stick with it, their catalog is more than impressive enough to not leave me too sad. Even if they had just put out Elephant and Icky Thump I'd be a satisfied listener!

So cheer up, buckos! It's not the end of the world!

-Pappy

Question For the Readers

Blogs are... Well, let's say blogs are numerous. More than 133 MILLION blogs have been registered in Technorati since '02. Now, that's not to say they're all still there. There was an interesting article now lost in the vast sea of information known as the Internet that said something like 50% of bloggers stop within the first few months and then another large percentage of the remaining bloggers stop within the first year.

I think this is why most companies are a little hesitant to start shipping gear off to review, but that's just a personal idea. I know I would be hesitant to send something to a blog that hasn't been around for more than six months. Seems like it would be quite the gamble.

But that's neither here nor there as far as THIS blog post is concerned because I want to talk about you and me.

You know.

US.

Don't think your coming here or subscribing is lost on me. I sincerely appreciate it. I've asked for feedback in the past, particularly on moving the blog to Wordpress which may still happen (who knows in these crazy times?) but not for a while at least and you stepped up and let me know your thoughts, all of them encouraging, even if they advised me to stay put. And I appreciate it when I get emails saying another person is following me on Twitter and I love logging in to Facebook and seeing more people "liking" me then (I miss the days of saying I had "fans").

On a side note, it sure is puzzling when I see the number rise and then fall when I hadn't published anything on Facebook in the interim.

But I digress. My point here is that I am a strong believer in the idea that YOU are helping make this blog successful. You're coming in for the first time, repeating your visits, linking on Internet forums, sharing on Facebook and Twitter and giving your feedback via comments and I take it all (or 99.9% of it) to heart and try to improve my style as much as I can.

Back to blogs: Did you know that there are so many bloggers out there that people have started to make a living blogging about how to be a better blogger? Most have at least one eBook that guarantees to increase my traffic and while that would be cool, I always felt this was more of a grassroots kind of blog. Tell your friends and hope they tell their friends, etc. It may lead to a slow boil but I think it also leads to less hate mail. :-)

Anyway, I still subscribe to these helper blogs because sometimes they deal with actual writing and if there's one thing I think a blogger should focus on, it's their writing (not the profits). Now, you'll have to forgive me here, blogging has the potential to be a conversation, sure, but it starts out with a post like this that doesn't have any feedback while it's being written. If I were to talk about my own writing I would say that it is pretty long-winded, filled with tangents, not exactly grammatically correct and sometimes even confusing.

But at least you know how I am in person because the way I write is VERY much the way I speak. Good or bad.

One of these helper blogs suggested shortening posts down radically. Taking three lines of text and turning them in to three words kind of stuff. Using small words and easy to grasp concepts and writing styles. I can see editing, but the majority of the post was saying you should dumb it down for the audience.

I cry foul! My initial instinct is to say that since I haven't received any comments saying that my blog is too hard to read then most - if not all - readers are understanding it.

So I ask, and you don't have to respond in the comments if you don't like (you can always email me at rhythmandboos@gmail.com), what are your thoughts on the writing style of the blog? Consider my goal before responding though: My goal for the Fifth Fret started out as an anything-goes kind of blog but it quickly settled into a rant/review site with the occasional interview and news segment and I think this is what separates it from a vast majority of guitar blogs out there who are far more on top of their email and press releases and push out news far faster than I could. It's not that I don't like these sites - I do. It's where I get most of my news. But I can't compete with them and their speediness and what draw would I possibly have to lure people away from these sites?

Why should I even try when I can offer my own take on the news when it suits me, rant when I want, review what I want or can get my hands on for a little while, and occasionally interview someone I want to talk to? I figure there's room for all at this table, especially when I'm pushing my own editorials instead of the news.

I guess I just don't see guitar blogging as a competition from blogger to blogger. Blogger to magazine, maybe. There are a couple I would love to be more popular than.

Anyway, is there anything that you think this blog is lacking? Would you like more pictures? More videos? More rants? Interviews or news? Are you looking to make this your only guitar blog you subscribe to or visit or are you just as happy as I am to subscribe to many? Are you happy with my writing and review style?

I'm ALL for getting feedback so I welcome it all. I just want to make the best blog for you guys that's a blast to write. So both you and I can be happy.

You know.

US.

-Pappy

The Quest for Style: The Beat is Boss

See the first two parts of this series here and here.

I recently moved from Western Wisconsin to Eastern Tennessee. There are a lot of little differences. The way people talk. The foods people bring to a potluck at work. The landscape. But one of the biggest differences is the weather.

See, in Eastern Tennessee you can actually participate in outdoor activities in January without losing fingers and toes to frostbite. So my family and I have been spending some time on the weekends hiking. The trails we hike are not very steep or technically challenging – we do have a four year-old with us – but just to get some elevation and see some mountain views is pretty spectacular to us folks from the upper Midwest.

I have noticed something odd about our hikes: the farther we plan to go, the more we take our time. If we only have an hour before we have to get back to the trailhead, we rush, almost desperate to cram as much mileage as we can into the short time allotted. But when we have a whole afternoon dedicated to the hike, we slow way down. We take our time and enjoy the scenery, the birds, the trees. And even though we are technically seeing less of the trail than if we hurried, we are getting much more from the experience.

I am now a month into my year-long journey to learn fingerstyle blues guitar, and it feels like one of those long, slow hikes. I am not rushing like I usually do when learning something new. I don’t feel the pressure to be good fast. I am taking my time. Stopping to admire the flowers of a well-timed riff. Noticing the color just the right amount of vibrato can add to a phrase. And it seems – so far at least – like going slower, taking my time, is paying off in FASTER results.

Granted, this is January PT talking. You might be reading something completely different about pressure and deadlines from December PT.

But enough metaphors and stories; let’s get into what I have been learning.

I have spent the month of January methodically working my way through the instructional DVD Fingerstyle Blues with Rick Fines. Normally when I attack an instructional DVD, I watch it a few times, pull out three or four of the best tricks and licks and move on with my life. This time, in an attempt to be more tortoise, less hare, I decided not to move on to the next piece of learning material until I have a workable proficiency with ever technique Mr. Fines presents.

And what a great way to start the year!

In Fingerstyle Blues, Rick Fines sets out to teach a basic vocabulary of the genre. His goal is to give you the tools you need to sit down with a recording of one of the old Delta Blues masters and recognize much of what they are doing. With this basic toolbox of common techniques and licks, he wants to arm you to eventually be able to figure out a fingerstyle blues song from a recording. He does this not by teaching full songs but by working with two motifs: a single chord vamp in E and the 12-bar blues in A.

While I am happy with my progress thus far, it hasn’t all been good times and nursery rhymes. The biggest struggle I’ve faced is coming to grips with the most basic tenet of fingerstyle blues. The one rule Rick Fines says must be obeyed above all others: the beat is boss.

When playing fingerstyle blues, your thumb is the rhythm section. And - just like in any other style of music- if the rhythm section ain’t tight, it don’t sound right.

I have a hard time putting this into practice. Maybe it is because I don’t have much of a background playing bass or drums. As guitarists in a band setting, we are often used to having the rhythm section watch our backs. If we do lose the melody for a second or get too crazy with a lead line, the bass and drums are there holding everything together, making us look good. With fingerstyle blues, you cannot lose the beat. There is no one to save you from yourself.

When I start playing something pretty on the high strings, my internal metronome tends to wander a bit. Before I know it, I have lost the beat.

Fines has some good tips to assist with this. He recommends tapping your feet, alternating between left and right. His theory is that alternating between the left and right foot engages alternating sides of the brain, and you are much more likely to keep a steady beat. Not sure of the science on that, but it does seem to work for me.

When I am learning a new lick I have to break my thumb work down very specifically in my mind. My thought process goes something like: Okay, so I have to play the A string with my thumb when I hit the B string with my middle finger. Then no thumb when I pick the E string. Then thumb on the A string when I hit the G string with my index finger. I break down the entire lick like that, practice it very slowly and then work toward bringing it up to speed.

At this point I am memorizing patterns rather than just feeling and playing the beat.

So my question to those of you with more fingerstyle/hybrid picking experience than I: Does it get easier? Will there come a point when my thumb and fingers function independently of each other? Will there come a time when I won’t have to think about what my thumb is doing? When I can just set the beat and forget it, like the way I can strum a steady rhythm without thinking about it today?

I’ll leave you with those questions for now. I’ll be back in March to share the next segment of this long and serpentine journey.

PT is the co-host of the guitar talk podcast Six-String Bliss and the Guitar News Podcast. He also writes fiction and has been known to throw a little disc golf. He lives in the birthplace of country music.