Karma Bit Me In The Ass

In 1971 I convinced my dad to buy a real electric guitar for me. I brought home the Fender catalog from Victor's House of Music, Ridgewood N.J.
I saw Hendrix a couple of times, but Woodstock made me gas for a strat in the worst way. Dad says, "Can't you get by with this?" pointing to the tele. It would have saved him about $50. The strat was $272 with HSC.
Oh.fuck.no
Taking lessons from Al meant that I played his LP a lot. That guitar was heavy.
I also learned to dislike the strat. Once I figured out position playing, the curved fretboard screwed me up, badly.
So...I had to have a gibby. A pal offers me a 1969 345 for $200 and another $200 gets his super six reverb.
Dad?
I play gibsons for 30? years. But I relied upon Cream like, well...creaminess. All distortion and OD and a wah for articulation. This was during the height of Fusion.

I hear Colin James and decided to try a tele. I fell flat on my face. Not only did a tele have the most beautiful neck known to man, it had something none of my other guitars had. It's own voice.
I can still get all the creamy sustain I want...if I want.
However, more often than not I find myself playing with nothing? Or just OD for some punch - and the ice9 doesn't color it, just boosts it tremendously.
With distortion and OD, if I roll the volume back it sounds as if I turned the effects off.
But it has such a range. That fender timbre - bell tone, some nasty bridge twang, and then the combo of the pickups - which sounds like the blender pot on a strat...real brassy quack without too much treble.

And this is a Squier?
Fine...what will a "real" fender do for me? And by real, I mean MIM.

I found a baja tele for $500.(The finagling this took to pull off was something to behold)

The bonehead that owned it had never changed the original strings. But he had managed to ding the frets where it must have fallen face down against a table or chair.

And the fit and finish is mixed bag.
The pickguard is cut so it pulls against the neck pickup a tiny bit, snug. And then the screws went in at a few nice angles, the guard itself is cracked by the screw on the upper bout And on one by the switch. The control plate is overlapped by the pickguard a couple of mils.

On the plus side, the wiring and electronics are 100% "nicer." Less cheap stuff, although they both use the same esthetically unpleasant but efficient plastic coated wiring..
The frets on the Squier come all the way to the edge, the bit that should be buried is visible. The poly over it makes it smooth to the touch but it does catch your eye. Well, the neck on the baja is perfect, with the exception of the dings mr. bonehead made. I used some .000 wool and smoothed the two frets easily.
The Squier neck is also much thinner - closer to an LP. This thing is chunky, like a bat.

The pickups on the Squier are tonerider alnico IIIs. The ones on the baja are a twisted tele in the neck and a broadcaster in the bridge. Helluva a lot more umph than the toneriders. But you can still hear that bell.
And unlike a strat, the fretboard is flat to the feel.
Four position switch (standard positions with a series setting) with a S1 in the volume - controls phase.
Now the palette is huge.

Karma - I mighta been Bruce Springsteen had I got that tele in 1972.
Right?

Luca Sleeps Alone

Luca Sleeps Alone

I am experimenting with minimalism. Or trying to...
There are a select few how can impress by their choice of notes (the intervals) and the expression used on those notes and not by the sheer number or speed of the notes played.

George Harrison is my favorite among this school.
'Cry Baby', towards the ends has a five note sparkle that can chill, lift all the hairs on my neck, et cetera.
How hard did he work to achieve this? I suspect much was an outward expression of his religious studies.
The number of notes George played seemed to go down the older he got and yet the ability to convey a feeling never diminished. In fact, it seemed to be becoming stronger as time went on.

I heard a Dead riff in my head and found a suitable outlet. In what way could I tie it to the Dead/Phish without being blatant?
Did it work? Only you can say.

I am looking to expand my palette though the study of another minimalistic school. Colin James - a Canadian of some repute. His mastery of the guitar is also a minimalists approach. However he is playing as accompaniment of the vocals. Not as a "solo." His instrumental periods are very short and sweet...very much to the point.
I tend to riif too much. Using riffs means you are not thinking but pulling standard lines from your repertoire.
They may in fact, be original. Audiences will see them as fresh even though you will not.
A hard line to walk.

So I am trying to paint with fewer notes. To control the urge to just spew forth. I grew up wanting to play the saxophone and my guitar playing acutely reflects this.How many other schools have I neglected?
I consider this all worthwhile growth. It is not painful...boring, repetitious (building muscle memory is key to play an instrument) and very much worth the investment and mental gymnastics.

I stopped by my favorites music store, Styles, Pomona and played with a Baja Tele. It was a used one; the owner was asking $550, I'm betting it'll go for $475 ish.
I liked it very much, but I could not justify the maneuvering that would have been necessary to pull it off.
There just was not enough of a step up from the Squier I have at the moment for the debt.
To top it off, I think the Squier has nicer pickups?

To assuage that gnawing feeling I bought some boutique picks.

V-Picks - Anywhere for $4 to $20 a pop. Not an inexpensive pick to say the least. Strange shape that takes getting used to.
I used to use Dunlop Stubbies - and was spending $10 a month on picks. When I realized that I decided to look at the V-Picks again.

At $10 each, that is nothing to sneeze at. I won't be tossing these into the crowd. They are 4.10 mm thick...i.e. massive for a pick. But after months of play, there is no wear to speak of.

I tend to like thinner picks, so at 2.75 mm, these are perfection.
Called the Ruby Red Medium Rounded...these are my main picks at the moment. The Ruby going for $4.99

And they come in other flavors that no little boy can resist...

Such as - The Glow In the Dark variety...$4.99

Or the aptly named and somewhat silly Pearly Gates... yes, I had to buy one at $3.99
The last three are the same pick in different colors.
I wonder if Vinnie would make one in purple for me?

And Yet Another Shameless Plug

I posted another tune, 'Stride, Don't Hurry.'

If you hear strains of 'Walk, Don't Run,' you are to be forgiven.
More often than not I am expressing some facet of my soul, my inner workings. But now and again I post what I refer to as, "noodling." Aimless exercise.This has elements of both.

The 60s being that seminal period musically speaking...for me. Tunes such as this made up that early period just before I really became musically aware.
Call and answer...hanging notes...soulful vibrato...all of it is present. And then the noodling. It really takes an element of concentration to avoid musical diarrhea.
Sigh...
My ReverbNation Page

Celebrate Life

It is difficult to ignore the happenings of this week.
It is also difficult to speak out against killing and death with so much chest thumping prevalent.

A friend reminded me of the word - jingoism.
"...extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism."

I am glad that a perceived threat has been removed. If this act in fact, makes us any safer than we were on Saturday, wonderful. However, I do not see any change in airport security measures (which I think are outmoded and useless...ask Israel how to prevent terrorists from boarding planes), threat level, nor in the money spent combating what we see as a threat to our homeland.
To all the youth that grew up amidst the shadow of 9/11, this is not the end.

I DO hope the government can find other issues to occupy their time - such as employment, wages, standard of living et cetera.

In those wonderful words of Mr. Lennon - Give Peace A Chance

MacGyver It

Guitarists have a propensity for tinkering with their instruments. They are wood, so modifying can be relativly easy. Not that it always ends well, but cutting a deeper channel to accomodate a larger switch is not beyond most guitarists.

We need to remember that attitiude when other pieces in our chain fail or break.
Last night I took home a 51 Squier. Set up, changed the strings and then decided it was time to try 'er out.
I powered up the amp and pedal board and then reached across to power up my recorder - a Fostex 16 HD.

I depress the switch, the lights come on, the switch makes a snapping noise ...the unit powers down (it never really powered up as you need to hold the switch for a good 15 seconds). The switch fell partially inside the recorder.
Sigh...look at the ceiling...sigh again.

Get out the tools and unhook the cables to the recorder...drag it into the kitchen - better lighting, more room.
Fifteen screws later,  a few twist tabs and one cable unplugged and the top and bottom separate for me.
Sigh...look at the ceiling...wipe my brow.

The two tabs on the right side had snapped. The long leg is to depress the actual power switch imbedded inside the chassis. I understand why Fostex engineering did this, but on a $400 peice of recording equipment it should be rated for millions of clicks - heck, my mouse is and I paid much less for the mouse. ;)
Sigh...look at the ceiling again.

I put on my Einstein beenie...went deep, deep into thought. And I came up with this inspired solution!

A Q-Tip jammed into the opening does the trick.
Naturally, I forgot several screws while reassmbling, so that made it a longer journey than necessary, but I got the bugger working!
Remember - some duct tape, a rubber band and thou.
This too, shall pass.

Sigh

Wood

Look at the neck towards the left side of the picture. The neck was cut against the grain for some reason. At the top of the shot is the nut of the guitar...this is the first three frets. The swirl along the side continues down the neck...like a serpent.




Here are the first two frets, the nut (which needs to be replaced) and the truss rod hole. The pattern in the wood is almost psychedelic and will age nicely if the poly wears off...or if I sand it off.
Sometimes, instruments have souls of their own  Independent of you, the player. They have personality and style. Not always...Some have a mass produced cookie cutter look to them. And then we modify them to further make them our own...as in my case with the knob swap.

Even the plain Jane body, which is a slab of pine, just as Leo made them in the early 1950s, has a simple grace to it. (Would they be so crass as to make a veneer for this...?)

These are supposed to be tools really. Do violinists sit and admire the grain? I have not seen piano players do this. French horn players comparing who got the better shade of brass coloring?
And especially in the case of this particular guitar - a relatively cheap iteration of the Telecaster line.
It was made in China in 2009.
Beats the pants off the Indian Strat as far as fit and finish - there really isn't much of either here.
It's.a.tele.
It's wood.
It has a soul...

Needs a name.

Right click any photo and select "Open In A New Tab" to see the shot full sized and in all its glory.

It's A Sign - Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes

My picks are purple 2 millimeter Dunlop Stubbies.
My phone has a purple case, which I bought because it spoke to me...not having made the connection to the picks until later.
Pick and Phone

Now I have a 50s vibe Tele - which is "Vanilla" with a blackguard - to be 1950s accurate -& a button selector switch, also to be historically accurate. It came with the de rigueur chrome, knurled knobs that were Leo's choice in 1952. The knobs are tall and thick, so when the pickup selector switch is in the bridge position it becomes difficult to slide a finger in there and move the switch.

I decide to look at alternative knobs. I know Lou has a collection in a dusty box. (STYLES MUSIC POMONA) I see some pearloid topping a chrome rounded knobs. The pickguard would have to be pearl for it to work. Okay, the choices are becoming more clear. The guitar is an off white and the pickguard is black.

I need a black knob, now the pearl might work as it would more or less match the body color.
They are too white. He also has some very striking red pearloid/black metal knobs...red?
Then they wink at me.

I don't know what it is...I must be channeling Jimi Hendrix. I have been feeling flamboyant. No, don't ask.
I buy them...$16. They are also a pearloid and tend to shift a bit as the light changes.
They are purple. And I do not make the connection until I get them on the guitar. The color is deep and the tone knob - the lower knob - is more pastel, whereas the volume knob on top is crisp and very sharp.
Then I laid the guitar on it's back...I wanted to lay a pick between the knobs - a partial connection had been made...I knew something was up.

The pick and the tone knob were identical and I knew what why I had bought them. But the volume knob had taken on a completely different hue.
I'm a Gemini...this makes sense - twins that change depending on how the light strikes them?!

"Yeah, well...you know, only cowboys stay in tune..."
J. Hendrix 12/67