~House of Twang~

The next gig: Joe's Bar, Boulder Creek, CA

2011-10-27T02:56:00.002-04:00

Well folks, we're gearing up for another fun night at Joe's Bar in Boulder Creek, CA. This time we'll be joined by our pals, The Good Sams.

In other quick news: I'm about halfway done with the body on my next acoustic guitar, we have a killer four piece band, I've been devouring the Bob Wills Tiffany Transcriptions (can ya tell by the gig poster??) which has gotten me a couple feet closer to playing some serious western swing and also... we got an Australian Cattle Dog mix puppy named Cowboy. Much rejoicing!

~!! Los Beardos Raviolis !!~

2011-06-07T00:12:00.001-04:00

Carolyn Sills - Patsy Cline Spectacular at Don Quixote's - May 12, 2011

2011-06-06T23:44:00.009-04:00

We played our second Patsy Cline Spectacular show at Don Quixote's in Felton, CA a few weeks back. The band lineup featured Jim Norris on drums, Jon Dryden on piano, Jerry Logan on bass, Charlie Wallace on steel guitar, yours truly on the Gretsch and of course, Carolyn delivering a burning vocal performance. We had a great time! Thanks to KPIG and KZSC for all their work promoting the the to all who came to see the show! Some photos:

We also played The Redwood Mountain Faire this past weekend. Much more to come!

The 2011 Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival

2011-05-04T00:16:00.032-04:00

I'm your huckleberry...

Howdy folks! Last weekend, the missus and I drove south through Bakersfield, all the way to beautiful Santa Clarita, California. There, on the site of former owner Gene Autry's Melody Ranch, was the 18th annual Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival. We went to spread the good word about SCGC, setting up a display of 5 guitars for festival attendees to try out.

What made the festival unique was the setting itself: on the ranch stands an authentic old western movie set. The 1/4 mile long 'town' on Melody Ranch has been used in over 750 western films since 1916. The larger than life set is a wonderfully cliched image of the Old West built in vivid detail. Or is it simply cliched since we've seen it in so many westerns? Regardless, what brought the set to life were the people roaming up and down the street, dressed in full-on old west cowboy chic. These folks weren't foolin' about! The costumes were amazing! Many of the attendees have worked as movie extras. I met folks who had been extras in films such as Tombstone and TV shows such as Deadwood and Wild West Tech. At either end of the town were two stages where musicians including Don Edwards, The Hot Club of Cowtown, and The Sons of the San Joaquin performed. We also caught acts by cowboy poet, Waddie Mitchell and a spectacular trick gunslinger exhibition by Joey Dillon. Special care was taken to emphasize that the music at the festival was cowboy music, not just country. This was the original country music.

Ok... on with the photos! (click to enlarge)

view down main street, Saturday 11am. SCGC was set up in the third building on the right:

fiddler in the street:

cowboy singer on horseback:

Hot Club of Cowtown performs:

The store fronts along main street were full of vendors selling everything from hand tooled leather gun belts, buck skin jackets, tacky cowboy art, custom made spurs, cowboy cook books and a whole lot more. I finally found a hat that fit my large melon:

The most recent addition to our company's stable of professional guitarists is legendary cowboy singer, Don Edwards. He and SCGC president, Richard hoover, collaborated to make a signature model guitar, honoring Don's 50th year in the entertainment business. Don headlined the festival and was a major attraction at the SCGC booth. Well, I should say his 6'5" cardboard like-age was a huge attraction. Here's a photo of a young fan at the SCGC booth:

A photo of Don Edwards and me at the SCGC booth:

A Japanese gentleman who spoke broken English stopped to check out a few of our guitars and even sang a few old cowboy tunes for us:

Shopping for wares in one of the many tent vendors on the outskirts of 'town':

Me on day 2, having just picked up the Otis B. Rodeo horseshoe from the blacksmith across the street from us:

It was a great time! The folks at the festival showed a lot of interest in the guitars we had on display and man oh man... what fun to be duded up and part of the fun in this over the top weekend! We're already looking forward to next year.

Archtop Guitars at The Met!!!

2011-03-19T14:23:00.005-04:00

I had the pleasure of checking out the incredible exhibit on archtop guitars at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan a couple weeks ago. Simply stunning! Here is a link to the exhibit's website. While working at Rudy's Music in 2007-8, I was lucky enough to play many of Rudy's archtop guitars, some of which are included in the exhibit. The experience of playing, hearing, and just studying the fine craftsmanship of these guitars made by D'Angelico, D'Aquisto, Monteleone, Stromberg & Gibson was a major inspiration. I credit those guitars with getting me into luthiery. It's a rare and humbling experience to play these instruments. What a sound!

I should also note that Rudy Pensa released a magnificent large format book, "Archtop Guitars: The Journey from Cremona to New York" on the three great New York archtop builders: D'Angelico, D'Aquisto & Monteleone. My wife surprised me with my own copy and it's just jaw dropping, gorgeous stuff! Highly recommended. More info at Rudy's website.

New Acoustic Build Begins

2011-03-19T13:33:00.008-04:00

Well folks, it's finally time to make saw dust again. I began work on another guitar build the other day. This one will be an acoustic dreadnought. Here are the basic ingredients:

L to R: ebony fingerboard, a small piece of cocobolo for the overlay (a thin decoative laminate on the front of the guitar's headstock), the brownish wood its bookmatched Indian rosewood for the back (the matching sides are not pictured) and two pieces of bookmatched Adirondack spruce lie on what look like two 2x4s. Those 2x4s are in fact a set of tiger flamed maple that I'll be carving into the guitar's neck.

The top, or soundboard, gluing up:

and the back:

You can see two sets of orange clamps applying pressure from either side of the wood in the above photos. The four blocks are firmly wedged under a steel bar to apply downward pressure, keeping the wood flat and preventing buckling. I used hot hide glue to join the soundboard and will also use it to glue the braces to the top. Hide glue is an animal derivative that has been used for thousands of years and has many advantages over synthetic wood glues. Commonly used in violin construction & repair, hide glue dries to an incredibly hard, crystalline strength. This extreme hardness greatly enhances vibration transfer from one piece of wood to another, producing a stronger and fuller tone from the instrument. One disadvantage though, is the fast working time. Hide glue is kept warm in a glue pot and applied with a brush. It is necessary to work very efficiently as the glue sets up extremely quickly as it cools off outside of the heated pot. Read more about hide glue here.

Acoustic guitars are typically built with mahogany necks but I had the hankering to do something a little different. Below are my two maple slabs sandwiching a black decorative strip. When the instrument is done, the black strip will run a simple pinstripe up the back of the neck.

The more clamps the merrier! The next day, clamps removed:

More to come!

Wild Saturday Nights: West Coast Edition

2010-10-23T22:35:00.004-04:00

Well folks, what they say about California is true: it's laid back out here. You might call it "slow." Our wild Saturday night is made up of a tasty homemade soup

and some steel guitar searching on the ol' YouTube. Here's a couple jems we found:

LA based Western Swing combo (featuring the amazing Jeremy Wakefield on steel) The Lucky Stars:

this exotic weirdness:

Bob Wills:

and another Wills song ($2 if you can identify the guitar being player upside down by a lefty)

In other news, the RV Bigsby guitar has been refretted and a new nut made. It plays a million times better and will be seeing some action this fall here in Santa Cruz. Perhaps it will be seen at Carolyn Sills' upcoming Patsy Cline Holiday Spectacular at Don Quixote's on December 15th.

R.I.P. Klon Centaur Overdrive

2010-05-05T02:23:00.004-04:00

Well maybe rest in peace is a bit much.

One of my favorite overdrive pedals, the Klon Centaur, is no longer being made. As of December 22 of last year, the production of the Klon ceased, presumably to allow full time devotion to the R& D of the infamous pedal's successor. Below, the first version of the Klon featuring a gold finish and red centaur logo:

The Klon Centaur Overdrive is a hand made guitar effect pedal built one at a time by the inventor. It is a simple and sturdy unit with a unique look. Apparently the original unit has been discontinued in favor of a new version housed in a smaller chassis. The new Klon-Jr is slated for release sometime this year. No word on any mods to the circuit design. I stumbled upon the Klon years back thanks to a tip from Jim Campilongo. Check out another House of Twang post about him here.

Smaller pedals are all well and good. There's nothing like conserving space on your pedal board, especially if you're one of those fellas whose uses a ton of different stomp boxes:

I love guitar effects. However, for the music I play, I rarely feel the need for anything more than a Fender amp's spring reverb and tremolo coupled with a good analog delay (I'm a big fan of the Maxon AD80) or even better: the lush tape delay tones of a Fulltone TTE (Tube Tape Echo). So in this case I'm not to broken up over the idea of the Klon shrinking in size. I have to imagine the fella that makes the Klon will retain the stomp box's unique sound. It's hard to describe what the Klon does but in a nutshell, is gives your amp more of itself.

Mo' betta.

Using this pedal, you can get that wide open, cranked amplifier sound without having to turn your amp up to deafening volume levels. I employ the Klon when using a higher powered amp so I can get a nice overdriven tone without being too loud. When Boss Tweed was touring Europe, I just used the Klon and my Maxon delay night to night. I was always able to dial in a sound that I liked no matter what the provided backline might have been. To my ears it is exceptionally transparent whereas many Tubescreamer-type pedals kill your guitar's natural tone with thin, mid-rangey overdrive. Not into crazy overdrive? Then back off the Klon's gain, add a pinch more volume and it's like putting a tone magnifying glass on your amp. Mo' betta.

The Klon is a fairly mysterious beast. I say mysterious because the fella that makes these things pours some kind of black goop all over the circuit board inside the pedal in an effort to protect his design from would-be copy cats (below). Note the stamped out area for secure positioning of the 9 volt battery. Smart. Why aren't more effects built this way?

Like most guitars, amps and effect pedals, it's hard to understand what the Klon sounds like and how it interacts with your guitar rig without actually playing it. Problem is, the Klon is sold direct from the builder/inventor himself, so you can't just zip down to your local guitar shoppe and try one out.

Either you like it... or you don't.

A good saying for all guitar gear. Not everyone likes this pedal, of course. There are numerous haters out there and that's fine. This guy goes on and on saying what a gimmick the Klon is while pimping his own overdrive pedal. Classy. To me, you're missing the point if you don't use the Klon with your live rig. It is made with the performing guitarist in mind, with amp dialed up to loud, not the bedroom picker forced to play at a tame volume.

For guitarists, the internet buzz over the Klon is heavy. For me, I'm happy to have scooped one up for cheap on eBay a few years back. Checking in on the 'Bay today, the same old Klon Centaur is fetching prices close to a grand! I'm sure there will be all sorts of speculation over whether the new version is as good as the old one. We'll see...

Either way, I'm proud to own one and consider it a sound investment... yuk yuk.

Below, the second version of the Klon which I use:

Guess we'll have to wait and see what the new version holds. I throw my support behind this pedal and its inventor. He has managed to carve out a niche in an over saturated market. Based on my experience with the Klon, I expect the new version to be as good if not better than its predecessor.

Oops!

2010-04-04T22:32:00.005-04:00

I Did It Again...

Sure we all know the Britney Spears pop song but my mind was blown last week when a co-worker played me Louis Armstrong's original version of the song, recorded in 1932 in Chicago. Click here for the Depression-era version and here for more info on the tune.

Free Music!

2010-03-30T22:26:00.006-04:00

Folks, I've never been one to download someone else's music for free. Some people consider it illegal. But I do enjoy listening to old records and if I can get 'em for free, so much the better. I thought I'd share a link to bunch of old time music compiled by the good people over at The Old Time Hearld. It's got all kinds of goodies from the great radio station, WFMU in New Jersey, Alan Lomax's archives and even a site called the Honking Duck. This music was recorded long ago and aside from these online archives, may only be available on the original 78s. Click here for links to all the freebies.

Over the past couple years I've turned into a certified Western Swing nut. Western Swing was a popular form of music emerging in the '20s and fading from the public eye by the late '50s/early 60s. With influences ranging from swinging jazz to cowboy, hillbilly, polka and country music, the large, multi-piece western swing orchestras of the day dominated the airwaves and dance halls from Tulsa to San Diego. I think of it as cowboy jazz: sophisticated yet light hearted. Fathered by stars of the genre such as Bob Wills, Milton Brown, Cliffie Stone and Spade Cooley, Western Swing brought together top notch, inventive musicianship, wholesome, cornball lyrics and a dance-able beat. Instrumentally, the focus moved from horns, accordions and fiddles in the early '30s to amplified electric guitar (thank you Charlie Christian) and non-pedal/lap and pedal steel guitar in the '40s. Instrumentalists like Leon McAullife, Joaquin Murphy, Merle Travis and Jimmy Wyble pushed the limits of what was possible on amplified strings. Check out this link to another fellow blogger, Western Swing on 78. He's also got a listing of current bands playing this music. Great stuff!

Santa Cruz

2010-03-28T21:37:00.009-04:00

Well friends, I'm happy to report (after a brief blogging hiatus) that we've settled in Santa Cruz, California. Santa Cruz is an amazing place, a small town with a flair all its own, just big enough to attract a host of great musicians, artists and all sorts of bizarro creative types. I've landed a job building guitars for an incredible acoustic guitar company here in town. As luck would have it, my boss caught wind of Lady Carolyn's various skill sets n' talents and offered her a job in the front office. So I'm building 'em and she sells 'em. A pretty sweet deal.

Here's a few photos to catch up on what we've been up to since leaving the Phoenix desert. Photos of the OM style guitar I built at RV:

Guitar Geeks be warned, as this next photo is tough to stomach. I spent a couple days at the Collings Guitar Factory in February and came across the back of a late 20's/early 30's Gibson L-5. It had been ripped from its body and cut in two, apparently to analyze the details of its construction so as to copy the design for the benefit of the Collings' line. While Collings undeniably makes great instruments, to destroy a classic and rare guitar is a crime. Eeek:

After a brief job search, we landed in Santa Cruz. What an amazing place! We're settling into Left Coast life, enjoying our work and the vibe out here. Our neighborhood is killer, with parks, restaurants, the beach, redwood trees and imitation NY bagel shoppes just a stone's throw away from our place. Healthy living is the thing and surfing is king. The local music scene is thriving. Future musical projects are already in the works, so stay tuned for that.

A shot of Monterey Bay off West Cliff Drive, a 10 minute walk from our house:

Gumbo!

2010-01-23T13:51:00.025-05:00

What do you get when you cross:

with:

Give up? The Gumbo bass!

As a surprise, I thought I'd put my newly acquired hand skills to work and build a new instrument for my lady. Over the course of the last 4 months, I quietly squeezed in a few minutes here and there to finish what I'm calling the Gumbo bass: a 30" short scale bass version of Bo Diddley's "Jupiter Thunderbird" guitar. It's finished in a Gumby-esque candy apple green and outfitted with a hotrod style single volume pot to jack setup. My goal was to make a simple, compact and killer looking bass. Christmas came too soon for this project so I just gave it to Carolyn Thursday night. There was much rejoicing.

I took some photos of the build process here and there. Let's start with a look at the current "Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird" guitar currently made by Gretsch:

My Lady Bass has long been a fan of this space age shape. It makes me think of something from a Flash Gordon serial. It's futuristic and vintage at the same time. I wanted to make this thing as light weight and resonant as possible so I chambered the body, removing pockets of wood from the mahogany body blank before gluing on a 1/4" maple top. Below, a photo of the chambered body (left) and the chamber template I made (right):

I left the center solid to mount the pickup and bridge and create a solid line of wood from the nut to the saddle. The chambered body close up:

The top glued up:

The body cut out, top glued on and edges rounded over:

Another angle:

Close up of the "G" headstock inlay:

The neck glued up to the body:

I did a pre-finish mock up to make sure all the parts fit. The unusual pickup is made by Hammon Engineering. It's a copy of the Hagstrom single coil bass pickup from the '60s. The thing sounds fat and juicy and looks dynamite. Heck, it's larger than the bridge! The mock up:

The candy apple green finish was the toughest part of this project. To achieve the iridescent look, I sprayed a layer of gold and then a layer of green on top. This was a technique Fender borrowed from the auto industry in the late '50s. Photos don't do the deep green justice but here's a shot of the newly minted bass in the middle of the lacquering process:

After a couple weeks of curing time, the bass was ready for final buff and assembly. I surprised Carolyn with it the other night. Now THAT was fun! Here she is opening the case:

Playing it for the first time:

Some outdoor glamor shots:

I built this with a string-through-the-body design a la Fender's Telecaster. It's kind of small but you can just make out the string ferrules on the back on the bass. The bass features a 30" scale length as opposed to the standard 34" for ease of playing with small hands. The string-through design counter acts some of the 'flubby' tone you might get with a short scale length. The best of both worlds! View of the back:

In the case:

On to the next one!

NAMM '10

2010-01-18T23:57:00.033-05:00

Well dang, what a weekend!

Finally made it to a NAMM show and what a spectacle it was. NAMM is held annually at the Anaheim Convention Center in LA. It runs for 4 days and comprises virtually all of the mid to major level music merchants in the US. There are so many exhibits you can walk around for 4 days and not see everything. Unbelievable in size and scope, tons of new products available and the people watching was insane. Aside from trying to take in all the musical gear, I saw many a celebrity rocker (and some not so much), met Duane Eddy, Kedzie Matthews & Slash, hobnobbed with some of the guitar world's cognoscenti and finally made it to one of Deke Dickerson's Guitar Geek Festivals. A solid weekend! Some highlights:

Outside the convention center:

A wall of Fender's new La Carbonita model: (a super simple Telecaster style guitar with one TV Jones/Gretsch pickup model built in the Custom Shop... so it's mega expensive, around $5K.) You gotta hand it to Fender for knowing how to make money. Granted, these look like pretty sweet machines.

Tele man Jim Campilongo shows off his new signature model: a copy of his '59 top loader. A feather light instrument! Wish I had actually heard him play it:

Across the way at the Gretsch booth, the new Eddie Cochran 6120 model was in glass along with a host of goodies that come with uber collectible guitar:

Bob Brozman was hanging out and noodling at the National Reso-Phonic booth. He's an amazing musician, entertainer and ethnomusicologist. He literally wrote the book on the history of the National resonator guitar. He'd start a tune on a Style 1 roundneck:

and mid-song would switch to a square neck without missing a beat. Amazing:

Adam West's Batmobile was at the Hallmark booth!

Hallmark/Batmobile Guitar Hero controller:

Below, Martin's new bartione acoustic. I have a soft spot for baritone guitars. Martin's sounded beautiful! Note the side port:

Gross: double neck acoustic Flying V with 12/6 string necks. So staggering was this tasteless feat of idiocy that I failed to notice the acoustic Explorer to the left:

Dean Zelinksky is known for building pointy, hair-band-style guitars. He had a cool new design at the show though, a sort of Gibson ES-335 style electric. The edges of the guitar were tapered down to a super thin 1/4 inch or so, thickening up in the center of the body where the pickups and hardware were mounted. Kinda like one of a single pack Advil: skinny on the edges with a plump center, if you follow.

Zelinsky knows how to make a splash. Check out the real attention grabber at his booth:

More novelty time: triangle shaped guitar speaker cabinets?

Pretty cool looking I guess. Problem is, what if you want just one? Do you just lean the head on the side of it or something? Sheesh...

Onwards then to Stevie Vai frozen in carbonite:

Silly.

Celebrity highlight #1: My pal, Tommy Rockstar, who is an old friend of Mr Brownstone, waited on line with me to meet Slash. I credit Slash with getting me started on the guitar. The first song I learned to play was "Don't Cry" by Guns n' Roses. I was thirteen and it changed everything! Pretty cool to finally meet the guy. Tommy was even more exited though. He had Slash autograph his arm:

...and then promptly had the autograph tattooed!!

wow... that's some real GnR love.

So then I was off to Deke's 7th Annual Guitar Geek Festival:

I couldn't possibly document the whole thing but if you're interested, check out Tim aka Proteus' coverage here at the Gretsch Pages. I'll just include a couple cool shots. Below is the crude home made double neck lap steel that Speedy West played before getting his Bigsby steel guitar... talk about moving on up! The sign says "do not touch." I touched... I had to! Sorry, Deke.

Terry N. McArthur built Deke's iconic double neck guitar in 1958 when he was just seventeen. With some help from none other than Semie Moseley, Terry went about copying the guitars played by his idols, Joe Maphis and Larry Collins. Terry recently got back into guitar building after retiring from a career as a cabinet builder. Here are a few of his wonderfully over the top instruments:

Terry playing a guitar made by Larry Collins in the '50s:

Another highlight from Deke's guitar museum, Scotty Moore's Echosonic amp! This was the amp that was there to record Elvis' early hits on Sun Records. WOW!!! It has a built in tape delay, THE requisite sound effect for rockabilly tone. Chet Atkins also used one of these amplifiers to record his hit version of, "Mr Sandman." Leave it to Deke to come into possession of this historic piece of music history.

Saving the best for last, I was lucky enough to chat with Mr TONE, Duane Eddy for a couple minutes. The fella got up and played an incredible set of his instrumental hits. It was jaw dropping. Duane Eddy: Twang's the Thang! ~House of Twang~ itself is named as a tip of the cap to Duane. It was truly one of the great guitar extravaganzas that I've ever witnessed. Good to see him back playing a Gretsch 6120 DSV... and you wonder why I'm so obsessed by these guitars. He was plugged into a couple early '60s Fender Dual Showman amps. (Guitar Geek side note: Tim/Proteus, who covered the Deke show as well as the Gretsch booth at NAMM, has a side business crafting replacement bridges for the modern Gretsch fleet. His "Tru-Arc" bridges accurately match the fingerboard radius of the various models currently made by Gretsch. Until now, some of the Gretsch guitars suffered from minor intonation issues since they were outfitted with a standard radius bridge that may or may not have matched the fingerboard radius. The Tru-Arc solves these tuning problems as they are available in a variety of radii depending on the model at hand. The Tru-Arc has been getting rave reviews but has yet to have a celebrity endorsement, until now: Duane had one outfitted on his 6120 that night! What more convincing could you need? Sold! Congrats to Tim for reaching milestone. Exhaustive coverage of Duane's set here.)

Duane Eddy, his Gretsch and me:

Deke backing up Duane:

After all that, you'd think I'd be done with my guitar geeking a good while.

Fear not, readers!

Much more to come...

Acoustic Neck Glue Up

2010-01-10T12:05:00.010-05:00

With just three weeks to go before graduating RV, we have a LOT to do! This last week was spent buffing the acoustic and final fitting the neck to the body. I left the neck to glue up over the weekend so tomorrow morning, I'll have a guitar!

Well... almost.

I still have to fret the neck, make and install the bridge, cut a nut and saddle, make the pickguard and tweak the final setup. With guitar repair guru, Frank Ford, coming by school for a two day lecture this week and the NAMM show next weekend, time is on short supply. (Guitar Geeks will also love Frank's website, FRETS.com and the store he runs, Gryphon Strings.)

Here's a shot of the wedge on the butt of the acoustic: Indian rosewood back and sides with matching rosewood binding. The light strip is maple purfling which, with the matched rosewood binding/back & sides, gives the guitar a sharp pinstriped look. Below, an early photo of fitting the wedge followed by a shot of the final product, lacquered and buffed to a mirror sheen:

Below are two shots of the neck gluing up to the body. The heel bolts to the neck block with two 2" bolts accessed through the sound hole. Glue is only used to adhere the fingerboard to the top of the guitar. Future serviceability is the name of the game with this style neck joint, as opposed to a traditional dovetail joint. Most guitars will inevitably need a neck reset at some point in their lives. A reset entails completely removing the neck from the body and reassessing the neck angle. With a dovetail joint, you have a ton of glue to deal with which means a more involved process of steaming off the neck. The process goes much smoother if you only have glue beneath the fingerboard to deal with.

Guitar #1... Done!!!

2009-12-20T14:24:00.016-05:00

Well folks, I'm proud to say that I've finished my first guitar: a solid body electric based on the instrument Paul Bigsby built for Merle Travis in 1948. See previous post for more info on that one. This guitar turned out great, exceeding my expectations in tone and feel. Although it looks pretty close to the Bigsby instrument, the actual construction is more like a Gibson Les Paul. It features a solid 1 1/2" thick mahogany body with a flame maple top and tortoise binding, a mahogany neck with a bound rosewood fingerboard, Gibson scale length, Jason Lollar dog ear P 90 pickups, a Tone Pros locking tune-o-matic bridge and an American made Bigsby vibrato system. It's finished in Lawrence McFadden nitrocellulose lacquer. It weighs a ton! 9.8 lbs... in the ballpark of your average Les Paul Custom. I can't say enough positive things about the building process. I've learned an amazing amount of information and developed some crucial hand skills. The instructors at Roberto-Venn know their stuff and hammer us with info every day, pushing us to craft the best instruments possible. Again, my thanks to R.C. Allen, owner of Bigsby #2, for lending me the headstock template Paul Bigsby himself made and used to craft his iconic guitars. This same template is featured on page 49 of the recent The Story of Paul Bigsby book.

So here's the guitar posing up against the old Ford pickup on the back lot of R-V, minutes after final completion:

Some more glamor shots:

So that's one big step closer to the launch of my own line of hand built, custom guitars. Much much more to come...

Nearly There...

2009-12-05T16:36:00.002-05:00

I couldn't resist a quick mock up of the electric. Here it is, finish buffed but not perfect yet:

Ah, The Gretsch...

2009-12-02T00:05:00.004-05:00

A new website detailing the introduction and metamorphosis of the iconic Gretsch 6120. Many of the photos are credited to Chris Guido, a fella I met while working at Rudy's Music. Heck of a nice guy with a drool inducing collection of Gretsch guitars.

Inlays & Heels

2009-11-30T22:36:00.007-05:00

Big push to finish to work on the acoustics this week. We have to put the electrics on the back burner (though mine is cured and ready to be buffed and assembled) so we can get the acoustics into the spray booths asap. Today I inlaid my acoustic fingerboard with a simple fret marking theme. Below, a shot of the fingerboard drilled out for the mother of pearl dot inlays:

After drilling these holes, I set the inlays in place, packing some ebony dust and super glue around them. The below photo shows the inlays crudded up with dust and glue. Once the glue dries, a quick zap with some sandpaper levels everything out and erases all the excess garbage, leaving a clean fingerboard.

And the sanded finger board:

The rest of the day was spent carving the neck heel (where the neck meets the body):

View of the heel from the back:

Another mock up of the acoustic:

At this point I have to carve the rest of the neck, finalize the neck fit to the body and finish sand the whole guitar before the lacquer booth. This guitar is looking great!

We're getting there...

Acoustic Shots

2009-11-28T12:59:00.004-05:00

Here's a shot of my acousic headstock, inlaid with the G logo and mocked up with Schaller tuners:

A shot of the whole instrument mocked up. This coming week we'll be carving the neck and fitting it to the body.

First thing Monday I'll be pulling the electric off the drying rack, buffing the finish to its final shine and running through the final hardware assembly. This thing is almost done!! Below, Lady Carolyn holds G #1 just before taking off for Thanksgiving:

Acoustic Sprint Week!

2009-11-24T21:03:00.008-05:00

We've got a short week to finish a TON of work on the acoustics. Since we're off Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving, we've got two less days to get these guitars ready for the spray booth. As of last Friday afternoon, we've bound and fit the bottom wedge on the body; shaped and inlaid the headstock and are on our way to binding and inlaying the fingerboard. There is much to be done and I'm loving the fast pace of it all. We're being pushed to get a lot done quickly... we only have 8 weeks left! A couple shots:

The acoustic body: binding glued and taped on both top and back:

The back, taped:

The binding went on yesterday and I let it set up overnight, pulling the tape off this morning. It needs a bit of finessing (scraping, sanding and gap filling) before calling it 'done' but all and all everything came out looking pretty sharp. I'll post photos of the final sanded body and bottom wedge tomorrow.

Below, Joe Parker holds my Bigsby/Travis electric which is still hanging in the humidity room while the lacquer cures. Come Monday morning, it will be ready for wet sanding, buffing and final assembly. I should have my first guitar done in about a week... fingers crossed.

Amps n' Acoustic Binding

2009-11-19T21:16:00.003-05:00

I finished building my first amplifier yesterday. After a couple misplaced wires and some shoddy components blowing up (it wasn't my fault... honest!) I got this thing going and it sounds killer. For the amp class, all the students (and a few instructors) built the same amplifier from a kit sold by the Weber speaker company. Unfortunately, they stock some fairly cheap-o components with these particular kits, hence the blow ups: I had a filter cap and rectifier tube blow during the initial tests. Luckily, our instructors were ready for this and had better replacement parts on hand. This is pretty much as simple as tube amps get. The straight forward design allows for oodles of tone tweaking once the amp is completed. Swapping components out is a breeze and really opens up the possibility of dialing in a specific sound you're after. I've never really been one for geeking out on the subtle variances of vacuum tubes, swapping them out and comparing them; it just seemed like yet another black hole of endless tweaking in the world of guitar madness. But this simple amp allows for plenty of tinkering so maybe more of that will be in the future. Putting this amp together really makes you appreciate the stellar work of companies like Victoria or Blankenship. Their amps are flawless works of art. Open up the back circuit board of one of their amps and all the wires are immaculately soldered and arranged. The amp class was a lot of fun. I avoided getting electrocuted and now I have a pretty sweet lil' amp:

While the lacquer on my electric guitar cures over the next two weeks, all eyes are on the acoustics. Now that the body is all glued up, we are adding binding and the bottom wedge. The binding and wedge basically serve to hide the joinery between the wooden sides and the top & back. Basically, it cleanly brings the instrument together from an aesthetic point of view. Here's a couple shots of the work in progress: we use vacuum pumps to suspend the bodies of the acoustics while rough sanding the sides, making them smooth and perpendicular to the top & back prior to binding:

Yesterday we routed channels for the binding and purfling on the body. Below, Scotty routes his binding channels as instructor, Don, looks on to ensure a job well done:

Here's a shot of my acoustic body immediately after routing for binding and purfling. Purfling is an ornamental strip of thin material sandwiched below and/or inside the binding and the acoustic body. Besides hiding the joinery between the top, back and sides, the binding/purfling really frame the guitar's curves and gives the instrument a super clean look. Hopefully you can get a sense of the depth of the binding channel when looking at the top left of this image:

And the back:

Here's a shot of the bottom wedge as I fit it up. The wedge is another piece of rosewood (the same wood I'm using for the back and sides) with two thin pieces of maple tucked on either side that will eventually be mitered to match the rosewood/maple binding that will go around the top and back of the guitar... more on that as work progresses. While there are plenty of binding options to choose from, I kept it pretty simple and went with this simple setup so the maple purfling strips will give the guitar a clean pin striped look while the rosewood binding matches the back and sides.

And whadda ya know, I got home tonight and the good folks at Gretsch Discussion Pages/Tru-Arc Bridges mailed me a care package. Apparently they are producing 'official' Chet Atkins strings again and hooked me up with a couple free sets to check out... neato! Thanks Proteus!

Amp Building, Birdhouses and Lacquer

2009-11-10T21:15:00.013-05:00

I signed up for an elective crash course in amplifier construction here at R-V. Over the course of two weekends, we'll be building a replica of the famous Fender Deluxe amp. The original 50's era Fender amps personify "the Fender sound" to many folks, and have long been favored in the studio for their rich tonal characteristics and low volume (which makes the recording process that much easier). While they're not particularly loud, they are absolutely chock-full-o-tone. Fender's tweed amps (known as such for their tweed fabric covering) were there when many rock n' roll classics were recorded: Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, BB King etc. It's a sound we all know, if only on a subconscious level. The first time you plug into one, I guarantee a smile will pop across your face. It's a, "oh, THAT'S why everyone makes such a big deal about this amp" kind of experience.

Today, these classic amps are rare and costly, not to mention unreliable due to their old age. Over the last 15 years, there has been an explosion of small, boutique amp builders who offer a variety of the classic amps from Fender's 50's tweed era. (And yes, boutique means expensive.) The amp we're building, a copy of a Fender's 1959 5E3 Tweed Deluxe, is a benchmark for guitarists. It's a simple design and one that allows the builder a lot of room to swap components and really dial in the desired tone. Fender was one of a handful of companies that built both guitars and amps and as such, voiced both to suit each other beautifully.

First, a quick inventory of parts:

Schematic of the circuit:

In other news, the acoustic reached a major milestone today: the top, back and sides are finally glued together. Below is a pic of these three parts before gluing it all together. The bracing, sound hole rosette, joining the top and back plates, bending the sides etc are just some of the steps that we've taken to build these parts to the point where they are ready to be glued together and form an acoustic body.

The back gluing in on the go-bar deck:

Behold, the birdhouse:

The electrics continue on towards completion. Here's another student in the spray booth, lacquering his guitar:

Below, electrics hanging on the rack to dry. Mine is in the center, prior to the amber tint top coat:

If all goes well, I'll finish the last couple coats of lacquer tomorrow at which point the guitar will hang for two weeks while the finish cures...

Great Scott!!!

2009-11-05T09:25:00.003-05:00

Fifty four years ago today, Dr Emmett L. Brown (above) of Hill Valley California made history by devising a way to change it. On that day in 1955, his radical idea of the flux capacitor (which as we all know is what makes time travel possible) came to the famous inventor through simple chance. "I was hanging a clock, slipped on the toilet and hit my head on the edge of the sink. When I came to, I had a vision... a revelation: the flux capacitor." Although it took him 30 years and his entire family fortune, the day finally came when he sent his dog, Einstein, exactly one minute into the future during the first time machine experiment. Local boy, Martin McFly VI, was on hand to video tape the historic occasion. "It was pretty heavy," was all the stunned youth could tell reporters after witnessing the Delorean time machine vanish, leaving twin fire trails on the wet pavement of Twin Pines Mall.

above: Doctor Brown's original sketch of the flux capacitor

below: Marty, in awe of Doc's invention:

Getting there...

2009-11-04T21:43:00.003-05:00

The electric's mahogany back after three coats in the spray booth and some darkening pore filler:

You know that new sound you're looking for?!?

2009-11-03T23:37:00.003-05:00

Well listen to this!!!

Pretty heavy: an unedited version of Marty's Johnny B. Goode circa 1955 (3 years before Chuck Berry made it famous!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Cr7kxjSBs&NR=1

Chet and Leo

2009-11-03T22:51:00.001-05:00

Two amazing musicians and an equally great song: Chet Atkins and Leo Kottke doing Santo and Johhny's Sleepwalk:

Lacquer!

2009-11-03T21:25:00.017-05:00

Well today we finally made it into the lacquer spray booth to apply the finish to our electric guitars. After a week of finish sanding, fret work and a host of other last minute, detail oriented things, I taped off the fingerboard and started to shoot the guitar with the first of many coats of lacquer. I'm guessing that I'll be finished with the first stage of this process this coming Monday, at which point the instrument will hang in a humidity controlled room allowing the lacquer to fully cure. So there's a chance I will have this thing buffed, wired and set up by the end of the month.

Joe Parker standing over his ready-to-be sprayed guitar, a design he based on one of his Teisco's:

Closer up:

Clamping and gluing in the frets on my guitar (I fit a piece of cardboard around the end of the neck to protect the face of the guitar during this process):

The fingerboard is then covered in low-tack tape prior to spraying the lacquer finish:

In the spray booth, note the spray gun to the right. Behind the guitar is a powerful fan which sucks the airborne lacquer out of the booth. You can't tell by this photo but the sky lights in the spray booth proved excellent natural light to scrutinize your work. When that first coat of lacquer goes on... wowee!!! Now we're cookin'! The figure in the wood grain starts to develop an amazing 3-D look:

After a coat, the guitar hangs to dry:

There are some great looking guitars being built by the students here at R-V. Here are a few of them hanging in the humidity room after the first day of spraying:

This photo really doesn't do the figure of the maple top justice:

And another amazing Arizona sunset over the grounds of R-V:

Arizona Happenings

2009-10-28T22:06:00.020-04:00

Some shots of what we've been up to here in beautiful Arizona...

Getting back to our elementary school roots: Thursday night kickball!!!

Two weeks ago we drove 60 miles north to Rock Springs, AZ in search of some real cowboys playing their vintage Gretsch guitars. Here's what we found:

Still at it after all these years, Cecil and the Boys:

A few weeks back, we caught Dave Gonzalez (in blue) at the Rhythm Room with his new band, The Stone River Boys. Helluva show!!! ... and a helluva nice guy:

We hiked up South Mountain last Sunday. Carolyn and Joe taking photos on the way to the summit:

Carolyn and Joe climbing:

That's me standing on top of that there rock:

Oogah Boogah Joe:

Me and a cactus:

And a couple shots from school today: as I was carving out the top braces for the acoustic, I started getting these great little curly wooden shavings... no biggie but a cool little something that happens along the way to building a beautiful instrument.

Still haven't gotten the electric in the spray booth but I'm thinking this thing is gonna look great when it is done. I spent a weekend and a day & 1/2 at school finish sanding the guitar (removing the big n' ugly scars in the wood), an absolutely crucial and unglamorous step but hopefully one that will prove worthwhile when this thing is lacquered...

Top, Back, Sides and Glue!

2009-10-21T22:50:00.006-04:00

Finished gluing in all the soundboard braces this morning. Here's the whole set: Indian rosewood back (left) and sides (lying in front in their mold) and the X-braced spruce top (right):

Also... finally got my electric neck glued into the body. This crucial joint sits for 24 hours before removing the clamps. We'll get a full look tomorrow afternoon! Some different angles on the clamping process:

Glue n' Braces

2009-10-20T22:36:00.005-04:00

Here's a couple shots of my acoustic top with the lower face braces and bridge plate gluing in. The top sits on a metal dish carved to a 30 foot radius while the braced are glued to it. Once all the braces are glued in, the top and back of the acoustic retain their radiused shapes. All the braces are radius sanded on the side that are glued down to ensure a tight fit between the skeletal brace structure and the soundboard (or top). This process strengthens the guitar and actually puts stress on the top. The top, probably the most important factor in the sound of an acoustic, is stressed this way to help in sound projection. The sides and back basically serve as rigid walls to the top, akin to a drum.

Those blue, white and orange sticks are 'go bars': basically flexible kite rods that exert pressure on the top while the braces are being glued in.

Hank Thompson

2009-10-20T03:08:00.005-04:00

I became aware of this fella when I happened to see one of his cd's in the front bin at J& R Music World in Manhattan. I used to roam through there when I had a job as a dog walker in the neighborhood. The second floor had all the goodies: blues, jazz and country. I spotted a 'best of' collection of Hank Thompson and bought it on the spot simply because he was posing with his heavily customized Gibson Super 400 on the cover. I thought, "if he's got that great a taste in guitars, he's got to be good." Sure enough... that was my introduction to the legendary country singer. A long time musical partner with Merle Travis, Hank brought a bit more of a 'pop' feel to the western swing sound of the late 40's/early 50's.

Here's a dy-no-mite video of Hank doing his hit, "Whoa Sailor," complete with transitional and iconic instruments in the background. Aside from Hank's Super 400, there's a Bigsby triple neck pedal steel, a Fender electric bass and what looks to be another Gibson Super 400, played by the band's rhythm guitarist. I love this clip simply for the fact that it captures Hank's music in a transistional phase: this clip is from the early 60's, a time when Western Swing was not the cutting edge sound it once was. Nevertheless, here's Hank's big band, complete with dueling fiddles and secondary electric archtop guitar, hangover elements of the 40's/50's. Note the electric Fender bass being plucked in the background, an indication of Hank's adoption of modern technology into his band. The electric bass is a compact instrument able to pump out a loud and commanding sound without taking up the precious stage real estate once occupied by an upright bass. The design of Fender's Precision & Jazz basses (basically a larger Telecaster) made it easy for guitar players to make the switch to bass whereas upright required its own technique.

2009-10-17T21:30:00.000-04:00

Kerfing & Binding

2009-10-16T21:45:00.006-04:00

Above: the main drag down the R-V lot. Outdoor woodshop area on the left behind the trees. It's rustic but it works.

Man oh man... I'm bushed. Bring on the weekend! Lots of happenings around R-V this week. Some photos: Here are my acoustic sides in their mold. We glued in the kerfing (those strips of slotted wood around the edges) Thursday. Kerfing serves to reinforce the gluing surface between the rosewood acoustic sides and the top and back. Kinda tricky stuff as it's very flimsy when you're gluing it in. It just wants to snap apart. Glued and clamped in:

Kerfing finished:

Today I bound my electric body. Below is the body with binding channel routed into the top edge and tortoise binding strips laying across it.

Next, I ran some low tack tape around the perimeter of the body to get an exact measurement for the length of binding needed. Binding comes in 54" strips and I just made it under that. You don't want to glue in 95% of the binding and get to the end to realize you're an inch short! If the perimeter of your guitar is longer than 54" you just run two strips up the sides, starting from the center seem at the bottom of the body.

Finally, squeeze glue into the channel and tape the bejesus outta that thing to press and hold the binding into place. Everything seems to have worked out. The trickiest part is going around those sharp corners on the cutaway side. Using a heat gun, you can warm up the binding to finesse it into place but too much heat and *poof*! Up in smoke... Binding is highly flammable so watch out.

Below, another angle. You can see the holes drilled from the neck pocket down into the pickup cavities necessary to run the wiring harness. The last bit of tortoise binding sticks out on the right side:

Tuners Drilled

2009-10-13T21:47:00.005-04:00

Another amazing day in Phoenix. The weather is incredible... this winter is going to be good.

Quick update... one of the many crucial & final steps in prepping the guitar for the spray booth next week. Here's the headstock with tuner holes drilled:

At this point, all of the necessary holes have been drilled and routed. The next big step is gluing the neck to the body. Some of the other students who are doing a Fender bolt-on style neck got their instruments together today. Pretty cool stuff!

The Dead Weather

2009-10-13T10:13:00.004-04:00

Jack White has his head in the right place.

Everyone should witness this video for "I Cut Like A Buffalo," the single from his latest project, The Dead Weather:

Control cavities routed

2009-10-12T23:04:00.009-04:00

Today I routed the control cavities for my electric guitar. While it may not seem like much, there is a fair amount of prep and planning that goes into these routing procedures. It's my perception that much of guitar building involves the prep and pre-planning ie. setting up jigs and machinery (in this case accurately routing these cavities to within 1 thousandth of an inch) versus actually executing the task at hand. Because of this, many builders work in batches, producing a group of instruments at a time and executing each step of he building process with groups of guitars-to-be as opposed to setting up each machine or jig one at a time.

It's all about efficiency.

As I've mentioned, I'm also currently building an acoustic guitar but at this point, much of that work simply doesn't translate that well to blog-form. Right now we're carving the internal bracing structure and working on the body of the instrument. I would say we're about a week away from gluing up the entire body: back, sides and soundboard.

Photo of the back of the electric body and the neck. The top right is the 3 way pickup selector and the bottom left is the control cavity for the master volume and tone. Yeah... that headstock looks big! Chock it up to camera angle and the influence of D'Angelico and Ren & Stimpy/Björk animator, John K.

Headstock Inlay

2009-10-10T00:53:00.003-04:00

Finished up my headstock inlay for the electric today:

Coming together...

2009-10-08T23:05:00.007-04:00

Today I finished carving out the headstock on my electric guitar. I'm pretty happy with it! The neck shape is akin to a nice meaty 50s Tele but not crazy fat like those 'Louisville Slugger' necks. Neck carving is a satisfying experience, time consuming... but sooooo fulfilling. You basically clamp the roughed out 2x4-like neck blank in a vice and have at it with a rasp, constantly stopping to make careful measurements and shaping it to your liking. Carving the neck is a big leap towards seeing the instrument in its final form and is a major factor in the mojo of the guitar. A well shaped neck can inspire the player while an uncomfortable one can kill any desire to play the instrument. I also routed the body for two Lollar P-90 pickups. By next Friday we'll have all the wood work done, neck glued to the body and ready for the spray booth the following Monday.

Janie Hendrix says, "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

2009-09-26T01:17:00.006-04:00

Jimi Hendrix's half sister, Janie, is the woman who has been steering the course of the Hendrix estate for the last decade or so, or perhaps even longer if the stories of her manipulation of Al Hendrix (her and Jimi's father) are to believed. She has established her own company, specializing in the embarrassingly soul-less franchising, exploitation and general blood sucking of Jimi Hendrix.

"Boxer shorts!!! Get your Jimi Hendrix boxer shorts here!!"

Read this laughable story, detailing Gibson Guitar's plan to market a Janie Hendrix-approved cheap n' ugly clone of Hendrix's preferred instrument, the Fender Stratocaster, in a sickening and desperate lunge to suck a wee bit more money from Hendrix's bones.

"This is the ultimate tribute to the greatest guitarist who ever lived," says Janie Hendrix.

HA!!!

Yes, he was the greatest but this ill-conceived 'tribute' just plain makes me sick.

Congratulations Janie Hendrix! You have succeeded in presenting yourself as the world's most an unimaginative leech.

Why would a respectable company like Gibson stoop so low? Is the economy so bad? They are a well established and iconic company, having produced some of the world's finest instruments for over 150 years. Can they be hurting that badly? Doubtful. I guarantee their Les Paul model will never go out of style. Why pillage the legacy of a great musician just to make a few paltry bucks at the expense of cheapening a long standing reputation of quality? Are Gibson and Janie Hendrix really going to make a bundle of $ here? My prediction: No!

I'm willing to bet that money grubbing was never on Jimi Hendrix's mind. Today, it's a damn shame that others who never even knew him can so shamefully profit off his image. I guess it is better that someone from the Hendrix family might profit off this crap (as opposed to another Alan Douglas) but I am also fairly certain that the legendary guitarist would simply be embarrassed by this latest turn of events. Janie Hendrix: if you are hurting for money, why not spend some more time creating new ways for fans to experience Hendrix's music in the form of CD reissues or live concert DVDs? Howsabout promoting some kind of musical education for kids in Jimi's name? If you're going to profit off his image, why not do it in a way that contributes to others in a positive way instead of just scraping the barrel with this uninspired junk for your own $.02.

Shame on you.

Roughed in...

2009-09-24T22:37:00.008-04:00

Here are my electric and acoustic guitar necks as they currently stand. After we glue the fingerboards to the mahogany necks, we'll be carving these into shape:

A glimpse at the electric in progress:

Resurrecting My First Guitar

2009-09-24T02:43:00.005-04:00

When I started playing guitar at age 13, I had to prove to my folks that I was pretty serious about learning this instrument. While at camp Keewaydin in the summer of '92, a fellow camper named Dan Knight taught me how to play "Don't Cry" by Guns n' Roses. Yes, I must admit that Slash was the first guitarist who inspired me to play, although the lifetime commitment was due to watching Jimi Hendrix's performance at Woodstock the last day of 8th grade in Mr. Serraceno's social studies class... but that's another story. When I came home from camp that summer, I remember immediately running down into our basement to dig up the acoustic guitar I knew my dad had down there. I vividly remember the excitement as I opened the guitar's case... quickly followed by a deflating "chuh-wahng!!!" sound as the bridge popped off the face of the 30+ year old guitar. I guess my dad didn't know that you couldn't put steel strings on a classical guitar... oops. After begging my parents to have it fixed, I set about learning more popular MTV songs of the day, taking lessons at Nolde's Music in Flemington, NJ and scratching the heck out of the top of my dad's old guitar with a pick. I knew his España brand guitar wouldn't do though. I was 13 and needed to rock. So I asked for a Jackson Dinky Reverse:

Yikes... A near fatal "oops!" The above tiny photo is actually the same model I had my heart set on: faux stone flake finish, maple neck and Floyd Rose. Eeek. That thing was hideous. But to my young mind it was super cool. Thank God my parents saw fit to get me a real guitar: under the Christmas tree that year was a Gibson Les Paul Studio in wine red with gold hardware. Hot diggity that thing was a beauty! Although I must admit that at first I was a little disappointed that I had gotten the more boring of the two guitars. Thanks Mom and Dad for starting me off on the road to good taste... well, at least with guitars that is.

Fast forward a couple years: after absorbing many Metallica and Green Day songs, I snapped the headstock off for the first time while sleeping one night. I was a freshman in high school and had the guitar on a stand next to my bed. I must have rolled over and slapped it with my hand and it just fell smack on its face. The sickening thud of the Les Paul hitting the floor woke me up... but it was repaired.

It survived until one of the guitar's strap knobs broke during a Mr. Brownstone rehearsal in 2002 and the headstock snapped again. This time Sadowsky guitars in NYC fixed it, telling me that "if it breaks again, it's over."

Well, the third and final charm was my friend, Dave Godowsky, who wisely packed my guitar in the trunk of his car while on a 5 hour drive from Boston to NYC in February the following year. Contrary to popular belief, freezing temperatures are actually bad for guitars and headstock cracked yet again. At that point, I thought my Les Paul was a goner. I stripped it of its parts and put it away in its case for a few years, thinking that one day maybe I'd fix it myself.

So...

Now that I'm at R-V, I'm learning how to properly fix this type of breakage. Tonight was the first step in resuscitating my '92 Les Paul. Below, the guitar on the bench, with the headstock crack fully epoxied and clamped to sit overnight:

Mega thanks to Robert Mazzullo of Mudd Guitars for his help on this.

A Real Working Band

2009-09-19T13:33:00.005-04:00

Just a great photo I came across on the Steel Guitar Forum of a working band from the 50's. Legendary steel player, Buddy Emmons, is on the right. You can see his Bigsby pedal steel guitar was too short for his long legs so he propped his right knee out. Looks kinda uncomfortable, huh? Great looking band in their country duds! Looks to be a Martin D-18? D-28? on the left obscuring a fella playing a who-knows-what kind of archtop. Early Gibson Les Paul in the middle and a Gretsch Duo Jet equipped with a Bigsby vibrato arm on the right. Looks like all three of those electric guitars are being played through the tweed Fender Twin amp!

R.C. Allen

2009-09-16T22:15:00.017-04:00

Holy serendipity, Batman!!!

My connection to Paul Bigsby gets one big step closer:

We had an unexpected guest at R-V today: R.C. Allen. Although I had heard his name in the past, I really only understood the man's story after reading Andy Babiuk's book, "The Story of Paul Bigsby: Father of the Modern Electric Solidbody Guitar." I've been referring to my copy on a near daily basis for information on the electric I'm building here at school. R.C. Allen is known in certain circles because of his unique relationship with Bigsby, who as I've mentioned in earlier posts, had a massive yet somewhat unsung impact on the development of the electric guitar. In a nutshell, Bigsby was the man who built the first "modern solidbody electric guitar." What I mean is that the instrument he designed and built for Merle Travis in 1948 was truly the first solidbody electric guitar built with a full size solid body and 6 inline tuner headstock. (see top photo) His design predates Fender's Telecaster (1949) and Gibson's Les Paul (1952). Even under casual inspection, you can see the obvious Bigsby influence in both of these other classic instruments.

R.C.'s claim to fame is that he owns Bigsby solidbody electric guitar #2, acquired from his uncle, George Grohs, in 1952. The "Grohs guitar" was actually the first of Bigsby's solidbody electric guitars to feature the now famous 6 inline tuner peghead shape (similar to the Fender Stratocaster). While the Bigsby/Travis guitar also had the 6 inline tuner setup, it originally was built with a large knob on the top side of the peg head (or headstock). Travis later had this shape changed when he saw the headstock of the Grohs guitar.

R.C. (a luthier himself) gave a short lecture on the instruments he has been building over the years and told us some stories of how he came to own the Bigsby/Grohs guitar as well as some anecdotes about his pals: Leo Fender, George Fullerton, Merle Travis, Joe Maphis and of course, Bigsby himself. Amazing stuff! The whole thing was made that much sweeter for me as I was given the opportunity to demo R.C.'s guitars for the class.

R.C. Allen looks at me and says, "Do you wanna plug this in?"

"Um... yes, please."

So I played three different instruments. The first was a Stromberg influenced archtop with a Johnny Smith style floating pickup. Instructor, Don Windham, with the guitar:

Me playing one of R.C.'s Bigsby replicas (note the headstock):

R.C. hung out at Bigsby's workshop throughout the 50's picking up different tips on guitar building. He has spent his whole life building, repairing and setting up guitars. Since R.C. was one of the few people Bigsby allowed in his shop to learn his techniques, playing one of his instruments might be the next best thing to an actual Bigsby. He even builds Bigsby replica pickups, an absolutely crucial component to the sound of an electric guitar. ($500 for a pair!)

Below, a closeup of R.C.'s Bigsby guitar with his hand made pickups. (Guitar Geeks note the aluminum compensated bridge and tremolo arm, two more of Bigsby's revolutionary innovations.)

A student, Paul Barnstable, with R.C.:

The guitar in the above photo is R.C.'s replica of Chet Atkins's 1950 D'Angelico Excel, which Mr. Guitar himself modified with a Bigsby pickup, a Gibson P 90 pickup and three way switch. It's tough to see in the photo, but the switch itself was simply mounted over the bottom F-hole...

The truly hair raising part of the day was when R.C. presented the class with some original Bigsby templates. These were the actual templates Paul Bigsby crafted and used to build his guitars in the late 40's and 50's. Below are templates for two guitar bodies, an armrest and the famous headstock:

Below is the actual template (as seen on page 49 of "The Story of Paul Bigsby") which became the standard Bigsby peg head. To me this is a fairly big deal: this was the headstock shape that first introduced the now industry standard 6 inline tuner layout. This shape is the basic idea Leo Fender incorporated into all his electric guitars. (In fact, Leo once borrowed Travis' Bigsby guitar for a week, dissected it and returned with a prototype that was to become the Telecaster.) The Bigsby peg head shape was to become world famous on virtually every Fender guitar or bass model. Fender's iconic instruments from the 50's and 60's are some of the most highly collectible guitars on the vintage market. I remember a Burgundy Mist Strat at Rudy's that clocked in around $125K. I'm not trying to take away anything from Leo, mind you; he certainly had his own ideas and introduced instruments that redefined what a guitar should be, not to mention pioneering the concept of well made, mass produced instruments. Leo might be compared to Henry Ford in terms of his assembly line approach to instrument manufacturing. His gift was the ability to examine something (such as the Bigsby/Travis guitar), and come up with his own version (the Telecaster) that sounded great, was affordable for the working musician and was easy to manufacture and repair. In contrast, Bigsby would take upwards of one month to build each of his custom guitars, taking pride in crafting each unique instrument... a far cry from the high volume factory that Leo developed.

R.C. told me the birdseye maple used in this particular template came from the same batch that Bigsby used to craft both the Travis and Grohs guitars. The Holy Grail indeed... shivers. Looking closely at one side of the headstock template, you can make out Bigsby's scribbled some notes, apparently a "to do" list for some guitar he was working on at the time.

So here's me, a novice luthier who is basing his first instrument on the Bigsby/Travis guitar. For R.C. Allen to come waltzing in one day, unannounced, out of the blue, never having visited our school before... well, you can imagine the goose bumps. Unbelievable.

And yes... I traced all those templates for future use.

Designs and the first few wooden parts

2009-09-13T22:11:00.013-04:00

Three weeks in and they've got us pepping along at Roberto-Venn. The first section of the course focuses on the design and construction of electric and acoustic guitars. We are building one of each simultaneously. There's a ton of great information to soak up! At this point we've drawn full size plans for both the electric and the acoustic. I whipped up a design for my electric based on the solid body guitar Paul (P.A.) Bigsby built for Merle Travis in 1948 (more on this fascinating and historically important instrument in a future Twang). I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel with my design, just to learn some fundamentals while at the same time experimenting with some ideas that I've always thought would make a great guitar. In terms of the acoustic, Martin pretty much set the industry standard with their guitars so that's what we're focusing on at school. As mentioned in a previous entry, the acoustic will essentially be a Martin - OM (the other choice being the larger bodied Dreadnought model). Some shots:

Project Telecaster body roughed out on day 2:

First strip of the OM two ring rosette:

Roughed out rosewood back for the acoustic: joined, back strip glued in, brace pattern drawn:

Below is a full size drawing plan for the electric's headstock. I modified the curve on the upper knob slightly from the Bigsby/Travis guitar. Guitar geeks note: while the 6 inline tuner layout and headstock shape are most commonly associated with Fender instruments, Bigsby's design actually predates Leo Fender's. Fender began selling his first guitar, the Broadcaster, in 1950 while the familiar 'Stratocaster' headstock did not appear until the model itself was introduced in 1954. As the story goes, Travis requested that Bigbsy build his guitar with 6 inline tuners so as to allow for easier tuning and string changing. Many people consider the Bigsby/Travis instrument to be the first true modern solid body electric guitar.

The body outline:

My work bench at the end of week 3:

Off To Arizona!

2009-09-02T02:19:00.007-04:00

Busy bees, busy bees...

A full update coming soon but in the meantime: While on an amazing camping trip in Vermont, I asked Carolyn to marry me. She heartily accepted. Their was much rejoicing. We had an incredible time camping with some dear friends that weekend at Lake Dunmore. The bugs were plentiful. Fast forward a few weeks and we're now living in Phoenix, Arizona where I am attending The Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery and Carolyn is continuing to pursue her music, writing and photography. All her goodies can be had at carolynsills.com During the six month program I'm enrolled in, I'll be learning the fundamentals of guitar design, construction and repair. Pretty amazing stuff to get inside the builder's head and know what it takes to create a great instrument. Of course, true mastery can take years... but we're on our way.

One photo for now: my work bench as it looked this morning. Sitting in the center of the bench is a long aluminum sanding block and two pieces of spruce that will make up the top of the Martin OM style acoustic I'm building.

So what is it with all this 'Twang' anyway?

2009-07-27T11:03:00.009-04:00

Some of you may have wondered what I mean by 'House of Twang.' What the heck is twang anyway?? It may bring to mind words like nasal and drawl, a Southern or maybe even hillbilly accent. In terms of music, twang is TONE! Think of the guitar sounds of Duane Eddy or Buck Owens. That is twang! Go back even further to groups like The Maddox Brothers and Rose or Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and you'll notice the guitar sounds are in the same ballpark, albeit less of a sonic force.

To me, the twang in these musicians' music represents a bygone period of American life. The vibe of these recordings, specifically the sounds of the guitars, is dated... and I kinda like that. The spirit, drive and ambition of 1940s-50s American life is forever captured in the country, rockabilly and early rock & roll hits of the day. The twangy guitar sound is the cornerstone of this uniquely American music.

So on a larger level, twang to me represents a sound which, while at the time was cutting edge, now represents a simpler, perhaps more wholesome time. There are a lot of distractions in today's day and age. Twang serves as a reminder to keep things simple, to do what I can to carry some of yesterday into tomorrow.

The quest for bubbly Twang:

For my 30th birthday this year, my lovely girl gave me a pin she made out of a bottle cap of Twang Root Beer circa 1950s:

There isn't a lot of information on the net about Twang Root Beer, but according to www.root-beer.org it was a soda produced by the Cammarano Brothers in Tacoma, WA from 1947-1958. Twang Root Beer was available in a 12oz bottle and two different 31oz cans.

I'll be keeping an eye out for more info on the now defunct root beer brand and will, of course, post all findings here. With some luck, maybe we'll come across an old bottle or two of the Twangy drink...

Five tips to touring success

2009-07-06T13:31:00.002-04:00

Sun!

2009-06-27T15:14:00.002-04:00

It's sunny in Brooklyn!

The King of Pop - Michael Jackson 1958-2009

2009-06-26T02:34:00.010-04:00

Michael Jackson died yesterday.

MICHAEL JACKSON

My friends and I all grew up watching, listening to, mimicking and eventually mocking this man, this genius of music and entertainment. But if ever a man realized his potential in the current world of savage media-blitz, it was Michael Jackson.

Like the rest of us, I was obsessed with Michael when I was 4... maybe 5 years old? I can remember my first young capitalist purchase at the age of 5 when I bought a Michael Jackson poster at Rick's Toy World in Flemington, New Jersey circa 1984 (it was a promo from the Billie Jean video). I used to drive my mom crazy demanding that she rent "The Making of Thriller" over and over again. I was scared of all the zombies though, and always turned off the VHS tape 6 minutes in.

Michael Jackson was my youth, our youth. And when I say our youth, I mean the world as a whole. The guy sold 750 million albums worldwide! Michael Jackson was the truest kind of icon. Through is music and performances he represented joy, love, freedom, hope and simplicity. He represented a better life through the sublime power of music. My friend, Ray Ray Desouza summed it up best tonight stating, "he allowed us to be us."

Amen, brother.

What more can you ask from life? From music? From the things that add value to your day to day? From an experience that moves you to a new place? Attention all cynical snob seen-it-all music 'fans' blowing him off as a creepy-washed-up-has-been weirdo: piss off. Go back to your head in the sand Brooklyn Vegan & Pitchfork bullshit heard-today-gone-tomorrow self-centered & self righteous indulgences.

Remember why you love music in the first place.

You might have, in just a little way, been turned on by the guy who apparently became a child molester later in life. Ouch... yeah, that's pretty much the worst. The guy may have evolved into a weirdo in his later years but I don't think I need to spell out the well known facts regarding Michael's youth... or rather, the complete absence of his childhood. He was robbed of the innocence that you and I take for granted. But in the same life, the man gave us "Thriller," "We Are The World," "Billie Jean," "I Want You Back" and The Moonwalk! The Thriller album went 20 times platinum!!! Michael has said that his songs were always out there, that he didn't really write them but that his music already existed in the world and that he merely channeled these songs into our lives. The most electrifying artists are often the ones most misunderstood during their lifetimes, the ones who serve as a conduit to joyful realization.

I'm as much to blame as anyone else in recent years for blowing Michael off as a washed up tabloid freak. But how can we really ever truly know or understand another's plight? I feel sorry for the guy in so many ways. What's with all the plastic surgery and skin whitening?? Why all thebizarro-ness? Child molestation??? Really???

***sigh***

Obviously, I don't know the whole story. I'm sure few people do. After all the hype and success, he just seemed primed for a media blood letting. How could a young kid from Gary, Indiana ever have been prepared to deal with his kind of super stardom? I am not here to excuse anyone's wrong doings (and perhaps he was guilty of more than a few) but can we fully blame the guy for handling life as he felt necessary? He was just another human after all. Another guy with his own set of demons. As 'the public,' we all to blame in a small degree. The public is a quick-to-burn flaky birch bark of incendiary tabloid firestorm. After all, it's we the people who care about our celebs, right?

Most of my friends don't own a single Michael Jackson album but everyone I know will sing and dance along to his hits. Musicians and entertainers are here for our amusement. They serve to better us, to relieve our day-to-day troubles and lift us up. Michael, you were chosen to do what you did, and you brought it to unprecedented heights. Good luck to you and...

Thank you, Michael Jackson.

Pick that Guitar!

2009-06-24T22:27:00.001-04:00

And another (surprise!) guitar article...

Mitch Mitchell article published...

2009-06-24T11:20:00.004-04:00

It was just brought to my attention that a revised version of the blog entry I wrote for ~House of Twang~ about Jimi Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell was published by the LA based Music Union back in May. Music Union is a resource for musicians seeking new opportunities for growth in today's economy.

Click here to read the improved article.

Stay tuned as there is more to come!

(above: Hendrix, Mitch with Noel up top)

The Fantastic Bigsby Vibrato

2009-05-23T14:43:00.007-04:00

When Merle Travis complained to his friend, Paul A. Bigsby, about the shoddy quality of the Kaufman vibrato arm on his Gibson L-10 guitar, Bigsby set out to build a solution. What he came up with is what is now commonly known as "a Bigsby." Synonymous with Gretsch guitars, you can also retrofit one of these musically expressive units on a Les Paul, a Telecaster or just about any other guitar you can think of. The Bigsby vibrato arm allows the player to raise or lower the pitch of the strings by about a half step, producing an almost pedal steel-like expressive quality as you may apply vibrato to an entire chord as opposed to just a single note.

Hand made Les Paul knock off by HML Guitars with a Bigsby B7 model:

In his youth, Bigsby worked as a pattern maker in various SoCal machinery plants. There he learned to hand craft molds used to produce the steel parts for various engines and shop tools. With this skill set, he was able to design and construct his new vibrato unit from scratch. As shop foreman of the Crocker Motorcycle Company, legend has it Bigsby initially used a motorcycle spring as the main point of flex under the vibrato arm.

Modern Gretsch 6120 DSW:

Here is a video showing how these vibrato units are made. Good to see that there is still a fair amount of hands on work done to create these units. The molds used today are the same Bigbsy initially made in the 1950s! The great inventor nailed the design the first time through for a vibrato unit which today is still very popular. In fact, Bigsby stopped building his custom electric Spanish, lap & pedal steel guitars in the late 50's to focus on the booming demand for his vibratos.

I've got a Bigsby on my Gretsch and couldn't imagine playing guitar without one!

Billy Cox

2009-05-19T03:33:00.009-04:00

Sometimes... maybe every time, it is a great thing to meet one of your heroes.

I met Billy Cox.

Billy played bass with Jimi Hendrix. They met in the early 1960's when the two were serving in the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, KY. Hendrix joined the service as an alternative to the two year jail sentence he was looking at after being arrested for stealing a car in his hometown of Seattle. He made 26 jumps before being discharged after breaking an ankle. We can only imagine what sort of affect these parachute jumps had on the music Hendrix went on to record.

below:
Hendrix (left top) Billy Cox (front n' center)
The King Casuals, Memphis, TN - sometime 1962?

The pair played together in a number of R&B bands on the chitlin ' circuit until Hendrix finally moved to New York City in 1964. He continued to play with a variety of soul and R&B acts such as the Isley Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, King Curtis, Curtis Knight and Little Richard. Below is the earliest know video of Hendrix backing up Buddy and Stacey in 1965: (note the young left-handed guitarist on the far left side)

Hendrix reached international super stardom with the release of Are You Experienced? in May of 1967. After two years of hard touring and hard living, Hendrix sought some true friendship and a musical partner in his chaotic world. He recruited Billy to play bass, replacing Noel Redding, in 1969. That summer, the two spent some time at a rented house in upstate New York with Mitch Mitchell on drums as well as musicians Juma Sultan, Jerry Velez and Larry Lee. The loosely organized group jammed day and night, working up new material. Although a veteran of the blues and R&B scene (he toured with many national acts, most notably Freddie King), Billy had never played to an audience as large as the one at his first gig with Hendrix in August of 1969: Woodstock.

Billy was Hendrix's bass player from that point on. From the moment he joined the band, he was a major influence in the development of the music Hendrix would write in the later stages of his career... and when I say 'later stages,' I mean the last 18 months. Hendrix's meteoric rise to fame began in the fall of 1966 and was he was dead in September of 1970. Billy was an essential part to the development of such riff heavy songs as 'Izabella,' 'Who Knows,' 'Machine Gun' and 'Freedom.'

I met Billy one morning while working at Rudy's Music Stop in NYC. Some guy was hanging out front of the store at 10:25am as we were opening. Usually if someone is hanging out that early they're about to waste your time. As it turns out, this fella just wanted a Boss OC-2 Octave pedal. Ok... no big deal, quick sale. I grabbed the last one from the stockroom downstairs, ran up behind the counter and wrote up the bill of sale. It was then that I finally took a solid look at my customer.

It's Billy Cox.

Holy crap.

Gulp. I smile and trying to play it cool say, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" He smiles, extends his hand and simply says, "Billy Cox."

"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" says my brain. I mumbled something about what a great influence he's been and what an honor it is to meet him. "Um... that'll be $119.95 please."

It made my day.

Billy, Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell - The Cry of Love Tour '70:

Band of Gypsys, NYE '69/'70:

I was on cloud 9 for a week. No one else at the shop recognized Billy. He struck me as a really sweet and humble guy. Lucky me. After the death of Hendrix's drummers, Mitch Mitchell and Buddy Miles last year, Billy Cox is the last living core musician to have played with the gifted guitarist.

Thanks Billy.

Otis Rush!!!

2009-05-08T14:46:00.003-04:00

Man oh man... Doesn't get any better than this: Otis Rush is heavy stuff and oh so cool in those shades.

Happy Friday!

New article published

2009-05-05T11:55:00.001-04:00

Check out a piece I wrote on the lasting appeal of vinyl records for a Los Angeles-based music site:

http://www.musicunion.com/2009/05/04/vinyls-lasting-appeal/

The 30th Bday Bash

2009-04-07T00:22:00.014-04:00

I've been doing a birthday party/show since I turned 21 and played Stash's Cafe in New London, CT with my two bands at the time, G Qua: a band playing original-yet-standard fair liberal arts college jam/funk, and The Fuzz: a trio where I got to play all my fave Hendrix and Stevie tunes. It was a great night, the first time I ever performed with Carolyn (we did two Lou Ann Barton songs) The fella playing drums in G Qua, Matt Kane, picked a fight with a biker gang with predictable results.

Fast forward nine years and I'm still at it. For my 30th, we took over Ellis Bar in Park Slope, a cool little neighborhood spot serving tasty south western tapas literally 100 feet from our front door. Boss Tweed rocked for about an hour and after a quick set and costume change, Los Beardos Raviolis made its debut. Los Beardos Raviolis is an instrumental surf rock combo comprised of devilishly talented musicians possessing epic scope and ambition... plus they wear sombreros and 14" false beards. There even had electrified dancing maraca girls! Momma...! My good buddy, DJ Grand Pah!, was on hand to spin vinyl all night and the bar handed out free tacos at midnight... how can you beat that?! Thanks to Rylan and Amanda for the pics:

My buddy Warren Malone sat in for a few tunes:

Hector even made it out!

Behold...
~Los Beardos Raviolis~

A rockin' good time! Thanks everyone for making it such a hoot!

Your Daily Dose: Whit Smith

2009-04-03T09:32:00.000-04:00

Whit Smith is an incredible guitarist and singer whose work can be heard on high display with Texas trio "Hotclub of Cowtown." Blending Django style gypsy jazz and great chordal rhythm work a la Freddie Green with more than just a touch of Jimmy Bryant Western Swing jazz finesse, Whit shows you how it's done. Here's is version of "Polka Dots & Moonbeams."

Egg Genius?

2009-03-31T08:48:00.000-04:00

...or folly? You decide.

Ah, the brilliant, simple and elegant egg. In the classic Batman television series that aired from 1966-1968, Adam West had many an arch nemesis to contend with but perhaps none was as feared as Egghead, played by none other than horror movie legend, Vincent Price. Egghead possessed a cunning intellect and claimed to be the most brilliant criminal in the world. As one of only two villains from the series to deduce Batman's true identity... it's tough to disagree with him.

In the kitchen, no one will dispute the delicious genius of the egg. 'Round these parts, eggs are a way of life, a passion and reason/means to celebrate. There's no end to what you can do to an egg, and I don't just mean the damage potential most Mischief Night pranksters rely on. I'm talking breakfast here, people, and today I came up with something pretty tasty.

Ok, let's assume you love mango chutney as much as I do:
Let's also hope that it hasn't taken you nearly 30 years to discover this delicious spreadable wonderstuff. Regardless, I thought infusing my standard morning egg with some zesty middle eastern/Indian flavor would be tasty as all get out... and I was right.

So:

1. toast up a slice of your favorite local Spanish bakery health bread
2. fry an egg (go organic)
3. spread some avocado on that crispy toast
4. smear some plain yogurt on top of the avocado
5. lay out your fried egg on top of those creamy layers
6. top it off with a dollop of mango chutney sauce

bam.

"G, have you lost your mind here?" Possibly... but this is the kinda of coo coo culinary ingenuity that makes you stand up and say, "I will not go quietly into my day! I will not settle for a boring brunch!" And why should you? Life's too short to not enjoy a tasty egg here and there.

Mini Manhattan

2009-02-24T18:40:00.002-05:00

Carolyn took us out to the Queens Museum of Art last Saturday. The museum stands on the land where the 1964/65 World's Fair took place. It was great seeing the Unishphere up close but the best part was seeing the scale model of the 5 boroughs of NYC in the museum itself. I'd say it was roughly the size of half a football field. It was built for the World's Fair but has been updated with major buildings (the Trade Center is there in all it's glory along with Battery Park City)

It feels like spring in February

2009-02-12T14:00:00.000-05:00

Lots of happenings in the world of music recently: two shows with Mr. Brownstone in the last week, Boss Tweed returns to Red Hook next week, new recordings in the works for Carolyn's record and some country shows with The Poor Man's Roses at Rodeo Bar and BB King's Club. The guitarsenal is as strong as ever, never letting me down. I've also been working up my fiddle (not 'violin') chops to play with some roots musicians, country bands and the like. It's been a hoot busting out the ol' whiney box to play Hank Williams songs and record some parts for Carolyn's upcoming record. Some recent photos:

Brooklyn pigeons take flight:
Recording with Dennis Pierce at his studio:
Eric recording his drum parts:
Most of Mr. Brownstone in the parking lot of the Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, NJ. "Wudum I doin'?" That pretty much sums up that gig.
Mr. B played an unannounced show at the Bell House in Park Slope, Brooklyn this past Tuesday 2/10. Comedian Eugene Mirman hosted a release party for his new book, The Will to Whatevs, with performances by some of our fave comics such as David Cross and Paul F. Thompkins of 'Mr. Show' fame, John Hodgman from 'The Daily Show' and Kristen Schaal, who plays the creepy obsessive fan on HBO's 'Flight of the Conchords.' Eugene asked us to play a short set at the end of the night to indulge his inner rockness. At one point most of the comedians joined us onstage. The crowd had no idea we were to be part of the show and although most of them enjoyed our set and got the joke, I can't say everyone was thrilled to see a Guns n' Roses tribute band. Hey, I can't blame them...

Sean and David Cross (Todd Barry is just behind David, Eugene is on the right):
Izzy n' Slash:
Sean, David Cross wearing my top hat, Todd Barry, Eugene Mirman & me:
Hey, it's just this thing we keep doing...

Take it for what it is...

2008-11-22T00:23:00.000-05:00

so we did it. here's mr brownstone performing 'welcome to the jungle' on the late show with david letterman. it was a blast, a totally surreal experience. we were specifically told to, "keep away from mr letterman." the late show got it's highest ratings in a year that night. coincidence? again... we may never know... enjoy.

for any fans, we are headlining irving plaza next friday, 11/28/08.

Mr. Brownstone to perform on The Late Show with David Leterman, Novemember 19th

2008-11-13T14:53:00.001-05:00

well friends, as many of you know, for the last 8 years i have moonlighted as slash in a guns n' roses tribute band known around the world as Mr. Brownstone. it started as a dorm room joke, something fun for us to do for ourselves and our friends. we got dressed up like GnR one night, even going to the dining hall at conn college in our cheap and crappy costumes, and rocked the cro's nest at the student center for maybe 100 people.

it was great.

numerous stolen or destroyed top hats later we are somehow going stronger than ever. despite (although some have argued that as a result of) the fact that we have never really taken Mr B that seriously, we've landed some amazing gigs in NYC, boston and even a midnight slot on stage at bonnaroo opposite medeski, martin & wood and the flaming lips. our next adventure brings us to the national stage: an appearance on the late show with david letterman. axl rose's current lineup of what he calls "guns n' roses" is finally releasing the long awaited album chinese democracy the tuesday after our late show appearance. coincidence? hmmm... as luck would have it, Mr B has a big show at irving plaza the night after thanksgiving which mr letterman will plug. be sure to watch as we rock america wednesday, november 19th.
special guest: katie couric.

hey, it's just this thing we do...

Mitch Mitchell 1947-2008

2008-11-13T10:15:00.000-05:00

the world lost a great musician yesterday. mitch mitchell (left) passed away in portland, oregon at the age of 62. mitch played drums in the jimi hendrix experience. to support hendrix's freak-out-blues stratocaster sorcery, mitch recorded some incredibly inventive drum parts, culling influences from jazz legends such as elvin jones and buddy rich as well as incorporating modern pop/rock styles of the day. together with other power trio drummers ginger baker of cream and keith moon of the who, mitch's firey and at times manic playing redefined what the drummer's role could be in a rock band. no longer content to simply 'keep the beat,' mitch was forced to temper hendrix's massive musical presence with enough character in his drum parts step out of the background, keeping the band afloat. to keep it all together, noel redding supplied the reliable center line, the steady bass groove that was the glue between hendrix and mitch.
above, a young experience, fall of 1966
mitch was just out of his teens when he was recruited to play drums with hendrix. starting in the fall of 1966, the jimi hendrix experience shook the pop music world to its core with their fusion of blues, feedback, psychedelic sound and song craft, pop hooks, studio wizardry and a live show the likes of which had never been seen. for hendrix, it seemed meant to be. after spending his early twenties touring the US and canada on the chitlin circuit with the likes of ike and tina turner, little richard, curtis knight and king curtis, hendrix was finally noticed by animals bassist and soon-to-be producer, chas chandler. chandler brought hendrix to london and paired him up with mitch and noel. within days of its inception, the trio began performing and recording new material, releasing the classic are you experienced? in may of 1967.
above, roger mayer (guitar effect pedal guru) mitch, hendrix, noel
mitch as the marquee club, london 1967
at the time of their first couple albums, studio recording technology was still fairly primitive by today's standards. are you experienced? and the group's second album axis: bold as love were both recorded on a simple 4 track machine. they stand as monuments to the great musicianship on one side of the control room glass and the inventive engineering and production skills on the other side. at a time when recording engineers were still wearing lab coats and carrying clipboards, mitch along with other pop musicians of the day, began to use the studio as more of a creative tool then simply a way to capture a live performance in hi-fidelity. he was one of the first drummers to become actively involved in the recording process, pushing the boundaries of the studio and attempting to create a more sonically powerful experience for the listener. mitch began to experiment with the use of multiple microphones to capture his drum sounds. by using a variety of mics on his kit, the recording engineers were given more freedom to manipulate his drums and create a much more 3-D sound experience for the listener. this is particularly evident on their 3rd album electric ladyland, which employed a larger 16 track board and allowed for much more creative room in the mix. throw on a good pair of headphones and pay attention to where the instruments are in the mix from left ear to right, how the guitars, vocals and other sonic textures dip and weave around the song. i have to say, one of the amazing things about hendrix is that you can go back and hear something new every time you listen to one of his records. i'm listening to axis as i type this and i'm happy and amazed to say that after a solid 15 years of listening to his records, previously unnoticed sounds and textures are still popping out at me. how many artists can you say that about?!
above, hendrix with mitch in the studio
from what i've read, hendrix and mitch were great friends and very much enjoyed their musical relationship. mitch was there for most of it all (of the four official records hendrix released in his lifetime, he was absent only from band of gypsys, an album which captured hendrix live in NYC on new years eve '69/'70 with buddy miles on drums and billy cox on bass) he was there as hendrix famously smashed and burned his guitar at the monetery pop festivel in 1967 (see previous blog entry) he was hendrix's drummer at woodstock and played drums at hendrix's last ever concert at the isle of fehmarn in september 1970. his contributions to the drumming world and impact on the development of the jimi hendrix experience's 3 studio albums cannot be overstated. he will be missed.

Two of Brooklyn's guitar pickers...

2008-10-12T01:01:00.000-04:00

i just got home from seeing a double header show at my fave nyc bar/venue: barbes. this place is a total gem in all of nyc and lucky me, i live just a few blocks from this fantastic small bar/live music venue. they have a great selection of beers and spirits and if you ask me... one of the best line ups of live music in town.

telecaster wizard, jim campilongo played the early show tonight. i've never seen a guy control an electric guitar and force it to his will the way he does. effortless behind-the-nut harmonic bends, bizzaro chords and TONE up the wazoo. when you see a guy manipulating an instrument with this kind of effortless control and dexterity, you know why the music press has called him "an american treasure." drawing influences from other telecaster gurus such as jimmy bryant, danny gatton, jimmie rivers and god-knows-where psychedelic influences, he conjures up sounds you might think only possible with a massive effects pedal board. campilongo, however, makes it all look effortless with his vintage tele and matching '60s era princeton amp. he plays every monday night at the living room on the lower east side. you may have seen him backing up norah jones or one of my favorite bands, cake.

from the left: jimmie rivers and jim campilongo:
the late show was western swing whiz, smokey hormel. you may know him from his work with tom waits or beck. he's an incredibly diverse musician. as a young picker, he learned western swing-style guitar from none other than jimmy wyble, one of bob wills famed guitar slingers. folks... bob wills is western swing and through a multi-decade career, he featured a number of ground breaking instrumentalists, most notably his guitar players. we've seen smokey a number of times and he is just a dynamite musician leading a cracker jack outfit: upright bass, drums, clarinet and steel guitar. smokey throws western swing classics into the modern world and the crowd loves it! btw- dig the unusual gretsch he's playing here... momma!
these are just two of the many great musicians playing on a regular basis here in brooklyn. if you live in the area, you owe yourself to check out these increidible guitarists!

10,603 miles

2008-10-06T01:33:00.000-04:00

good god almighty i am so happy to be back in BK. as this blog entry's title would lead you to believe, yes we drove 10,603 miles since we left boston on august 23. i set the mini van's odometer to zero at izzy stradlin's house the day after Mr Brownstone rocked the bejesus outta the paradise the night before. amazingly it was exactly 1000 miles from boston to northbrook, illinois, the town where carolyn grew up. i just have to say the trip was an amazing experience. we saw deserts, moose, coyotes, irrelevant theme park motels, wild canadians in their natural habitat and Boss Tweed rocked the great white north.

some pertinent stats:
10,603=miles driven in the Silver Bullet from august 23rd-oct 5th
167.371 kmh=104 mph that we averaged through the middle of nowhere canada
53=cd's we outfitted the van with for our trip
24=towns able to provide for our carnivorous taco/guitar/record store appetite along the way
13=towns rocked by Boss Tweed
4=venues that hooked us up with sweet potato fries vs. standard white starch french fries
2=times i was pulled over and let off with a warning by canadian cops (they're so nice!)
1.6=new drummer(s) able to rock with the Tweed (jeremey was larger than life)
1=human finger we saw chopped off at the biker bar, the happy hog
.8=saskatoon-based tv channel that featured Boss Tweed on their daily culture show (let's up the production values here, eh fellas?)

here's some photos. entering jasper national park in the canadian rockies:
downtown canmore, our first show in canada:

some shots of our drive up through the national park to jasper:

jeremey scopes the view on one of our many stops along the drive to jasper:

a giant crow on the top of a car where we stopped to check out a waterfall. this thing could have weighed 20lbs:
the waterfall:

main street jasper:

everything is big in canada... we encounter a giant elk on way home after the gig. his giant elk head stood taller than mine:

racking up a game of pool before the gig at the slice in lethbridge:

more pool... jeremey sets up for the break in calgary:

on to exotic moose jaw. this town in saskatchewan is famous for the tunnels beneath the city streets which were once used by al capone and other prohibition-era bootleggers. we stayed at the famous gangster's theme motel. i wonder if his family sees any money from the use of his name and reputation? i doubt it:

at this point in the trip both carolyn and i were getting pretty shaggy and decided it was time to get our hair cut:

the front of our fan collected an impressive collection of bugs. we should have sold these off as lures to fisherman:
in saskatoon we were interviewed on a regional tv station:
the green room... classy:

the venue in saskatoon. we played a killer show for the folks here... lots of students and our first encounter with poutine:
making the long trek to thunder bay right on lake superior, we stopped and played a gig at the apollo. great venue and a great host... thanks, sheila!
checking out an old wurlitzer jukebox in the basement:

taking care of some wifi biz before heading out the next day:

boss tweed rolls into tottenham, about an hour north of toronto, to play our second to last show at the happy hog. our host, a gregarious biker named gar, told us some wild stories of his trips to the big biker rally, sturgis and showed off his harley. it wouldn't translate here but we did witness one of our new fans lose the tip of his finger in a bizarre seating accident. ask us about it sometime. outside the venue:
gar's hog: notice that he installed a sword for the gear shift... whoah:
after our last gig in toronto, we dropped jeremey off at the train station in albany and headed to portland, maine to see our friend sarah stebbins get hitched:

and to round the trip off, we made it down to delaware the following weekend to see our long reigning drummer, eric reed, tie the knot with the lovely amanda. amanda and her father walk up the beach for the ceremony:
the newly weds cut the cake. well done guys:
whew! and that's about it. lots of driving over those six weeks and now we're getting reacquainted with brooklyn. good to be home.

joy!

2008-09-28T01:35:00.001-04:00

arg!

2008-09-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

yes, yes... i know there are some typo's and misspellings here but blogger.com is fighting me in the editing department. i promise to fix it up asap. just letting you know that i care.

dig...

Finishing up the West Coast and on to Canada...

2008-09-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

hey folks! it's been awhile, eh? we're here in saskatoon, canada waiting to load in and soundcheck for tonight's gig. here's a big update:

way, way back on our last day in del mar, carolyn, her brother, father and i went to check out the stone brewery in escondido, ca. makers of the delicious arrogant bastard ale, stone brewery prides itself on crafting world class beer with primo ingredients. very tasty stuff! we toured the factory and grabbed a bite to eat... not to mention enjoying the sample tasting of the brewery's finest.

the sills men enjoying the tour guide's rap:
carolyn and i left san diego later that afternoon en route to santa barbara. we stayed with our friends, billy and nichole. santa barbara seems to be just far enough from LA for it's own good and has a healthy mix of earthy/hippie culture with older fashionista soccer moms driving their monster suv's. we hiked some great trails in the nearby mountains:
we ate some mind bending tacos at la super rica. it's important to note that these tacos officially kicked off our 'Taco Challenge.' basically carolyn and i agreed to only consume tacos until leaving california. we wanted to see what kind of variety exists in the world of the humble mexican staple. we ate tacos for about a week! mmm....
we wandered around town and came across a dynamite organic food market. we picked up some fresh veggies, an apple pie, a couple pounds of salmon and snapper and made off to billy and nichole's to make some fish tacos for dinner. can you really go wrong with fresh fish cooked on a grill and some fresh n' tastsy mexcian spices?

onwards to san luis obispo to see the national resophonic guitar factory and take a tour. the link will take you to a page featuring a similar instrument that i own: a style 1 baritone model that you can see me playing with sophie sills in earlier posts. these guitars are close to my heart and the stuff of delta blues legend. think of these resonator guitars as the bridge between acoustic and electric instruments. designed in the late 1920's by john dopyera, the resonator guitar was created to amplify the guitar above the bombast of the era's big bands. as you can imagine, a simple acoustic guitar would not really be heard over the blast of a huge horn section and pounding drums. these guitars were popular with blues musicians as they could cut across the racket of a noisy bar as well as hawaiian steel players who loved their rich tone and long sustain. progress killed the popularity of these metal bodied beasts though as the electric guitar was introduced by the end of the 1930's and rendered resonator guitars obsolete in terms of comparative volume. click here to read a more thorough description of these fascinating and beautiful instruments. here are some photos of the factory tour:

our tour guide showing us the metal stamping machine:

some necks in various stages of assembly:

a side bending machine copied from taylor guitars. the guys at national watched videos of taylor's online tour about 60 times in order to build a copy of this machine:

cross section of a body prior to the installation of the resonating cone:

the body of a national mandolin. you could easily be the most annoying guy at your local bluegrass jam with one of these... they're loud as heck!

a single cone body roughly finished. as you can see, the edges of the guitar are still lumpy from the solder. this will all be sanded and polished to reveal the shiny, mirror-like finish of the completed instrument.
the staff kindly let me check out some newly finished instruments:

after san luis, we headed north, sneaking off the highway to see some of the forests and coastline on our way up the PCH:

our next stop was santa cruz to see my man, phil garrison. phil has been a close friend since high school and my first musical partner in the world of RnR. he and his girlfriend, alison, are studying chinese medicine and accupuncture at UCSC. we had a great time catching up and even snuck in a quick needling session... highly recommended! phil and alison:

phil goofin' with some of the crazy herbs he works with:
carolyn showing off her pin ball skills at the boardwalk in santa cruz:

we made it up to san fransisco for a quick visit with our friends, jay and hayden. they live right off golden gate park near haight-ashburry. along the way, we stopped in monterey to check out a classic car show:

we met up with jay and hayden in the park and along the way... behold wayne's world fans: the mirth mobile!!!

jay and his dog, coltrane:

we had to book it 10 hours north to portland, oregon to pick up our new drummer, jeremey. as you may know, eric reed is getting married in early october and as you can imagine, last minute wedding obligations precluded his availability for this canadian tour. jeremey is a friend from kelly kendrick's band; another project carolyn is involved in where she sings and plays upright bass. between our return from the balkans and our week at the jersey shore in august, we only had the opportunity to rehearse with jeremey once before the tour. i'm happy to say that he did his homework learning our set and is doing a bang-up job with Boss Tweed. our first show was in seattle where we played the sunset tavern. the gretsch rests after our first show:

we got a chance to spend a couple days in town and man oh man, what a great city! we lucked out and avoided the rainy weather the city is known for and got to check out some of seattle's restaurants, record and guitar shops... what else? the famous fish market:

continuing on our mexican food odyssey, we stumbled upon some of the best mexican food we've ever had at señor moose:

i had to try their signature margarita complete with jalapeño infused tequila and hot pepper flakes on the rim:

right along a strip of music venues, restaurants and guitar shops was bop street records, complete with a basement labyrinth of old vinyl. jeremey is at a loss:

easily the largest record i've ever seen. what would you even play this on?!

we stopped in at emerald city guitars, a swank guitar shop in town with a couple of nice '59 les pauls for sale... only $500,000. a bargain at twice the price! much more affordable was this super cool kay bass and matching amp set, supposedly recently drooled over by legendary gearhead, billy gibbons of zz top:

friends, many of you know where jimi hendrix stands in my life. well, the man himself as born and raised in seattle and as a tribute to him, mega bucks brainiac paul allen built the experience music project, a frank gehry-designed museum to the history of seattle's rock n' roll:

the museum features an exhibit based on the seattle's rock history, an amazing room showcasing the history of the guitar with iconic instruments owned by people such a kurt cobain, bo diddley, & eric clapton, not to mention ultra rare vintage instruments. the real treasure though: the jimi hendrix room. unfortunately photography is not allowed in the museum but i HAD to be sneaky and take this next photo. grouped together in one showcase are hendrix's woodstock stratocaster and pieces of three strats he famously smashed and burned. the one shown here was handpainted by hendrix, played during "wild thing" and then smashed and burned at the saville theater in 1967. also included in the showcase is a piece of the guitar hendrix burned at the end of his history making set at the monterey pop festival. click here for a youtube video of that. if you've never seen it, shame on you... ;) remember when they look into the ark of the covenant at the end of raiders of the lost ark? being there in person was kinda like that, without all that messy face melting. the saville strat:
oh and by the way- also included in the museum are hendrix's isle of wight 'butterfly' costume, the fender bass noel redding used through his career with the experience, and a variety of hendrix's diarys, hand written lyrics and some early childhood sketches.

wow

after carolyn and jeremey peeled my face off the exhibition glass, we headed east to our next gig in spokane. sunset at our hotel that night:

always on the lookout for friendly animals, we came across a super sweet australian sheep dog mix named 'biji' at the club:

on our way through idaho we stopped at a roadside beef jerky stand. we had to pick up some elk jerky:
alright folks... that about wraps up the west coast part of the adventure. after spokane we headed north in canada. i'll be posting all kinds of photos from our tour here. as a sneak peak, here's a photo i took as we drove through jasper national park: (remember you can click on these to enlarge)

Les Cutiepies, non? Mais oui...

2008-08-31T19:58:00.000-04:00

we've been out here in del mar playing with sophie (age 3) and charlotte (5 weeks) and i had to share some photos. sophie has expressed a lot of interest in the guitar in her short tenure here on planet earth and you can imagine how excited that makes me... so i went ahead and got the rocker in making her first axe:
she still prefers the sound of the big boy guitar:
charlotte olivia sills, cubs fan in the making:

we caught laura's sister, chrissy, just before she left to fly home to boston:

Touring the Taylor guitar factory

2008-08-31T14:21:00.000-04:00

on friday i had the opportunity to tour the taylor guitar factory in el cajon, california. these folks have been in business for 35 years and have created a well respected name for themselves in the acoustic guitar community based on their high quality and consistency of product. next to martin, taylor is probably the most well know and sought after mass-produced acoustic guitar. bob taylor, the founder, turned the guitar building community on its head by revealing and sharing his 'secrets' and design improvements with other builders in an effort to create more of a open dialog between luthiers. nowhere is this attitude of idea-sharing and education more evident than in the free factory tours available to the public during which you are encouraged to snap as many photos and ask as many questions as you like.

stacks of raw wood, cured and waiting to be shaped into guitars:
neck blanks:
view of the headstocks. the taylor logo is inlayed by a machine after a laser cut removes the wood from the headstock. a perfect fit every time. this is one of the many ways in which taylor is able to speed up production in order to pump out roughly 300 guitars a day.
the side bending room: taylor engineered many of its own machines to preform specific jobs in the building process. side bending is one of the most time consuming and difficult steps in crafting a guitar. these machines can bend the sides of a guitar into proper shape in 2-3 minutes. the wood blank is lightly sprayed with water then wrapped in thin paper before being fed into the bending plates. the plates themselves run at about 300°F in order to heat and mold the wood to shape.
these wooden molds retain the shape of the newly bent sides as they cool down after being pulled from the bending machines:
each step of the building process is preformed by 1-2 craftsman. here two guys work on gluing pairs of sides together:

the mold at work:

a stack of completed sides:
strips of kerfing are glued along the inside edges of the sides. kerfing is a strip of wood (typically mahogany or basswood) cut in small intervals so that it may bend and be molded to the shape of the guitar. up close it looks kinda like a wooden zipper. it is used to strengthen the bond between the top and back to the sides of the guitar by providing a larger surface area to glue these all together. the metal clips seen here were designed by talyor as a more efficient means of clamping the kerfing to the sides. a very particular angle must be used to ensure a tight bond. in the past, most builders simply used clothes pins as clamps but bob taylor engineered these specific clamps to provide the appropriate grip and angle necessary for this crucial step:
a quick shot of one of taylor's hallmark innovations, the 3 bolt neck attachment system. typically a guitar neck is attached to its body with a dovetail joint. while this method provides a strong bond between neck and body, it is quite time consuming to preform work on. as years go by and humidity changes and environmental stress add up, many guitars will require a 'neck reset' which means removing the neck from the body and reshaping the joint so that the guitar fretboard is level and plays in tune. this can be a 10-12 hour job and cost upwards of $600 by some estimates since a dovetail joint needs to be steamed open and then sanded, shimmed or reshaped. taylor's 3 bolt system allows the repairman to remove the neck and preform the necessary work in as little as a half hour. below is a neck and body pair set aside for demonstration purposes during the factory tour. you can see a single bolt on the top or fretboard side of the body and two more where the bottom of the neck joins the sides:
our tour guide holding up two tops to show off taylor's bracing system. the top on the left is a jumbo sized steel string, beefed up with extra bracing to compensate for the 150-200lbs of pressure a set of steel strings places on a guitar top. on the right is a nylon string classical guitar top with lighter bracing:
the machines that route out the sound holes:
holding docks with metal molds keep the glued together bodies stable as they setup:
here's a shot of a few cutaway instruments. interesting to note that the areas of the top and backs that are removed for the cutaway are left on until after the top, back and sides are all glued together:
a couple shots of the spray booth. bob taylor sat down with a team of chemists to develop a new finish which can both easily be sprayed onto a guitar as well as producing very little in environmentally toxic waste. essentially, the new finish is positively charged so that when it is sprayed at the guitar body, it is attracted to and instantly bonds with the wood. typically you will spray a fair amount of lacquer finish off into the air when finishing a guitar, wasting expensive materials but this chemical process ensures that the vast majority of the sprayed finish ends up on the guitar. the spray booth here used to be cleaned out and all the filtering material used to 'catch' the wasted finish was brought to the dump twice a day. now they only make two trips to the dump per week. nice way to save $ and the environment, eh?
enclosed in the spray booth is a robotic arm which grips guitar bodies by the three bolt neck attachment system. the arm moves the body around a spry nozzle, going over the top, back and sides in three coats. you can see a guitar body hanging in wait on the left side of the photo. when the robotic arm finishes with one body, it hangs it on a spinning window on the far side of the booth. the arm then pops back over to the other side and grabs the next instrument to be sprayed. a single spray booth operator sets up each new body in the 'ready' to be finished after hanging a freshly sprayed body up to cure.

a close up of the arm in action: you can see the arm on the left, holding the guitar body by the three bolt neck system with a steel rod.
finished bodies hanging with newly glued and clamped bridges:

and the final assembly room:

it takes about 10 days to build a taylor guitar start to finish. the tour was great and our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the entire process. the tour ran for about two hours and was pretty exhaustive in covering all the work that goes into crafting a taylor acoustic. if you're ever in san diego, it's definitely worth visit. pretty amazing stuff to see the whole process from start to finish!

Drivin' West...

2008-08-28T16:29:00.000-04:00

hello friends and greetings from beautiful del mar, california! carolyn and i just made it out here to her brother and sister-in-law's house last night after an epic 6 day trip. we are out here visiting with her young nieces, sophie and charlotte. after a few days of baby time we'll be heading north to see some old friends here on the west coast before Boss Tweed begins a three week tour of the pacific north-west and canada. we hit the road last friday, heading first to boston since i had a show with mr brownstone at the paradise. this backstage photo may not sum it up or say it all but it should give you an idea of what mr b is all about, assuming you don't know already:
after rocking boston city, carolyn and i left the next morning in the minivan bound for chicago. funny enough, it was exactly 1000 miles on the nose from izzy's (false mustache on the far left) doorstep to carolyn's hometown of northbrook, illinois. we made it in about 12 hours, crashed at a hotel and surprised carolyn's folks the next morning. we spent the day playing mini golf and relaxing. carolyn at the mini golf entrance:

on monday morning we woke up bright and early and headed south though missouri, oklahoma, texas and into new mexico. powering though these states, we saw lotsa corn, jesus billboards, gun shops and adult book stores... ah the heartland. to keep our spirits up, we hopped out of the car to play some catch:

snapping a quick photo of a great old hunk of junk being pulled down the highway on a trailer in texas:
we made it just shy of albuquerque by about an hour (1200 miles from chicago) and crashed in a hotel in santa rosa, new mexico. unfortunately it was dark as we drove through texas (my first time in the great state) but we had an amazing time driving through the deserts of new mexico, arizona and california during the rest of the drive. craving some tasty southwesten eggs that morning, we hit the road and stopped off at a great little diner in albuquerque. please excuse the shameless plug but i must admit that having an iPhone on this trip has been a real help. we never would have found this place without it!
inspecting the menu:
we both settled on the huevos rancheros although while i prefer the red salsa, the lady prefers the green...we made great time heading west through new mexico and into arizona. we stopped for a breather at this native american-run roadside tourist stop:
view from the road in new mexico:
our plan on tuesday was to make a quick pit stop at the grand canyon en route to vegas. here we are:
we even had time to swing through seligman, az on the way. known as the birthplace of historic route 66, carolyn had the enormous good fortune of spending a couple days here 9 years ago when the RV she rented with some friends broke down and required a new transmission. this is one of those classic towns full of kitschy souvenirs shops and oddities you (or at least i) hope to find on a trip through the desert. weirdly cool stuff...

we stopped for a bottle of suds at the black cat, seligman's watering hole:
and then we were off to the magical world of las vegas. driving off into the sunset:

i gotta say, i'm not much of a gambler (at least when it comes to playing cards or playing the slots) so my one-night experience of vegas was rather tame compared to some. we drove the length of the strip, stayed at the luxor hotel and took full advantage of the breakfast buffet. i'll confess that i did play some video poker. i dropped $5 into a machine, lost some and won some and in the end walked out breaking even. how's that for living it up?

the next morning we slept in a bit and checked out ed roman guitars... the famous guitar shop in town. more bizarre stuff here, the kind of instruments you might associate with las vegas. case in point, here are two custom built double-neck ed roman instruments. on the left is a joe maphis meets george lynch model complete with an octave neck. on the right is a completely useless yngwie malmsteen-esque 6 string/12 string model. (guitar geeks please note that on the yngwie model both necks have scalloped fret boards... eep!)
we hightailed it out of vegas, heading west on route 15 to san diego. always on the lookout for interesting roadside attractions, we stopped in the ghost town of calico, california located deep in the mojave desert. the terrain and landscape here is beautifully desolate... it looks like you're driving across the surface of mars. at one time calico was a booming silver mining town but now it exists solely as a curiosity for travelers. there are still a few straggling residents who work the shops in town. i wandered into a saddle and boot maker's shop and met henry, an honest to goodness cowboy. he even wore spurs! he's the kind of guy that calls it a "GITar" and means it. some photos, note the town name laid out in white rock on the far hill:

view of the mojave desert from the road:
and now we're relaxing for a few days here in southern california. we're glad to be out of the cr for a few days at least. more stories and photos to come!

some pro photos from Maribor, Slovenia

2008-08-11T11:50:00.001-04:00

ok... just to finish out some more tour photos: we met a fantastic photographer from slovenia named aleksander onisak. he took these great photos of our gig in maribor. this was the first show of our tour where were forced to play sans gretsch... thanks aleksander!

more Serbia, the beaches of Croatia, Austria, Italy and back to Brooklyn...

2008-08-05T09:45:00.000-04:00

well friends, here we are back in good ol' BK. i've got a bunch of photos and stories so here we go! the night after playing nova pazova, serbia (as the first ever american band to play their town square) we played a cool club in stara pazova which was owned and operated by our hosts. here's us with the family who runs the liverpool club and who put us up in their home for two days:

eric seems to collect young female fans. can you blame them? i mean who can resist his flashy stick tricks? here is eric after the gig giving a starry-eyed girl some tips:

the next day we drove to our show in serbia's capital, belgrade. we got there the day after radovan karadzic was arrested after 13 years in hiding. apparently he changed his appearance radically enough to simply go about a relatively normal life in belgrade. this guy was a real monster, responsible for the deaths of thousands through ethnic cleansing. many people were very happy to see him finally caught for his role in the bosnian/serbian war. it's a crazy world though, and there were also people who did and still do support his actions. just 500 meters from the club we played, a riot broke out with right wing radicals showing their support for karadzic in the face of those who were there to celebrate his arrest. we were lucky enough to eat dinner with the owner of the club who gave us an incredible insider perspective of the war. i was in high school when it happened and although i remember many of the city names and the basic premise of the conflict, my knowledge of the war was foggy at best. being in these towns, meeting people and getting an opportunity to hear what it was like to have lived though the war, what people saw as the causes of and now the fallout and aftermath was an incredible experience. as american ambassadors of rock n' roll, however, we were simply there to entertain people and the folks who came to see us were there to rock out... nothing more. after the gig, eric lived out a long standing dream:

then we were off to the show in zrenjanin, serbia where they had a nice advertisement for the show. our van is on the left:

the glorious beauty of the balkans:

we had a bit more trouble with the border/customs agents in bosnia and serbia but after some delay we were back in beautiful croatia. this country has some of the most beautiful coastlines i've ever seen. our next show was in zadar at the maya pub. we had three days off after this to relax on the beach in the 80 degree, dry summer sun. carolyn caught these photos outside the club of a local cat getting lucky with a local fisherman:

sunset the first night in zadar. this is the view 20 feet from the club we played on the edge of the marina.

at dinner- freddy still working on his thesis and i have no idea why i'm making this face:

shots from the zadar gig. our thanks to steve, an insanely drunk irish musician who took these and thought Boss Tweed was just 'savage.'

on the walk home after the show we came across st. donatus church, built in the 9th century:

freddy and eric proudly show off one of the better packing jobs on the tour:

after the gig saturday night, we had three days off. the first two we spent in zadar. we found a great little house to rent for cheap... fully equipped with a kitchen and a real american style bathroom. i think the reason why europeans bear the 'stinky' stereotype is that most of their showers are poorly designed and discourage you from using them: low water pressure, tiny shower stalls with doors that either don't close and spray water all over the bathroom or a cold and clammy curtain that clings to you while you try to wash off. not fun. here's some shots of us hanging out at the rental house.

eric preparing dinner:

making friends with the neighbor's dog:in the garden outside the house we rented:
yep:
eric threatens carolyn with a dull knife when she keeps suggesting that we play cards:
...she takes the hint and plays solo:

after spending some relaxing time on the beach we headed north to labin, croatia. i could live in this town. whereas zadar has more of a hip, miami-style night life, labin is a small, quiet medieval town built up on a hill overlooking the seaside. eric did a radio interview the night we arrived and we had the next to relax and explore the town. we opted to head to the beach but after waiting for the bus for an hour, we finally got down to the shore just as a huge storm came rolling in. so we took cover to wait another hour for the returning bus, arriving back in town just as the sun came busting out again. ah well... a shot of the drive along the coast to labin:
heading to the beach... this is the main square of old town labin:
main restaurant on the square. we ate our pre-show dinner on the second floor balcony:
some more croatian wild cats. the first is the mother, the second is the one-eyed baby:
the show in labin was staged in a medieval courtyard lat the highest point in town. from the stage we were looking west into the valley. looking up at the night sky here you can see millions of stars. we had a great audience that night and did four encores. here's some shots from the stage as we set up.

looking out over the valley:

not to be swindled by mother nature from a good time in the adriatic sea, carolyn and i got up at 7:30 the next morning to catch a couple hours of swimming and sunshine before hopping in the van. the coast here is rocky still, but with smooth pebbles and ridiculously clear water:

so then we were off to austria to play the bluesiana club in velden. this was a cool venue with lots of photos of the american and in particular, new orleans-based musicians who have played the club in the past. this is the only club i've ever played with it's own private bowling alley in the green room:
just two more shows to go... we played another outdoor gig near nova goricia, slovenia. the stage:

our host that night had built a fire pit behind the club and made us a delicious dinner of lamb, potatoes and onions slow cooked over hot coals for almost 4 hours:

and that just about does it for Boss Tweed's tour of southeastern europe. the shows were great and the people were warm and psyched to hear some american rock n' roll. if you ever have the opportunity to see croatia... do it! i can't wait to go back. now the Tweed is gearing up for a show this friday at southpaw here in brookyn. we open the show at 9pm so if you're in new york, come on down. we're also celebrating carolyn's 30th birthday at this show!

ciao for now!

some random shots

2008-07-22T05:08:00.000-04:00

it's raining here on a cool and peaceful morning in serbia. there is a farm just behind the house here with a rooster that wakes me in the morning... kinda nice really. the farm grows corn. actually, all we've seen in terms of crops being grown throughout this region is corn... and yet we are never served corn with our meals. hmmm... i have a few minutes so i thought i would post a few more random shots. here's the view from the restaurant we ate at before our show in velenje, slovenia:

our tour manager, the amazing freddy spaepen:

freddy is currently writing his thesis for a master's degree in philosophy. the last two tours we were with him he spent much of his free time reading various philosophical texts, highlighting and taking notes. after much thought, he has whittled down his focus and chosen a relatively specialized topic, one without much in the way of previously published work: the nature of evil. he now spends all is free time typing his paper, due july 31st. if he's not driving, eating, sleeping or filming our shows, freddy is hard at work:

outside the the route 66 club in zagreb, croatia:

the mighty gretsch guitar: it's got a sound and look all to itself that i love. since we've been touring europe since the spring of '07 i've met lots of folks who come to our shows just to see and here one of these great guitars in person. my everlasting thanks to holly rock at rudy's music stop in nyc for setting my guitar up so well... it's never let me down! here's just a cool photo:

dueling digital cameras on the way home from the show in sibenik:

some of the rocky terrain on the road going to split, kastel:

as i mentioned in my previous post, the family we stayed with in split, kastel made two huge meals for us on the two nights we stayed there. they had a cute 4 year old daughter who was very curious about us but understandably shy:

eric confronts a bosnian larry david impersonator at a grocery store near the serbian border:

playing the gig in mostar, bosnia. this started out as one of those "what the hell are we doing?" kinda shows but ended up being one of the highlights of the tour thus far. the venue, marhsall, (as in marshall guitar amplifiers) was located at the intersection of three busy streets in the old section of town, maybe 100 meters from the famous bridge. the owner, tito, decorated the interior of the club with a variety of electric guitars, banjos, mandolins and woodwind instruments. in honor of the bar's namesake, he even had a vintage 100 watt marshall plexi head installed behind the bar... the same amp ac/dc, hendrix and many others made famous. i mean the guy has vintage amps out as decorative kitsch... how cool is that? to drum up more business, tito had us play outside the bar on a sloping, uneven street. after hooking a PA through the house sound system, we went at it for roughly two hours. we only had one mic for the show so carolyn took on the majority of the vocal work, even singing lead on songs that i usually do. we fielded requests and carolyn did an dynamite acapella version of janis joplin's "mercedes benz." it was a fun challenge for us and we had a great crowd of folks there. i suppose we were a refreshing alternative to the bump n' grind bosnian discotheques in mostar. a photo:

the incredibly sweet, incredibly stinky, non-english speaking woman who rented us a room for the night:

some shots of the bosnian countryside en route to nova pazova, serbia:

enjoying a rare breakfast delicacy on the road: melted chocolate bars and bananas. living the dream, living the dream...

we've been turned away twice while trying to enter a new country on this tour. once while entering bosnia and once entering serbia. we have to travel with this thick sheaf of documents detailing our equipment list and our intents and purposes upon entering these countries. the smaller border crossing stations we have encountered apparently haven't had the expertise to know how to handle these documents so we've had to turn around and head to the next border crossing. we've also been pulled over four times by local police, claiming that we are either driving to fast or spotting an out of date inspection sticker on the car. it's all BS and these guys are just looking for some extra cash. they spot a foreign license plate and pull us over. twice we've had to fork over a few euros... €50 all together. the other two times freddy was able to talk his way out of it by explaining that we are an american rock band. you should see their faces light up at this. in these two occasions we simply handed over a couple of our cd's and they waved us on. here's a shot i caught of freddy paying off a corrupt serbian cop. note the grin on his face as freddy opens his "bank," as the cop calls it:

this is the first time any of us have been in a country where the writing bears little resemblance to english. much of the letters and symbols here in serbia are completely new to us:

yesterday we entertained our host's nephew. here's eric amazing him with his magic tricks and me teaching him how to play "johnny b goode."

we're off to belgrade today... stay tuned for more!

Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia

2008-07-21T11:37:00.000-04:00

hello friends! i am writing this from our house here in nova pazova, serbia where we played a great outdoor show for the folks here last night. we were told that we were the first american band to ever play this town! sorry for the long delay in updating this here blog but our internet access has not been that hot on this tour. here's some news and pictures: we had a fun time in slovenia last week before heading into a studio in ljublana to record some more tracks for freddy and lisa. here is the stage outside the max club in velenje, slovenia:

after our week in slovenia we headed south into croatia. view as we come out of some mountains towards sibinek:

sibinek is a small but beautiful town right on the coast of the adriatic sea. we were put up in an apartment rented from a nice local family right in the heart of town. sibinek is laid out in small, winding little streets very similar to the other old towns we have visited in italy. the family there actually thanked us for our US aid in the war and gave us each a seashell for good luck. ain't that sweet? they fed us well and even had a beautiful collie to entertain us. after walking around the town and the harbor the morning after the gig, we headed south to split kastel for two days on the sea side. here are some shots of sibinek and some shots of our drive along the coast to split:

setting up for the gig:

as i've said before, outdoor sound can be kinda tricky. sibinek was a bit of a challenge. beware the soundmen who show up wearing whitesnake and saxon t shirts:

carolyn getting primped:

walking around town the next morning:

this is just an amazing gut and we couldn't resist:

some shots from the drive to split, kastel. the photos really don't do the scenery justice... insane views of the sea:

the drive to split, kastel (just north of split) took just about an hour. our show in split, kastel was part of a 5 day biker rally and camping weekend. we played on a huge stage looking out over the sea for a few thousand biker dudes and their ladies. again we stayed in an apartment rented from a local family who fed us well and were very happy to have us. the landscape in croatia, especially by the seaside, is very dry and rocky. the vegetation consists of more desert like plants that you might see in southern california or maybe florida. the coastline itself doesn't have that much in the way of sandy beaches. most of the bathing areas we saw and had a chance to swim in were man made and built up with lots of sand. me getting out of the water:

view from our apartment of the sea:

our hosts made us a huge meal for the two nights we spent there. we had a full day off and then another day to rest before the show that night. this tour really feels like a vacation... a funny thing about this region is that 'vegetarian' means 'fish' to the folks here:

the next day we drove into bosnia to the city of mostar. this town suffered a lot of destruction during the war here in the late '90s. much of the old city was destroyed including the city's landmark bridge which was later rebuilt. folks there explained that the bridge linked two halves of the city: the eastern muslim/serbian side and the western croatian side. there are still many buildings here showing bullet marks and signs of the violence that took place. hard to imagine considering how peaceful and beautiful it is now. there were many tourists here and we met folks from the states and canada as well as many other europeans there on holiday. a bullet ridden house:

views from the bridge:

today i spent the day fixing up some of my gear, eating some delicious fresh watermellon and teaching a 10 year old serbian boy how to play johnny b. goode. our food is being served now i have to run. more stories and photos to come... stay tuned!

Boss Tweed on Slovenian MTV

2008-07-13T08:52:00.000-04:00

ah... Slovenia

2008-07-12T09:27:00.000-04:00

last night we played a dynamite gig here in celje, slovenia. all our shows thus far have been outdoors. it takes some getting used to in terms of on-stage sound but with the weather being so nice, it's been a real treat. that is, of course, until you start swallowing bugs when you're trying to sing. our stage in celje was set up in front of some remaining outer walls of the old city built in the 15th century. we had a couple hundred people come out to see our performance. the crowds vary night to night but by and large these shows are open to the whole town and people of all ages come to see us. you can see our gear just under the steps:

carolyn and eric walking to the gig:
setting up:

a couple nights back we played idrija, slovenia... a gorgeous town up in the hills. it was founded some 500 years ago when mercury was discovered there. once again, slovenia has proven to be a beautiful country with incredible terrain and miles and miles of unspoiled forests and wilderness. here's a couple shots of the town:
this is a view of the main square. you can see our stage on the left:

freddy and eric shared a love bird dinner:

me digging into an artichoke and pickle pizza:

we had a chance to take a walk through town before the show:

setting up for the show:
freddy taking care of the van en route to nova goricia:

we had a 20 minute drive to velenje today and once again the weather is beautiful. we've got a couple more shows here in slovenia and then head south into croatia early next week. stay tuned!

Boss Tweed embarks on peace keeping mission to the Balkans

2008-07-09T04:19:00.000-04:00

AND WE'RE... off?

well folks here we are, back in beautiful ljubljana, slovenia. Boss Tweed is back on tour with our delightful belgian tour manager, freddy spaepen. we're over here for a month working the summer festival circuit in slovenia, austria, bosnia, serbia and coratia. not exactly the kinds of places that might top your list of "countries i must see before i die" but this is a beautiful part of the world and the folks here love Boss Tweed. i'm sure david hasselhoff never planned on touring germany so much but hey... you gotta go where the money is.

we got off to a bit of a rocky start: i scraped my arm up on my flight case getting to the airport:

our flight from jfk was delayed which caused us to miss our connecting flight to munich out of london. upon our arrival in germany we were told that my guitar, carolyn's bass, eric's cymbals and carolyn's bag of clothes (which also had all of our merch in it) were simply left behind in london. no explanation... they just said a decision was made to leave them behind. thanks lufthansa! since we had our first show in maribor, slovenia that night we had two choices: miss the gig and just wait in munich to get our gear on the next incoming flight or race the 5 hours to maribor and hopefully borrow some gear to perform with... meanwhile trusting that the airlines were going to deliver our equipment safely to ljubjlana, slovenia the next day. so we crossed our fingers and sped off in the freddy-mobile. we literally made the trip just in time to hop on the stage and rock. the festival organizers were great and were able to round up enough gear for us to play (thanks sandy!)... carolyn lucked out and got a fender jazz bass on loan. i was not so lucky... ending up with a korean made samick with a floyd rose whammy bar and a laney half stack. for you non-gear heads, you would be hard pressed to assemble a guitar rig that would be farther from what i normally play. the set-up might be better suited to a metal band like slipknot or eeep! steve vai. here's me with the guitar backstage:

we did our thing and played a good show (all things considered) and yesterday we were able to retrieve all of our gear and baggage intact from the airport here in ljubjlana.

after doing a quick interview for slovenian mtv, we spent the afternoon walking around beautiful downtown ljubjlana yesterday. we didn't have much of a chance to explore this older part of town the last time we were here. this is truly a beautiful city, full of old world charm and elegance- hey look! they even have native slov-indian pan-flute street performers!

some of the succulent local cuisine:
some other photos:

we're off to another outdoor gig in idrija, slovenia tonight. stayed tuned!

Back in Brooklyn

2008-05-19T13:19:00.001-04:00

well folks... it sure is good to be back in brooklyn. since Boss Tweed left for europe in early march, park slope has welcomed many new shops and restaurants from 20th street on up north to flatbush. we took in the 5th ave spring festival a couple weekends back and caught a great set from our friends in Nouvellas... a dynamite new band featuring ex-members of The Dansettes. it was pouring rain the whole time which was too bad... but fun was still had.

Boss Tweed played a fun set at union hall on may 16th... our first show back in the states. our friend, big drew, took this photo:

we've got some shows coming up with The Poor Man's Roses coming up which should be fun as well as some more Tweedness.

on an unrelated note, i was saddened to learn that chris gaffney of the amazing country-soul band, The Hacienda Brothers, passed away on april 17th. i had the chance to see the hacienda bros twice (once at one of their first shows together at the casbah in san diego and once here in nyc at joe's pub) i hung out with chris after the new york show and man was he just a sweet guy. he seemed so happy to be doing what he was doing and how can you blame him playing in a band with the likes of dave gonzalez of The Paladins and steel guitar maestro, dave berzansky? chris will be sorely missed by many and if you haven't checked the hacienda brothers out, i highly recommend you getting some of their records. apparently the haciendas are playing to continue on with our chris... best of luck fellas. a photo of chris:

and of course i have to mention the passing of music legend BO DIDDLEY... what a guy, huh? i mean c'mon... the man invented his own beat for chrissake!!! here's the man with his custom built gretsch guitar... damn:
he was one of those few early rock n' roll pioneers that really changed things up. simplicity and vibe dominates his early records and to me, that's what really turns people on their head. thanks, bo...