Go Tele On The Mountain

When we rehearse at Tim's place, I usually end up using his nice cherry red Telecaster. Saves me from having to lug my guitar halfway across town. Problem is... now I want one!

I've concluded that a Tele would be the perfect guitar to complement my Epi, and great for the kind of music we play. Get that nice, spanky, single-coil pickup sound, and that rangly bite. (Yes, rangly. It might be a new word. But it's the right word.)

Still not sure if I'll ever get used to a blonde maple fingerboard, like Tim's Tele has. Could be I'm just a rosewood kinda guy. Hafta find myself a decent black Tele with a white pickguard and a rosewood neck. Something like this.

I came across this little feature on Ten Terrific Telecaster® Guitars. Interesting facts about Bruce and his famous Esquire (a Telecaster prototype):

Among Bruce's stage secrets is the application of household sealants over all the guitar's cavities (including the gaps between the pickups and the body) to make it waterproof. This is due to the fact that, during a performance, 'the Boss' contently likes to dip his head in a full water butt (located at the back of the stage) to cool down, saturating his entire upper body. The sealant protects the pickups and wiring from any subsequent water damage. Interestingly, Bruce likes to 'seal' all of his new guitars and tests out their resilience by pouring a two litre bottle of Evian all over the instrument and then plugging it in! The sealant is changed frequently on each guitar, including his trusty Esquire®.

That's crazy! He dowses his electric guitars in water, and then he plugs them in to test the sealant! Bruce, that's what guitar techs are for!

Food That Rocks

Don't wanna go on about it too much. Simply put...

I [heart] artichoke hearts!

Not Crowe-ing; Not Cowed

We survived the gig Thursday night -- the opening slot for Rich Robinson at Lee's. It actually went okay overall, except we got a little sloppy towards the end. I wasn't completely happy about my playing in several songs, but I guess everyone has off nights.

My new amp performed well and I was very happy with it, although I think I was running it with a little too much overdrive, so the sound was a bit dirtier than I wanted for some songs. Thing is, playing at home, I have the overdrive dial at about 5, and the main volume at about 2, which effectively reduces the overall dirtiness of the sound. At the gig, I left the OD at 5 but turned the volume up to about 4 or 5, which made it dirtier than I would have liked. I didn't really notice it while we were getting the levels set, only during certain songs in the middle of the set, and at that point I didn't want to frig with the volume for fear of messing up my levels through the soundboard. Lesson learned. Next time I'll run it cleaner and rely on my Boss Bluesdriver pedal to supply the dirt as needed.

According to friends who were there, the sound wasn't very good. Couldn't hear enough of Colleen's backup vocals or Kenny's harp, apparenty. We did manage to get a sound check, which is not always the case for the lowly opening band. But I don't think the soundman did his best by us, which is kind of disappointing.

Better crowd than for the Gary U.S. Bonds gig. I didn't stick around to hear all of Rich's set, since it was 11pm by the time they came on, and it was a school night for me. But I did catch the first 4 songs or so. It was okay, though I found him a bit of a wanker on the guitar. Lots of riffs flying around, but not a lot being "said", if you will. I prefer players who actually communicate something in their playing, who "say" something, as opposed to those who simply toss off riffs they've learned, regardless of how accomplished they are at said riffage. And the guy must have brought 20 guitars with him. I'm not exaggerating! The little dressing room/alcove that we used last time was unavailable to us because it was stacked floor to ceiling with Rich's guitar cases. His guitar tech stood behind him and his vintage amps for the entire set, just tuning guitars endlessly.

The next day brought some bad news however. Colleen announced to Boag that she wouldn't be playing with us anymore. That's really too bad, because she is a great player and a fine singer. Not sure what her reasons were, but seeing as she is in two other bands, and we weren't really hauling in much money, I can't really blame her. She probably was stetching herself a little thin. And what little money she made Thursday night (Boag and Tim and I deferred our share to her and Kenny and Jim, the drummer) she had to blow on cab fare to get her gear back home (bass amps ain't light). So that's too bad, but there are a few options for replacements. There's also a possibility of adding a keyboard player to the mix. There's a woman who plays blues and boo-jee woo-jee regularly at Grossman's, and Boag had invited her to come check out our gig. She seemed keen on the idea, so we'll see what happens. It'd be great to have a piano/keyboard player on board. That would fill out the sound quite nicely.

It was also the first gig that we had used the name The Braveyard Whips, at least on the billing at the club, if not in the media listings. Still some question as to whether that name will stick.

So, another gig under my belt. Gotta be careful though. The farther I go into this rock and roll life, with its late nights, dens of sin and "boo-jee woo-jee", the greater the chances that I may turn into one of these ne'er-do-wells.

We Got Rich

Yes, it's October, and the gigs are falling from the trees.

This Thursday we'll be opening for former Black Crowe Rich Robinson at Lee's Palace. He's the pouty guitar-playing Robinson brother. Crowe-Brother Chris, the singer, is the one married to Kate Hudson. Since the Crowes split up, neither one of the brother's solo careers has been doing much. But I think this is Rich's first solo album, so maybe I shouldn't rush to judgement. Judging from the streaming clips on his site, his singing is rather limited. But interestingly, he's touring in a power trio format -- guitar-bass-drums -- and the bass player in none other than Big Sugar's Gordie Johnson, no slouch on the gee-tar himself.

Hopefully Rich will draw a few more people than Gary U.S. Bonds did. I assume Rich must draw a lot of the Crowes' fans, and there are probably a few of them who would come out on a Thursday night. The cheaper ticket price may help as well. Gary was charging $25; Rich is asking only $13.50.

We've got Colleen back again on bass, which is excellent. Looking for a drummer, though, as Bones' band just left for a tour of Europe.

We're dropping a few songs from the set list, unfortunately including "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry", which Rich has been doing it in his set. Too bad. I liked doing that one. But we're adding a few new ones, including a nice little number Tim wrote just last week called "Thelma Jane". Our first original song! Also adding Tom T. Hall's "I Can't Dance", an original of Boag's that he used to do back in the day called "Fed Up Blues", and, I think, either "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" (Last Waltzy-like) or "When I Paint My Masterpiece".

If you're with a Crowe's flight of here, drop on by.

Dick Doc

Very interesting documentary on the CBC investigative news program "The 5th Estate". The Unauthorized Biography of Dick Cheney. Interesting stuff:

- Documents his dealings with Iran and Libya as CEO of Halliburton -- contrary to U.S. law.
- Provides satellite photographic evidence from Russian satellites prior to Gulf War I, when Cheney was Secretary of Defence, that shows no build-up of Iraqi troops or tanks on the Iraqi border, contrary to US intelligence claims. US photos have never been released.
- Details the deliberate use of misleading intelligence prior to the current Iraq war.
- Examines Cheney's role in publicizing the name of an undercover CIA agent, who happened to be married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson had been sent by the CIA to investigate reports of Sadam trying to buy nuclear materials in Niger, but reported to Cheney that there was no credible evidence of such activity. When the Bush admin instead used this story as basis for extablishing that Sadam was trying to build a nuclear weapon, Wilson wrote an article contradicting such claims. It was after that his wife's position was compromised, an act described [rightfully so] as "treasonous".

...and so much more. Some of this may be old news, but it sure underscores one more reason not to re-elect George Bush: to make sure that Dick Cheney isn't given a chance to run for president.

Not only should this man not be vice-president or president, he should be in jail.

I love the way this guy operates. He was given the task of finding a suitable running mate for GW Bush, and came to the conclusion that the best man for the job was...him! That's character.

Helen Blows

Mount St. Helens Vents Again

Okay, call me a curmudgeon if you must, but I really think this is taking the whole 80s nostalgia thing a little too far.

Junior, Hi

Welcome the new member of the family.

Say "Hi" to Junior!

The Fender Blues Junior amp, that is.

With the prospect of more gigs on the horizon, I needed a better amp than the little 30-watt Traynor practice amp I had. And even though Junior is only a 15-watt amp, that's 15 watts of tube-powered sound, which makes him a lot louder than you'd think. It's plenty loud for playing clubs, where it'll be miked anyway, and it's actually better for my apartment-dwelling needs. The Traynor, which is a solid state amp, needs to be played at a certain volume level to really get a vibe going (and even then I didn't really like the sound of the overdrive channel or the cheap-sounding reverb), and the amount of volume required pretty much makes it an eviction box. The Blues Junior, on the other hand, sounds nice even at relatively low volume, thanks to the warmth of the tubes and the natural overdrive. So it really represented the best amp for my needs: enough power for gigging -- not too heavy -- but not too loud for apartment-dwelling realities.

And the sound is wonderful. I've never had a tube amp before (never owned a Fender amp before, either), but I've always read and heard about that "classic tube sound", "warmth" and "tone", and I gotta say, I'm now a tube convert. It's perfect for the kind of music I play, and will be playing with Boag: blues, soul, country, vintage rock. I tested it at the store (Ring Music on Harbord near Spadina), playing it through a nice, warm-sounding Gretsch Country Gentleman (the closest thing they had to my Epiphone, though not exactly the same sound) and with a spanky Telecaster, and it sounded great with both. When I brought it home and plugged my Epi into it, I was not disappointed. Beautiful ringing overdrive, just enough nastiness around the edges, nice clean tone, warm. Dial in just the right anount of reverb and you're smack dab in the middle of that classic, bluesy-rock guitar sweet spot.

I'm one happy tube-head.

And get this: all the dials go to 12! Take that Nigel!