current

Status:

1. I'm in school.
2. I'm in a band?
3. I'm building a weird guitar.
4. I'm married to an awesome super wife.
5. My wife is sick.
6. I got a new phone.

That's pretty much it.

relic

I've come across some interesting ideas while researching for my next music project. Tying to find the right sound was one problem, but listening to a Smashing Pumpkins CD the other day gave me a push in the right direction. "Siamese Dream" is my favorite Pumpkins disc and despite their expansive library of songs I keep coming back to the simple riffs and guitar layers that made "Siamese Dream" such a great CD. I looked into why it sounded different from subsequent Pumpkins CD and stumbled upon the sound of the Electro-Harmonix guitar pedal called the Big Muff Pi. I've seen this pedal before in catalogues and on the web but just brushed it off as just another lame distortion pedal. Electro-harmonix is known for their interesting pedals and the artists that have supposedly used them. But the key to the Smashing Pumpkins sound was the Big Muff distortion that was quite popular among early 90's grunge/Alternative bands. I know I've heard that sound elsewhere and found out that bassists also use the same pedal for fuzzy bass lines. Examples of such can be found on Ben Folds Five and Muse albums. For being such an analog synth fan, I found that I was really dumb when it came to analog guitar effect pedals. I just figured that they were all the same and that anything could be fixed or effected later on the computer. I was so impressed that I ordered a Big Muff Pi and it came in the mail last week. I was not disappointed. Now I just need to find a Tremolo.

In my search for the perfect sound, I've also been looking for a new guitar to use for recording and live shows this summer. Guitars are expensive. There's really no way to get around it. But I may have found a way... I can piece a guitar together from spare parts, and have the ability to customize it to fit my needs. There are also some Do-it-yourself kits on the web that turn out ok when assembled and painted. Its probably the primal urge inside of me to build or cut something, but this is something that I've wanted to do for a long time. So I've looked and looked at pieces and parts and decided that I'll need a Fender Telecaster or a Gibson Les Paul to finish this project. The Strat copy I have is really noisy, and the Big Muff doesn't help with the hum either. The problem is shielding the electronics from interference and the single coil pickups are just noisy to begin with, making recording a guitar a nightmare. So I'm still looking.

I've also run into some interesting sites that make "Relic guitars". Guitars that look and feel like they've been played for decades. There are some interesting ideas floating around on the internet about how to damge and ding up a perfectly new guitar and make it look 40 years old. Bill Nash and his guitars are really impresive, and expensive. Making a guitar look convincingly old is an art in itself, and its something I would like to try if I can get my hands on some guitar parts in the not so distant future. The Guitar Attack website also has many restored guitars and the some useful hints on refinishing a guitar. They post guitars that people have made or fixed as well. Project Guitar pretty much has everything you need to make or break your guitar.
The information is out there!

Links:

Electro-Harmonix
Nash Guitars
Guitar Attack
Project Guitar

sick

I'm sick.

And its worse than I thought.

I hate being sick.

dark

I was about to go to bed when my wife stepped out of the shower and turned on her hair dyer. There was a snap sound and all was dark. I didn't think there was a problem- Some one must have hit a phone pole or maybe I forgot to pay my electricity bill. It was late and the darkness surprised me for a moment, and I stood there like an idiot, wondering if I had a flashlight. Or batteries for a flashlight.

After a few more seconds we managed to locate a candle and something to light it with. I ran downstairs to see if everyone else's power was out- but was again surprised to see that every one's lights were OK. Great. I guess I didn't pay the electric bill. On the way back up stairs I smelled something that made me almost gag. It was a smell that I've only encountered a few times in my life: taking garbage out to a dumpster, finding a dead mouse or bird in the garage, and passing roadkill along Utah roads. Images of dead animals brought into the house by our neighbor's yappy Chihuahua, or better yet, the dead Chihuahua filled my head. I went under our stairs to look for the dead body or whatever was the source of that death smell. Nothing. With power outage and a nasty smell floating around our apartment I knew that some thing was wrong.

We figured that we must have tripped a breaker somewhere when the hair dryer was turned on. Finding a breaker box in a hundred year old house would be interesting to say the least. A small door on the stairs opened up to some water pipes. Looking around the outside of the house didn't yield any results either. With all the wires running around the walls of our house, you'dl think that there would be a box somewhere connecting it all together. Running around our creepy old house in the dark makes you feel like you'd see the kid from the Grudge at any second. I looked up at the windows expecting to see a dark face looking inward at me. I'm always looking over my shoulder like some chainsaw massacre was going to happen at any second. Nope. No bloodshed, no creepy Grudge kid. Just me and my wife, and the neighbor's yappy Chihuahua.

So after calling our landlords they mentioned that our fuse box was located on the stairs leading up to our apartment. Indeed there was a small grey box that I had previously ignored (not knowing what the crap was inside it was). I opened the box and found that the rotten dead animal smell was actually from a blown fuse and oily melty wires. After a quick stop at Home Depot I changed the fuse and like magic all of our appliances beeped back to life. Hmmm.. One fuse for the entire apartment. That makes sense.

new year

New year.

One of my resolutions for 2007 is to make another CD. I think its been 2 years since I've made a serious effort to start and finish something. I was hoping to put out a CD of electronic music last fall, but getting married, home, work and school pretty much stopped that from happening. I managed to make some remix attempts of some songs that my friend Dan made- but anything original hasn't really happened in a long time. So this year is it.

Why haven't I made anything? Aside from the 30 second songs I make up to belittle my siblings and wife, I haven't had any interest in making a CD again. There's a serious amount of effort and commitment involved to make a great project a reality. I didn't really have the equipment either- (Where did my mixer go?? BRANDEN!!) and I'd honestly much rather contribute to a project that was almost finished anyway.

The moral of the story is that I was lazy or busy. Or both.

New music, new songs in 2007.

Christmas 2006

cell

I hate cell phones. I hate losing them, breaking them, and paying for them. Every year a new phone comes out that makes yours look obsolete, except it isn't. Phones were made to send and receive phone calls. Now phones can manage your emails, take pictures, play mp3's games and videos, organize your schedule, and fit in your pocket (sorta). Depending on how much you spend you could one that does all of these to a various degree. But it seems like there isn't a phone that can do all of them well.

I hate cell phones. Every time I go out to eat an apathetic teenager at the counter is texting away on a stupid cell phone. People swerve and lose focus while driving with a stupid phone hooked to their ear. Kids bring cell phones to elementary school. People snap pictures of celebrities and upload them to the internet. It seems like anyone can call anyone at any time of the day.

An electronic leash: what a great invention.

mp3

Is downloading music addictive? When millions of people used Napster to share mp3's it did something. It degraded the value of music. Even after Napster died, paying for mp3's seemed like a joke. Ripping a CD takes what? A few minutes? After the files had been encoded they barely take up any space at all. The downloading hysteria caused by Napster made people think that songs were worth next to nothing because of the ease of passing mp3's around. One song from a album isn't enough. Especially if the artist or group has a large catalog to pick from. Some groups like Metallica, Led Zepplin, and the Beatles have left their catalogs off the internet to preserve some control over what they've made. But even this is short lived , and eventually everyone gives in to the internet monster.