Gear Review: Epiphone Les Paul Special

This probably won't be the last guitar I'll ever buy, but it's the last one I've bought so far. I got it "on sale" on Black Friday (Nov. 25) of 2011. Those Guitar Center scamps had the thing marked as $119 for several weeks, arranged like that one puppy at the pet shop right up front on the main aisle. Then, mere days before Black Friday--$109!

That made me think that maybe it wouldn't hurt to go look at it instead of walking by. I thought about that for a few days, not wanting to just impulse-buy a guitar I didn't really have the space for, even if it was on sale. But like many guitar players, I have Guitar Acquisition Syndrome. Fortunately, my GAS is mild and manageable and only has me buying the occasional instrument at a reasonable price.

Besides...won't hurt to just try it out a little. Plug it into an amp...play it. No wife or girlfriend to roll her eyes and scoff when I extoll its virtues--I don't have one with P-90 pickups, after all, and I don't have a Les Paul. The Les doesn't sound like my Stratocaster knock-off, my Peavey T-15, or the cheapie Tux. It really is about the sound, not about the color...though I didn't have a yellow guitar, either. And I'd never had a new one, just second-hand.

Off I went, visions of maybe bringing back a $109 bargain on that Black Friday. Everything was exactly as it had been when I got to Guitar Center...except that the GC scamps had put the price back up to $119. So much for that.

I picked it up, anyway, and took it over to a suitably big and loud-looking amp. Turned it up just loud enough to hear what I was doing, played around for maybe 40 minutes...and seriously considered putting it back on its stand and leaving, friendly puppy feeling or not. Then I considered trying out its sister guitar, identical in every way but the color--transparent cherry instead of transparent "TV Yellow", because  don't have a red guitar...There was a black one, too, but I've already got some. I played it some more, gradually deciding that I liked it enough to take it home.

There was only one thing wrong with the Les: the selector switch had a bad solder joint, so one of the pickups was dead. I could have made some noise about it, but I'd rather just fix things myself. Says something about Gibson/Epiphone's quality control, though. It only took a minute for me to solder the wire properly. Yeah, I shouldn't HAVE to fix a brand new guitar...but I'd rather fix it myself. Trust issues. My damn guitar.

So. Here's what I got:

Yellow!

More than the sound and the shape, I really REALLY like the feel of this guitar. The finish on the back of the neck is smooth enough that for the longest time while I was playing and getting used to it my fretting hand would overshoot. The only clear coat is on the back of the neck. The paint is flat yellow and shows off the body grain nicely.

The guitar's marketed as a "Special," Epiphone's entry-level Les Paul model:
--2 P90 single-coil "soap bar" pickups
--24-3/4" scale length
--mahogany body and neck
--rosewood fretboard
--bolt-on neck
--22 "Jumbo" frets
--single volume and tone controls
--low-mount 3-way selector switch
--flat translucent "aged" TV Yellow body & back of neck
--chrome hardware
--pearl inlay dots
--no pickguard
--rear access to electronics
--made in China
--single-piece wrap-around bridge; 2 height-adjustment screws, 2 intonation screws

There's a "Custom Shop" label on the back of the headstock, but apparently there's no such shop. Specials are made on the same line as any other Epi, just in smaller quantities. Heh.

Very good balance. The neck stays where you leave it, unlike that aggravating "Tux" which won't stay put. The mahogany feels solid without being heavy--lighter than a maple, heavier than poplar.

The P90s are very loud and bright, but they mellow out nicely when the volume is rolled off. It sounds best straight into an amp. Doesn't seem to like effects processors like the Zoom 505 or Digitech RP100, which both come off harsh. Through my Crate amp, I brought out a damn good and passable Alice In Chains sound--"Rooster" sounds amazing, even with my hackery. Surprised myself, there.

For all the good feel and comfort, though, this guitar kicked my ass. I had to work to play songs I was used to getting through without effort. Three years later, I still haven't figured out why I had so much trouble. With that Gibson-style 24-3/4" scale length, it's not strung nearly as tightly as my Strat copy or the Tux (both with 25-1/2" scales) and should be slightly tighter than the Peavey T-15 (23-3/4"). I went from wondering whether there was something wrong with the guitar to wondering whether I'd had a stroke or something. I even set it aside and played one or another of my other axes for awhile to keep my morale up.

Maybe it was the working out on the Strat copy and heavy strings, but we worked out our differences after a few months. All the other guitars are hanging out of the way and the little Les Paul is always within grabbing distance.

Song of the Day: "Dreamline" (Rush, Auburn Hills MI 3-22-94)

First song off the Counterparts Tour bootleg video.

Tonight (Jan. 22, 1994) is the 20th anniversary of Rush opening that tour here in Pensacola.

I was seated directly opposite the stage, up in the bleachers at the Pensacola Civic Center. Gotta say, Rush or not, I really wish the sound quality of that concert had been as good as this video:



The Civic Center (now renamed as Pensacola Center...hahahaha) is a big concrete boondoggle, a horrible waste of taxpayer money, an acoustic disaster, and it deserves to be knocked over, set on fire, have the ashes sown with salt, and then have the developers and their political toadies forced to clean up the rubble with toothbrushes, plastic spoons, and those cone-shaped drinking cups that won't stand on their own.

In summary, the Civic Center sucks. There's a sound-sucking echo that makes even a hockey game announcer sound like he's using a bullhorn in a tunnel.

I knew the sound would be bad, since two years before I attended the Feb. 25 opening night of the band's "Roll The Bones" tour. That one left me deaf for most of the next day. This time, I brought earplugs. Man-o-man did I ever need them.

The "Counterparts" opening act was Candlebox, supporting their self-titled debut disc. I couldn't hear the guitars or vocals well; anything in the midrange was muddy or inaudible. But the highs and bass were incredibly loud, almost painful even with earplugs. No complaints about the band. I liked what I could hear of them, but I hadn't heard anything they played other than "You," which was getting good airplay on local radio:



I probably fidgeted through the opening act and through the intermission. Finally: the intro!

On earlier tours, they opened with the "Three Stooges" theme. This time, we saw a gigantic bolt spinning slowly in space, finally docking with its counterpart (get it? Counterparts Tour!), accompanied by "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" ("2001: A Space Odyssey"). This led into 'Dreamline,' the first track on the "Counterparts" album.

From that point--shitty sound or not--I was riveted.

The set list (via Wikipedia):

Intro ('Thus Spoke Zarathustra'; first time used as intro)
'Dreamline'
'The Spirit of Radio'
'The Analog Kid'
'Cold Fire' (from Counterparts)
'Time Stand Still'
'Nobody's Hero' (from Counterparts)
'Roll the Bones'
'Animate' (from Counterparts)
'Stick It Out' (from Counterparts)
'Double Agent' (from Counterparts)
'Limelight'
'Mystic Rhythms'
'Closer to the Heart'
'Show Don't Tell'
'Leave That Thing Alone!' (from Counterparts)
'The Rhythm Method' (drum solo)
'The Trees'
'Xanadu' (abbreviated)
'Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres' (Prelude)
'Tom Sawyer'
'Force Ten'
'YYZ'
'Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage' (teaser)

There were plenty of Rush Geek moments to be had. Lifeson brought out his classic double-neck Gibson EDS-1275 to play 'Xanadu.'

The twin 20-foot high rabbits introduced for the "Presto" tour made a comeback during 'Show Don't Tell.' The stage-left rabbit now sported a gangster hat and sawed-off shotgun. As the song ended, there was threatening music...a shot rang out! An animated bullet flashed across the screens behind the stage, searching for its target for several seconds. Then, with a flash and the sound of a deflating balloon, the other rabbit fell. Up on the screen, his spirit was comforted by a pair of scantily-clad angel bunnies...and the band played 'Leave That Thing Alone!' Has nothing to do with bunnies, just the band having some fun.

Neil Peart's seven and a half minute drum solo followed. This is the one time in the entire set when the sound didn't suck: I could hear and feel every seismic *THUMP* of the drums in my chest and seat. There were a pair of massive speaker towers hanging almost directly above my seat, so I got it from above as well.

I freaking loved it.

Neil's drum solos are legendary, a staple of every concert. If he hasn't used a part of his kit in the show so far, this is where he makes up for it by beating on everything.

I. Freaking. Loved. It.

Neil's kit spans 360 degrees around him. One 180 degree section is mostly digital; the other is acoustic, but also has some digital triggers. There's also a forest of cymbals.

The solo started on the digital side. As if seeing him playing wasn't cool enough, roughly halfway into the solo he paused after hitting an enormous *THUMP THUMP!*...and his drum kit spun 180 degrees so that the acoustic half was facing the audience. Neil turned the other way on his seat and went right back to the solo.

I spent a lot of time watching Alex Lifeson's playing to see whether I was playing the same way. It might have helped if I'd taken notes (yes, I had a notebook), but I was too busy just soaking in the experience. This was only the second rock concert I'd ever been to--and the second Rush concert. I could hear better, thanks to those earplugs, and by now I knew every song. The only way the evening could have been better (aside from backstage access and that double-neck guitar of Lifeson's) was if the sound hadn't sucked.

Oh, and the ticket price? $21.00. Compare that to $60 or so for a seat in either Tampa or Orlando last year for the "Clockwork Angels" tour.

Once it was all over, I sat and watched the road crew breaking everything down for awhile before leaving to save myself the crowds in the parking lot.
 
On the way home, I got to hear the concert all over again as WTKX played the studio versions of every song on the concert playlist.


I got lucky a few years after this show. I found a pair of VHS bootlegs of the March 22 Auburn Hills gig. Bought both for $40 a pop. One went to my nephew, who's also a Rush fan. I copied mine to DVD years ago, just before my VCR started eating tapes instead of playing them.

Song of the Day: Rush accepting Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2013 Induction

Wish I'd seen it in mid-April, but I forgot.



It was nice of them to let Neil "The New Guy" Peart speak first.

Alex Lifeson's speech is memorable!


Bonus, from 2008: an 11 year old girl plays one of Rush's more technically difficult songs.

Solo.

On an electric piano.

Song of the Day: "Natural Science" and "Animate" (Rush), covered by Pierre Martin

I ran across Mr. Martin's YouTube channel a few nights ago. Don't remember what I was looking for, but his was the third rendition of "Natural Science"--and, I'd say, the best.



I went through his uploads list, watching him play most of Rush's fan favorites--"Cygnus X-1," "One Little Victory," "The Camera Eye," and seriously got tears in my eyes from some of it. This guy's GOOD, with an excellent grasp of the basics and a lock on Neil Peart's drumming style. It seems like he's chosen the more technically challenging songs (that's the thing about Rush--their songs range from kind of challenging to pretty challenging to holy-crap-how-can-three-guys-play-this-live?! Makes it a lot of fun to play on a good day and a trainwreck on a bad one).

It helps that he's got a much smaller kit than Peart; you can see what he's doing from the single front-view camera (Neil's kind of hidden behind a wall of cymbals and drums).

Out of all of them, "Animate" is the one that's been stuck in my head for the past few days:



Love that ride cymbal on the upbeats.

Gear Review: The Tux, pt. 2

So I've had the FirstAct Overload BB391--or simply "The Tux" because it's fat and black and white like a penguin--for more than a year (see first review here). Plenty of time for the honeymoon phase of Guitar Acquisition Syndrome to fade away and a more analytical frame of mind to set in.

It's still a reasonably comfortable guitar, but the same things that annoyed me about it in May of 2011 are annoying today.

With its very light poplar body and maple neck, the worst issue--balance--probably can't be fixed without adding a lot of weight to the bridge end of the body. With a strap on the stock strap pins, the Tux hangs from its upper horn and wants to stay dead level. The other end of the strap has little effect. You can't shift the guitar around on your shoulder like a Strat or Les Paul to make the neck angle upward, either--all that does is move the whole guitar up.

I tried adding a strap pin to the lower side of the neck heel. While that took care of the balance issue, now the guitar wants to lean out at the top, forcing me to use my forearm to keep it in line. It's not bad enough for me to hate it (yet--but I can see it getting there), but it takes getting used to if I haven't played it in a while.

The other annoyance was much easier to fix. When I first got this guitar, the bridge saddles were set insanely high. Each saddle has a pair of Allen-head screws for setting string height. Turning them out to bring the strings down enough for playability left almost 1/4" of each screw sticking out of the saddle tops. Sharp edges. I popped them out one at a time and cut them down. Problem solved!

All in all, the Overload BB391 isn't a high-end (or even mid-level) instrument, but for sixty bucks you'll get sixty bucks of fun. Based on my sample, it's not a ready-to-play guitar right out of the box, but anyone with a little knowledge of setting one up can get it into playable shape without much effort, assuming they can live with the crappy balance.

Adding (9-11-12): to give experienced players an idea of where the upper strap pin originally sat, it's straight up from the 22nd fret. On a Les Paul Jr., it's above the 16th fret; on the Strat-like Peavey T-15 it's above the 13th (on a 20-fret neck); and on my Lotus Stratocopy it's right around the 12th. The pin I added to the Tux is below the 20th fret, which is still several inches back and down from a good balance point--and there's nowhere else to go, unless I start screwing around with the neck, or add some sort of "outrigger" to the body to extend the pin location forward a few inches. Not really worth all that much effort.

Riff of the Day: Tom Sawyer synth "growl" (Rush)

I'd been wondering for a few days how Geddy Lee got what he calls the "growl" in Tom Sawyer--the first thing you hear after the drum hit:



Andy Skuse has a writeup of his attempts to figure out the growl, a set of .WAV files of his results, and a demo of the Digital Men playing "Tom Sawyer" with the resulting growl:



Not too shabby. Singer sounds more like Rik Emmett of Triumph than he does Geddy Lee--but Geddy Lee doesn't even sound like his 1981 self anymore.

As a bonus sound, Keyboard Magazine has the info for programming the "lead synth" sound for the song using a MiniMoog.

Song of the Day: Tom Sawyer (Rush)

It's been SOTD before, but not like this. I stumbled on vids a few days ago of the song with the synth, guitar, bass and drums isolated. Just rips from Rock Band or Guitar Hero's tracks, but still pretty cool to be able to hear the song like this.

Synth:
 

Guitar:


Drums:


Bass:


There are some other isolated tracks--I've found a guitar-only "2112," guitar and bass for "Limelight" and "YYZ," and a guitar track for "Subdivisions" so far.

Hacker, Sham, Fraud revisited

Still thinking about the "hacker, sham, fraud" post of a couple of weeks ago.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the notion that an accomplished professional musician like Neil Peart with more than 40 years of playing under his belt can think of himself in such terms (if only occasionally), or as a guy guy who just hits things with sticks.

It occurred to me that he's an excellent example of the flipside of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

From the Wikipedia entry:

Kruger and Dunning proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1. tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
2. fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
3. fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
4. recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve.

 Think of notable incompetents such as...oh, Republicans. George W. Bush, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich are stellar examples of the Effect; each exhibits arrogance and absolute certainty (what Will Ferrel calls "unearned confidence"). Add in fundies, creationists, Teabaggers...wait, I already said "Republicans." Nevermind.

Anyway, the flipside of the Effect is that someone competent tends to underestimate their own abilities. It could be a cultural thing (the Wikipedia entry notes that studies tend to focus on Americans, and that East Asians tend to exhibit the flipside effect, but doesn't mention Canadians specifically), upbringing, or (as in Peart's case) a nerdy outcast childhood. Peart notes in his book "Roadshow" that he was inept in all the jockish arts and suffered for it at the hands of the jocks. Something else we have in common.

He applied himself to drumming before he was even a teen, an age where I was barely even aware of music, let alone playing it. By 1978, he was 26, had been in Rush for 4 years, and was considered a phenomenal musician (and the band had released its 6th studio album); I was a resentful 11 year old saddled with a 6th-Grade Beginning Trumpet class instead of the drums I'd wanted to sign up for.

That's the branching point. He'd found his niche; I hated mine. My mother forced me to practice: she had her sewing machine set up in an alcove outside my bedroom door and tortured me with that practice crap (she'd been the one who "selected" trumpet for me). Just to stick the knife in a bit deeper, she managed to mention how expensive the goddamn horn had been, and how my grandmother had paid for it.

At some point over Summer break, I managed to slam the case lid on it and render it unplayable. I can't really say it was an accident, but it did finally get her to stop bothering me about that farking trumpet anymore. Hell of a whipping for that.

It was another 10 years before I seriously tried learning a new instrument (forget about the stupid "gonna be a keyboard player" crap from high school)--and this time it was because of Rush. I threw myself headlong into the guitar, sponging up every lesson, struggling to twist my left hand fingers around to form chords, trying to get from one unfamiliar chord to the next, then to get my hands synchronized. Competence came slowly, a finger at a time. It took several months for me to strengthen my fretting hand to the point where I could hold barre chords or bend strings; vibrato eluded me for more than a decade, even with lightweight strings.

I didn't care about the difficulty. All I wanted to do was learn to play Rush songs. I even put up with a pissy guitar teacher for maybe 6 months. He could play, but he didn't have much of a sense of humor and expressed disdain for every guitar player I was interested in ("Alex Lifeson's okay, but he's mostly a major chord player," quoth the pissy Jazz Snob). Shortly after we started working on "Tom Sawyer," I got tired of him and moved on.

He'd given me enough by that point for me to start working out songs on my own, so there's that. I sponged again, listening to the "Moving Pictures" album so much I wore the music off Side One of the tape. I bought every book I could find, (not much out there in 1990) and as my ear and experience improved I needed the books less and less. At one point, I could play (to some extent) maybe half of the Rush songs up through the "Counterparts" album. Hardly a guitar god, but still an accomplishment for anyone who's self-taught.

Twenty-two years later, I'm struggling with the "hacker, sham and fraud" thing and now I think I've figured out why: there's no challenge in it anymore. For the first few years, I soaked up all those new skills. I'd get a thrill from learning a new solo (and playing it well), or for having the stamina to keep up with a demanding song (the second half of "Jacob's Ladder") or one of their long-ass album-side epics (2112, Hemispheres). These days, though, if I'm in the mood to grab a guitar, I end up playing the same dozen or so Rush songs, the same set of Metallica songs, the same Stone Temple Pilots bass lines. I just want to play (Fun! Fun!), don't want to learn (Work! Work!).

My recent medical issues don't help; uncontrolled high blood pressure can cause brain damage--and I've gotten somewhat paranoid about that even after getting it squared away. I get fatigued (physically and mentally) easily, forget words and names, sleep a lot...learning a new song (or relearning stuff I've forgotten) seems more like a Task instead of a pleasure.

Still, when it comes to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, I know I'm closer to Peart's end of the spectrum. Like him I'm aware of all my shortcomings--maybe too aware, or just less driven to get past them. If half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at (seen on a T-shirt), maybe half of being competent is knowing what you suck at, then doing something about it.

Hacker, Sham, Fraud: Neil Peart?

I've been reading Neil Peart's "Roadshow: Landscape With Drums", the Rush drummer/lyricist's memoir of the band's 30th Anniversary Tour in 2004.

The skeleton of the book isn't the concerts, it's the motorcycle rides between venues. Peart starts out leaving his Los Angeles home, pausing to gather up his co-rider for the tour. The two ride from LA to Nashville, Tennessee (where the tour will open), then on to each new city's amphitheater.

Along the way, Peart gives us little glances into his psyche. His most surprising revelation is in his self-confidence:

If I am uncomfortable with strangers making a fuss about me, and feel embarrassed by any show of admiration, people sometimes accuse me of thinking I am “too good.” In fact the opposite is true—I don’t believe I deserve that kind of attention. I have never thought I was very good at anything; I just tried hard. And nothing came easily. Having one’s childhood personality shaped by being inept at every sport is a cliché, but it had its effect on me.
...

Later, in my early teens, my first drum teacher encouraged me by saying I had a natural talent, and that meant a lot. But no matter how much I practiced and played and showed off, the more praise I received, the more I felt like a hacker, a sham, and a fraud.
...

Still do, sometimes, but the important thing was that I kept trying. After almost forty years of playing the drums, I had started to feel a modicum of confidence. Though even that still varied from night to night.

I've seen the guy play live twice and on tape or DVD many more times. It was his band that made me want to learn to play guitar (and, later, bass). If I have any idols in this world, people I look up to, these three guys would have to be in the top ten. He deserves heaps of praise, if only for setting a standard of excellence and living up to it.

But it's good to see a side of him that I'd never known, something that makes him just a vulnerable human being--not because it brings the Thundering Rock God down to my level, but because it reminds me that he's not a Thundering Rock God (he calls himself "a guy who hits things with sticks"). He got where he is by busting ass. He kept trying.

He's a good example of a line from a book I've kept in mind for a couple of years: "Play like you mean it." When I look back at how I was playing in 1995, I can see a vast improvement: I sucked then, I suck less now. I don't think 1995 me was playing like he meant it so much as just trying to keep up. I struggled through many of the songs we played in Soma Holiday.

There are still plenty of times when I'm playing a guitar and suddenly start wondering what the hell I'm doing--I'm a hacker, a sham, a fraud who should just put the guitar down, maybe sell it and all the stuff that goes with it.

Am I a musician? I don't know; I'm a competent technical player, but I don't write my own stuff and I can't improvise for crap--things I think are important for the answer to my question.

I can learn most songs pretty quickly; I just can't improvise on what's there, still have trouble with speed. I keep working at it, getting incrementally better, and something clicks, something basic that I'd missed like holding the guitar a certain way or moving the pick differently, and I find myself suddenly able to keep up with that elusive Metallica riff, but lagging far behind on the intro riff of "The Spirit of Radio" (that Holy Grail of Rush riffs!). I'm almost there, and it only took 23 years to do it. Equal measures (hah!) of frustration and satisfaction.

That's when I set the guitar aside and grab the bass for awhile, forcing flabby fingers to work harder, playing Nirvana's "Breed" or Stone Temple Pilots' "Wicked Garden" or "Vasoline," all of which feature simple but repetitive (and demanding!) bass riffs. No pyrotechnics, just fun and challenging to play. If I haven't been practicing (hahahaha...I'm really bad about that), the bass kicks my ass, leaving hands and forearms near-numb and tired the way you feel after good exercise. If it's really been awhile since I played, I rediscover the pain of building up new calluses and working tired fingers; then comes the pleasure of feeling the bass vibrating like a living, breathing thing, of knowing when I'm playing well, those giddy moments when I nail a riff, even the less-giddy moments when I make a mistake. From that book, that little paraphrase again: "play like you mean it." What the author said was more along the lines of "Play with authority. Play each note like you mean it--even if you screw up. Screw up like you mean it."

At some point, the mistakes and fatigue don't even matter because I can't stop. The song's in charge, I'm along for the ride, and goddamned if I'm hopping off. Maybe it's trite to compare it to great sex, but there's something to that, losing oneself in a moment, a rush, a high, wishing like hell you could have that all the time.

Before I started playing bass in 2003, that feeling was incredibly rare. It changed how I play, listen and react to music, the same way the guitar did in 1989. I got so into it that I hardly even looked at the guitar for several weeks. Too busy learning new songs, going for the next challenge, and enjoying that can't stop vibe. Once I did pick up a guitar, I had a "holy crap!" reaction and a valuable lesson. The song was "Down" by 311. My fretting hand held the strings down with little effort. The guitar itself felt strange, like a dinky toy after 5 weeks of a heavy bass with its bridge-cable strings. I tried STP's "Interstate Love Song" after that, amazed at this new ability. It came more easily than ever before (damn barre chords!). From there, had to go to Rush. "2112" has its share of demanding guitar parts--and for the first time in years, it was my picking hand playing catch-up. I played better than I had in years!

In the years since, I've played one or the other irregularly (I did say I'm bad about practicing), usually grabbing one when I'm bored or taking a break. Those can't stop moments come more frequently, almost regularly, but only if I'm playing like I mean it. Otherwise, I get the hacker, sham, and fraud feeling and know it's time to grab that bass and take my punishment.

The Molly Ringwalds (Mar. 24, 2012)

When I got an invite to head down to the Capt'n Fun Beach Club on Pensacola Beach last Saturday, I had to think it over.

I'm not much for going out--not into the club scene, don't really want to be in the middle of a crowd. I'd rather have a book and a quiet spot in which to read it. I've only gotten more insular since Aorta Day--only now I don't read much. If I'm in that quiet spot, it won't be long before I'm asleep.

I finally decided to go just for the sake of being somewhere else. I brought a sketchbook and some pens.

I'd heard of the Molly Ringwalds, but never had an interest in seeing them before. About all I knew about them was that they're an '80s cover band.

Let's skip all the pre-gig stuff (dinner, hiking back and forth on the Boardwalk, trying to find a chair, sitting and sketching a nearby ice cream shop) that killed the few hours before 11:30 pm and get to it. I perched on a stool on the Boardwalk where I could see maybe a third of the stage (no seats where they were playing, unfortunately).

The Ringwalds' personae are easily recognizable 80s pop-culture icons:
--singer/guitarist "Devon" dressed as Adam Ant
--singer/guitarist "Randi" as one of the Devo guys
--singer/keyboardist "Dickie" as Pee-wee Herman
--bass player "Philip" as Dee "Twisted Sister" Snyder
--drummer "Liam" as Nikki Sixx

Over the next two hours, they kicked ass. Devon, Randi and Dickie traded off a lead singer depending on the needs of a given song. Devon did a passable Prince in the opening "Let's Go Crazy"; Dickie used his higher range for "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," screamed through "Cum On Feel The Noize," and Randi wailed through "Don't Stop Believin' ."

The band put as much effort into performing each song as they did in making it fun. Far from being a bunch of shoe-gazers, they cavorted on stage, took impressive slugs from a big Crown Royal bottle, got various drunk girls in the audience to sing along, and generally just played the hell out of it. They had their own sound guy off to the left of the stage and a professional lighting and sound setup. Very professional.

They kept it up for two solid hours. The audience--split between Spring Break college kids ("Wow! look at all the OLD people here!") and us 40-ish old farts who could vaguely remember when the songs were new ("You damn kids stay off my lawn!")--danced and sang along and generally had a blast.

The set list:

Let's Go Crazy
We Got the Beat
Relax
Faith
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Goody Two Shoes
Walk This Way (Run DMC version)
Talking In Your Sleep
Personal Jesus
When Doves Cry / Sweet Dreams / drunk girl sing-along
Another One Bites the Dust (Pee-wee killed it on vocals!)
Tom Sawyer (Pee-wee again)
Separate Ways (Devo guy on vocals)
Boys of Summer
Don't You Forget About Me
Blister in the Sun
Push It (Salt-n-Pepa)
What About Love?
Hungry Like the Wolf
Sweet Child o' Mine
In the Air Tonight
Take On Me
Livin' On a Prayer
I Don't Wanna Lose You Love Tonight
Cum On Feel the Noize
Don't Stop Believin'

If these guys show up in your area, they're well worth seeing.

Song of the Day: Rush--Paint It Black / The Spirit of Radio

The Canadian badasses at the Toronto Rocks benefit in 2003:



Look at the size of that audience! 450,000 to 500,000 people, Canada's largest ticketed outdoor event.

Lifeson tears up the solo.

Those are real clothes dryers behind Geddy; in the late '90s he stopped using amps onstage (running his bass directly to the soundboard). He needed something to fill in the space to balance out Lifeson's wall of amps.

In 1996, he had a fridge.

For the Vapor Trails tour (2003), there were three dryers loaded with special T-shirts ("I GOT THIS T-SHIRT FROM DRYER NUMBER 3"). The stage crew even added dummy mics for more humor.

On the R30 tour, he swapped one of them out and added a vending machine stocked with memorabilia (bobbleheads and such).

For Snakes and Arrows, Geddy put three working rotisserie ovens and an "attendant."

Most recently, on the Time Machine tour, there was a Steampunk time machine/sausage maker.

Song of the Day: Rush to Limbaugh: Get off, eh?

I knew the Vulgar Pigboy was using my favorite band's music on his show.

Not anymore.

Bob Cesca broke the story: "The Spirit of Radio" was playing while Pigboy was demanding Sandra Fluke's sex tapes. Cesca contacted Anthem Entertainment and the band to ask about his use of their music. Their attorney sent out a cease and desist (full text posted on Cesca's blog).

In your face, Pigboy.

Here's a Rush song he should have used, since the lyrics are about him and his fellow travelers:



Good tags are for the band, bad ones for Pigboy.

POTD: Guitar Porn--the MotorAve BelAire

I don't usually rave about guitars; there are plenty of axes I'd like to try out, plenty I'd pass on for whatever reason. My approach to music--playing or listening--has always been more about the musician. Joe Satriani (for example) could make a cigar box and rubber bands sound amazing. Eddie Van Halen used to be like that--but he lost his way after "1984" and became a footnote. I couldn't really say what guitars either of them have played without having to look it up: I'd rather just listen.

So no, I've never seen a guitar that really excited me until a few nights ago, watching Them Crooked Vultures on "Austin City Limits." Singer Josh Homme used several guitars for that gig, but it was his red MotorAve BelAire that dropped my jaw--especially the clean aluminum pickguard that follows the body's lines. There are smaller aluminum pieces--the output jack plate, truss rod cover, and tailpiece--that match the guard and really set the guitar off. No way I'd be able to afford the several thousand bucks for it, so I'll have to admire this one from afar.

It's given me some ideas, though. I've been interested in setting up a small back-yard forge where I can cast aluminum and maybe copper, brass or bronze. How cool would it be to go to a pawn shop, buy a decrepit, unloved guitar, then strip it down and rebuild it with a thin cast-aluminum pickguard and other one-off parts?

[Update] I poked around the Backyard Metal Casting site overnight. It's amazing how low-tech but effective Oliver's tools and techniques are. I've gotta try some of that.

Gear Review: Peavey T-15

'Way back in 1989, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to start playing guitar. It was just a few days before the National Guard unit I was assigned to took a tour most of the way across Florida to a little town called Live Oak.

Once our camp-out-in-the-fair-grounds was over and the military stuff was put away, we got our pay...and I went hunting through Live Oak's pawn shops and music stores.

The first thing I saw was a pawn shop no-name red guitar for under $100, but when I plugged it into an amp, nothing came out. I wasn't looking for a project, didn't know what else might be wrong with it or even what to look for, so I passed.

I ended up at a proper guitar store, explained that I was a newbie, and the salesman took me directly to a shiny black one with a short-scale neck. It wasn't an exciting neon speed-metal axe; just a quiet, unpretentious instrument. I shelled out the $149 for it and bought some music books. The next day I went back and bought a little practice amp. Still have both of them 22 years later.

The T-15 is styled along the lines of Fender's legendary Stratocaster with two large single-coil "blade" pickups. The short neck is closer to a Gibson's scale than a Strat's (23.5", 20 frets; Gibson typically uses 24.75"; Fender uses 25.5" on the Strat). This puts less tension on the strings, making for a looser and easier instrument for a beginner or someone with small hands.

From what I could find online, this Mississippi-built guitar's probably got an ash body. It feels solid without being heavy, but it's heftier than the poplar-bodied Tux. Mine was almost immaculate, but it's accumulated a few dings and scratches over the years. It's smoothly rounded, with rib and elbow reliefs blended into the curves.

The neck is maple with a clear-coated fretboard. I've rarely ever had to mess with the truss rod, never done more than tweak the intonation from time to time. The lower body cutaway gives very good access to the upper frets without much interference from the neck joint.

Most of its chrome hardware is still bright after minimal care, but the bridge has some pits and scratches.

The bridge and neck joint are the most unusual aspects of the guitar's setup: instead of individual saddles for each string, there's a single metal bridge saddle that can be positioned via a pair of set screws. You can raise or lower the strings slightly by turning a different pair of Allen screws under the bridge block, but for larger changes you have to crank out the 4 neck screws, then adjust the neck's "tilt" with yet another Allen screw.

The control knobs are solid aluminum, a nice touch for an entry-level guitar, and my only complaint has been that their set-screws don't hold them on very well. Fortunately, both control pots have solid shafts instead of the splined split shafts you'd find under cheapie plastic knobs or modern low-end instruments. I drilled small holes right where the set screws had marked up the shafts. Very simple fix.

The only hardware/electronics failure I've had was in 1994, when the pickup selector switch disintegrated. I couldn't find a proper replacement (Peavey wanted $50 or so!) and ended up using a tiny 3-position toggle. It did the job for another 17 years.

Swapping that dinky toggle switch into the guitar forced me to rewire the guitar slightly so that I could still get the same Bridge/Both/Neck pickup choices as before. I tried a few other mods over the next 17 years, but I've never really liked how the thing sounded after the last change. Compared to my other two electrics, the T-15 sounded brittle, harsh, and unmanageable if there was any distortion. Its clean tone was a bit thin.

I finally decided to do it all over again--new switch, same wiring as the original (fortunately, I drew up a schematic every time I changed something)--and now I really like the sound. With those single-coil pickups, this guitar's never going to have much bottom end, but it's got a pleasant bluesy twang to it. Output is hot and bright. Get the right amp and distortion behind it and this little axe will sing. It's never sounded better than when I was playing through a borrowed Fender Bassman amp head and 15" cabinet. I just wonder how it would sound with a pair of humbucker pickups, instead....

Overall, an excellent $100 to $200 guitar, and not just for a beginner. It's well-balanced, solid, comfortable to play and easy to maintain. You won't get Metallica tone, here--not without humbuckers or maybe some different capacitors in the tone circuit--but it's good as-is for surf, country, rockabilly or similar "twangy" tones.

Gear Review: The Tux

I found this little beast in a pawn shop for $60.00 back in late May.

I wasn't really in the market for a 4th guitar (5th, if we count the bass...6th if we count the old & damaged Classical acoustic...but I won't count the crappy Wal-Mart acoustic that won't stay tuned), but I was bored and looking for something new to play with while I recovered from having the Killer Kidney removed.

Turns out I made a hell of a good choice, getting this thing. Yeah, it's a cheap guitar, part of the FirstAct line of entry-level instruments, something to buy the kid who wants to try being a rock star without putting a bunch of money into it. If the kid quits, you're not out several hundred or thousand bucks.

This one--the Overload BB391--originally shipped as an all-in-one set: guitar, gig bag (basically a nylon 'soft case'), cord, some picks, and a small amp, all for about $125.00.

What I got was just the guitar and the gig bag. I played a bit with it at the store and liked it. Once I got it home and plugged it into my Crate GFX-120 amp, I loved it. I immediately nicknamed it "The Tux" for its clean black & white finish.

This is the first humbucker axe I've played or owned, so I wasn't prepared for how much hotter its output is than either of my other electrics.

The BB391 kind of looks like an early-60s slab-bodied double-cutaway Gibson Melody Maker; it's got a lightweight poplar body and maple neck with rosewood fretboard and 22 frets (which could use some filing along the ends). Access to the upper frets is about average for a bolt-on neck.

Overall finish is neat and clean, with properly-finished edges (I've seen some Samick guitars for three times as much, but with crappy-looking, splintered cut edges around the pickup openings and other fit & finish issues). Since the body's a simple slab with rounded-over edges, there's no arm or rib relief, but I don't even notice the difference.

The only playability issues I had with the axe is that the upper strap peg's position makes the guitar want to hang horizontally. I ended up adding another peg on the lower side of the heel. This limits access to the upper frets a little, but tilting the neck up a little takes care of that.

The other problem was string height; each saddle is individually adjusted with a pair of small Allen-head setscrews. No problem in adjustment (I dropped each at least 0.10"), but the screws should be either dressed with a file to cut the sharp edges or cut down so they can sit flush with the saddle tops. Aside from that, they don't interfere with palm-muting.

There's a lone humbucker in the bridge position and single volume and tone pots. The control knobs are a bit loose, but don't get in the way. The white-on-black numbers are easily read against the guitar's white plastic pickguard. Hardware's all nickel.

Hooked up to my Zoom 505 guitar effects box and the Crate amp, this little beast does a passable impersonation of James Hetfield's crunchy Metallica tone ("...And Justice for All") or Dimebag Darrell's insane harmonics ("Cowboys From Hell").

Zoom: default A1 patch
Amp: Bass & Treble all the way up, mids all the way down.

Keeping the same Zoom and Crate settings and turning the guitar's volume down gets you a good '80s hair-metal sound, like in Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock."

Changing the Zoom and Amp settings around, you quickly learn that it's loud and bright even with its volume almost at "0"--it doesn't like to mellow out.

Cutting the Zoom out altogether and setting the amp's "dirty" channel around a little got me a Texas-fried tone suitable for Billy Gibbons, but the Tux stays loud and bright no matter what.

If you're guitar-hunting, keep an eye open for this one. It's a surprisingly good axe for the price.

Riff of the Day: ...And Justice for All (Metallica)

Since I made this the Song of the Day, I might as well put up one of the riffs that always used to give me picking trouble. Nineteen years ago (when I was a Metallica virgin), I couldn't hack it with Hetfield's chunky down-stroke picking on the pre-chorus ("The ultimate in vanity / exploiting their supremacy..."):


___F#__________________G_F#__E___(F#)G_______(F#)G
___q___e_e_e_e_e____|__e\e___e____e==q________q
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|o------------------|------------------------------o|
|o-4----------------|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5-o|
|--4----------------|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5--|
|--2---2-2-2-2-2-2--|-------------------------------|
_______*_*_*_*_*_*


Had to put underscores in to keep Blogger from screwing up the formatting.

To play it cleanly, you need to be able to play the palm-muted (*) notes at speed, all down-strokes at 160 beats per minute.

My copy of the guitar/TAB "...And Justice for All" book has the riff written this way:

___F#__________________G_F#__E___(F#)G_______(F#)G
___q___e_e_e_e_e____|__e\e___e____e==q________q
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|-------------------|-------------------------------|
|o------------------|------------------------------o|
|o-4----------------|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5-o|
|--4---4-4-4-4-4-4--|--5\4---2---(4)/5-------(4)/5--|
|--2---2-2-2-2-2-2--|--3\2---0---(2)/3-------(2)/3--|
_______*_*_*_*_*_*


...and it works both ways; I've just always left the root notes off.

Definitely a "wooohoo!!!" moment--after 22 years of not being able to play fast, it seems like something just clicked into place, like maybe wrist position or some other bit of picking technique that I suddenly got right after all this time.

Still a long way to go before I'm up to the ending of "One" or any of "Damage, Inc.," but now there's some incentive to work a little harder on it.

Song of the Day: ...And Justice for All (Metallica)

From the first time I heard this 10-minute title track from "...And Justice For All," I wanted to learn to play it.

Over the 19 years or so since, I've managed to be slow and sloppy, hardly able to keep up with Hetfield's chunky palm-muted rhythm playing.


In the past couple of months (post-kidney surgery) there's been little else to do but grab a guitar and fart around on it--but let's not call it "practicing." That word brings back memories of being forced to play from as far back as 6th Grade trumpet class, when my mother would make me sit and go through the school book on Saturdays.

No, just call it farting around. It doesn't sound as official, which means I tricked myself into working a little more on getting my right hand a little looser and faster. The upshot of all this not-practice is that for the first time in longer than I can remember, my right hand wasn't holding me back.

I wore my left hand out.

This isn't one of Metallica's fast & furious all-out thrash songs (especially compared to "Damage, Inc."), but it's more technically demanding than "Enter Sandman" or "Orion."

I remember listening to this album (dubbed to cassette from my nephew's CD) while I was struggling through Analytical Geometry and Calculus I in college. I'd strain my brain for a bit, then rest and strain my fingers, rinse and repeat.

I still use Metallica on a regular basis.

Riff of the Day: The Enemy Within (Rush)

In the 20 years since I started playing guitar, there have been quite a few bits and pieces of Rush songs I've never been able to play, usually because I can't play fast. A great example of this would be that damned intro riff from "The Spirit of Radio." I can play it maybe half as fast--but I have never been able to break whatever speed barrier it is that keeps me from playing much of anything speedy.

Then there are riffs that I've tried to work out over the years and failed, usually because I was going about it all wrong, such as the 12-string pattern Lifeson plays under the " To stand within the Pleasure Dome decreed by Kubla Khan / To taste anew the fruits of life, the last immortal man" part of Xanadu, which turned out to be a lot simpler than I was making it out to be.

The intro to "The Enemy Within" (from Grace Under Pressure) is another one that eluded me for years. The last time I tried to work it out was maybe a decade ago. Couldn't get it, probably because I was making it too complicated. It became one of those elusive "I'm gonna have to figure that one out someday" things that pile up and never see brain cells again.

A couple of nights ago, I got bored and gave it another try...and this time it took maybe 15 minutes total.

I'm kind of pissed at myself because it turned out to be so simple:

.Bm...............Bm/E.............???..............A/D
-q--e-e-q--q--e---q--e-e-q--q--e---q--e-e-q--q--e---q-e-e-q--e-q
|---------------|-----------0----|--------2-------|-------------|
|-------0--3----|--------3-------|----------------|-------3--2-0|
|o----4---------|------4---------|------2---------|-----2------o|
|o--4---------4-|----4---------4-|----2------2----|---2--------o|
|---------------|----------------|--------------2-|-------------|
|R--------------|-R--------------|-R--------------|-R-----------|

Perf. note: Bass plays the root notes as whole notes--B, F#, E, A; the guitar fills in the "space" of the rest of the measure. Think "minimalism."

For the first two measures, form the basic 2nd-fret Bm chord, but don't barre it. After you finger the 3rd fret 2nd string in 1st measure, use that same shape to play the 2nd measure. You don't even need to move your fingers.

For measures 3-4, bar the top 4 strings at the 2nd fret. That's all--just skip the 2nd string in the 3rd bar. For the 4th bar, all you have to do is hold that chord and drop your middle finger on the 3rd fret.

Geetar Hank!

So while Hank was on his 6-month house arrest (briefly explained here), he decided to learn to play guitar.

It's my fault. I was teaching myself to play, learning Rush songs and those of lesser bands.


Hank didn't have anything else to do. Couldn't go out, couldn't drink. I bet that hurt, given that it's been the bedrock of his existence for much of his life. So he got himself an acoustic and a chord book and started watching MTV because that's where the rock stars go. He was gonna be one, you know, because that's where the money and girls are and because he had music in his soul, like Hendrix and Van Halen.

But first...he had no music background. I had to teach him the basic strum pattern everyone seems to learn first. For the rest of his house/jail time, that one pattern is all I heard. Since he couldn't read music, he played the chord book, so I'd hear him strum an F Major barre chord (first fret)....then there was a long pause while he rearranged his fingers to play an F Major barre chord (8th fret)....another pause...another F chord (minor, diminished, augmented, whatever)...pause...chord...all night long. He never seemed to get any better.

Keep in mind that a chord book's not a music book, it's an aid that shows the different fingerings for a variety of chords. A basic book will show you hundreds. I've got one that claims 5,000! Ask any guitar probie what it's like trying to remember just the basic "beginner" chord forms, then imagine Hank just going page by page through his book, making noise instead of music.

I wonder if he ever got better.

Why I Hate Country, 2: Enough with the religion already.

As I've mentioned before, where I work, I don't own either of the radios in the shop. The two guys who do listen to the same country station, so there's nowhere to hide from it.

Bleah.

Shoveled in with the other unlistenable crap in the pile are...the religious songs. Maybe it's a one-shot line like "Jesus is my friend" or an utterly incorrect and manly assertion telling us that this is "one nation under gooooood--that's Americuh!"

But then there's the kind of sweet-sounding verse melody in Lee Ann Womack's cover of the laughable "There is a God."

The part that really makes me laugh:

Science says it's all just circumstance
Like this whole world's just an accident
But if you want to shoot that theory down,
Look around

Guess she told us. "Look around." Science does look around. Has been for a few centuries, now, and it's got a damn good track record compared to the knee-crawlers when it comes to answering some big questions, like why birds fly, why the sky is blue, how old the Earth is, what our ape ancestors might have looked like, how close a supernova needs to be before it's able to kill us all, and how we're related to all the other life on this rock. There's more, so much more, and Womack wants us to just go for the simple-minded "Gawd did it" and leave it at that.

The "zinger" in the chorus: "How much proof do you need?"

How much? Seriously? See if you can convince this being to come to me personally and talk to me. No middle-men. If he's all-knowing, he'll know what to say. Should be simple, for an "all-powerful" being.

It's amazing to me how much airplay this stuff gets. If a bridge or building needed the kind of shoring up that peoples' faith apparently needs, those structures would be condemned.