Some soundscape stuff over a drum loop...

This is from last April. I think I was bored so I put together some drum loops and added a simple bass part to it to play some soundscape-ish stuff over it. It’s kind of cool but could have been a lot better if I put better drums on it and expanded on the bass part a bit to change things up.

Built an offset Tele

Over the years I’ve had too many guitars to count. Currently I have five Gibsons (two Firebirds, an SG Classic, a Les Paul Traditional, and an SG Standard bass), three American G&L’s (a Legacy, SC-2, and Doheny), a US Music Man Valentine, a Fano Alt de Facto MG6, a few upgraded/modified Fender MIJ Jazzmasters (as well as a Mustang PJ bass), and then a Korean Casino and a Gretsch with HiLo’Trons… And, despite the Valentine basically being a Tele Custom of a different shape and that my SC-2 has some Tele DNA (it’s like a slightly smaller ASAT Special (which I’ve had too)) I had a strong want for a more traditional Tele. The Valentine, while great, is a little hot and feels and looks modern (and I hate the boost circuit), and the SC-2, while slightly similar, doesn’t do it. For quite a while I was looking at Nash offset Teles and their wide range thinlines and, since I have so much stuff and limited space (between guitars, amps, and three pedalboards), I couldn’t justify spending that much. So one day while working I browsed Reverb and stumbled on a loaded MJT body in fiesta red - a color I’ve always had a thing for and have never possessed. The thing had a set of Sunday Handwound pickups - a builder I am quite a fan of as I have a set of his Iola’s in a short-scale Jazzmaster. It also had Callaham compensated saddles, an Electrosocket jack, and the body was already shielded. The pick guard is a poorly cut aged parchment guard which will, one day, need to be replaced, and the pots will eventually be swapped out as well - as it stands I believe they are import pots from StewMac. So I bought it. I also picked up a finished AllParts 50’s Telecaster neck that has medium-jumbo frets and a Graphtech nut (this neck is amazing - rolled fingerboard edges and the perfect amount of chunkiness without being a baseball bat), along with some aged/relic Gotoh vintage locking tuners (due to them not being staggered I still do a few wraps around the post to increase break angle over the nut), and I swapped out most of the chrome parts for aged nickel (strap buttons, control plate, knobs, string tree are all either aged Kluson or Gotoh parts). I am over the moon with this thing - it’s easily, along with my Firebirds, in my top three guitars I’ve ever owned. I’ve come to realize, after somewhat recently going down a rather expensive Jazzmaster rabbit hole, that when it comes to single coil guitars I am a Tele guy. I used my G&L Legacy over the years more than anything and I always thought I was a Strat guy but it would, depending on how I played, take a toll on my hand (people either love or hate the intrinsic fight with Strats). But this thing rings like a fucking bell and the entire thing vibrates from the headstock to the body. The bridge pickup is Sunday’s Jaggy-Leggs:

Broadcaster and Jaguar DNA, a 50's/60's cross with extra chime and twang on top of the early throaty tone, mid 60’s Jag vintage beveled magnet stagger is a direct nod to the genius of the late Mr. Florance/Voodoo Te 60, but made up from .195” diameter Alnico 3 magnets rearranged out of the stock I keep on hand for ‘54 Strat repros.

The neck pickup is, I believe, Sunday Handwound’s “Rodeo Sweethearts” (despite the seller stating that it is a “’54 StraTele neck pickup”):

Alnico 3 '54 Strat neck pickup under a Tele neck pickup cover and a clone of Mr. Gene's real deal one owner '52 Tele bridge with a unique and random mix of Alnico 5 and Alnico 3. Great set to put in a G, B, or palm bender Tele to do the Parsons/White B-Bender stuff and cop the Byrds twangy Tele tone! Chicken Pickin' heaven, and full enough to play all manner of classic rock, funky soul, and twangy blues.

I doubt I will ever buy a “manufactured” guitar again. A lot of people despise relic guitars but I find them, not only to feel great and broken in, to be freeing; I don’t need to worry about it - if it gets a ding, chip, of scuff who cares. I am one of those people that when I get new shoes I am OCD about them - the same goes for some guitars like my Les Paul or that Valentine - I feel like I need to baby them. In the end, while I waited for all the parts to arrive, I worried as I had no idea what the end result would be - and it could literally, outside of the guard, not have turned out any better. Maybe one day I will build a short scale (Gibson scale length) Strat using an MJT body. I basically have what I would have got if I bought a Nash T Master for less than half the price (and the relic job on this finish is miles better than a lot of Nash finishes that are way over done).

A Leaf Without a Tree

Just trying something that’s been sitting in my closet for over a year.

2024oct08 - little wing

I think it's time I start practicing. I play guitar all the time and can sit and play leads and bullshit but I suck when thrown into a context like this for my lack of practicing to backing tracks (like this one). Probably would play better in situations like this if I was slightly stoned so I don't overthink. Used only my Kemper with a Dumble profile and the fuzz options on there are shit. I can play the intro but had no idea where to come in as there is a three count thing and it wasn't lining up even after setting the project to 60BPM (the same as the SRV instrumental version of "Little Wing"). Tried a few times where the fifth would have been. 1:18 is horrid. I'll definitely spend a little less time wasting time with bullshit and practice this for some time. While I don’t think I am a great player by any stretch of my imagination, this was my first go at this backing track - if I don’t improve I’m throwing in the towel.

Second try now. It’s obvious I punched in at 2:17. Gonna walk away from this exercise in futility for now.

Scuffed version of "Live Forever"

Not sure why I felt inclined to do that. I suck at singing. Who am I kidding - I can’t sing. My throat hurts. Gain + P90’s = hum: early 00’s MIK Casino with Lollar vintage-spec P90’s into a 65 Amps Tupelo Kemper profile into Valhalla Vintage Reverb (that is on master treating both guitar and vocal).

24 years ago my life was changed forever. This one is for you Skout. Happy Birthday! You’re not here but… You live forever.

Was bored so I decided to play around with some orchestral virtual instruments in Logic

Not sure what this is other than simple.

*I replaced the original file… Went back to try and fix it. What a complete pain in the ass. This was something I found that I played around with and abandoned years ago (there were no strings, bass, etc). I realized the strings, after putting them in there, didn’t follow the percussion as the percussion didn’t really follow anything (it certainly wasn’t following the washed out guitar and vice-versa)… So I had to realign everything: bass to the percussion, strings to the bass… Before that bass and string section kicks in it really is all over the place (the project is 4/4 but it’s not that and that first part is all over the place).

Nearly Everything You Have Been Told About Russia and Ukraine is a LIE

[I hate to get political but it has reached a point within the last year and a half that I can hardly tolerate it. But my take below has nothing to do with politics and, in my opinion, more to do with sanity.]

I highly urge anyone to watch the interview with Jeffrey Sachs in its entirety with an open mind. Jeffrey Sachs isn’t just some talking head that hasn’t a clue as you typically see in the media: in fact, the media largely avoids him for this very reason. He was directly involved with the reshaping of the Polish economy after the fall of the Soviet Union. He was also involved with Bolivia to assist them in their struggle with inflation. He also worked with Gorbachev and was around during the time when assurances were given, by the Bush administration, to Russian leadership that NATO did not seek to expand (the saying “… not one inch east…”). He spent nearly two decades as a professor at Harvard and is currently a professor at Columbia.

And here’s the last bit I want to say. We’ve all heard it, this talk of Russian aggression that was unprompted - and all the other words they use to misdiagnose what has happened. Zbigniew Brzezinski called for NATO expansion eastward towards Russia in the 1990’s - and, unsurprisingly, was backed with support from Kissinger. Later, neoconservatives formed a thinktank called The Project for a New American Century and penned an article, or manifesto, titled “Rebuilding Americas Defenses” and in it they call for NATO expansion towards Russia and into southeastern Europe (you can read the entire piece for yourself at Archive.org). Many of the PNAC authors found themselves posted to positions within the Bush administration that began in 2000. In 1999 NATO expanded into the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. In 2004 the Cold War relic expanded into Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. In 2008 it attempted to expand into Georgia, yet another state on the Russian frontier, which resulted in Russian military intervention: it failed. In 2009 it expanded into Albania and Croatia. In 2017 it was Montenegro. In 2020 it was North Macedonia. In 2023 it expanded into Finland. In 2024 it expanded into Sweden. In 2013/2014 it attempted to expand into Ukraine which resulted in the coup that took place after Maidan in early 2014. As you can see, the modern version of NATO has literally nothing to do with its history of being a North Atlantic military alliance. And of course, the events of 2013 and 2014 have a huge role in where we are now. The revolution that occurred in Ukraine in 2014 that resulted in the coup of an elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, of course had true believers - but as always it is a loud minority. Also at work behind the scenes was Obama’s State Department as represented by Victoria Nuland and the ambassador, shady western NGO’s, and alphabet agencies (after all, regime change is the CIA’s favorite game). There literally exists a recorded call of Victoria Nuland having a conversation with another State Department individual about hand picking the new Ukrainian government. Now, if you believe that these people played no role in stoking the fires of Maidan I have a bridge to sell you. Of course the bulk, if not all, of the true believers during the “Revolution of Dignity” (a poor name) likely originated in Kiev… But you need to understand the makeup of Ukraine: In the west you have Hungarian and Romanian populations while in the east you have ethnic Russians (Ukraine nationalism is rather new - the lands it is composed of was at one time or another part of the Russian Empire, Hungary, etc.)… When you have a population center, as we do here in Oregon, that is so densely populated the rest of the region is dictated to by that one densely populated region (here, unfortunately, it’s Portland that rules despite however we vote)… And so, when the coup and the ousting of a neutral and Russian-friendly president took place in 2014, and a new government was chosen by foreign powers, many in oblasts like Donetsk wanted nothing more to do with Kiev and vied for their own independence. That independence brought down violence upon their region by the armed forces of Ukraine. Once again, we are talking about populations, from eastern Ukraine down to Crimea, that is vastly made up of ethnic Russians. The war began in 2014, not 2022 - and those people that sought to move beyond the grip of Kiev struggled for some eight long years on their own: in other words, it took eight years for Russia to become directly involved.

Beyond this, Russia has a history of desiring neutral states on her border. During World War II it is estimated that Russia suffered 27,000,000 casualties. Go back further and you have more incursions into Russia such as that by Napoleon in 1812. How is it that seemingly almost nobody wonders why Russia wouldn’t be more than happy to have NATO on her doorstep? It is a military alliance: with it comes military bases, weapons and missiles, and everything else. I know for a fact that the United States would never tolerate Canada or Mexico joining a Chinese-led military alliance. And here is just how absurd those in power are with their drive for NATO expansion and their pretend shock of a Russian response: The US has the Monroe Doctrine that declares the entire western hemisphere off limits to foreign powers. Yet, even setting aside concern for the ethnic Russians that reside in the region of Ukraine, somehow everyone is surprised, even after the attempted expansion into Georgia and the results it yielded, that Russia has a line in the sand.

Below is an excerpt of a conversation James Baker, then the Bush Secretary of State, had with Gorbachev in February of 1990. [Keep in mind it was not the Bush Sr. administration that expanded NATO but Clinton’s.]

[Baker to Gorbachev in response to being asked about the potential for a US military presence being unwanted in a unified Germany] If that happens, our troops will return home. We will leave any country that does not desire our presence. The American people have always had a strong position favoring this. However, if the current West German leadership is at the head of a unified Germany then they have said to us they will be against our withdrawal. And the last point. NATO is the mechanism for securing the U.S. presence in Europe. If NATO is liquidated, there will be no such mechanism in Europe. We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.

The machine of the establishment has made it extremely difficult for anyone to attempt to research anything, such as, if Russia was provided with assurances that NATO would not push east. When you attempt to find documented evidence like this you will frequently see things like “Fact Check: Was Gorbachev told… …”. Some of these people behind these efforts could be ignorant of fact and history and some could be purposely placing firewalls in an effort to thwart attempts to obtain information. You work, go to school, have kids, whatever - you don’t have all the time in the world to dig for info and the proverbial they know this: make it hard and many will abandon the task. As Sachs says, you are just simply to believe Russian actions are unprovoked and expected to make no attempts to inform yourself outside of turning on your television or reading The New York Times. Social engineering is a fact and it is running on all cylinders to make certain your mind falls in line. [The “proverbial they” in this case being every mainline media entity from Google/Alphabet Inc to these goofy “fact check” sites like Politifact]

And then one wonders what has all this accomplished. What it has accomplished has been a misadventure in creating massive instability. The Cold War ended in 1991 and with it the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact ended. So too should NATO have ended. Instead it has continued to grow like some sort of cancer that never seems sated and with no real reason to exist. Yet, through its continued existence, activity, and unwarranted growth the reason for NATO’s existence has now been finally realized - regardless of how absurd it is from the ground up. And for the rest of us, we now have to endure a more instable world, likely a new arms race, a far more polarized world that is divided rather than working together - we are simply going in the wrong direction, and a new potential cold war that hopefully never grows as hot as it could. And all the while, as the past eighty years unfortunately demonstrates, nuclear arms were a means of deterrent: the whole mutually assured destruction scenario. But just as Annie Jacobsen [the author of Nuclear War: A Scenario] says, it is a deterrent until it is not… And that is the primary deterrent Russia has to keep NATO troops off Ukraine soil which is scoffed at and ignored by our fearless, unscrupulous leaders. From where I sit, when I think of who has been the most destabilizing force on the planet over the last several decades, Russia and Putin don’t even enter the picture: however there is another nation that has a military presence in some eighty foreign nations and seeks more, plays the regime change game as if it were a national pass time - including sponsoring terrorism - which culminates in subverting its interests, believes it runs the entire planet, possesses the hubris that the hemisphere in which it exists it has ultimate ownership, has dumped depleted uranium all over foreign soil (in some cases stirring conflict in which its population was lied to in order to gain popular support) which has caused both cancer and birth defect rates there to sky rocket, spends more on the machine of war than any other state, and has been in a state near-perpetual conflict for decades.

*One more thing. There is a good book on the history of Russia in relation to Europe, the UK, and the US and how it ties into modern realities and Putin. I am not a fan of the author per se, and I do believe with some of his work he shows bias, but most of his work is grounded on historical fact however uncomfortable it may be for some to contemplate. I read it years ago and I highly recommend it (remember we now live in a world where even attempting to interview Russian leadership is considered treasonous - we are officially shown only one side of reality and not even a true shade of reality at that - and a reality in which the White House simply refuses to utilize dialog and diplomacy with Russia and has done so for decades): he provides a lot of information you can check and contrast it to the book’s contents: War Against Putin: What the Government-Media Complex Isn't Telling You About Russia

This is also available on Archive.org.

Cortez the Killer with studio stems (full versio)

I figured this in on YouTube and I am not trying to do anything with it so figured I’d post the entire thing.

Prior to doing that I downloaded a quite awful backing track for CTK from YT. It’s the rhythm guitar that makes it so bad in my opinion. When I added the guitar on the left I used a rather bright Jazzmaster and later decided I wanted to try and do it more in-line with Neil’s sound and used a post I found with the studio stems sans guitars - posted above (obviously I can’t play like Neil). This is a bit louder unfortunately but whatever.

I found the original version of Wylds' "The Veil"

When I found this I was scratching my head why I cut it down so much when I was mixing the stuff for Slow Times. But I suppose in the end it’s all good - I’ll be putting this on the new EP - which might include a few covers such as “All Cats Are Grey” by The Cure hopefully (I have it recorded but it needs more work). The “slacker” bit is because, at the time, it reminded me, somewhat, of Pavement.

I ****ing love this song....

Tonight I decided to break my routine and enjoy a few beers while sitting outside, listening to music, under the moon. I stumbled on these guys (suddenly I don’t think that cos name is so bad now)… While I don’t like all of their music I must have listened to this song out there five or six times - maybe more. The arpeggiated synth twirls. The clean guitar that comes in - can't tell if it's playing octaves or single notes (C-G/A-F/E)... And then that guitar with a descent amount of plate(?) reverb, kind of reminiscent of 60's spaghetti westerns or something on a Lee Hazelwood song, that comes in at 3:38. Just so good and tasteful. And so smooth. This just straight up resonated with my very being - as if it mirrored my soul or something. Just a great example of how simple layers can add up and make something beautiful.

Just thought I'd share. While popular music is full of absolute trash, from mumble rap to some record label people or "producers" writing material for popstars (Taylor Swift anyone), there is good music out there still lurking under the surface.

New Dawn Fades (Joy Division)

This morning after work I was watching a show Wand played in May and was inspired by it. So I figured I’d sit down and see if I can come up with anything. Decided I would start with bass and for some reason I just started playing the bass line of this song. So, well, here it is. Drum loop is pretty bad.

7/19/24: I think I’m going to rerecord this entirely. The above wasn’t 100% - I just settled to have fun.

I've been hung up on "Cortez the Killer" for so long...

That while I haven’t really dived deep into studying how Neil plays it I realize it’s impossible to play it like him. Probably why out of all the covers in existence nobody ever tries to outside of a few key melodic bits. [The bass and drums are the actual studio tracks - not me]

Cortez the Killer (Backing Track)

I’ve been wanting to record and work on my own stuff but I have an issue with an external drive so not much I can do for now. I decided to throw this backing track into Logic and play some shitty runs over it (I’m on the left). Here is the backing track I used. I tried to fatten it up a little but the results aren’t so great. Not much you can do when you have drums, bass, and a rhythm guitar all on one track.

Can a Gibson Firebird play surf???

This is just a very short clip of the room sound from my cellphone. I was curious how one would do with sort of a surfy sound. This is also pretty low volume so you’re hearing both the amp in the room and probably a little bit of the pick attack on the guitar.