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Archive for March, 2012

Finally! A Strat That I Must Have

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , on March 6, 2012| 16 Comments »

Just this email from Fender this morning. Usually I take my time with manufacturer ad emails, and this particular one was no exception. So I waited until a few minutes ago to read the email, and my mind stopped dead in its tracks. For on my screen in front of me was a Strat that has finally blown me away. Don’t get me wrong, I love my American Deluxe Strat. For single-coil work and especially the Kinman pickups it has, I get some freakin’ awesome tones.

But I was always thinking that I would love a Strat that had two humbuckers as opposed to the HSS; in fact, my wish was to have an HSH. My thought was that I would love a Strat that always had the fat tones of a humbucker, while still retaining that Strat vibe, and lo and behold, here was a picture of a brand-new American Standard Hand Stained Ash Stratocaster® HSH!!!

Talk about getting some serious GAS! Not only does it have the HSH pickup configuration, it has an alder body, a maple neck, and a rosewood fretboard: Exactly how I like my Strats! Fender lists it at $1569 MSRP, but I’ve seen some stores online advertising it pre-order for $1149.

You can read details on the Fender product page.

Damn! Just when I was over my latest GAS attack with my DV Mark Little 30 L34, here comes more gear that’s seriously – and I mean seriously – giving me GAS.

I’ll take the Wine Red one, please!

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Roger Mayer TC Series: The New Look of Guitar Pedals?

Posted in accessories, Effects, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, new gear, tagged , , , , on March 5, 2012| 7 Comments »

Though I’m pretty satisfied with my current rig – actually, I’m pretty settled now as far as pedals are concerned – that doesn’t mean that I don’t look to see what’s out there. While surfing this morning before going off to work, I came across the new Voodoo TC line of pedals from Roger Mayer. These pedals feature huge knobs for changing the main pedal parameters, and they’re meant to be changed with your foot!

What a cool concept! No more bending over to change the drive on a drive pedal or the intensity or pulse of a vibe. Not only that, the Voodoo TC line has this retro, art-deco look, and sporting colors that were apparently inspired by 1950’s Chevy’s!

There are nine pedals in the line thus far, and from what I can tell from the descriptions, they’re heavily inspired by Jimi Hendrix tones, with a few drive pedals, a vibe, and an octavia. But there is one specifically geared towards bass distortion.

For more information, check out the Roger Mayer TC Series page. There are a couple of videos on the page from the Japan Music Fair, with one of the videos being an interview with Roger Mayer, explaining the motivation behind the pedals.

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Sometimes You Just Have to Go For It!

Posted in Guitars on March 4, 2012| 4 Comments »

At service this evening, though we didn’t have the full complement of players and singers, and our only percussion was a tambourine and shaker, there was something special about it. The band just felt tight. Unlike other weeks, we didn’t have all that much rehearsal time before Mass started, but despite that, like I said, I just felt we were tight. It was real crowded as well, as it doubled as a special service for kids coming up in the church; there were lots of folks that were not regular attendees. But we must’ve been doing something right because they got as into the music as we did.

Inspired, on the last song, we did Matt Maher’s “Your Grace Is Enough” and near the end of the song, I hit the switch on my EWS Little Brute Drive and started playing lead lines, then ended with kind of a long solo. But it felt and sounded so good with my Les Paul wailing, I kind of lost track of time. 🙂 After Mass, I just laughed and said, “Rock and roll!”

After I looked back on it afterwards, I realized that I really had a breakthrough this evening in that sometimes you just have to go for it. Doing that long lead was something I had never done. Oh, I’d play lead lines in the middle of a song, but to close out the service with a solo was something that I just never did before tonight. Mind you, it’s not something that is going to be part of the formula for me from now on, but the point is that if it truly feels right in the moment, just go for it. The other guys in the bad were with me, and they went along on my little journey. I could literally feel the great energy of the moment, though they did cut me off because I admitted went on a little long – I think I did a 32 bar solo.

But no matter, those moments don’t come often, and when they do, like I said before, you just have to go for it.

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RIP: Ronnie Montrose 1947-2012

Posted in Guitars, tagged on March 4, 2012| 2 Comments »

It is with great sadness that I report that Ronnie Montrose passed away yesterday, March 3, 2012. He had been battling cancer for years, and it is believed he finally succumbed to the disease. My friend, Jeff Aragaki called me this morning to report the news. He and Ronnie had formed both a business and personal friendship last year, as Ronnie was going to be using Aracom Amps (he was introduced to them through “Mean” Gene Baker of Baker Guitars, with whom Jeff is good friends. He even had Jeff build him a prototype pre-amp to take with him on the road to plug into back-line amps so he could take his tone with him.

According to Jeff, Ronnie was one of the most down-to-earth people he’d ever met. None of this rock star ego, Ronnie was easy to talk to and very humble, considering his contribution to rock and roll.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ronnie Montrose, his group was Sammy Hagar’s first big gig. Ronnie wrote classic songs (which Sammy made popular), such as “Rock Candy” and “Bad Motor Scooter.” His guitar playing was phenomenal and his tone was unique.

A few years ago, listened to an interview Ronnie did with Greg Kihn, where Ronnie was remarking on Greg’s comment about him having a very distinctive tone. He talked about sitting in a studio with Santana, and messing around with Santana’s guitar, and how even with Santana’s gear, he sounded like Ronnie Montrose. Apparently, Santana was pretty impressed. But Ronnie was just a humble and unassuming dude and took the praise in stride.

I was hoping to tag along with Jeff when Ronnie was to play next at a local club in a couple of weeks in hopes of doing an interview for this blog. Sadly, that’s not going to happen. Though he never made huge after the 70’s, his had a huge influence on rock and roll, and he will without doubt be missed by those who knew and knew of him. Rest in peace, Ronnie!

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Having the Guts to Be a Great… whatever…

Posted in Guitars, tagged on March 2, 2012| 3 Comments »

I was reading what was a ostensibly a big ad on learning to be a great singer, when I read the following words:

“Singers are only singers because they have the guts to be one! What about natural talent? You may have heard that if you were not born with it, you won’t have the natural ability to sing. It’s simply not true! If you apply yourself with the passion and discipline it takes, you too can become a great singer.”

I thought about that, and thought about my own progression as a performer. I’ve been working the same weekly gig at a local restaurant going on 12 years now. It’s a solo acoustic gig where I play both guitar and piano, and of course, sing. In that gig, I cover all sorts of songs ranging from opera, show tunes, rock and country ballads to classic rock. It’s a great gig where I get to play a lot of different genres. The first couple of years, I was really low-key about doing the gig, happy to get my hourly gig wage, and if I got tips, that was great. I’d do the covers as faithful to the original as I could and things were good. But the problem was that I started to get bored. Real bored.

So I decided one day to “own” the songs; still perform them according to what I felt was the original vision of the songs, but add my own feeling to them. When I was just thinking about doing this, I was admittedly a little nervous. What if people didn’t like what I was doing. It wasn’t as if I’d be performing the music so completely different that it wouldn’t be recognizable, but it would be my own interpretation of the music.

So one day, I just decided to go for it. I was nervous as hell. But I went for it in spite of my fears. It was the best decision I ever made. People seemed to like what I was doing, and they rewarded me in kind with some pretty nice tips.  But irrespective of the tips, I learned something very important as a performer since building up the courage to “own” the songs I play: What separates a good performance from a mediocre performance is literally having the courage to put yourself into the song; all your passion, all your love, all your pain, all your joy. Everything you are.

Whether you’re playing an original or a cover makes no difference. One might argue that if you’re doing covers you want to stay as close to the original as possible. I disagree. If all you’re just doing is copying, then you’ll just be an imitator. I’ve seen lots of cover bands in my day, and the best I’ve seen are the ones that don’t follow the covers note-for-note. That said, if you’re doing a tribute band, then note-by-note precision is probably important, but for dance/bar bands, I think capturing the general spirit of the song is good enough and note-for-note precision should take a back seat to really playing and expressing yourself.

Of course, “owning” a piece can backfire. But that’s the risk you take when you do own a song. It takes guts to do it, but in the end, I fully believe that when you’re expressing YOU in the music you play, you’ll have a much greater impact on your audience than when you just play the song.

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