I had a gig last night with my old farts classic rock band. Normally I use either my Squier Classic Vibe Tele or my Taylor T5z or my Gibson R8 Les Paul. But while I was prepping my gear for the gig, I realized that I hadn’t played “Katie May,” my Slash L Guitars Apache in a while; to be honest, I hadn’t played her in years.
She had been sitting in her case since I messed up the neck pickup mount and I never got around to fixing it. And by the time I’d remember to fix her, I didn’t have enough time. But yesterday I said to myself, “Screw it. I’ve got a few hours and I’ll fix the damn mount and do a quick setup.” So, I pulled her out of her case and got to work.
“F$%k!” I grunted when I fixed the mount because it took all of ten minutes to fix it. Setup took a little longer, but not much longer because the neck was perfectly straight, so I didn’t have to adjust for any bow or relief. I didn’t even have to adjust the intonation because it was perfect. In the end, I just cleaned her up and she was ready to go. And no, I didn’t change out the strings because they were in great shape; no corrosion or dings. I figured that if I broke a string during the gig, I’d just switch over to my T5z then do a full string change later.
Arriving at the venue, I set up my rig and did a quick sound check. That was when I realized that I forgot to adjust my pickup heights! But that’s why I carry a Swiss Army Knife. A few turns of the screws and voila! I was ready for the show!
Katie May has always been an absolute dream to play. She has super-low action which makes moving around the neck incredibly easy. But it also means using a much lighter touch. And since I hadn’t played her in a few years, I used our sound check to get used to her. But muscle memory is a good thing because I got the feel of her within a few minutes of playing. And man, did she sing! That gave me a lot of confidence going into the gig.
As far as her sound was concerned, I was inspired last night. There was something about playing her through my Wampler Tumnus overdrive (klone) that just brought out the best in her Lollar Imperials. And yeah, those pups kick some serious ass. They’re incredibly articulate without being at all harsh. Then running the signal through the Tumnus just gets me more of that sound. It was inspirational!
I’m no longer the lead guitarist in the band as our lead guitarist is far better than me and has all the solos memorized for many of our songs. But I do still get to play some solos when it’s just pure improv, which is what I love. When we play our version of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery,” I do the solo work on that song.
Our version is much like the Bonnie Raite version, but a little slower and much more haunting. This allows me to use my Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay with just a bit of grit from the Tumnus. In my solos, I do a lot of double stops taking a sad Hawaiian pedal steel approach, then I break those up with mixolydian and harmonic minor runs that reflect the juxtaposition of the hopefulness of the chord progressions and the melancholy of the lyrics; not that I’m thinking of the mode or scale at the time I’m playing. I’m looking back and analyzing my playing tendencies after the fact.
And last night, I was so inspired by how Katie May cried during that song. She has so much built-in sustain from the neck-through design and the Gotoh 510 bridge. She just holds notes incredibly well. Then combine that with the Deep Blue Delay and OMG! It was a recipe for total inspiration!
But for our rockin’ songs, damn! She was so easy to play that I was all over the fretboard last night! I was kind of beside myself while I was playing. But a huge thing about Katie May was that she has as switch to coil tap the pups. So, I could change up her sound by going single coil for some songs which just added to her palate of sounds. After the gig, I remarked to my bandmates that I had forgotten how much I loved playing that guitar. I think she’s going to be my #1 going forward.
Guitar Gear 