For NTW

After hearing about NTW's soccer team name which he came up with himself, a recent goodwill t-shirt purchase reminded me of it. Theres something twice as awesome about that extra adjective. NTW's soccer team was the Sky Blue Lizards. In that spirit...

Are You Experienced?

Isn't it interesting how you usually never notice yourself getting better at something? One day you just sort of realize, "woah, this used to give me serious trouble, and now its becoming reflexive/second nature." The worst part is, you can't ever explain how you got there. All those days of awkwardness and clumsiness just sort of build up. I used to get EXTREMELY frustrated when learning guitar. Many tutorials and how-to's and lessons show all these complicated patterns and keys and the like, but almost every single one had the disclaimer towards the end about how one day you'll just be able to DO it. Which of course begs the question, 'Well, shit. How do I get there? This is bogus.' Everyone's heard the artist/musician talk about how they just let the art or music 'flow' at some point. 'Feeling it' I can't express how much those words piss off beginners.

BUT. One day, the novice isn't paying attention and suddenly realizes, 'wait, I CAN just play what I'm hearing in my head.' That day when your hands and fingers can keep up with the expectations in your head has to be something like what Enlightenment feels like. Watching people play this way is amazing, no matter what genre you're into. I read an interview in which John Mayer calls this point "getting into that headspace." You can tell when people are there, too. The artists who play with their eyes closed, mouths open, eyebrows dancing... I can watch that for hours.

I've got to the point where I can find my 'headspace' for a few short sweet minutes, then lose it. But those notes are ME. Almost so personal you don't want to let others hear it. You can read right into somebodies fucking SOUL when you're listening to that. Jimi Hendrix played that way, each night was different because depending his mood, background, and yes, intoxication was reflected in each note of his solos. John Mayer's so-called 'O-faces' and contortions are a product of the same. Getting in that 'headspace' is a whole other level of playing. Hendrix even talks about it in several songs. Its almost funny how people who haven't been in that headspace don't even get it. Most think he's talking about drugs. He's not. Its a double-entendre, an inside joke for other musicians. "Have you ever been experienced? Not necessarily stoned, but... beautiful. Are you experienced? Well, I am. Let me prove it to you... [insert solo here]"

Another live music weekend

Caught several shows this weekend. Good ones, too. Checked out Red Wanting Blue opening for the Nadas (first, below) off a tip from a friend. Good stuff, sort of Carbon Leaf meets Blue October meets Matchbox 20. The Nadas were the Nadas and satisfied their faithful hometown fans as always. The next day Loites nursed me back to health so we could catch John Mayer in Omaha (3rd and 4th below). First time for seeing one of my favorite artists, and it was great. Good song selection, the encore featured a solo electric set of Bold As Love, Wait Till Tomorrow, and few others and ended with the full band on Neon. Cool lighting, the pictures don't do justice. The 2nd pic below is from our hotel room. Staying in a $319/night room is sorta nice. Especially when its its $39.99! Nice find, Loites.

Obama in 08

I had the pleasure of attending the Barak Obama rally this weendend at ISU. While in college, I had attended several other rallies, speeches, and seminars featuring political candidates, but this one was by far the biggest, most energetic, and well-attended. Even though Barak is a junior Senator and doesn't have the most experience, a large segment of the population seems undaunted by these facts. In a nation full of political cynicism and doubt, perhaps an inexperienced idealist is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Click Here for a slideshow of the event provided by the Iowa State Daily.

Drop kick your cold

If you're feeling under the weather, and can't seem to come around to the 'getting better' stage, chug one of these bad boys and get 1,000% of your daily vitamin C. The strawberry banana-C is 100% juice, and each bottle contains 6 strawberries, 1 apple, 1/2 a banana, & a hint of orange. I was afraid they had stopped selling these in our building, right when I needed them the most. Then, last night the organic fairy must have brought a new shipment, because every flavor showed up and STOCKED this morning. The things are only for when you are REALLY sick, though. They're $2.89 here. More than red bull.

Stage 1 complete?

With the shielding complete, the new tuners installed, and rewired guts the Squier Bullet has completed phase 1 of the transformation. The humming is definitely gone, so the shielding aspect worked well, but I'm still doubting my wiring and soldering. The bridge pickup sounds really hollow and dull, almost like the tone knob (if there was a bridge tone knob) is all the way down. And I didn't accidentally wire the bridge pickup to either of the tone knobs, as they don't have an effect on the issue, so.... I'll be looking into that today.
On the other hand, the guitar I completely disassembled (save for removing the neck from the body) and rebuilt down to the wiring still makes noise when you plug it in! The new tuners work amazingly well, and the volume pot is great, leaving only the bridge pickup problem to work out. I chose to update the outer appearance a little to both signify the inner change and see what half of my custom body might look like.

Squier Update

After shielding the project strat, I decided the first thing that needed to be changed were the crappy tuners. The stock tuning machines were:
a) old 'vintage' style, rounder than the standard fender strat ones.
b) made shitty. hard to turn. really had to crank on them to tune up.
c) poorly designed. Big a clunky, plus the mechanics themselves were poorly thought out. 3-4 full cranks only got you 1 revolution of the peg.Long story short, I took off the old tuners and put them in a sack. A garbage sack. I made a trip to the local Guitar Center and purchased a few upgrades. First in line were the new precision tuners, featured below, which were smoother, faster, and more 'stratocaster' looking. Also, I'd heard that Squier (a cheaper Fender line for those who don't know...) uses EXTREMELY cheap switches and potentiometers (pots) for the volume and tone knobs. Therefore, I also purchased a new volume pot and a standard Fender 5-way switch. The last picture is during the soldering stage of the upgrade process.

Shielding Test

Here is the first update of the Squier project. So far I've removed the pickguard, cut the wires between the input jack and bridge ground, and removed the pots, pickups, and switch from the pickguard itself. Here's the stock pickguard pre-surgery. Note the sorry excuse for shielding around the pots and switch. Also, note the poor ground and soldering on the tone pot in the second picture down. All these things need to be remedied.
This is the shielded pickguard before the componants go back on. Shielded pickguard with componants back on. This is the shielded body cavity. Tonight, I'll solder the input jack back on and move the bridge ground wire to a more logical location. "Shielding" a stratocaster (or any guitar with single-coil pickups) makes the pickups quieter, eliminating the annoying HUMMMMMMM coming out of the amp when you're not touching anything, and makes the tone clearer and a bit louder when playing. Sadly for Roscommon, this means that you can turn your amp up louder without worrying about humming and tone loss. Essentially, you can crank your guitar and amp and finally hear the dynamics in your guitar, your amp, and your playing without having to worry about wheather you're standing too close to your Computer Monitor/TV/Amp/Anything with a magnetic field that pulls on your pickups.

Summer Reading and Winter projects

JKR and her publishers have finally set the release date for the 7th and final Harry Potter book.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows will be available for purchase on July 21st. Mark it on your calenders.
I've got the first parts of my next project. A dark blue strat body for a custom paint job with white details intended to be reminicient of the Hendrix Monterrey Strat. Still deliberating on the two tone motif. Posssibly just the thin white/black accents. More info/photo when available.

Strat-ing point: (above) The basic blue, much like the background of this page. Possibly painting the top the white (like the Monterey-tribue strat below, only with blue instead of red at the bottom) with white, black, and dark red accents. If the body turns out sweet, we'll move on to the rest of the guitar.