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Admittedly I didn't watch the whole show for various reasons (most of what I like for "music" differs from what is represented at the Grammys), but Adele obviously not getting a proper monitor feed (good on her for stopping and restarting) and Hetfields mic not being on for what, two verses?  Well, at least they can't say the music was completely canned this year.....

Since many of us have had our pooches photobomb some of our post pics, I figured it would be time to a thread for them (pretty sure we don't have one).  Anyways, I'll start with my current pack, who are in part to blame for my lack of building over the last year as they occupy a lot of what used to be my free time.

This is Daphne (left, female, about 18 months old) and Aaron (right, male, about 9 months old). 


Both are Sheprador (German Shepherd Black Lab crosses) rescues (both names are their rescue names, they fit for both of them).  We picked Daphne up from the Humane Society last summer, how she didn't get snapped up the second she got there is still a mystery to me (except that she stress farted for the entire hour we played with her there to the point where it was almost unbearable to be in the room with her).  We originally picked her up for Bonnie, as I was out on the road three out four weeks a month, and Bonnie wanted a guard dog among other things.  Daphne is wonderful at many things, but being a guard dog is not one of them.  I'm certain she'd walk an intruder right through the house to show them where all the valuables are.  She's got Lab face, paws, body, and Shepherd tail and colouring (when we got her she was jet black with only a faint hint of mottled Shepherd colours, but now she's faded into dark Shepherd profile colours with a black head and a black stripe right down her spine).  She loves hiking and the water, has a huge prey drive (the rabbits in our neighbourhood have almost cost me a dislocated shoulder a couple of times), and I'm pretty sure could pull my SUV down the street without much effort.

Not wanting to stick with one dog, we got Aaron from another rescue firm as a puppy this last February.  Same mix as Daphne, but pretty much the exact opposite.  He's got Lab tail, colouring, and paws, and Shepherd ears, face, and body.  He is full on guard dog, and is currently convinced he's the largest and scariest dog in our town.  He's neither.  I'm hoping he'll be a hiker as well, only issue we have with him is that something broke his right rear leg (I just tell myself he got hit by a car, cause if someone abused him and broke his leg, I'd actually have to track them down and introduce them to the larger end of my edged weapons collection) and it was never properly set or treated so it healed wrong and he has a developmental deficiency in that leg.  Normally it's not an issue, but if you push him too hard his limp will show up.  Vet seems to think it won't get any worse than it is right now, he may grow out of it.  It will likely be a problem later in life (i.e. arthritis), so they asked if we wanted to amputate it off instead.  Hmm, let's see, he'll probably have eight to ten good years on it, or take it off now?  We'll let him have the good years, thanks doc.  Like I said, he's the opposite of Daphne, so he is complete guard dog, fast and sleek where she is slow with a lot of torque, he couldn't care less about rabbits or cats.  He's as big as Daphne right now with a lot of growing left to do, he's likely going to be a giant, though probably a skinny giant.

Thinking some days I want a third, but two's a lot right now.

So, after what can only reasonably be described as far too long (one failed build with a contractor who defaulted, one town we were considering building in being wiped off the map by a once in a millennium flood, and the current house missing its delivery date by 50%), we move into our new house on Friday.  As such, been packing up all week.  This is what my living room looks like right now, figured some of you would enjoy it.

Saw this over at TGP, spit tea all over my keyboard.  Figured it was the type of humour people here would enjoy.

Love 'em or not, there's good deals to be had at Mammoth from now through the weekend.

20% off enclosures
10% off pots
25% off cable

Etc, etc, etc.  Free domestic shipping on orders over $50, free international over $100.

This is strictly a PSA, I have no affiliation with Mammoth.

So I've been trying to cut back, offloaded a dozen guitars in the last two months.  The instances of me sneaking guitars into the house under the cover of darkness have been substantially reduced.  The mailman is pretty sure I've died or left the country.

Then, on Tuesday, there's a message about a clearance sale at my favourite guitar haunt.  They've brought in all the used gear from every store in Western Canada and they are blowing it out.

I am a weak man. 

It was insane.  I don't remember what exactly happened, cause it was a junkie fest like I have never seen.  People running out of arms to carry things.  Cars getting towed with owners standing in line watching saying "Meh, the tow bill's still going to be less than what I saved."  I'm pretty sure I had a fairly carnal experience.

When it was over (it only took four minutes, I'm a quick high), I walked out with....

A brand new Fender Cabronita

A Fender Jerry Donahue Telecaster

A brand new quilt top EVH Wolfgang

A 2012 metal flake Gibson Les Paul


So much for my sobriety.  Pictures when I get home.

All right, don't know if there's an answer out there, but if there is, someone here probably knows.

In the process of building a new house, of which I will be finishing the basement and building the man cave to suit my musical needs.  What I've found in my current house is some of my amps (and pedals for that matter) are susceptible to additional noise due to dirty power (my Marshall DSL and a couple of my Traynors have more hum than I'd prefer to deal with, a few other amps have lesser issues).  If I run them off a rack mount power conditioner, the problem goes away, so it leads me to believe that it's an overall electrical issue.

So, clearly I want to avoid this in the new house (don't know if it's just indemic to my current abode, but unfortunately I won't know if that's the case until after the man cave is wired up).  So the question is - is there a commericially available power conditioner I could wire the whole room (or at least the circuits on which I'd run the amps)? 

There's obviously other solutions if need be, I could buy a half dozen of those Furman power conditioner power bars, but I'd prefer a hardwired solution if possible.

$0.65 on all single gang 16 mm, including PCB mount

$0.85 on all dual gang 16 mm

So I read Jon's post about having a great gig, and I tried to coax the old brain into remembering a "good" gig I had.  Truthfully, there weren't that many, but we always had fun.  But I figured a humorous thread about bad gigs would be fun, so I'll start it.

The year was 199X (somewhere between 97 and 99, I don't exactly remember).  My group at the time all went to the same church, and we comprised about half of the chruch group as well.  The church was based out of a television ministry, and every year they'd have a telethon, so we got asked to be the house band for the telethon (playing in from and out to commercials, doing some filler songs, etc).  Now, it wasn't just us, they beefed it up with two keyboard players, a horn section, a couple of singers, etc, etc, etc, all of whom a) didn't play together regularly on Sundays if ever, so there was no group dynamic and b) most didn't play in a band setting at all, so they kinda sorta didn't understand how it all goes together.  Couple that with a band leader who, let's be nice here, is a little bit spinny, and the fact that it's live TV (and I think we might have had one half assed rehearsal), and you could just feel the success a coming.

Anyway, so we setup, we get charts, most of which we have played hundreds of times before but some that were completely new.  Out of the 7 songs we were going to do in part or in whole, only two were in the same key.  The songs are numbered (here was the first mistake), and the slots in the show were numbered, so in slot 5 we were going to do song 7 according to the showplan.  Seemed relatively simple enough, but remember, it's live TV.

So we're setup and ready to go and the floor director comes up in slot 2 and advises the bandleader that the first number is being bumped up.  Bandleader turns around and says (I don't remember exactly the sequence, but you'll get the idea) "5 has been changed to 3 and we're doing 6."  Of course, what she meant was slot 5 has been changed to slot 3 (coming up in <90 seconds) and the song selection has been changed to 6, which of course isn't the chart that everyone has ready.  Me, the drummer, and bass player figure out what's going on (our lead player never stepped in until after we started, so he was indifferent), quickly switch our charts and get ready to play, about half of the remainder of the group catch on to what we're doing and start scrambling (<30 seconds to live), and the rest have no idea what's going on.

The result - complete sonic vomit.

A grand total of four different songs got played somewhat simultaneously (Murphy's law says when the information flying around is 3,5,6,7, somebody's going to pick each one) in four different keys, singers singing different lyrics, horns coming in off key at the wrong time, etc, etc.  Most everyone stopped about 10 seconds into the chaos, and me and the guys played it out to commercial while everyone else just stared at each other.

Played the intro coming in from commercial, then we had an 18 minute break, in which we all went to regroup.  Band leader tried to laugh it off.  Me, bass player, and lead told the band leader this would be the last favour we ever did for her.  And it was.

There isn't a single John Mayer thread on the first page of Open Discussion.  Currently 12 on TGP.  I get that it's a joke, but that's a little much.

(says the guy who answered the now deleted thread of "If John Mayer were an animal, what animal would he be?"  "Herpesores Rex".  I figure him and Derek Jeter have had a few girlfriends in common, and DJ's apparently Patient Zero in that regard).

So I was in Toronto a couple of weeks back on business, and managed to wrap everything up early so I went out guitar shopping.  This is a fairly regular occurrence, to the point where I carry a Cruztools tool kit in my overnight bag so I can take apart a bolt on neck guitar and stick it in my suitcase if required.  Usually bring home a guitar or some pedals, but never an amp.

Til now.

Checked out a bunch of places, nothing that really interested me, went into the L&M in Brampton, almost bought a Nitefly, but it really didn't pull me.  Then, in the corner, I see what appears to be a 4X10 combo.  On closer inspection, it's a Traynor YCV80Q with four 10" British made Celestions in the cabinet.  And they want $280 for it.

Fire it up, it works (think same size as a Fender Super Reverb 4X10, similar clean channel, wayyy different dirty channel), and it weights 80 lbs.  No way I'm getting this on a plane.  So, figure I'll try and get the store to ship it to me, since I'm not going to try and find a courier to take it (and by then, it will be way more than I want to pay anyway).  Turns out, for a 5% stock transfer fee, they'll sell it to my local store and I can pick it up there in a week.  Which is a win win, cause there's a 10% provincial sales tax in Ontario, and there's zero in the province I live in, so I'm actually saving 5%. 

Arrived today, pics below, including a pic with most of the rest of the family.

So here's the funny thing - clean channel is what you'd expect, glassy to growl, but the dirty channel is full on metal, complete with a mid scoop.  Put a hot bucker in front of it, and it's full on Cowboys from Hell/Vulgar Display, which totally was not expecting.  Even my Custom 100 doesn't sound like that.

Only problem with it - it reeks of cigarettes, which no matter where I put it in the house Bon is going to smell.  Bathing all the carpet in Febreeze.

Enjoy

So I PVR'd the CMT awards last night, as I was curious to see the Lzzy Hale/Eric Church performance (where she absolutely slayed him, one of the two is used to lip synching, and it's not the one in the six inch stillettos).

So I'm FF through the show, and ZZ Top comes on.  Now this has potential right?  Have Brad Paisley or Keith Urban come out and this could be a gearhead dream come true.  Nope.  Milli Vanilli Florida Georgia Line comes out and craps the stage, then some R&B dude comes out with Luke Bryan and they further crap the stage, then they bring Dusty and Billy back out and make them join the circus.

Seriously CMT, fusing groups together is actually a good idea when there is a cohesive factor within them, or where one can definitely benefit from the abilities of the other.  But don't disgrace rock and roll royalty for the sake of an eight minute segment.

All right, so backstory.

It's not like I need more guitars, in fact I actually am going to start selling some more cause it's gotten way out of hand.  Nonetheless, there are still some on the want list, one of which was (note the past tense) a G&L Bluesboy (a hollow body bound swamp ash tele with a MFD bridge single coil and a SD Seth Lover neck bucker, rosewood board).

So about six months ago I was at my favourite haunt, and there was a mint used Bluesboy (not a spec of fretware, killer burst finish, c/w case and COA) that they wanted a grand for.  Now, it's about $1500 new, so that's a good deal, but it really is the top end of my tele spending limit.  Looked at it for about 30 seconds, but didn't have my hands on it nor did I block it with my body (you laugh, but I'm a big boy, and I will put my entire frame between you and the guitar if I'm thinking about it).  Some other dude reaches past me, grabs it, plugs it into a DRRI, and it sounds killer.  I lurk in near proximity to the guy, hoping he's going to put it down for just a second and I will be all over it, but no go.  Dude takes it up to the till and pays for it.  I am pissed at this point, cause I ain't going to see another one like it anytime soon.

Been stewing on that one for a few months, just about pulled the trigger online for some, but given that the Canadian dollar's taken a 10% dive over the past six months, it's been hard to justify that kind of cash.

Head out at lunch today, walk into my third favourite guitar store, where they don't know me by name but it's the same chain as the first, and there's a Bluesboy hanging on the wall.  There's no way it could be the same one, right?  Looks the same.  Ask to see the case.  Open it up, inside is the hang tag from the other store.  It's the same guitar.  F*ck yeah.

And the best part - selling price is now $700.  It's currently living in the back of my truck.  Here she is.







And with the rest of my G&L family



Top row L-R

Legacy, stock with expander (superstrat) mod.  Workhorse strat.

Hollowbody Legacy, Ltd Edition quilt top.  This is the one FedEx nearly destroyed.

Bottom row, L-R

ASAT Classic S, Butterscotch Blackguard, Swamp Ash Body, massive C profile neck, MFD neck and bridge pickups, S-500 middle pickup, five way + push pull for neck activation in all settings.  Heavy as hell, seriously probably the heaviest guitar I own.

ASAT Classic, Butterscotch Blackguard, Swamp Ash Thinline Body with no F-holes, slim neck w/ rosewood board (an odd combination for a blackguard), MFD neck and bridge pickups, graphtech saddles, modified ashtray bridge.  One of my favourite teles to play.  Sounds fantastic.

ASAT Classic, Butterscotch Blackguard, Swamp Ash Body, medium profile neck w/maple board, MFD Pickups.  Looks like a classic, plays like a modern.

ASAT Bluesboy, Sunburst, double bound thinline ash body, medium profile neck w/rosewood board, MFD bridge pickup, SD Seth Lover neck pickups.  Pickup combo is probably the most balanced I've ever played in a fat tele setup.

ASAT Z-3, Honeyburst, Swamp Ash body, medium profile neck w/maple board, locking tuners, saddlelock bridge, Z-3 pickups (hum-cancelling, as they are wound like P-bass pickups but maintaining single coil chime and tone with a lot more oomph than your standard SC).

ASAT Hollow, Swamp Ash body, medium profile neck w/rosewood board, ASAT pickups, metallic red finish.  Looks better than it sounds, my least favourite of the 8.

Keep eyes peeled, I will also be listing a bunch of guitars over the next few weeks, as I've now crossed the 80+ threshold, and even I can't justify that.  Most likely be moving my CV's and American Fenders first.

All right, I haven't posted a NGD in a while, but I figured since I landed one of the few pieces left on the list to close out my PRS collection, I'd post it here.  Shipped this morning, hopefully be here in a week.

2012 PRS Studio, pattern regular neck, V12 Charcoal burst finish, with birds.  Just need a real (non-S2) Custom 24 and a Tremonti to close out the family (who am I kidding, I'm a whore for Paul's gear, we all know I'm not going to stop there).  Now, as it will arrive when I'm out on the road, do I tell Bon about it now, or just wait til she picks it up from the post office?

NUTELLA

Good through the first of june

So I'm planning a couple of isolation cab builds, not that I'm not happy with my Jet City Iso cab, but I'd like to be able to make a few that are dead silent so I can get some serious crankage, and I'd like to be able to put different cabs in them (1X12, 2X12, bass cab, etc, not going for 4X12 cause it would end up weighing a ton).  Going to be wiring up all of the mics and speaker cables to junction boxes for ease of hookup.

So who builds their own XLR cables, and whose cable do you prefer?  My first instinct is to go with Redco (and either get Canare or Mogami), but any suggestion is welcome.

Welcome2014, good thru the tenth.

Yeah, yeah, I know, there were some horror stories from last year.  That being said, 20% off everything on Friday and Saturday, and free shipping again on orders over $75.

It's been one of those days/months, and I need to vent....

So, about a month ago, I bought a very limited edition guitar off a bricks and mortar guitar store on ebay.  Specifics aren't important, suffice to say it's almost impossible to find and if you do, there's a waitlist.

So buddy packs up and ships the guitar Fedex.  He's in the States, I'm in Canada.  The date would be September 26th I believe.  Paid $150 for shipping.

Now, to qualify this rant, in the last 10 years, I have probably bought/sold 100 guitars from and to the States.  I never use Fedex when it's my choice, and the now two times I've had someone else ship Fedex, I've had nothing but problems.  So, it's fair to say I have a pretty good handle on international shipping times and procedures.

Oct 2 the package enters customs.  Unlike EVERY SINGLE OTHER shipping company in the world, Fedex decides that they won't be my default broker, and wait 5 days before sending me the paperwork to authorize them to be my default shipping broker.  In that time, UPS or USPS would have already delivered the package.

So, I fill out the bs paperwork and fire it back to them.  Another week passes, nothing happens.  Start calling them.  Abysmal customer service (did I mention that the only other time I've used them, they delivered the guitar to my neighbors house, and accepted her signature under the DIRECT SIGNATURE REQUIRED box).  Claim they can't do anything about it as it's being held for inspection (no guitar I have ever bought or sold has spent more than four days total in customs review, and that was over Christmas). Another week passes, still no movement, start calling every second day, same bs story. 

Finally the package gets released on the 21st (they keep blaming customs, though I highly suspect either customs has an equivalent hate on for Fedex as I do or Fedex screwed something up along the way, as I had a similar package delivered by both UPS and USPS inside of the time frame that things sat through the same port of entry).  The same day they release the package (it still 800 miles away), they call the guy who sold it to me to tell him they've tried to deliver the package three times WHEN IT HASN'T EVEN GOT TO THE LOCAL DEPOT.

So then, of course, they try and deliver to my house.  Now I have a job, and can't be sitting at home in that lovely ETA window they give of 8 - 6.  Give me two hours, and I can swing it, but a whole day's vacation to wait for you - not going to happen.  So I call their wonderful customer service department yet again, and make the kind request that they route the package to their local authorized representative, which is about 10 minutes from my house as opposed to the hour and a half round trip I'm going to have to make if they re-route back to the main facility.  Nope, sorry, can't do that.  But we can redirect to your office.  Not ideal to be getting a guitar delivered to my office as walking home with a four foot 26 lb box is not great, but I could use the exercise.  They then proceed to enter in the wrong address, and another day burned.

Finally it arrives today.  All is good, right?  Nope.  And here's the lesson to anyone who sells high end gear - take pictures of your packing before you ship it.  The seller packed the guitar properly, he sent me pics.  I get the package, and the case is banging around in the box like a golfball in a rail car.  No problems, it's in an OHSC, not ideal, but that's what cases are for.  Except that the case wasn't latched after clearing customs, and the guitar body was now halfway out of the case.  And the packing materials were never replaced in the box, so it had been banging around like that for at least three days.  And the trem arm was missing.

Now, the seller's been a standup guy and he's taken care of his end of things, but what a complete clusterf**k.  Guitar appears to be OK, but I'm going to have to pull it completely apart to make sure nothing unforseen has happened.

Rant over.  I know, first world problems, but what a runaround.

So I had to make a run to the local music store, as I had misplaced my can of De-Oxit.  I got their last can.  Oh, yeah, and this somehow made it to the till


A Custom 22 Artist in Trans Purple.  I swear these guys see me coming from a mile away.

And here's the kicker - when I was restringing it, I found me old can of DeOxit in my string bag.  That's the second time this week all it's taken for me to find something I lost was to go out and buy a new one.

My wife's eyes rolled completely around in her head.