It's been a rough week of working day jobs we don't particularly like. In my frustration, I convinced myself I needed a new guitar amp. For several years I have used a Mesa Boogie Mark III, an incredibly heavy tube amp. I fantasized about the Fender Jazzmaster Ultralight, a mere 10th of the weight of my rig at 7.5 pounds. I could take the subway to gigs! But alas, I have spent the last 11 years distancing myself from solid state amps, preferring the warm tones that only obsolete technology can give. This is not without its price. There is the aforementioned heft of tube amps (you simply would not believe how heavy this thing is), but there is also the cost of maintenance. A solid state amp is fairly reliable for years, there just isn't enough stuff in there to break. The tube amp, on the other hand, is rife with points of failure; I have him them all. Several times the amp has literally caught on fire, which while a good thing metaphorically, is less so in practice. The tubes themselves can be expensive and you're supposed to take it in for re-tubing and biasing by a professional, something I intend to do when the economy recovers.

Yes, the solid state amp sounded like a great idea. But before blowing another wad of money on more equipment I thought I should try to approximate what I'd be dealing with before submitting that order on musiciansfriend.com. So I switched on the Mark III and turned the gain down to get a clean sound, then ran a variety of distortion/overdrive pedals through it. My first real amp was solid state. But it was also a 500 watt Sunn head driving a Kustom cabinet with 2 15" bins. And even then my overdrive of choice was a Tube Driver, which has a little tube in it for authenticity.

Anyway, five minutes into this test I knew I wasn't leaving the Hallowed Halls of Tube. In short, it sucked. Tone sucking, to be specific. Whoa nelly. By not utilizing the wonderful albeit accidental tonal properties of the tube amp, my sound was reduced to a decidedly narrow sonic range. The guitar sounded like it was being pinched, the way a voice sounds in a megaphone. But then I realized, that's what stuff sounds like through the average guitar amp.

As you may know, my band has but two members. Since I'm the one with the 'melodic' instrument, it's up to me to cover some bases that other instruments normally would cover, namely the bass. What's been so great about the setup I have is that the Mesa gives great response through a huge variety of frequency ranges, obviating the need for a bassist (okay, that's debatable but throw me a bone here!). When I set up the amp, solid-state style, all the range collapsed back to the usual frequencies one would expect of a single electric guitar. It was all twang and no oomph. Sure it would probably cut through the noise of a band but without that low end, well, it seemed pointless.

Was this a conclusive test against buying a solid state amp? No, I mean, I suspect that some solid state amps paired with the right speaker can deliver all the stuff I'm talking about and probably some stuff I didn't know I needed. But the experiment built back some of my appreciation for the rig I have now; in effect, it just saved me $1000. After good guitar tone, nothing moves me more than saving a load of dough.

Labels: Music

Buzz and I played a brief set at Club Europa last night, but not the club you might have seen many notable shows in the past (Shellac, Melt Banana, Lightning Bolt). No, our show was down on the ground floor. Turns out a couple weeks ago Europa renovated the lower bar and turned it into a little venue in its own right. Gone is the pool table, gone are the tables and tubular metal bar stools. The bar has been shortened, lights have been dimmed, red velvet banquettes brought in and a somewhat awkwardly-designed stage has taken their place. This came as a relief to me, I had been dreading the thought of our lil two-man operation trying to plug away in the cavernous upstairs space. Best of all they didn't charge a cover, marking 2 locations I now know of (along with GBM) that have free shows around here. I don't know if they'll keep that up there, but it was a fun time.

After the show we scampered over to Club Exit, where the F Yeah Fest was winding up its tour. The headliners were the Circle Jerks, yet another reunited band from days of yore back on the sing-for-your-supper circuit. Keith Morris still has the voice, but those dreadlocks are nasty. I guess, better than a mohawk, extremely long, scroungy white-guy dreadlocks are the ultimate physical proof that you probably don't have a regular day job. They could still play pretty fast, though they played a version of "Back Against the Wall" that bordered on reggae, it was so slow. How odd. Odder, they closed the show by playing what I figure was every single song that Morris performed when he was a founding member of Black Flag. At first it was cool, but then it just got weird. Why so many Black Flag songs? They're awesome songs, and I like Morris' voice way more than I ever liked Rollins (though my favorite Flag vocalist is still Ron Reyes), but it became like a bizarre idol-worship move, having the Circle Jerks play backup to the "An Evening with Keith Morris" show.

Perhaps the weirdest thing, however, to come out of this show was the revelation that the very fat, Cpl Henry Blake-style fishing hat, and mountain-man beard was none other than ZanderSchloss, whom geeks like me might better recognize as the character Kevin from Repo Man (the super geeky guy Otto works with at the grocery store).

Labels: Bands, Motico, Music, Nostalgia, Shows

In honor of Hubcap, I'd like to humiliate myself publicly by posting a song I wrote about him some 10 years ago. This is a song I 4-tracked, playing all the instruments. I barely knew how to use the equipment and had a lot of trouble hearing the playback while recording, especially while doing the drums, so the result is a song that only accidentally keeps the beat for any length of time. There's a section about 75% of the way through where the rhythm is supposed to change from 4/4 to 3/4 for several measures which totally does not work, and the recovery is just embarrassing. But I still like the song for its meticulous notation of Hubcap's habits at the time. Also of note is how much I feared he would die, with no fewer than 3 lines referring to my insecurity over his mortality. Here's the song (remember it's 10 years old, recorded on a 4track and copied onto cassettes, then copied to computer at some point), and the lyrics with full notation:

Hubcap

Who's walking on my head?
Who takes up half the bed?¹
Who's hanging on the screen?²
Who's looks like he's on ephedrine?³

Hubcap⁴

Eats from a can
You can scratch my hand
You can bite my knee
Just don't die on me⁵

Hubcap falls on the floor
Gets the boot and begs for more⁶
Slams into the front storm door⁷
Takes abuse but he never seems to get sore

Who always wants to get fed?⁸
Who's a quadruped?
Who at the door always stalls?⁹
Who fears all creatures both great and small?¹⁰

Hubcap

Asleep on his back¹¹
Dry heaves and hacks¹²
He's loyal true
Better friend than you¹³

Locked out of my house at night
Hubcap thinks that it's all right
Follows me to Diana's place
In Amy's bed he's sleeping on my face¹⁴

Hubcap can't say why
Hubcap I thought you'd die
Hubcap You death-defied¹⁵
Aw Hubcap

Hubcap falls onto the floor
Gets the boot and begs for more
Knocks his head on the front storm door
Takes abuse but he never seems to get sore

¹Hubcap enjoyed stepping on my face to wake me up; additionally he always found a way to situate himself in the bed so I had very little actual mattress to sleep on

²To let us know he wanted to come back inside, he would jump onto the screen door and hang there until somebody noticed him

³In his younger days he liked to run around in a panic, but to my knowledge he eschewed all drugs except catnip

⁴The name "Hubcap": I like hubcaps in general, I have a sort of hubcap collection, and Hubcap seemed like a good name for a cat: I found him on the street, after all

⁵The first death mention, I honestly can't remember why I was so paranoid about his health, he probably just had a cold or something and I freaked out; the occasion of the song seems to coincide with Hubcap's successful bout with illness

⁶"The Boot": Former housemate Al discovered that the young Hubcap enjoyed getting his belly rubbed with the sole of his heavy Timberland-style boot; Hubcap would walk into the kitchen, flop onto the floor, and Al would basically mop the floor with him

⁷In colder months, the screen door was replaced with a glass panel; Hubcap couldn't remember this and would jump at the door with nothing to hang onto

⁸Up until his death, the act of getting fed was a major preoccupation (even more so than actually eating, he'd often walk off without eating anything)

⁹Like many cats, he would beg to go outside but upon opening the door would just peer out into the yard indecisively

¹⁰He was deathly frightened of other animals, like chipmunks or birds, and would run and hide when he saw any; later in life, he tolerated their presence

¹¹In warm weather he could position himself with all four legs up in the air, and would stay that way for a long time

¹²Hairballs were a persistent recurring digestive issue

¹³Shades of my growing need to distance myself from humans and surround myself with animals that can't tell me how I've disappointed them

¹⁴One of my favorite Hubcap anecdotes: One night I came home very late and very drunk. I forgot my keys and my housemates were definitely asleep, the only way I could get in was to pound on the door to wake them up. I already felt like a doofus, and I had been feeling like the house loser at the time, so I couldn't bring myself to wake anybody up. Hubcap came up to me on the porch; he too was locked out. I figured my friend Diana would still be awake since I had just seen her at the bar, and her house was nearby. I started down the street. I made it a block or so when I realized that Hubcap was following me. I figured he'd be out of his element and stick close to home, but there he was, trailing me by a few yards. So I started beckoning to him, and he kept following me. Diana's house wasn't all that far, but it was a good hike, especially for a normally-territorial cat. But he kept following. I got to Diana's house, and indeed, she was still awake. Even better, her roommate Amy was out of town so she said I could sleep in her room. With a little cajoling, Hubcap also came inside and he went to bed with me. Hubcap slept on my head most of the night. In the morning we got up and went home together.

¹⁵Again, I don't recall the supposedly "death-defying" incident Hubcap survived, but he would manage to evade the Reaper for at least another decade after the composition of this song

Labels: Cats, Music, Nostalgia, Pets

Whoa. What's up with this:

Arts Space in Brooklyn to Get New Digs

Galapagos is moving to DUMBO ... ?

I don't whether to be surprised or say 'good riddance.'

Labels: Brooklyn, Music, Real Estate

In 1990 I bought my first electric guitar with proceeds from my job at Pier One Imports. I'm not sure how I found out about the pawn shop, I think my friend lived near it and had clued me in. It was over the city line in Painseville, Ohio. The shop had a bunch of guitars, and most of them were new. I'm not sure where they got them, but they sure were cheap compared to the stuff they sold at Arrowhead Music in town.

I knew nothing about guitars, I had only recently begun to teach myself to play on my sister's abandoned acoustic guitar but I wanted to get an electric. I went to the pawn shop several times, messing with the guitars and trying to act like i knew how to judge the quality. I ended up buying the guitar in the picture, not so much because it was a good instrument, but more because it was paisley.

This is a Cort brand, a Korean knockoff company so addled by low esteem they feel the need to print the words "Electric Guitar" on the headstock. You know, in case you don't know what it it is. I believe its design, with red fabric printed with greenish paiselys, was meant to resemble a tele owned by Pete Townsend, but I sure didn't know that at the time. The price tag read $175, I offered $150 and it was mine, along with a cardboard box and one of those supercheap guitar cables.

Man, I was such a fruit in those days. Can you picture me with my poorly-realized half-assed Flock of Seagulls haircut and my shirts buttoned all the way up to the top. And this guitar. Which, mind you, I barely knew how to play. It would be another several months before I got a real amp, and another 17 years before I learned how to play it halfway well (jury's still out on that).

I never thought I would see this thing again. When I left Ohio for Brooklyn , I left a wake of music equipment, some amps and speaker cabs, and one neglected Cort guitar. Since its purchase I had moved onto other guitars, a Stewart-Macdonald tele, and a Les Paul Deluxe (which I came to find out is considered anything but 'deluxe' by guitar aficionados, but it is still deemed superior to the Cort).

Meanwhile, former bandmate Al had been busy. In advance of his current band's trip to New York, he fetched the Cort out from behind the furnace, dusted it off and replaced the hardware and electronics. Conveniently located in his town of Athens, Ohio, is the Stew-Mac company, manufacturer of custom guitar parts. So basically you can get everything from wood blanks to cut out your own single-piece guitar, to the little plastic caps that go on the end of pickup toggle switches. Thus armed with a new lease on life, Al presented the guitar to me right before he and the band headed back on the road.

I was fearful of trying to play it again. Let's face it, it was built to be a cheap guitar for kids like me who didn't know better. With some trepidation I plugged her in and went on a sonic journey. At first it sounded a little off, but I fiddled with the EQ on my amp a little and got this really singe-y, high-tension wire sound. It was this point I realized that I never played this guitar without some kind of distortion on it, so the guitar sounding this good was a major feat.

So the guitar still rocks after all these years. I don't normally play single coil pickups anymore so this is a real departure. But the weird thing is I really like that (Shellac) sound, so now it seems odd I haven't played on them in so long. The Cort may just earn a place in my on-stage guitar collection. The only problem is, it's still paisley. Thanks Al!!! Here's some more photos.

Oh and here are some Flickr photos of other paisley guitars, apparently the original is from 1968.

Labels: Bands, Friends, Motico, Music

Tonight it looks like I'm going to see Babe the Blue Ox at Magnetic Field. I can't tell if it's gonna be crowded or what. Does anybody remember them? They haven't played a show in over 3 years, and I haven't seen them in 6. But they used to play my college town in the early 90's; Planet of Pants played with them at some point as well. I can't say I'm still into their sound nowadays, but they always put on a good show, and considering they were the first band I ever knew from Brooklyn, they had something to do with tempering my notion of what New York bands were like.

Anyhow, the 3 members of the band now have separate music groups they work within, all 3 of which are also playing tonight. Then BBOX is going on after, at maybe 10:30 or so (show's supposed to start at 8). First I'm going to Matchless to see Knife Crazy (I always picture the name with lots of unnecessary exclamation points, !!KNIFE!!!!CRAZY!!!!! ) from Buffalo. Where the hell is a full band gonna play at Matchless? The basement? I hope so.

Labels: Bands, Bars, Brooklyn, Music

Despite still having some loose ends (more wall work to do, no latch on the door), we hooked up the rig and went to town, musically, last night. The verdict: not bad! Sound isolation is better than I anticipated. Well, actually, when we began this project I envisioned a completely soundproof space, wherein a man could cut sheet metal with a rusty circular saw at 2 in the morning and have no fear of annoying a soul. But as the work progressed I realized that the reality of things would be a bit less dramatic. But I started thinking all this work wasn't gonna amount to anything except a rather cramped and stuffy practice space, with bass frequencies reverberating through the house and into angry neighbors' domiciles.

Here's my sonic breakdown of the varying levels:

• In the living room you can hear things, but all but the loudest bass notes are fairly well-muffled. In fact, most sound leakage seems to be coming from the stairwell, which is exactly the same issue we experienced at the old place. If we put a door at the bottom of the stairs, that should really help contain things.
  
• On the second floor you can't hear much at all, just a couple of taps here and there. I assume the top floors are blissfully ignorant of that band room altogether.
• I went outside and couldn't hear anything at all. It's weird to realize how much 'ambient noise' there is here, but you notice it when you concentrate on it. There's like a constant, low-level woosh all around, the confluence of passing cars, people talking, trains running, a million roach wings flapping in unison.
  

Later that same night I wondered aloud why I was so concerned about our noise. From the time practice ended, we heard countless elevated trains rumbling by, several vocal arguments on the streets, and a bunch of gunshots. However, I feel if my neighbors complain about the music and bring up the potential of gun violence, this may be misconstrued.

I gotta get more of those moving blankets! They're heavy and have several layers to them, this might really solve my cheapskate acoustic issues! I still need bass traps to suck of the boominess, but we're off to a good start? Who can remember our setlist? Because we sure can't.

Oh, and confidential to Al: You will notice the light fixtures and bx cable are now safely (more or less) tucked away amongst the radiator pipes. Thank you for your angry concern.

Labels: Motico, Music, Neighbors, Renovation, Soundproofing

For a brief time I wrote band previews for the NY Press. Some of the articles appeared largely unretouched, but as time went on, I noticed they were really going through the wringer. Somebody was hacking my tiny blurbs, not to shorten so much as add nonsensical stuff to somehow jazz up my writing. I talked to the shmoe who was doing this and he blamed me for not writing "tight enough." Somehow, adding "Spraying the audience with vomit and cheese" to my write-up of the Ex-Models didn't seem to be tightening anything up, yet he had the final cut. Anyway we were both unceremoniously let go a couple months later.

I was reminded of this heady time in my life today as I read JoshB's latest article in the Press, concerning the reticence of his livery cab driver to take him to my adopted neighborhood of Bushwick Brooklyn. It's a pretty funny read, which I read previously on his own blog. Now, I don't know if his writing is subject to the same dubious knife of editorial re-education, but there are some amusing discrepancies. In describing our house and its occupants' desires, the Press article states

My friends wanted to buy an apartment in Park Slope, sure. Who wouldn’t? Historic brownstones, lush trees, schools without metal detectors. Yet their bank accounts would only let them buy in Bushwick, two minutes from the jackhammer-loud overhead train.

Oh, the indignity of it all! Like I would ever want, of all things, an apartment in Park Slope. I know, none of it matters, it's just filler for the real meat of the story. I just hope it was the work of some anonymous editor and not Mr B Himself. He knows better anyway; we lived for years on the same longitudinal path in Clinton Hill and Crown Heights, respectively (he's still there). Truth be known, I had wanted to buy in Clinton Hill, but even that neighborhood had priced us out long ago, not to mention it is getting progressively full of the kind of reprehensible people I used to think would never cross Flatbush Ave (let alone come into Brooklyn).

But I suppose in terms of dramatic illustration, establishing the dichotomy of The Slope and The 'Shwick makes for a palpably wide spectrum of experience. Still, none of you Slopers better come out here or, you know, we'll beat you with a bat. For an hour!

Labels: Bushwick, Funny to Me, House, Music

Now that some of the house repairs are beginning to die down (well, actually it's more like outright ignoring), I can get back to other methods of shortening my life through external tasks. Tonight that means wandering around on the cold streets to go see some bands. I've already got my flask of Jim Beam, so the journey shouldn't be too painful.

The show is USAISAMONSTER, one of my favorite bands of the past several years, they're playing at the Glasslands Gallery. I've only been there once before, over the summer at what I think might have been the first show in this incarnation. That was also a USAISAMONSTER show. The trick now is I no longer live on the G train line.

Normally, that wouldn't be considered a handicap, but in terms of getting to this location in Williamsburg it would actually have helped. Used to be I could take the G to the L train to get where I was going (in this case, Kent Ave & S. 2nd St.) but now I live only near the J train. There paradox is that the J stops at Marcy, which is pretty much the only train in all of the South Williamsburg area. But it still leaves me almost a mile from the space. Though the L train drops me off at Bedford and 7th, it's about a half mile to the joint from there. And that's as close as mass transit will take me.

Or so I thought. Thanks to the MTA's Trip Planner (what a catchy name), I see that the Q59 bus will pretty much take me right to the club's front door. But to get to this bus I gotta take the J to Lorimer St, exit and catch the B48 bus first. I dunno if I have it in me to stand around waiting for the bus in this weather (and forget about it when the show is over, there'll be one bus every 6 hours).

Now, I can take the J train down to Broadway Junction and transfer to the L, whipping around the eastern edge of the neighborhood until it hits Bedford. This will take forever, and now that I think of it, also involves standing around outside (both trains are elevated at Broadway Junction). Or I could walk half a mile to the Bushwick Ave L station and take that over. Either way it looks like I'm gonna be out in the cold for much of the night. I better stop, I'm starting to talk myself out of it.

Labels: Mass Transit, Music, The City