4th of July

Is still a time to remember the time when a large number of great men gathered. Yes, they were, some of them, hypocrites who wrote passionately about freedom while owning slaves, who spoke at length about free trade while smuggling themselves to great fortunes.

Yet, for all their human failings they gathered, they prosecuted an eight year rebellion and at the end of that struggle did not turn upon each other in a frenzy to continue the bloodshed.

They created something significant to the world. For that, and that alone they are deserving of our honor.

Tomorrow night, at some point during the show, I intend to turn my shit up very, very loud, and with the strat in open G and a coriciden bottle on my little finger I will play "The Star Spangled Banner" followed by "Yankee Doodle."

I. Will. Mean. Every. Fucking. Note.

Have a great 4th people.

Big Brass Blog

Complaint and Praise

First off, I hate, loathe, despise, abhor, dislike, and detest rehearsals. I practice my ass off and expect that people who call themselves professionals should have the song lists that they faxed us weeks ago fucking nailed shut. Another thing I hate about rehearsals is that they inhibit improvisation. It's a very human thing to slide into comfortable lines that you know will get you approval. Thing is that gets stale and sounds, well, fucking rehearsed pretty quickly. I'd much rather stretch and take chances. I ain't afraid to suck out there sometimes. It's the price you pay for reaching that high.

That said:

We are doing a cover of floyd's Comfortably Numb it works incredibly well with our front's vocals and style.

I'm using my Line6 Variax on this one and I start it out in drop D tuning and modeling a Ricky 12. I am using a preset on the amp called Memphis Clean, with about 3 points of reverb and a decent dose of chorus effect thrown in. It's a shimmering otherworldly set.

Now for the fun part. At the last of the vocals. I stomp my amp over to another preset that's based on The Thrill is Gone, a piercing blues setting with gobs and gobs of sustain. Then I make two clicks on the guitar which changes it to a vintage SG in an open D tuning, snatch up a pill bottle and commence to wail. The first time I did that the other guitar player was totally frozen. Dude couldn't move, fucking paralyzed. The look on our star's face was priceless, wonder, and approval. When we were finished she said "I think this is our blowoff."

Word