An Evening With A Hot Blonde - Part 2 - A new "pickup" line

Empty house?  Check.  Rockin' amp?  Check.  Sexy new guitar (a.k.a.  The hot blonde)?  Check.  Paul Gilbert signature Dimarzio Injector pickup set (a.k.a. The new "pickup" line)?  Check.  We are ready for launch.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I do all of the work on my guitars.  Originally, I started learning because I was too poor to pay someone to do it.  Now, I've grown to really love it.  It's soothing.  It takes my mind off of the rest of the world because, if I stop paying attention, bad things can happen to the guitars I love so much.  But there's no reason why I work on my own guitars that is more important or a driving force than plugging the guitar you just finished working on into an amp and hearing the results loud and clear.  I got to have that tonight.  And, oh baby...

An evening alone with a hot blonde - Part 1

I don’t always get as much time to play as I would like now that I’m a family man.  My 2 year old daughter demands a lot of my time and my wife spends a lot of time alone with her and, by the time I get home from work, she needs a break and some adult conversation and some down time.  After the munchkin goes to bed, I often find myself needing some quiet time with my wife.  That’s especially true as of late.

My wife and I have been having problems for awhile and things didn’t look good.  Recently, we had it out and realized we had been having a SEVERE communication breakdown as well as a complete miscommunication.  This brought about an “ah ha!” moment and we both decided that we were willing to do the work to make things better.  While this a very good thing and something that I am definitely excited and happy about, it does reduce the amount of time I am willing to be away from her and the little one.  So, when she decides to take the munchkin to see her parents and spend the night, I take it as a perfect opportunity to sit down with a hot rod guitar, an empty house and a screaming amp.  Tonight was one of those nights.

I’ve always been a fan of Fender guitars, primarily Stratocasters, from a very early age.  I was a child of the 80’s and, for a 13 year old kid aspiring to be a guitar god, that meant metal and, more specifically, hyper technical metal, and that meant Malmsteen…Yngwie Malmsteen.  For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Swedish shred legend that is Yngwie (pronounced Ing-Vay), he is one of the most flamboyant, showiest, over the top, arrogant and outright in-your-face guitarists to ever overdrive a ridiculous number of Marshall 50 watt amps in history.  He is also one of the most technically adept, accurate, well versed and FASTEST guitarists in history.  And, guess what, he played Fender strats.  After hearing what that man could do with a strat, I was hooked.  I begged my parents, who were divorced, to both go in on half to buy me a white Fender strat like that one that Yngwie played.  It was a Squier, but it was a strat and I loved it.

The beat of a different drum

So, I thought I'd get another post in relatively early in order to get things rolling along and to give people more than just that first introduction to lure them in.

My band has been working on our first full length album for about the last year.  This is actually our second attempt at it.  We recorded most of the tracks before but were experimenting with recording techniques and really didn’t like how they turned out.  So, we started over from scratch and went with a more traditional approach.  The results were much more consistent and effective.  However, I did learn some very important lessons from the second sessions as well. 

Introductions and Goals

Welcome to Sound Wave Samurai. This blog idea is, basically, a direct rip off of a blog idea that my wife used to create Katie Katie Roller Skatie. Now, before you start commenting telling me how awful it is to steal her idea, she's aware of it and giving me pointers. Her idea was to create a blog that she can use to talk about what's going on in her life and, at the same time, pass along ideas that she's come across in her particular field of study. While her field of study is food, mine is audio technology, whether that is in the form of playing tips; guitar, amp and effect modifications; repairs and finishing or studio engineering, mixing and mastering. Neither of us is professing to be the ultimate resource in our areas. These are simply ideas and tips that we've found useful. So, let's begin...unless you're hungry, in which case, go check out her blog.

Earlier this week, I had the very exciting opportunity to see Victor Wooten and his band open for the Stanley Clarke Band. Now, if you aren't familiar with either of those guys, you really need to be. Stanley Clarke is the main man responsible for the idea of a bass soloist and Vic is the man responsible for bringing that idea to a whole new level. I don't care what genre of music speaks to you the most. Knowing who these two guys are is a necessity. They define groove. Groove is the most basic element of any musical genre. If it doesn't have groove, people aren't gonna maintain interest. There's a reason that Low Rider is still relevant today. It's not a piece of lyrical genius. Very few people can even remember who played the song. It's not even very technically comlicated. But it's got groove for days.