fdesalvo
Hero Member
- Messages
- 3,607
My neighbor and I became friends after we discovered we both loved the blues and guitars. He sensed I needed a dude's night out after all the stress with work and my family, so he invited me out to a local dive to watch his friend's 3-piece blues band over a couple beers and dinner. We landed at the club and the beers started flowing like milk and honey. Now, I'm no drinker - I used to get a little crazy back in the day, but it's been a minute and it doesn't take much to send the ol' guy over the edge these days.
With that sidebar out of the way, we arrived to a nearly empty club with soundcheck just getting underway. The guys in the band were older than me - older blues image on the lead singer/guitarist to the likes of Steven Tyler, Winter, Perry, you know the look. Long scarf, feathers perhaps, layers. Love it! To his side were 4 old guitars and a small, 60's Fender Princeton. The guitars were:
1. Red, first run Japanese Strat (sounded the titz)
2. White/Maple 1970 Strat
3. Old Gibbo ES3XX (holy cow, I'm not humbucker blues guy, but this almost turned my mind about. My friend and I both agreed we really don't like them because we can't do them justice lol).
4. The late 60s Gibbo Firebird
What unfolded is typical, yet entertaining for a bystanding musician on the other side of the stage; frustrating for the performing artist; nonsensical to the non-musician.
We could tell that the sound guy was NOT a guitar player. He kept telling the guitarist to turn down. First of all, he was playing a Princeton..it did not require a mic. No one was really even in the club. The amp sounded awful and the guitarist argued that if he could just turn it up a half notch to 2.5, then he could get the sound he needed to express himself properly. The owner involved himself and told him he needed to keep it down to 2, so he could "answer the phone". What? "Hello, is this the bar? Do you serve drinks? Do you have live music?" The sound guy had him cranked in the mains, but where it mattered most to a lead guitarist (the stage volume) was honestly so low the drums and bass had him buried. He carried on and soldiered through his first set and approached us on his break.
He was telling us he was so ashamed of his tone that he couldn't look at the audience. Felt inhibited. Said he played this place 4 times before and first showed up with an old Plexi half stack, then a 4x10 Fender, then a 1x12 Fender, then that 1x12 Fender behind the curtain and turned backwards. Same sound guy complaining about stage volume. Said all he had left to bring next time was a Champ. We laughed and joked that he would have to wear one of those battery powered Marshalls. His visage took on a distant and forlorn look. He then retook the stage, eyeballed the owner, and in a stroke of genius said these words: "This one's for Chuck."
There was silence and everyone's eyes followed the guitarist's over to the club owner, who taking off his reading glasses, looked at his friend who was surfing the net beside him and announced in a semi-irritated voice, "Alright, turn it up to 3!" All of the other musicians who showed up to watch the band broke out into cheering. Lol, we were all high-fiving and buckled over in laughter. But then there it was..the tone!
It was GLORIOUS!! He nailed out his rendition of Johnny B. Goode like a transformed and possessed man. He completely came out of his shell and throwing caution to the wind, left his safe pentatonic patterns. He extended the solo quite a bit and must have exhausted every trick in his bag.
The owner let him ride out the rest of the show with the amp wailing away at 3. When the time came for slide work, he grabbed the Firebird, but it was giving him issues with output. After he broke for his final break, I told him it was likely a failing volume pot or solder joint and that I'd take care of it for free. After his final set, my bud and I were walking out and the guitarist gestured for us to wait. He grabbed the case for the Firebird and sent me away with it. How's that for trust? Would you leave your baby in the hands of a man who gets hammered on 2.5 beers? I think not!
I walked back into the condo with the wife watching Bravo or some poop-TV show. She loves those shows where rich white women yell and argue with each other, then end up crying together. She saw me stumble in with the old beat up case and then went back to her show. I passionately and dramatically regaled her with my story and it affected her not! If you don't play music, you won't get it.
Anyway, this AM, I cracked open the case and marvelled at not only the depth of the funk on the guitar's surface, but also the odor, which literally sent me back in time to last night when I shook the man's hand; it literally smelled like him. The neck, sides of the headstock, and inner horns were buried in gummy funk - the kind you'd see on the backs of old church pews. After looking the guitar over I discovered loose tuning pegs and a broken repair on the rear strap pin. The toothpicks which were crammed into the channel were no longer holding. I repaired it with a wooden chopstick and some super glue gel. Solid.
After this, I assessed the finish and carefully removed decades of sweat, blood, beer, cologne, and tears. You have to be very careful with these old, lacquer finishes. They are extremely delicate and if you remove too much, then you ruin the cohesiveness of the patina. I didn't take the best pics, but it was an honor and a privilege to get this thing back into the hands of this talented and passionate artist.
As an aside, one of the people who stumbled into the bar last night was the brother of the producer on all the Indiana Jones movies. I do love California for this kind of randomness. I did what any responsible man would do when given this information: I asked him who was responsible for the face-melting scene on the first one, because I wanted to buy that guy a beer. I did my job.
Can you spot the offending ground?
With that sidebar out of the way, we arrived to a nearly empty club with soundcheck just getting underway. The guys in the band were older than me - older blues image on the lead singer/guitarist to the likes of Steven Tyler, Winter, Perry, you know the look. Long scarf, feathers perhaps, layers. Love it! To his side were 4 old guitars and a small, 60's Fender Princeton. The guitars were:
1. Red, first run Japanese Strat (sounded the titz)
2. White/Maple 1970 Strat
3. Old Gibbo ES3XX (holy cow, I'm not humbucker blues guy, but this almost turned my mind about. My friend and I both agreed we really don't like them because we can't do them justice lol).
4. The late 60s Gibbo Firebird
What unfolded is typical, yet entertaining for a bystanding musician on the other side of the stage; frustrating for the performing artist; nonsensical to the non-musician.
We could tell that the sound guy was NOT a guitar player. He kept telling the guitarist to turn down. First of all, he was playing a Princeton..it did not require a mic. No one was really even in the club. The amp sounded awful and the guitarist argued that if he could just turn it up a half notch to 2.5, then he could get the sound he needed to express himself properly. The owner involved himself and told him he needed to keep it down to 2, so he could "answer the phone". What? "Hello, is this the bar? Do you serve drinks? Do you have live music?" The sound guy had him cranked in the mains, but where it mattered most to a lead guitarist (the stage volume) was honestly so low the drums and bass had him buried. He carried on and soldiered through his first set and approached us on his break.
He was telling us he was so ashamed of his tone that he couldn't look at the audience. Felt inhibited. Said he played this place 4 times before and first showed up with an old Plexi half stack, then a 4x10 Fender, then a 1x12 Fender, then that 1x12 Fender behind the curtain and turned backwards. Same sound guy complaining about stage volume. Said all he had left to bring next time was a Champ. We laughed and joked that he would have to wear one of those battery powered Marshalls. His visage took on a distant and forlorn look. He then retook the stage, eyeballed the owner, and in a stroke of genius said these words: "This one's for Chuck."
There was silence and everyone's eyes followed the guitarist's over to the club owner, who taking off his reading glasses, looked at his friend who was surfing the net beside him and announced in a semi-irritated voice, "Alright, turn it up to 3!" All of the other musicians who showed up to watch the band broke out into cheering. Lol, we were all high-fiving and buckled over in laughter. But then there it was..the tone!
It was GLORIOUS!! He nailed out his rendition of Johnny B. Goode like a transformed and possessed man. He completely came out of his shell and throwing caution to the wind, left his safe pentatonic patterns. He extended the solo quite a bit and must have exhausted every trick in his bag.
The owner let him ride out the rest of the show with the amp wailing away at 3. When the time came for slide work, he grabbed the Firebird, but it was giving him issues with output. After he broke for his final break, I told him it was likely a failing volume pot or solder joint and that I'd take care of it for free. After his final set, my bud and I were walking out and the guitarist gestured for us to wait. He grabbed the case for the Firebird and sent me away with it. How's that for trust? Would you leave your baby in the hands of a man who gets hammered on 2.5 beers? I think not!
I walked back into the condo with the wife watching Bravo or some poop-TV show. She loves those shows where rich white women yell and argue with each other, then end up crying together. She saw me stumble in with the old beat up case and then went back to her show. I passionately and dramatically regaled her with my story and it affected her not! If you don't play music, you won't get it.
Anyway, this AM, I cracked open the case and marvelled at not only the depth of the funk on the guitar's surface, but also the odor, which literally sent me back in time to last night when I shook the man's hand; it literally smelled like him. The neck, sides of the headstock, and inner horns were buried in gummy funk - the kind you'd see on the backs of old church pews. After looking the guitar over I discovered loose tuning pegs and a broken repair on the rear strap pin. The toothpicks which were crammed into the channel were no longer holding. I repaired it with a wooden chopstick and some super glue gel. Solid.
After this, I assessed the finish and carefully removed decades of sweat, blood, beer, cologne, and tears. You have to be very careful with these old, lacquer finishes. They are extremely delicate and if you remove too much, then you ruin the cohesiveness of the patina. I didn't take the best pics, but it was an honor and a privilege to get this thing back into the hands of this talented and passionate artist.
As an aside, one of the people who stumbled into the bar last night was the brother of the producer on all the Indiana Jones movies. I do love California for this kind of randomness. I did what any responsible man would do when given this information: I asked him who was responsible for the face-melting scene on the first one, because I wanted to buy that guy a beer. I did my job.
Can you spot the offending ground?
ccasion14:
