Once upon a time, there was a guy who played a little bit of guitar. He had an amp, which actually wasn't his, it was borrowed. He didn't go in much for effects, because they had a lot of knobs and shit, and he didn't really want to worry about knobs. Really, there was a volume knob, and that was the main one he was interested in.
Then, one day, this guy started thinking, "Hey, man, I've been playing the guitar for like 30 some odd fuckin' years and maybe I should upgrade some of my shit". So he bought his own amp, since now he had a job and stuff, and he could sort of afford it, though not really.
Then he started worrying about his tone. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he got the idea that if he had a really, really cool phaser, life would be great. Unfortunately, the phaser is just a gateway drug to a world of dependence on stompboxes... a portal into another dimension where your guitar is a mere slave to its signal path. There is no returning from this dimension, which unfolds in myriad web pages advertising vintage rotovibe circuits, realistic tube overdrive, true bypass, gold cables, and isolated power supplies.
Before too long, the initiate into this hellish cult begins to wonder if the 38 knobs arrayed before his feet, all tuned to exact specifications, are really making all that much difference in his sound. Sure, *he* can tell -- right? But can the unwashed, untrained ears of his audience really discern the difference between a Keeley modded tube screamer and a stock one? Do they even *hear* his reverb unit at all, through the shrieking sonic mayhem of his fellow bandmates? Can the legions of hot blondes waiting to storm the stage for breast signings really make out the subtleties gained by placing the wah after the drive pedal instead of before it? Do they truly appreciate the erotic whoop of an attack triggered envelope filter, rather than the garden-variety LFO?
These doubts cloud his mind, but by then he has descended too far. Without the Japanese-manufactured MN3008 chip in his analog delay, he can not really be sure if he's doing everything he can in pursuit of the perfect tone. It must be obtained, at any price -- and of course, it is a damn shame to have such a great rig, only to befoul your signal path with a mere Boss DS-1 distortion pedal. No, boutique fuzzboxes with germanium circuits are the only answer. Preferably three or four of them, at a couple hundred a pop -- after all, he needs different tones for different situations, which is certainly reasonable.
This once competent guitar player cannot see what others can -- that he is a shadow of his former self; often seen absent-mindedly tapping his bass E string repeatedly with his left hand, while madly twiddling delay knobs with the right -- a right hand that has not held a guitar pick for hours, or even days. Soon enough, he suspects that he has completely forgotten to play guitar, but what does it matter? In his drooling final madness, he can be seen with both hands upon his pedalboard -- a man possessed by some force beyond himself, even as the swirling winds of sonic chaos sweep away his last shred of consciousness, such that he fails to even realize that his guitar is not plugged in at all ----
Friday, January 14, 2011
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Oooh, I like this blog template
It's been a while since I've looked at blogger and I love this new template with the Jack Handey-esque flight of birds aimlessly drifting off the right side of the screen, almost daring you to try to come up with something to say that's completely devoid of meaning or value.
To put it briefly, I created this account mainly to participate in some other people's blogs, in the context of the Houston music scene. I am not a music writer, I don't get out much, and I probably know both far more and far less about music than you do. I've been around the Houston music scene enough to care a little bit about it, or at least to argue pointlessly about it -- a completely self-indulgent and self-referential exercise, for sure.
I'm biased, and I should explain those biases up front:
1) I'm old. That should be obvious. So I like a lot of older music. But still, I was born old, and I liked old music even when I was a kid. The only time I've ever really been on a music curve when it was happening was during the early to mid 80s when bands like the Butthole Surfers or Scratch Acid were in their prime. That kind of passed me by, and gradually I just got more and more into old blues-based heavy rock & roll. So unless you play some old, groovy sounding heavy shit, I am probably not going to really, really get into your band -- although I may be able to appreciate it on some level if it's well done and has decently written songs.
2) I have my own band in Houston, which has been around for a while. And I mean a while.
3) I play the guitar, and my comments will come from a guitar player's point of view.
4) I don't keep up a whole lot with new music. I just don't have the time, and frankly have not mastered mp3 theft on a wide enough scale to make it useful to me. I still buy most of my music so that adds a financial limitation as well. So there are vast oceans of things, like college radio alterna-rock, that I have no clue about. I am prone to treat such things with sweepingly dismissive generalizations, and yes you are probably right that your favorite band _________ deserves to be listened to more thoroughly and that those generalizations don't apply to them and whatnot.
5) I don't like jazz. Sorry. Actually there's a whole lot of stuff I don't generally like -- rap, college rock, happy music, dance music, pop punk, alterna-buzz, nu metal (with some noted exceptions), jam bands, hardcore, grindcore, eclecto-ethno-pop, fusion, emo, singer-songwriter chicky music. So don't expect me to give any of this stuff a fair shake.
6) I have a real day job and a kid and stuff. Politically I would describe myself as conservative, which of course will alienate me automatically from all you hipster types - although I'm not a social conservative by any means. I don't intend to get political in my participation on various blogs but I imagine that in some ways, my conservatism, perhaps best described as a libertarian streak mixed with life experience, will color some of what I have to say.
I am doing this mainly to talk about music, but I reserve the right to hold forth on other topics of interest to me, like food, beer, and sports for example. Most people who know me already will figure out who I am pretty easily, but I am maintaining the formality of anonymity primarily out of privacy concerns with social media and whatnot -- things can get personal, ugly, stupid, etc. and there are innumerable examples of things flying way out of control.
That's really about it. I'm pretty grouchy, but I am still usually right and you're usually wrong, unless you are agreeing with me.
To put it briefly, I created this account mainly to participate in some other people's blogs, in the context of the Houston music scene. I am not a music writer, I don't get out much, and I probably know both far more and far less about music than you do. I've been around the Houston music scene enough to care a little bit about it, or at least to argue pointlessly about it -- a completely self-indulgent and self-referential exercise, for sure.
I'm biased, and I should explain those biases up front:
1) I'm old. That should be obvious. So I like a lot of older music. But still, I was born old, and I liked old music even when I was a kid. The only time I've ever really been on a music curve when it was happening was during the early to mid 80s when bands like the Butthole Surfers or Scratch Acid were in their prime. That kind of passed me by, and gradually I just got more and more into old blues-based heavy rock & roll. So unless you play some old, groovy sounding heavy shit, I am probably not going to really, really get into your band -- although I may be able to appreciate it on some level if it's well done and has decently written songs.
2) I have my own band in Houston, which has been around for a while. And I mean a while.
3) I play the guitar, and my comments will come from a guitar player's point of view.
4) I don't keep up a whole lot with new music. I just don't have the time, and frankly have not mastered mp3 theft on a wide enough scale to make it useful to me. I still buy most of my music so that adds a financial limitation as well. So there are vast oceans of things, like college radio alterna-rock, that I have no clue about. I am prone to treat such things with sweepingly dismissive generalizations, and yes you are probably right that your favorite band _________ deserves to be listened to more thoroughly and that those generalizations don't apply to them and whatnot.
5) I don't like jazz. Sorry. Actually there's a whole lot of stuff I don't generally like -- rap, college rock, happy music, dance music, pop punk, alterna-buzz, nu metal (with some noted exceptions), jam bands, hardcore, grindcore, eclecto-ethno-pop, fusion, emo, singer-songwriter chicky music. So don't expect me to give any of this stuff a fair shake.
6) I have a real day job and a kid and stuff. Politically I would describe myself as conservative, which of course will alienate me automatically from all you hipster types - although I'm not a social conservative by any means. I don't intend to get political in my participation on various blogs but I imagine that in some ways, my conservatism, perhaps best described as a libertarian streak mixed with life experience, will color some of what I have to say.
I am doing this mainly to talk about music, but I reserve the right to hold forth on other topics of interest to me, like food, beer, and sports for example. Most people who know me already will figure out who I am pretty easily, but I am maintaining the formality of anonymity primarily out of privacy concerns with social media and whatnot -- things can get personal, ugly, stupid, etc. and there are innumerable examples of things flying way out of control.
That's really about it. I'm pretty grouchy, but I am still usually right and you're usually wrong, unless you are agreeing with me.
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