Shove your Les Paul right up your ass.

Bitches.
All they be is scandalous.
I've been reading alot of craigslist lately. Specifically the musicians' community posts. I've been horribly disappointed by the amount of bitching by various factions of the Portland music scene. We've got basement-dwelling momma's boys complaining no one wants to jam with their self-centered asses. Hopelessly deluded prima donnas who live off of their girlfriends and are trying to 'make it'. This second group have many theories about why they are failing. To these losers, it all seems to boil down to amateurs crowding the feed trough; people with day jobs willing to work for less than them.
I began to wonder if this was truely an epidemic. Is the entire U.S. overflowing with the complaints of working musicians being crowded out by 'scabs'?
Since CL brought this problem to my attention, I decided it could help me clear up the issue. I read the ads on CL for L.A., Minneapolis, Norfolk, Phoenix, Austin, Seattle, Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City and Chi-Town. Some had more posts, some less, but the only ones with signs of this imminent downfall of paid musicianship was Portland and Austin. Coincidence? Most assuredly no.
I had theorized that L.A. might be the center of this outbreak, lots of pros who would be sensitive to competition willing to undercut their rates. Turns out not to be the case. They must be too busy working. Portland and Austin had people who thought it necessary to complain about not being able to make ends meet as a full time musican. One post had a run down of cover charge vs. profit, illustrating how a glut of bar bands was making it impossible for working musicians to feed themselves. No shit geniuses. If you live in Austin or Portland decent musicians are plentiful, but most of them are amateurs with day jobs. Since there are so many bands, the public isn't going to pay a hefty cover charge to see them. Supply and demand: an idea these 'artists' have failed to grasp. Of course, if they could manage this fundamental economic concept they could have gotten business degrees, and would be too busy working to bitch on CL.

You know what's better than King Kong? King Kong on Beer.

Flint and Stephanie are in town and we went to the local theatre. They serve micro brew to go along with first run movies, which really makes them by far the best theater ever. We actually have 2 pub/theaters in the neighborhood, the other one does second run movies.
Today we are going to the museum to see poop art. I'll be bonding with my German roots.

It never works unless you glue your finger to the inside of your eyelid.

 

JB Weld, You have failed me for the last time!

During the cross-country move the cold water inlet port of my washing machine's inlet fill valve snapped off. At first I tried to epoxy that bad boy back together, with disastrous consequences. It passed the hydrostatic test, but during the trial load it failed catastrophically leading to me running around looking for towels to soak up the water. I had to drive to the opposite end of the city and cough up $35 for a replacement piece.
While in Phoenix I told Sean his mismatched stack was very punk rock, so I had to get myself one. Craigslist yielded a hippy down south of Salem selling a 4 ohm Peavy cab containing 2x4"and 1x15" speakers. Low end problem solved for $65. I will send the low end to the 15", and if for any reason the 4 inchers cause a problem I can abandon them in place. I can also send both Bi Amp outputs to the Peavy cab if I don't need earth shattering volume.
The new house is coming along. I have been hanging everything in the garage up high on hooks and from the ceiling. This is leaving my floorspace clear, but I wouldn't hide from an earthquake in there unless you want a ladder to fall on your head.

Low End

That 2x12 cab just doesn't have it at the low end. It is clear and bright at the high end, but for open E it has a bad buzz. Bad low end distortion due to the speakers, not the amp. I can clean it up some by turning down the low end gain with the Graphic EQ , but that is hardly a good option. My amp is Bi-ampable(if that's a word) so I can send the high end to one cab and the low end to another. If I find a low cost 1x15 or 1x18 I'll pick it up so that I can rattle the windows down the block.

Paint Wench

I've been busy keeping the wife in line. You know, paint faster or you'll get the beats, watch your mouth or you'll get the beats. There is hella surface area to paint inside the new house, which CK has been working diligently at. I have been running errands. I tried to get a fridge, but decided to wait until the 28th for the Sears sale.
As I was running errands yesterday it started to snow. By the time I left Sears, the roads had turned to shit. Unlike Chi-town, PDX is unprepared for the white stuff. All the surface streets were unsalted and dangerous. It took me 2 hours to go 10 miles across town. If I'd have known it was going to snow that soon, I'd never have left the house.

Stupid Ted4

 

Tom

I've been in Denver/ Colorado Springs messing with batteries and bearings. I saw Tom and we had a hella feast at some chain steak house. He is doing well, but had to drop his wench like a bad habit when she intimated that he choose between her or racing his dirt bike. Like Matty Stenson says, b*tches be scandalous.
My bass came. Due to my own in-expierience I messed up the latches on the case, but some JB Weld, Krazy Glue, new latches and pieces of a tacky leather guitar strap fixed that up nice. I changed the strings to some flat wound ones to the tune of 27 f#cking dollars. Quite a sticker shock but hopefully they won't need to be changed as often as guitar strings. The pots were scratchy so I sprayed some DeOxIT into them. That stuff must cause cancer, because I can't imagine anything that isn't carcinegenic working nearly as well. I adjusted the bridge to get the action and intonation right and she plays like a dream.
Tomorrow I will start moving into the new house and get to crank up the new rig to try and shake some fillings loose.

When you think about the intonation.

Those little screw adjustments on your guitar's bridge do have a purpose!
In Phoenix I was listening to Sean's bass and he mentioned that his intonation might be off. He was unsure of exactly how to check/adjust this little thought of parameter of fretted instruments. This got me thinking about the Tele, so I adjusted it out. The problem arises if the length of the string is out of whack in relation to the length of the fretboard.
Tune the first string to E.
Play the string at the 12th fret.
It should be E one octave higher.
If it is flat adjust the bridge to make the string shorter, if sharp adjust longer.
Repeat for all 6 strings.
The Tele was so far out of whack that it sounded like a whole new instrument after adjustment.

a sure way to piss off your neighbors

 

Leo Fender

Sean is right. I have a wierd Fender fetish. It is manifested by a subconcious desire to surround myself with instruments with grey cloth speaker covers and the tuning knobs all on one side of the headstock. I play a mid 90's Japanese Telecaster through a 100w Fender combo amp. I decided it was time to indulge my secret bass playing desires and spent the weekend tracking down the pieces of a bass rig. I wanted a fretless bass and a seperate head/cabinet (not a combo). I thought a B.C. Rich would be spiffy, but had a hard time finding a fretless one in my price range. I went to a couple of shops and tried out some basses, these trips cemented my desire for a fretless. They just plain play easier, even if I need to be more accurate to get the right intonation.
I swear that I wanted to stay away from Fender crap with this rig, but after scouring the E-bay and Craigslist I came up with the following.
-'88 Japanese Fender Precision Bass(black), re-necked to be fretless with a hard case - $330
-Fender BXR 400 amp. $175
- Manual and Schematic for amp -$10 by snail mail from scottsdale AZ.
- early/mid CBS era Fender 2 X 12" cabinet. $150 (still pending since this dude works swings and I probably won't see it until Thursday).
The cabinet will also work well with my guitar amp. I probably paid too much for the bass, but a new one would be about twice as much and I would still have to come up with the case. I am still happy to be sitting on a new rig for less than 7 bills.

Al's #1

For some reason the country outside of Chicago doesn't have God's food, Italian Beef. None in Seattle, Portland, Norfolk, Mobile, none anywhere. Grill up an italian sausage top it with italian beef, hot peppers, sweet peppers, then dip the whole thing in the beef juice and your looking at the perfect food. Luckily my mother loves me and had the best place in Chicago, Al's #1, zap mail me some for my birthday. It was delicious. Last time someone brought me some I messed up in prepairing it. I let the beef soak in the juice all day. This made for edible but less than perfect beef. Sammy Sinnokrot's old lady says the proper way is to heat the juice then dip the finely sliced roast beef until it is warm, like only a minute or so. This makes for hella tender and uber tasty sammiches.
It was quite the birthday present, since on the plane home that afternoon I read an article in the USA Today touting Al's #1 as the best food in Chi-Town (SuperDawg was only number 7, but it was USA Today). It was awesome to be able to come home and cook some up. THANKS MOM!

TrashMagnet

On Tuesday afternoon the boss called and told me he wanted me on a plane for Phoenix in the morning to mess with some bearings. So off I went, and I won't be home until 7pm on Friday, but I should be able to have a late birthday dinner with the old lady.
Last night I gave Sean a call and we had dinner and I drank some beers while I watched his band practice. TrashMagnet sound like they certainly could pull off a good set at a local bar or possibly some summer festival action, BayFest or something of the like.
The thing that struck me is that they have a rented practice space in the semi-industrial part of town, nothing fancy, but they are in a building of about 18 or so similar practice spaces. This is the buisness I need CK to buy me. As long as the musicians are on time with the rent it could be a beautiful scam. Easy to set up, easy to maintain, next to no overhead, and as long as the Californians keep moving to OR one could have lots of clients. I have set the wifey to do a feasability study.
Tonight I am going to have dinner with Sean and Neil K, and tomorrow I am going home to beat the wife.