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NOTES: figured out how to get photoshop to make transparent images .. which makes the ideas behind my pages a little easier to read... still haven't figured out to have the complete picture in the background, and having only the text scroll...

This particular guitar was with another in a dumpster at a self storage unit in Regina. Jason found them both and told me about them .. I grabbed this guitar, and later found out why it was discarded .. the neck was broken, from the headstock, and was only attached by the top veneer. I was able to glue this back together, as well as grind and switch the top nut to lefty... however my grind job wasn't so good, so I need a new lefty nut for this guitar. It seems to stay in tune, and is more than I thought possible, which is why I named this guitar after Megan...the neverending project that broke my heart.

Just so this doesn't turn into one big inside joke for myself, I name all my guitars after some of my more eccentric ex girlfriends for the express purpose of reminder and memory. Whether they be good, bad, ugly, fun, irrational, ecstatic....whatever the emotions felt as a result of the relationship, and how it affected me, and still affects me, is what comes out of those guitars...

I'll be changing the format of this particular guitar page, once my html prowess is up to snuff. I wish to have a page for each guitar with several pics of each within their pages, as well as a page for my amps, and hardware projects. I would also like to post some of my own songs, and perhaps leave a portfolio online...

F.Y.I. -> images of my other guitars are in the pics page...

FUCKING THANK YOU OPETH !!!  I just finished playing songs 1&2 from Deliverance, about 10 times in a row, acoustically on Jasmine... My fingers are fucking bleeding all over the place...  Somehow I have passed at least 3 hours repeating those 2 songs over and over and over ...  my fingernails look the way they did when I was trying to learn pyromania back when I was like 8 or 9 years old!  All chewed up, cuticles bloody and raw...  I haven't been this inspired to practice in years...  Fucking A.. Hot strippers, booze and rock&roll are the fuel!!!  What more does a man need, other than an amplified signal!?!?!

Well, it's been awhile since I updated this page.. I've had alot to do, but music wise, there are actually good things to come in the super-near future... I've got a new microphone.  The old one was causing me no end of grief in regards to sound quality, or lack thereof.  Thanks to Smash, I've tried one of my old computer microphones, and it's turned out ok.  Not CD quality by any means, but that will come once I upgrade my recording gear.  THE POINT here is that I've been creative, and making music, as well as a little singing.  I've got some recordings, but do not have the web space to put them up for download.  In a few months I'll have some hosting space somehere, and then the real fun will begin .. I've got lots of ideas, and am finally in a position to do something with them...

I gave my Crybaby WAH (bought @ HEL music in Saskatoon circa 1991) to Jarrad, with a new switch and 100% Dunlop certified 100K potentiometer to solder in... The hope was those parts would salvage the pedal...  However I tested it out today, and the damn thing has no WAH.. It's acting like a volume pedal.  Replacing the switch and pot was supposed to fix that, but according to Dunlop, the only other thing the problem could be is the inductor/coil on the circuit board.  Apparently if I measure the the resistance across the orange|orange|gold 33Kohm resistor to be more than 100ohm or higher, then the inductor/coil is broken.  I dunno what I'm gonna do about that .. I already spent $50 on the damned POT, so whatthefuck is another few bucks for the damned inductor/coil??? 

Anywho... that's the updates so far..  Haven't been able to lay hands on any Abalone, or the fake stuff... Then again, haven't tried, as I do not have a workbench in my new place yet....

April 9 / 2005  --  Jarrad and Josh also made my WAH a custom.  It is now a switchable, dual Fasel inductor, Vintage Extreme Wah.  Both the yellow and red Fasel inductors are wired up to the pcb of the wah, and a switch wired up so that you can select between each.  The yellow serves better for lead, and red for the rest, to my ears.  The next mod to the wah, is the True Bypass switch, with the addition of a DPDT switch.  After that the wah mods will be complete.  Josh has diagrams of how to build a vintage talk box, so that's the next project.  I've been wanting a talk box ever since I hear Peter Frampton play 'Do you feel like I do?'... 

Again, getting some actual web space is limiting what I can do...  I would like to upload some sound bytes of the wah, but I cannot at this time ..  Maybe I'll strike it rich, and will host my own goddamned web space...

December 6 / 2005  --  as is the beginning of most of my updates tonight, there is not much new happening.  though I seem to find things to ramble on and on about ...  I started this update over an hour ago, and it's been pretty much a solid hour of typing...    I have recorded some minute long wanking.  my mic is pretty bad, and I'm seriously limited by the winXP recorder.  I've since gotten my hands on some MUCH better recording software, but having lent my Ilenya to mom for school, has thrown a wrench in things there.  I have everything on Jalene right now, and the recordings through her have alot of noise in them.  I believe it's because I have alot of wattage, alot of high powered fans, and also because of the TV reciever card, as well as my ATI video card, which has it's own power onboard... that's alot of interference, not only on an electronic level, but also the close proximity of the microphone to the computer itself and the monitor, isn't helping things.  My cabinet is on castors, but without a rack case to help control all the damned cords, it's a fucking mess to move around.   I have a couple of options, by means of using another computer.. I've got Uncle Donald's old P3, as well as my old P1 back, and I've even got my 386dx40 kicking around too... so I have some options, but haven't had the inspiration to get the ball rolling...

It's funny.  When I'm working, I have no time to do things like getting some recording done, or rebuilding the vette, or bike motor, or getting my sword runes done, or a million other things I have down on my lists done... And when I'm between jobs, like I am now (like I seem to have found myself the same scenario for the last 3 jobs!) I still get very little done.   I am so much the starving artist, that I fail to capitalize on my opportunities, however small and pathetic they seem to be at the time... When I look back on certain times of my life, I find spaces where, in retrospect, I think I could have surged ahead in some aspects, and I wonder, why didn't I fucking do anything then?  And now.  I wonder the same thing... I guess it's a step forward for me to be realizing it's happening, while it's happening.  And to try and be fair to myself, I have done -some- things... My wah is working, my rig and my utilization of it is much better.  I'm pretty good at using the effects rack unit now, and have found ways to use it, with my pedal board, and also how to enhance the distortion, via the channel selection on my Rexx preamp.  I have some good plans for making a rack case, and if I don't get those parts for Christmas, I'm going to make that for sure... 

As for recording, well, it'd be nice to have someone to share my creations with, conveniently.  (which should really read, 'I want to play my tunes live for a pretty girl)  There have been a bunch of parties with the bomp crew that have turned out to be some really great jams.  though finding a drummer has been a real pain, Yvette (Jarrad's girl) can drum!  She can pound the skins and hold a beat really well, and though the only thing holding her back is not knowing the heavier songs the rest of us like to play, but that pales in comparison to some of the awesome jams we've been able to crank out when she's behind the cymbals.  It's pretty cool too, cause you can see her get this different smile on her face when she's drumming.  I never really noticed it until Jarrad pointed it out...  Anyway, its been fun to jam, and I even got my whole rig out to Machine's housewarming party.  That was simply an awesome night.  Not alot of cohesive jamming, but the times we did get it right, they were super.  I even got to solo to my hearts content, for a room full of pretty girls.  It was awesome, and a site not seen since my highschool days...

And for all that, you'd think it'd give me drive.  Power me to get back into the scene, to try my hand at a modicum of stardom.  Smash for example showed me it's possible to live a dual life, (and for him a triple life) one side musician, the other still gets the bills paid with a dayjob.  I didn't think it possible, and back in Saskatchewan, there really wasn't any money to be made for a rock musician, especially one, that wanted to play original tunes.  Not to mention the scarcity of decent jobs back then.  The scene still sucks ass in SK, but it's a little better than before, and so is the job situation.  Course, back then, the only jobs I thought I could get were washing dishes.  Anyway, back to that drive I was mentioning .. well it's not there .. it left me 10 years ago, and I've been lamenting that fact ever since.  I've written songs about it.  I've spent the last 10 years of my life, trying for 3 main things:  life a life with as little pain as possible.  regain as much of myself, that I lost so long ago as is possible.  and lastly, to regain my drive to do the things I love to do, instead of the alternative...  The alternative is what I've lived the last 10 years .. Fuck it took me 6 of those years just to get my mind back, and I'm still not all the way there yet.  I have failed in my career search for something to take the place that music had in me since I first held my dad's cherry red Hagstrom in my crib.  Searching for a sense of mental security akin to the length of guitar patch cord I had for a soother, as a child. (I still have that piece of patch cord by the way!)  Utterly failed, and I've lost 10 years of my life as a result.  And that life with little pain has been the exact opposite.  10 years of pain.  10 years of seesawing emotional extremes, with more negatives remembered than positives.  But you know what?  When I tap into that cesspool, and solo, I can make you cry...hell, I've made myself cry during a solo, and that's pretty fucking amazing I have to tell you.  (Wish I'd have been recording that day!)  Only recently have I begun to retap that immense source of ego, pride and confidence, that is my skill with a guitar.  Someday soon, I'll get off my ass and share some licks with you all...

I have written a couple songs, and tried to write a couple of times since April, but nothing really substantial has come of it.  Though, I will admit, part of my 'career' in computing, was making sure the stopper on the bottle was kept tight, and all lips puckered up, wound tight like a coil, always in control, because one slip, and you tell some mutherfucker on the other end of the phone, that no, his pathetic life isn't fucking over because he can't get his fucking email, or perhaps tell your boss that he's a stupid useless piece of shit, so used to climbing on the backs of others, he no longer notices the blood on his shoes -- and you're out of work!

Like I said, I always seem to find things to ramble on about...  With this medium.  With these blogs, if you will, I really try to explain with cohesion, and clarity, what my life has been like these last years.  But when I read back, it seems like I give only a glimpse, and the rest is filler.  So much so, that meanings, intent, are lost in translation.  I've always had a problem with thinking people never -really understand- what I'm trying to say.  And so many times I'm proven right...  But I guess, that's the bain of every artist.  It's so rare that anyone really understands you.  And when you find a person like that, it goes as all things do:  either lifelong, fulfilling, and deep, or that understanding turns into the blade used to slice you into a million pieces, diced apart, emotion by emotion.  The pieces laid out like a jigsaw puzzle, with perfectly square pieces.  A puzzle like that, can never be put back the way it was...  My only wish is someday, I'll end up with a picture on the table that looks something resembling myself.    

Well, as catharsis goes, as hindsight goes, I say good fucking riddance to that, and welcome a new era in my life.  And I for one, have at least the presence of mind, now, to make sure that I've positioned myself in such a way that allows at least a glimmer of a hope of a sliver of the dream I used to sacrifice so much for in the past...  I may never become a rockstar to the masses, but there is still room for my saturday night special...

December 14 / 2005  --  I've begun messing around with the webspace dad lent me .. should have a soundbyte or two uploaded in a day or so...  nothing spectacular, just one minute wank recordings, to see if it's working...  better stuff will be up later on when I get some better recording software setup...

December 17 / 2005  --  So Dad and I were able to get my access problems to his webspace figured out.  There are a bunch of new pics to peruse, but also there are 2 recordings for you to listen to.  They were done awhile ago.  I have this cheapo microphone, that I hung in front of the bottom right celestion speaker in my 4x12 marshall jcm-1960 cabinet, and plugged the mic directly into my PC.  I used windows recorder, and then converted the .wav file to .mp3 format with Nero, via the LAME MP3 encoder.  The sound is ok, you can hear the 60 cycle hum from my Rexx preamp, and ADA 200watt power amp, but it's not too shabby.  The recordings were just a couple of tests I was doing.  Because I recorded them with windows recorder, I was limited to 60 seconds.  I also just came up with the notes on the fly, totally unrehearsed, and totally raw.  One take, nothing amazing, just a couple of short wank sessions to get on tape.  So without further hoopla here they are:

nicewank3.mp3   and   rhythwank1.mp3

enjoy!

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©Dec 14 /2005 Deft Ltd.