"Football combines the two worst features of modern American life. It's violence punctuated by committee meetings."
--Columnist George Will, arguing for baseball's superiority to football in "Inning 8: A Whole New Ballgame" of the Ken Burns film Baseball
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Wednesday morning latte art
It tasted about as good as it looked, which is to say not quite up to par but not bad for a homemade latte from an old, cheap machine. The milk was just about perfect, but the espresso was a little thin. Still pretty nice on a surprisingly chilly April morning.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Nickel Creek review
As promised, here are my thoughts on the Nickel Creek concert several of us saw at Water Street Music Hall on April 18. Because I am too lazy to compose a post with actual paragraphs, what with all the topic sentences and linear thought and all, I'm doing it in categorized list form. Maybe this way I can get it finished before Abel wakes up from his nap. Call it "Ten-Second Thoughts" for a concert. No, wait...don't, because then half a dozen local bloggers will copy it and not give me credit.
The Bad (Let's get it out of the way first.)
1. They might want to spend a little more time on soundcheck in the future, or fire their sound guy. Maybe both; I'm not sure who's at fault. All I know is that the mix was bad, and I mean abysmal, for the first three or four songs. Way too much high end, I think, but I'm not a pro. Feedback any time the sound tech pushed a fader up to highlight a solo, and Sarah Watkins sounded like Cyndi Lauper on her first couple of vocal numbers. To be fair to the sound tech, the board is about 20 feet behind the front of the balcony. At any rate, he got it straightened out eventually.
2. Water Street is a lousy place to see a concert. It's a big, hot, sweaty, ugly room. Of the four acts I've seen there, two of them had serious sound issues. (Great Big Sea also sounded terrible in there, but unfortunately, that lasted the whole set.) The "Club at Water Street" on the other side, conversely, is a terrific place to see a show. At least Over the Rhine sounded fantastic there. But I suppose they'd sound fantastic in a middle school gymnasium, so I don't know what to say.
The Very Good (Notice the lack of "regular" good.)
1. Nickel Creek was everything I wished Alison Krauss + Union Station had been when I wrote a review (actually, two reviews, I guess) of their concert last May. They played hard and went for it on every song. They jammed, like good bluegrass musicians should. They missed a few notes here and there. (But not too many.) They danced around and had a blast while they played. They improvised their solos.
2. Chirs Thile may be a bit of a pretty boy, but the dude can play. How he frets a mandolin that cleanly at those tempos is truly beyond my understanding, and he hits the changes in really interesting and intelligent ways, too.
3. Sarah Watkins has absolutely no redeeming qualities other than her gorgeous voice and great fiddle skills. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
4. They covered the Britney Spears song "Toxic," and turned it into enjoyable music. Now that, my friends, is real skill.
5. They seamlessly incorporated The Band's song "The Weight" into their set-closer, "The Fox." If you haven't heard both these songs, you really can't appreciate how hilarious and delightful this was. If you've got iTunes, you can click the links to hear 30-second samples.
6. Also during "The Fox," the bass player put down his instrument and walked over to a platform and step-danced to the music. The crowd loved this.
7. A nice long encore, where each member played some solo stuff with varying levels of support from the others. Chris Thile's tongue in cheek breakup ballad "If You're Gonna Leave Me, Set Me Up With One of Your Friends" was the best one.
8. Sean Watkins gets no love, what with his sister and Thile both being so pretty and all, but he is a very good player. He made me want to buy a Martin guitar someday. Thanks a lot, buddy, it's not like they cost a lot or anything. My wife sends her regards.
The Bad (Let's get it out of the way first.)
1. They might want to spend a little more time on soundcheck in the future, or fire their sound guy. Maybe both; I'm not sure who's at fault. All I know is that the mix was bad, and I mean abysmal, for the first three or four songs. Way too much high end, I think, but I'm not a pro. Feedback any time the sound tech pushed a fader up to highlight a solo, and Sarah Watkins sounded like Cyndi Lauper on her first couple of vocal numbers. To be fair to the sound tech, the board is about 20 feet behind the front of the balcony. At any rate, he got it straightened out eventually.
2. Water Street is a lousy place to see a concert. It's a big, hot, sweaty, ugly room. Of the four acts I've seen there, two of them had serious sound issues. (Great Big Sea also sounded terrible in there, but unfortunately, that lasted the whole set.) The "Club at Water Street" on the other side, conversely, is a terrific place to see a show. At least Over the Rhine sounded fantastic there. But I suppose they'd sound fantastic in a middle school gymnasium, so I don't know what to say.
The Very Good (Notice the lack of "regular" good.)
1. Nickel Creek was everything I wished Alison Krauss + Union Station had been when I wrote a review (actually, two reviews, I guess) of their concert last May. They played hard and went for it on every song. They jammed, like good bluegrass musicians should. They missed a few notes here and there. (But not too many.) They danced around and had a blast while they played. They improvised their solos.
2. Chirs Thile may be a bit of a pretty boy, but the dude can play. How he frets a mandolin that cleanly at those tempos is truly beyond my understanding, and he hits the changes in really interesting and intelligent ways, too.
3. Sarah Watkins has absolutely no redeeming qualities other than her gorgeous voice and great fiddle skills. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
4. They covered the Britney Spears song "Toxic," and turned it into enjoyable music. Now that, my friends, is real skill.
5. They seamlessly incorporated The Band's song "The Weight" into their set-closer, "The Fox." If you haven't heard both these songs, you really can't appreciate how hilarious and delightful this was. If you've got iTunes, you can click the links to hear 30-second samples.
6. Also during "The Fox," the bass player put down his instrument and walked over to a platform and step-danced to the music. The crowd loved this.
7. A nice long encore, where each member played some solo stuff with varying levels of support from the others. Chris Thile's tongue in cheek breakup ballad "If You're Gonna Leave Me, Set Me Up With One of Your Friends" was the best one.
8. Sean Watkins gets no love, what with his sister and Thile both being so pretty and all, but he is a very good player. He made me want to buy a Martin guitar someday. Thanks a lot, buddy, it's not like they cost a lot or anything. My wife sends her regards.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie
So delicious, every word is capitalized!
Today I made my favorite kind of pie, Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Tracey makes the best pie crust in the world, so I had her prep the crust the night before. And my Gram makes the best strawberry-rhubarb filling in the world, so I used her recipe.
This was a very fun process for me. I love baking, but I've never tried pie before. Rolling out the crust was the biggest challenge, but I managed it--sorta. The most fun part was prepping the fruit. As anyone who has been to my house recently--and let's face it, no one but those people read this blog--can attest, we just got some sweet new cutlery from the good people at the JA Henckels company. So it was fun to put that to use in preparing my favorite kind of dessert.
The filling ended up a little runny. I think this was due to the fact that Gram's recipe calls for minute tapioca pudding mix as a thickener, and I only had regular tapioca pudding mix. It doesn't matter; the pie still tastes fantastic. Hard to screw up strawberries. As William Allen Butler said, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did."
Here's a picture:
Today I made my favorite kind of pie, Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Tracey makes the best pie crust in the world, so I had her prep the crust the night before. And my Gram makes the best strawberry-rhubarb filling in the world, so I used her recipe.
This was a very fun process for me. I love baking, but I've never tried pie before. Rolling out the crust was the biggest challenge, but I managed it--sorta. The most fun part was prepping the fruit. As anyone who has been to my house recently--and let's face it, no one but those people read this blog--can attest, we just got some sweet new cutlery from the good people at the JA Henckels company. So it was fun to put that to use in preparing my favorite kind of dessert.
The filling ended up a little runny. I think this was due to the fact that Gram's recipe calls for minute tapioca pudding mix as a thickener, and I only had regular tapioca pudding mix. It doesn't matter; the pie still tastes fantastic. Hard to screw up strawberries. As William Allen Butler said, "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did."
Here's a picture:
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Trane of thought
Sometimes I need to listen to music to ease my mind. Sometimes only John Coltrane will do.
If you don't know Coltrane, I feel sorry for you.
If you don't know Coltrane, I feel sorry for you.
Boo, Musician's Friend!
It is difficult to imagine a scenario where I would ever deal with Musician's Friend again. Never say "never," I guess, but I just closed the book on one of the most frustrating retail transactions I've ever had. I'd prefer not to have to deal with them again. Here's what happened.
It started out with promise. My dad ordered me a set of Sperzel-made locking guitar tuners for Christmas. (I assume you are aware that Christmas was four months ago.) My guitar is an imported Strat with cheap hardware, and the tuners were especially bad: unresponsive, slippy, chintzy and inconsistent. Needless to say, I was looking forward to receiving the new ones. Unfortunately, they were backordered 30 days. Then 30 more days. Then 60 more days. When we received the 60-day backorder notice, we decided to cancel the order and go with some Fender Schaller tuners instead. Not my first choice but comparable--no big deal.
These arrived within a week. Thrilled that my wait was finally over, I began the process of installing them. I'm describing it here for blog posterity--I always hope someone will find it helpful when they search for a walkthrough of the job--but if you are not interested in the process or have the attention span of a gnat, you might want to skip the next three paragraphs. I promise I'll get to the seething part right after this. Here, I'll even put it in a blockquote for you, so it's easy to skip.
With the holes all widened to the proper size and the tuners anchored on their rotational axis, I was ready to finish the install. Finally, after four months, I was about to enjoy the benefit of high quality locking tuners! Just one problem: Five of them were missing a crucial part. Only one of the tuners had come with a washer and bushing. (A bushing is a hex nut on a cylindrical sleeve that slides through the washer and over the tuner post from the front of the headstock, tightening down and holding the tuner in place in its hole.) I noticed this when I opened the packages, of course, but I didn't think anything of it. My guitar didn't have washers and bushings at all, since the stock tuners were held on from the back of the headstock with screws. But with the design of the new tuners, as indeed is the case with almost all guitar tuners, it is impossible to string the guitar without these pieces because the tuner posts will not stay in place in the holes.
By now it was about 9:00 on a Thursday night. Musician's Friend has a 24/7 customer service line, which I called. The person I spoke with didn't immediately know what I was talking about, but after I spent a minute explaining it, she realized what the problem was and told me she'd have the missing parts sent to me. I asked her to send them overnight, and she agreed but warned me that it would ship from the parts department, and would probably take 48 hours to depart their facility. I would have them by Monday or Tuesday. I could live with that.
When they hadn't arrived by Wednesday, I called again and spoke to another rep. He apologized and admitted the parts department is notorious for being a little slow, and that I would probably not see them for another week. I was aggravated, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
When they hadn't arrived after another 8 or 9 days, I called again and spoke to yet another rep, who apologized again and offered to exchange them, figuring that the retail fulfillment would take less time than the parts replacement. But she wouldn't ship them until I sent back the ones I already had, which was no help. I didn't want to wait for two shipping cycles only to risk having the same problem when I got the new ones. (After all, they were only batting .167 with the initial shipment.) When I declined the exchange and wondered aloud what could be so hard about going to a get a box of parts and putting them in the mail, she took my cell number and agreed to have the parts department call me with an update on their progress.
When I hadn't heard anything after another week, I had had enough. I called and spoke to a fourth customer service rep. I started out by saying I was very frustrated that my situation was taking so long to resolve, and even more frustrated that I hadn't heard anything after I was promised a call. He immediately got that "Uh oh" tone in his voice, the one you never want to hear on the phone with customer service, and sheepishly asked, "Didn't you get the message that we left with your wife? It says here we spoke with the manufacturer, and that part doesn't come with their tuners. We called and left a message with your wife."
I was incredulous. "That's just absurd," I said. "I cannot physically use the product you sent me in the condition I received them. They simply will not work. There is no way Fender would ship these in this condition. And as for leaving a message with my wife, I can only assume that is a lie, because we do not have a shared line, only our cell phones. There is no way anyone spoke with my wife." (This last part was completely true; she doesn't even answer her own phone half the time, let alone mine. We discovered later that they had called my parents' house and spoken with my mother. That number would have been on file since the order originated with my father, but it was not the number I told them to call.) Sensing the urgency in my voice, he transferred me to the "customer service department." Naturally, this led me to wonder who I had been talking with so far in the process, but I decided that was a finer point not worth pursuing.
Next came the really infuriating part. The final person I talked to was an intractable rock wall of customer dissatisfaction. At no time during this last phone conversation with the "real" customer service department did I get the impression that she wanted to fix the problem. At all. She refused to admit that anything was wrong with the product, explaining that the one washer/bushing combo I did receive was "just a lucky bonus." (Huh?) She suggested that I was probably wrong about the question of someone talking to my wife. To be fair, she wasn't exactly wrong about this either, but they sure didn't talk to my wife, and I didn't appreciate the insinuation that I just hadn't communicated well enough with Tracey to be sure about this fact.
And she flatly refused to fix this problem. I was really mystified. For ten small pieces of metal, she could have retained my business. But she had no interest in that, apparently. She suggested I get in touch with the special orders department to see if I could buy the parts. Actually, she said she'd have them give me a call. Yeah, right. "Don't call us; we'll call you." That's when I knew the transaction was over. I said, "You know? I'm pretty much just done. Why don't you just tell me how to go about returning these to you?" She gave me a return authorization number.
I asked her what I should do with it, and she said, "Just put the tuners in a box, mark it with that number, and ship it back to us."
"You mean to tell me I'm going to send these back an my own expense?" I replied, disbelief dripping from every word.
"Well, yes sir; there's nothing wrong with them."
Livid, I sputtered, "No. I'm sorry. That is simply not going to happen. There is no way I am going to pay to send these back to you. You sent me an unusable product, and now you won't even pay return shipping?"
"That's right. We sent them exactly as the manufacturer supplied them to us."
What was left to say at this point? I told her I'd be contacting the credit card company and asking them to reverse the charges. She predicted that they would refuse, but that she guessed they'd be hearing from my bank. "Yep, I guess you will," I said. Not without a sense of irony, she told me to have a wonderful day, and only because of underdeveloped communications technology did I fail to punch her in the kidney. Instead, I quietly hung up.
Hereafter, I will be referring to Musician's Friend as "those MFers."
But this story does have a happy ending, thanks to the existence of a certain locally owned and operated guitar shop. After talking with my dad, I decided it didn't make much sense to pursue the course of action I had threatened, calling the credit card company and filing a complaint. I'm fairly confident this would have resulted in a reversal of the charges and the MFers paying return shipping, but then I'd just be sitting around with a guitar with big holes and no tuners in the headstock. It seemed to be smarter to let it go and see if I could find the washers and bushings elsewhere.
That's when it dawned on me that I should have been dealing with Stutzman's Guitar Center all along. I purchased my acoustic guitar from them years ago, and their reputation for sales and service for acoustics is outstanding. I've never been anything but thrilled with them, but I never thought of them as a place for electric guitars. They do service and sell electrics, however, so I knew they'd have some parts lying around. So confident was I that I drove up to the shop without even calling. (Worst case scenario: I have to special order the parts and I'd get to spend a few minutes playing a T5 while I was there.)
As usual, Stutzman's came through in a big way. I explained my need to the staff, who by the way were astonished that the MFers were not willing to include the washers and bushings with the tuners, and one of them said, "I'll be right back." He came back in two minutes with a plastic tackle box full of washer/bushing combos. He matched five of them to the one I had, and said, "How 'bout a buck apiece?" Five dollars? Sounds good to me! I drove home with a big grin on my face, and I was playing the guitar within 10 minutes of walking through the door.
Hey Musician's Friend! That is how you help customers. You might want to take note. It's not very hard; you just have to put forth a little effort.
As for you, gentle reader, thanks for staying awake, and please heed my advice. Do not shop at MusiciansFriend.com. (I hate the fact that they kept any money from this transaction.) If you live anywhere near Rochester, NY, visit Stutzman's and consider them for your next acoustic guitar purchase.
It started out with promise. My dad ordered me a set of Sperzel-made locking guitar tuners for Christmas. (I assume you are aware that Christmas was four months ago.) My guitar is an imported Strat with cheap hardware, and the tuners were especially bad: unresponsive, slippy, chintzy and inconsistent. Needless to say, I was looking forward to receiving the new ones. Unfortunately, they were backordered 30 days. Then 30 more days. Then 60 more days. When we received the 60-day backorder notice, we decided to cancel the order and go with some Fender Schaller tuners instead. Not my first choice but comparable--no big deal.
These arrived within a week. Thrilled that my wait was finally over, I began the process of installing them. I'm describing it here for blog posterity--I always hope someone will find it helpful when they search for a walkthrough of the job--but if you are not interested in the process or have the attention span of a gnat, you might want to skip the next three paragraphs. I promise I'll get to the seething part right after this. Here, I'll even put it in a blockquote for you, so it's easy to skip.
Removing the old tuners was fairly easy. Each tuner was held in place by two small screws in the back of the headstock, and the posts were steadied by a metal gromit inserted from the front of the headstock. Removing them was a simple matter of removing the screws and pushing the gromit out from the back with a screwdriver.
Unfortunately, the new tuners have wider posts, and the existing holes were too small to accommodate them. I would have to drill new holes. Naturally, the size was irregular (13/32") , and I had to go buy an $11 drill bit in order to proceed. After I chewed up the headstock drilling the first hole, I realized it would be wiser to widen the holes a little at a time, using an intermediate sized bit. Don't Do What Donnie Don't Does. Take it from me: gluing bits of headstock back together takes more time than swapping out your drill bit a couple times.
After drilling the main holes, I had to drill tiny pilot holes in the back of the headstock, for the little anchor posts that keep the tuner from rotating once they're installed. These ended up being 3/32", but again, it was helpful to drill them in stages. I'd get the position centered with a 1/16" bit and then finish the hole. As far as marking the position for the holes, the best thing would be to chalk the posts and press the tuner onto the headstock. But since I possess neither chalk nor patience, I just held them in place and traced the posts with a fine-point mechanical pencil. It worked fine.
With the holes all widened to the proper size and the tuners anchored on their rotational axis, I was ready to finish the install. Finally, after four months, I was about to enjoy the benefit of high quality locking tuners! Just one problem: Five of them were missing a crucial part. Only one of the tuners had come with a washer and bushing. (A bushing is a hex nut on a cylindrical sleeve that slides through the washer and over the tuner post from the front of the headstock, tightening down and holding the tuner in place in its hole.) I noticed this when I opened the packages, of course, but I didn't think anything of it. My guitar didn't have washers and bushings at all, since the stock tuners were held on from the back of the headstock with screws. But with the design of the new tuners, as indeed is the case with almost all guitar tuners, it is impossible to string the guitar without these pieces because the tuner posts will not stay in place in the holes.
By now it was about 9:00 on a Thursday night. Musician's Friend has a 24/7 customer service line, which I called. The person I spoke with didn't immediately know what I was talking about, but after I spent a minute explaining it, she realized what the problem was and told me she'd have the missing parts sent to me. I asked her to send them overnight, and she agreed but warned me that it would ship from the parts department, and would probably take 48 hours to depart their facility. I would have them by Monday or Tuesday. I could live with that.
When they hadn't arrived by Wednesday, I called again and spoke to another rep. He apologized and admitted the parts department is notorious for being a little slow, and that I would probably not see them for another week. I was aggravated, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
When they hadn't arrived after another 8 or 9 days, I called again and spoke to yet another rep, who apologized again and offered to exchange them, figuring that the retail fulfillment would take less time than the parts replacement. But she wouldn't ship them until I sent back the ones I already had, which was no help. I didn't want to wait for two shipping cycles only to risk having the same problem when I got the new ones. (After all, they were only batting .167 with the initial shipment.) When I declined the exchange and wondered aloud what could be so hard about going to a get a box of parts and putting them in the mail, she took my cell number and agreed to have the parts department call me with an update on their progress.
When I hadn't heard anything after another week, I had had enough. I called and spoke to a fourth customer service rep. I started out by saying I was very frustrated that my situation was taking so long to resolve, and even more frustrated that I hadn't heard anything after I was promised a call. He immediately got that "Uh oh" tone in his voice, the one you never want to hear on the phone with customer service, and sheepishly asked, "Didn't you get the message that we left with your wife? It says here we spoke with the manufacturer, and that part doesn't come with their tuners. We called and left a message with your wife."
I was incredulous. "That's just absurd," I said. "I cannot physically use the product you sent me in the condition I received them. They simply will not work. There is no way Fender would ship these in this condition. And as for leaving a message with my wife, I can only assume that is a lie, because we do not have a shared line, only our cell phones. There is no way anyone spoke with my wife." (This last part was completely true; she doesn't even answer her own phone half the time, let alone mine. We discovered later that they had called my parents' house and spoken with my mother. That number would have been on file since the order originated with my father, but it was not the number I told them to call.) Sensing the urgency in my voice, he transferred me to the "customer service department." Naturally, this led me to wonder who I had been talking with so far in the process, but I decided that was a finer point not worth pursuing.
Next came the really infuriating part. The final person I talked to was an intractable rock wall of customer dissatisfaction. At no time during this last phone conversation with the "real" customer service department did I get the impression that she wanted to fix the problem. At all. She refused to admit that anything was wrong with the product, explaining that the one washer/bushing combo I did receive was "just a lucky bonus." (Huh?) She suggested that I was probably wrong about the question of someone talking to my wife. To be fair, she wasn't exactly wrong about this either, but they sure didn't talk to my wife, and I didn't appreciate the insinuation that I just hadn't communicated well enough with Tracey to be sure about this fact.
And she flatly refused to fix this problem. I was really mystified. For ten small pieces of metal, she could have retained my business. But she had no interest in that, apparently. She suggested I get in touch with the special orders department to see if I could buy the parts. Actually, she said she'd have them give me a call. Yeah, right. "Don't call us; we'll call you." That's when I knew the transaction was over. I said, "You know? I'm pretty much just done. Why don't you just tell me how to go about returning these to you?" She gave me a return authorization number.
I asked her what I should do with it, and she said, "Just put the tuners in a box, mark it with that number, and ship it back to us."
"You mean to tell me I'm going to send these back an my own expense?" I replied, disbelief dripping from every word.
"Well, yes sir; there's nothing wrong with them."
Livid, I sputtered, "No. I'm sorry. That is simply not going to happen. There is no way I am going to pay to send these back to you. You sent me an unusable product, and now you won't even pay return shipping?"
"That's right. We sent them exactly as the manufacturer supplied them to us."
What was left to say at this point? I told her I'd be contacting the credit card company and asking them to reverse the charges. She predicted that they would refuse, but that she guessed they'd be hearing from my bank. "Yep, I guess you will," I said. Not without a sense of irony, she told me to have a wonderful day, and only because of underdeveloped communications technology did I fail to punch her in the kidney. Instead, I quietly hung up.
Hereafter, I will be referring to Musician's Friend as "those MFers."
But this story does have a happy ending, thanks to the existence of a certain locally owned and operated guitar shop. After talking with my dad, I decided it didn't make much sense to pursue the course of action I had threatened, calling the credit card company and filing a complaint. I'm fairly confident this would have resulted in a reversal of the charges and the MFers paying return shipping, but then I'd just be sitting around with a guitar with big holes and no tuners in the headstock. It seemed to be smarter to let it go and see if I could find the washers and bushings elsewhere.
That's when it dawned on me that I should have been dealing with Stutzman's Guitar Center all along. I purchased my acoustic guitar from them years ago, and their reputation for sales and service for acoustics is outstanding. I've never been anything but thrilled with them, but I never thought of them as a place for electric guitars. They do service and sell electrics, however, so I knew they'd have some parts lying around. So confident was I that I drove up to the shop without even calling. (Worst case scenario: I have to special order the parts and I'd get to spend a few minutes playing a T5 while I was there.)
As usual, Stutzman's came through in a big way. I explained my need to the staff, who by the way were astonished that the MFers were not willing to include the washers and bushings with the tuners, and one of them said, "I'll be right back." He came back in two minutes with a plastic tackle box full of washer/bushing combos. He matched five of them to the one I had, and said, "How 'bout a buck apiece?" Five dollars? Sounds good to me! I drove home with a big grin on my face, and I was playing the guitar within 10 minutes of walking through the door.
Hey Musician's Friend! That is how you help customers. You might want to take note. It's not very hard; you just have to put forth a little effort.
As for you, gentle reader, thanks for staying awake, and please heed my advice. Do not shop at MusiciansFriend.com. (I hate the fact that they kept any money from this transaction.) If you live anywhere near Rochester, NY, visit Stutzman's and consider them for your next acoustic guitar purchase.
Nickel Creek at Water Street
I'm going to post my reaction to this concert soon, I promise. I'm halfway through a post lambasting Musician's Friend for the lousy service they provided me, and once that's up, I'll review this concert. Short version: It was really excellent.
More to come!
More to come!
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Ten-second thoughts
1. Please stop putting the number one in the middle of several exclamation points (like this!!!11!!).
2. Speaking of stupid manipulations of digital text, "Leet" is about as culturally cool as A Flock of Seagulls, and you'll be embarrassed in a year or two. Stop now and I'll pretend I never saw it.
3. The best moment of my day came when I got to CVS and realized I could pay with my debit card by merely waving it over the card reader, because it has one of those sweet Rapture Chips in it.
4. It takes more than ten seconds if I'm going to code a link for each item. But I think that's a technicality.
5. My dad ordered me some nice locking tuners for my guitar--as a Christmas present. I still haven't received them in working condition.
6. My son having recently gotten his first set of Legos, I can admit that I forgot how cool they are. However, I still maintain that it is decidedly uncool to build life-sized Yodas out of them.
7. In response to the many exhortations from my friends to give Peeps another try (after this post), I did. They're still nasty.
8. Whoa, stop the presses! The Beatles catalog is coming to iTunes!!!11!!
2. Speaking of stupid manipulations of digital text, "Leet" is about as culturally cool as A Flock of Seagulls, and you'll be embarrassed in a year or two. Stop now and I'll pretend I never saw it.
3. The best moment of my day came when I got to CVS and realized I could pay with my debit card by merely waving it over the card reader, because it has one of those sweet Rapture Chips in it.
4. It takes more than ten seconds if I'm going to code a link for each item. But I think that's a technicality.
5. My dad ordered me some nice locking tuners for my guitar--as a Christmas present. I still haven't received them in working condition.
6. My son having recently gotten his first set of Legos, I can admit that I forgot how cool they are. However, I still maintain that it is decidedly uncool to build life-sized Yodas out of them.
7. In response to the many exhortations from my friends to give Peeps another try (after this post), I did. They're still nasty.
8. Whoa, stop the presses! The Beatles catalog is coming to iTunes!!!11!!
Monday, April 10, 2006
Condoleezza Rice on Piano
If you haven't yet read it, check out this wonderful New York Times article: Condoleezza Rice on Piano (registration required - use BugMeNot.com if you like). An interesting article about Secretary Rice's significant skill as an amateur classical pianist. Well worth the read if you like Condi Rice or classical music, or both.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Tone Bug
I've apparently caught some kind of disease. Other more accomplished electric guitar players had warned me not to get involved, to stay away, be smart, quarantine myself against the illness they all contracted years ago. I foolishly ignored their advice and stumbled onward. I think the moment I bought my amp was the moment I caught it: the Tone Bug. There is no known cure.
See, I had owned an electric guitar for a few years, but I never played the thing because I didn't like the way it sounded through my little Peavey practice amp. That box did the job of making a guitar sound louder, but that was about it. When I bought the Blues Junior, I started playing a lot more, tweaking the EQ and reverb to get it just right. I fell in love with that gorgeous, clean Fender tube amp tone. And yet, the Junior is a single-channel amp, capable of providing only one type of tone at a time. You can tweak it, but not with a foot switch.* And while the clean tone was (is) truly a delight, I wanted to have an option for an overdrive tone.
Which brings me to my latest addition: the legendary Ibanez Tube Screamer.
This pedal, or some variation of it, has been used by a regular murderer's row of my favorite guitarists: Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Edge, both Stone Gossard and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, both guitarists from Sister Hazel, Page Hamilton from Helmet (strangely enough), and of course, the great high king of guitar tone, Phish's Trey Anastasio, who uses two. And there are others who I am forgetting. (Put them in the comments if you know of any.)
Here's what GuitarGeek.com says in their review of the TS9:
I've been playing one at church that belongs to Mike, and I just love it. (His is modded by "Analog Man" to Ibanez's original TS808 specs. Mine is a brand new TS9.) The tone gets me all choked up and weepy.
I went to Guitar Center yesterday to demo a knockoff pedal made by DigiTech, the Bad Monkey. It approximates the tone of the TS9 at about half the cost. I played both pedals in line using their demo amp, which conveniently was a Fender Blue Junior. I liked the Bad Monkey pretty well, though I wasn't quite convinced it was a dead-on match. It was one of those things, though; I figured if I got it home and could play with it more apart from the "real thing," I would be perfectly happy with it.
But when I went to the counter to pay for it, they didn't have one to give me. Sold out. I was bummed. The salesman told me that since they didn't have what I wanted, he could offer me a deal on the Tube Screamer. In a moment of weakness, I bit. It was a little more than I wanted to spend on an effect, but the deal made it worth it. And now I know I won't have second thoughts. I bought the Real Deal, and if I wanted to make it even better down the road, I could send it to Analog Man for the modification. Of course, this just widens the disparity in money invested in guitar gear and the actual guitar itself, but hey, someday I'll have a nice American Strat and it will all balance out.
That's it. I licked the sickness. No more gear for me! I've got a great clean tone and a great dirty tone. What more could a guitarist want? I should be set for life now. I'm cured. Right?
Right?
* Well, there's a "fat" switch that can be wired to a foot pedal, but it sounds pretty lousy. And even if it were a multi-channel amp, Fender is not exactly famous for dirty tones.
See, I had owned an electric guitar for a few years, but I never played the thing because I didn't like the way it sounded through my little Peavey practice amp. That box did the job of making a guitar sound louder, but that was about it. When I bought the Blues Junior, I started playing a lot more, tweaking the EQ and reverb to get it just right. I fell in love with that gorgeous, clean Fender tube amp tone. And yet, the Junior is a single-channel amp, capable of providing only one type of tone at a time. You can tweak it, but not with a foot switch.* And while the clean tone was (is) truly a delight, I wanted to have an option for an overdrive tone.
Which brings me to my latest addition: the legendary Ibanez Tube Screamer.
This pedal, or some variation of it, has been used by a regular murderer's row of my favorite guitarists: Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Edge, both Stone Gossard and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, both guitarists from Sister Hazel, Page Hamilton from Helmet (strangely enough), and of course, the great high king of guitar tone, Phish's Trey Anastasio, who uses two. And there are others who I am forgetting. (Put them in the comments if you know of any.)Here's what GuitarGeek.com says in their review of the TS9:
This is one of the more gentle overdrives on the market but the best for allowing the guitar's true voice and character to come through. The sound is open, valvey, and smooth with just enough warm bite to excite timid amplifiers. The magic of Tube Screamer is its ability to blend with your signal to let notes and chords shine through.
I've been playing one at church that belongs to Mike, and I just love it. (His is modded by "Analog Man" to Ibanez's original TS808 specs. Mine is a brand new TS9.) The tone gets me all choked up and weepy.
I went to Guitar Center yesterday to demo a knockoff pedal made by DigiTech, the Bad Monkey. It approximates the tone of the TS9 at about half the cost. I played both pedals in line using their demo amp, which conveniently was a Fender Blue Junior. I liked the Bad Monkey pretty well, though I wasn't quite convinced it was a dead-on match. It was one of those things, though; I figured if I got it home and could play with it more apart from the "real thing," I would be perfectly happy with it.
But when I went to the counter to pay for it, they didn't have one to give me. Sold out. I was bummed. The salesman told me that since they didn't have what I wanted, he could offer me a deal on the Tube Screamer. In a moment of weakness, I bit. It was a little more than I wanted to spend on an effect, but the deal made it worth it. And now I know I won't have second thoughts. I bought the Real Deal, and if I wanted to make it even better down the road, I could send it to Analog Man for the modification. Of course, this just widens the disparity in money invested in guitar gear and the actual guitar itself, but hey, someday I'll have a nice American Strat and it will all balance out.
That's it. I licked the sickness. No more gear for me! I've got a great clean tone and a great dirty tone. What more could a guitarist want? I should be set for life now. I'm cured. Right?
Right?
* Well, there's a "fat" switch that can be wired to a foot pedal, but it sounds pretty lousy. And even if it were a multi-channel amp, Fender is not exactly famous for dirty tones.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Quote of opening day
"It's like having calculus first period. You are not real happy when the alarm goes off, but by second period it's already over and you are running off to wood shop."
—Oakland A's general Manager Billy Beane, commenting on what it's like to open the season against the Yankees, after his team lost the game by a score of 15-2.
Via ESPN.com.
—Oakland A's general Manager Billy Beane, commenting on what it's like to open the season against the Yankees, after his team lost the game by a score of 15-2.
Via ESPN.com.
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