Cocoa Pebbles

Are we, as late thirties into the forties rockers finally doing it? Are we the first generation in hundreds of years to keep our childhoods alive and well into our 60's, like Jagger? (I didn't say childish... though most women I have known might disagree). I don't do drugs and I don't smoke, but I do sugar. Ice cream isn't just for desert anymore, it can be any time of my day. How many sitcoms do you watch where some 40-ish guy is chugging down Coco Pebbles or Tony the Tiger's Favorite? Did my Dad ever behave like this? Did my Dad get tattoos, wear sneakers and jeans with holes in (both the sneakers and the jeans). Did he continue to dress the same at 40 as when he was 17? Did he skateboard well into his 30's? To answer this question, first we must find out what my Dad was doing when HE was 17. That was the early 50's...leisure wear was in... but...er... that was what Dad was wearing when I grew up with him (and HE was 40). So...sorry... nothing new here. Dad probably also went to see Sinatra (same way we see the Stones or EVH), and as he looked out over the greying crowd, he probably thought he was cool, and keeping his youth alive... difference is, I never needed to go see Sinatra as a kid... or Porgy and Bess... and why WAS that record album in their collection....?

Don't feel bad... I worked out the other day that most guitar players are lucky to break even after trading all their guitars (don't tell that to your wife) back and forth over the years. Those that DO make a profit, tend to end up owning stores... first on-line stores, then an actual location on the street. They have that knack that most musicians don't have... the ability to barter, and come out ahead. We musicians are not into that.. not really. We know what we want, when we want it... and if someone is offering us $320 less than we originally paid for it... we tend to take it. When we need new equipment, we need it NOW. Maybe it's time for a humbucker, or a thinner neck... or a different brand guitar that will continue to inspire you. But then I think we all feel bad... we add up the losses, and lament. Could we have been more careful... not to have bought the guitar we now want to sell again (on EBay)? But let me end on one note... if you take your girlfriend (or wife) to Carmel-By-the-Sea, and eat lunch and stay the night... let's say it cost you $900.00. Do you lament over money you no longer have, and an 'intangible' memory of the happy trip? NO. YOU DONT. So if you enjoyed that Day-Glo Orange Jackson for a week, and had never had a fretboard with shark teeth inlays, and got to play it a while...before selling it for a $900 loss... why lament? You have the memory...ONLY lament if you did nothing with that guitar...at all, while you owned it.

PUP

How much do you worry about your guitars? Do you worry more about your guitars than about Global Warming? Do you lay in bed at night, worrying that the guitar down at your luthier is not next to you, safe near your bed (or in your bed)? I don't count sheep at night... I count guitars. I know you do too. If you have a regular paying job, then all day you wait to get back to your music room. If you are a guitar teacher/ professional musician... or ex-80's-glam-rock-band-lead-guitarist-now-turned- teacher, then count yourself lucky. I know... lucky to be driving all over Los Angeles (or New York.. or some other town)... lucky to see that same budding future-rockstar of 2016 do his scales... maybe faster than you currently do. Lucky that his mother uses the lessons to try and pick you up... knowing full well that you know her husband is into the international pharmaceutical import/export business (and has a problem with blind rages). You are still lucky to be amongst the few who live the dream... the dream to do what you love for your life work. Those others have to be happy with their half hour in the music room, while their wife handles the kids. A toast today... to those who live the life they love... even if there is no money in it. (Remember, most famous musicians are RFM... Rich, Famous and Miserable, while you are PUP... Poor, Unknown but PLAYING).

Well Strip My Frets....

Rob appropriately points out NOT to strip a neck with frets in it...SANDING is for necks. Balmer's 'Fender Stratocaster Handbook' rightly warns (on p.70)..."I will state quite clearly from the beginning that no amateur would be wise to set about finish repairs on a rare and valuable guitar". Now... if you don't mind the risk, you stated that your guitar was a 'cheapy'... I am sure Eddie Van Halen was no luthier either... and learned a lot working on his own guitars... so if you're game... do for it (I would). As a note... Balmer in his book removes all frets first, then sands the fretboard LONGWAYS with a curved block of wood (with a 7.25in radius!)... pretty technical ... and does require a gentle touch.

Give Me a Stripper

My good friend Rob (in the desert) asks..."Hey Pete-
I've got a fun cheapy guitar ( a Jay Turser Surfcaster) that actually SOUNDS great...it plays ok, but I'm going to put a Tele neck on it to address that part. BUT, in the meantime, I thought I'd experiment on it a bit....I want to strip the gloss off the fretboard (maple) and the back of the neck (also maple)...do you know a good, safe, somewhat easy way to do this?"
Rob... you have 3 choices (if refinishing a body): Sanding, a Heat Gun, or chemical stripper.
I would not consider the sanding it... it will change the shape of things... the heat gun thing is also a little weird
for my mind... so it all comes down to good old chemical stripper. I had a famous ex-Masterbuilder make me a
guitar... and he took my 1951 Tele covered in a wonderful green glitter, and stripped it using the chemical approach. He then
painted it in blonde Nitro. A day later some of the green bled though the nitro (this is the trouble with chemical stripping),
so he re shot it with more nitro to cover it up. Not a perfect job for my mind... but it worked.
Chemical stripping is still my choice of how to do it... because it does preserve the original shape of the wood you
are working on. As with all things, there are side effects, but they can be minimized. Waiting a bit for the wood to
dry after stripping (a week or so) might help here. IF YOU HAVE A NECK to refinish... 'The Fender Stratocaster Book' (Balmer) show how he refinished a Strat neck using sanding. THIS IS THE BEST WAY for a neck, but unless you have practice at it, the neck will probably be affected somewhat here and there (oops...hit that headstock angle a bit hard!)... but considering people shave the back of their necks anyway (not THEIR necks, the guitar)... if you can live with it... I can.

Randy Rhoads

I finally admit it... I am a child of the 80's. For some reason I liked to think I was a child of the 70's...but considering I was still under the care of a babysitter, that wouldn't count... so I admit that the 80's are MY decade. So here it is...."To celebrate a quarter-century of fantastic instruments and innovation, the Jackson Custom Shop is very proud indeed to introduce a special 25-instrument limited-edition run of its King V guitar". Yes, Crack Guitars. I admit there is some evil side to me that likes those shark tooth inlays. The Seymour Duncan TB-4 bridge pickup screaming out metal hell-sounds. Floyd Rose™ bridges... with all those little adjustment knobs on them. Randy Rhoads died at the age of 25, in 1982, when the Beechcraft Bonanza he was in crashed into his tour bus. (They were trying to buzz the bus.. and the guy flying had done some coke... not the fizzy kind). But his guitars live on. Everyone remembers that Stevie Ray died in a helicopter, and Buddy Holly died in a Beechcraft Bonanza (stay away from Beechcraft Bonanza's). Rick Nelson died in a DC3 crash (not a Bonanza). But nobody remembers Randy... not really. So March 19th is Randy Rhaods day... if you read my blog, I will remind you...yeh... I'm putting it in my daily log now to remember... long live Randy.

Sale Starts President's Day, 5AM...

"NAMM Passes-Sleep with my wife!!--" (Actual Craig's LIst posting, just found). I also found a thread as a man who last year went as a woman, just to use a pass. Has this got out of control? Lot's of people talk about how the last day, sellers offer their items at radically reduced prices, so they don't have to ship stuff home... is that the reason for the NAMM™ show hype this year? Is it EVH and his private performance last year? Another thread mentions kids running around the aisles, tripping over guitars...this doesn't sound like Xanadu guys. I remember being offered passes out the wazoo two years ago... I could have had as many as I wanted... people couldn't give them away. Music industry friends lamented having to spend three days doing tedious business deals... of how there are lots of stalls selling Kazoo's and stuff that a guitar player would never even look at. I am sure there is a tambourine stall, where you can have your dog's photo silk screened onto them. How about the guy with the new invention... the 'Guitar Keeper'... that keeps your guitar leaning on the wall without falling over... (that one's my joke.. there is not a 'Guitar Keeper' as far as I know of)... but you get my drift...it is a mad rush of lemmings to get to Anaheim....doors open at 5am folks, and the furniture sale runs all day. Don't forget the coupons..... (I still want to go).

Frau Blucher ...

Does anyone remember their first car...motorcycle...? Remember the time you decided to do your own break job on your car, because you couldn't afford to go to the mechanic... and the breaks actually worked. You only found out afterwards that you shouldn't have used that wire brush to dust all that asbestos™ out of the calipers and into your lungs...well...it's time to take a guitar apart. Which one? They are all your babies... so which one do you do a Dr Frankenstein on? Come on... it's the only way we all learn. I actually thought about doing it the other day... but the first time you do it, there are always a few extra missing parts, and the first experiment is sort of a write-off... like when Frankie leaves the castle and goes to town looking for fun. Nobody is going to chase you with pitchforks though on this one... just take that Squire™ and a screwdriver and start takin' it apart... then you will actually know what goes where. That is how Eddie made his guitar... it might have been the other 2 'Frankenstrats' never made it back to the stage. So... my suggestion for the weekend... everyone off to the lab... (by the way, Frau Blucher is in 'Young Frankenstein'.... see it tonight).

"Heck Yeh!"

When am I a guitar player/ musician... officially? When I go into a store and look like a musician? But how about when someone asks if I'm a musician? What is the definition? George Harrison had said he never considered himself to be a great guitarist. At what dollar level are you a musician then... do you have to earn a living at it to be one? Obviously not. If someone had asked Muddy Waters at the time, who supposedly self-taught himself slide guitar in one year, if he was a musician... he probably would have said (as a kid)..."Heck yeh! You're lookin' at one". I am pretty sure at the time that he had made little or no money at it, at that point. So it all seems to be what you think you are, not what others think. George could think he was anything he wanted... because everyone still knew he was George Harrison. It's up to us to define ourselves... so go out today... even if you run a car wash... if you can do a great Van Halen version of the opening to Eruption... when asked... say "Heck yeh! You're lookin' at one".

Western Bar

Does bad equipment lead to a bad session? Would Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have played an out-of-tune upright piano with a broken middle-C in a Western bar if he couldn't find a better gig? Like most, I have owned and briefly played horrible equipment. The traveling 'guitar' that I got a couple years ago was one. If I was alone on a desert island with that 'guitar', I would have used it to dig a hole. It stayed in tune so poorly that it required retuning every 10 minutes. The fretboard felt like it was made of plastic instead of wood. I shall not go on... but did it effect my mental state? Was it a 'bummer'? Frankly...yes. We can all say to ourselves that Muddy Waters in his shack, in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1925 might have been playing a box with a stick for a neck, and only cat-gut for strings... but he wasn't playing a cheap guitar from China... that box of his must have had more mojo. I am sure Muddy didn't wait long to get himself a real guitar. So go get yourself a real guitar... with mojo. If I handed Muddy that traveling guitar, I am sure he would have made it travel.... out the window.