Guitar Talk

[socks]

Ala, I figured. Welcome ye!

T-Bone, that's true. I gotta head out for the day but giving that some thought.

Very true!

Dan, I'll hunt around, not sure who might have that but it seems like there'd be a source somewhere.

Edited June 14, 2006 by socks

[ChasUFarley]

Yikes! Chas, if your husband is still pining for that guitar, here's a site you might want to show him concerning guitar selling scams on Ebay -

http://www.edromanguitars.com/rant/ebay.htm

which I came across just a little while ago.

In fact everyone here should perhaps read it, just to keep in mind when considering a major purchase on Ebay.

I've been very fortunate with Ebay so far, but apparently others haven't fared so well.

It's good to come across this info.

Danny

Thanks for the note, Danny. But Hubby has a.....

Snowball's chance in HELL of getting that axe. That thing is worth more than TWO of our cars put together (and those ain't WOW mobiles - just lots of miles, well maintained.)

By the way, Ed Roman RANTS about any guitar that doesn't come from his shop to begin with and if someone crosses the vintage line and buys one off eBay, etc., then ol' Ed really goes around the twist about it. Ed makes great guitars, from what I've read, but he's a snob about it. What Ed doesn't realize is that VINTAGE is now pretty much anything that's 20 years or more older. That means stuff made from 1986 and back are VINTAGE. Now, to me, 1986 wasn't THAT long ago...

We've made several eBay purchases and sold some stuff too. My bass was an eBay purchase and it's vintage. We look for sellers who

(a) show lots of pics - especially of the serial numbers, headstock, any place on the axe where there's dates, like at the bottom of the neck (Fenders), and the electronics, if any (We always research the numbers to make sure it gels - thanks to the internet there's lots of resources)

(b) sound intelligent in their listings - knowledgable of the history of the instrument

© have very good feedback and lots of it - I just wouldn't buy from a first-time eBayer

(d) PayPal verified (We are, too!)

(e) respond to emails with questions - even if we don't have a legit question, I still fire one off to see if anyone's home, if you know what I mean.

(f) live in the good ol' USA.

(g) have somewhat of a return policy

We've always had good experiences - you just gotta be smart about how to do biz. We recently bought - get this - a Porsche 924S - off eBay. Yeah, it's the poor man's Porsche, and it's a mechanic's dream, but it's not going to cost us a lot to get it on the road - less than $1K - and we got it for $600. Good deals can be found - I think it's how you look for them and WHEN you look for them. Just my $0.02...

Anywho... the boy is welcome to dream, but he's not pulling the trigger. We have no more room for these things and he's not playing out as much this summer, so he has no excuse for NEEDING something else.... (not to say he won't try.)

I gotta pick everyones brain here.

I'm looking for a sheet of pickguard material that has a faux turquoise (not tortoise) stone-grain appearance to it. Has anyone seen anything like that around in guitar shops/luthier supply places?

Perhaps such a thing doesn't exist yet (hard to imagine, though I haven't been able to find such a thing at the online luthier shops I've visited so far).

Danny

YES! There is such a thing:

Try this Google search for "Custom Pickguard Materials" - I think you'll find some interesting leads there. Hubby wanted one for his Ibanez RG-550. It's cream colored with a black pickguard. He recently dropped new pups in it - there's a Semour Duncan Hum-b, and something else - can't remember - but the pickguard is fugly.

Lemme know how you make out - maybe you're onto a new biz! :)

Edited June 14, 2006 by ChasUFarley

[TheInvisibleDan]

Chas,

Ed Roman likes to blow his own horn, to be sure. Personally, I find his prices a bit out of my range

(lol). Still an interesting "rant" on the various Ebay schemes.

As I said, I've had mostly good luck with Ebay so far. I gambled $200 on a new classical-electric guitar

and with a little tlc (better strings, truss rod adjustment) it's turned out to be quite a decent-sounding, playable instrument. The same with picking up the Theremin kit online.

Thank you so much for the links to the pickguard sites - and the additional Ebay advice.

Danny

[ChasUFarley]

I'm serious about the pickguard thing - if you end up making one and you're comfortable making another one, perhaps we can do some biz. The custom ones I've found that will fit an RG-550 are all way too expensive for what they do...

[T-Bone]

Chas, I looked at that custom pick guard website. This is a dumb question. Could you use Formica? I don't know if it would be any cheaper but might be a little more accessible...Of course, there is the chance your instrument will look like a Kitchen Counter top...Sometime remind me to tell you about the dream I had of an Hibachi Bass.

Edited June 15, 2006 by T-Bone

[ChasUFarley]

Chas, I looked at that custom pick guard website. This is a dumb question. Could you use Formica? I don't know if it would be any cheaper but might be a little more accessible...Of course, there is the chance your instrument will look like a Kitchen Counter top...Sometime remind me to tell you about the dream I had of an Hibachi Bass.

I have no clue about the formica - but it sounds cool....

A Hibachi Bass? That sounds cool! Next time that Bass World does a custom bass contest, where they give prizes to the best concept bass that readers come up with, I'll let you know. Guitar World did something like that not too long ago. The winning concept guitar was a Fender Strat design but had the body hallowed out and lava lamp features installed. Very strange. There were some really interesting submissions for that contest - impressive.

But do tell about the Hibachi Bass.... :blink: Enquiring minds, ya know....

[TheInvisibleDan]

I'm serious about the pickguard thing - if you end up making one and you're comfortable making another one, perhaps we can do some biz. The custom ones I've found that will fit an RG-550 are all way too expensive for what they do...

Chas,

I'll see how I fare on this part of my project here. I've never worked with pickguard material so this will be a learning experience. As I mentioned earlier, I was considering adding some pickguard material upon the wooden front control panel of my Theremin, to evoke the air of a it being an actual musical instrument (too often, the Theremin case designs I've seen oft resemble to my eyes either an obscure stereo component or a piece of furniture).

I just picked up a small router from Grizzly.com awhile back (along with a jigsaw and a dremel tool) so shaping and beveling the edges of whatever material I obtain should be no problem.

Danny

[T-Bone]

Chas, my dreams tend to be weird technical musings...I dreamed I saw a Hibachi Bass at a Garage Sale - it looked like a Rectangular Stienberger Bass and had an Hibachi Grill built in near where the volume controls would be. In the dream I was worrying how a bass player would play while grilling - realizing the only safe way was to play the bass laying on your back. And the smoke coming off the grill would be a good stage effect. :)

Edited June 15, 2006 by T-Bone

[ChasUFarley]

Chas, my dreams tend to be weird technical musings...I dreamed I saw a Hibachi Bass at a Garage Sale - it looked like a Rectangular Stienberger Bass and had an Hibachi Grill built in near where the volume controls would be. In the dream I was worrying how a bass player would play while grilling - realizing the only safe way was to play the bass laying on your back. And the smoke coming off the grill would be a good stage effect. :)

WOW!.... Got any more of that righteous leaf?

[T-Bone]

Totally self-induced - I'm afraid to say....Maybe I better not say anything about my other dream of the Blood and Drums Clinic... :blink:

[socks]

That means stuff made from 1986 and back are VINTAGE. Now, to me, 1986 wasn't THAT long ago...

I hear ya Chas. Doesn't seem that long ago though in some ways.

Hope to see what you come up with Dan! I've seen metal pickguards, which isn't even that exotic anymore. I suppose anything that was flat enough and cut to fit could be a pickguard. In'ersting project you've got going there.

[socks]

T-Bone, thinking about the British guitarists and the popularity of blues -

Clapton, of course.

Jeff Beck

Jimmy Page

Peter Green

Keith Richards

Alvin Lee

Must be more, lots more.

The guy in the Animals, Hilton Valentine, played some nice stuff on their first couple albums I remember. Think he played a Fender, a Strat. Very straightforward, solid stuff.

"British Blues" was definitely different coming out of that generation of players. Chuck Berry was an influence of course. Jimmy Reed. Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and the Kings - B.B., Albert and Freddie.

Stylistically I think Peter Green kicked tail playing. Saw him in a very early version of Fleetwood Mac at the Fillmore in San Francisco. He and the other guitarist were s#$t faced for their first set, and did some pretty xxx-rated lyrics. I don't remember all the details of the night but he played great, had a Gibson, a 335 I think it was.

One of the things Clapton added to the technique of the standard blues lines was the way he used the "blue note", the flatted 3rd. Where the American style of the Kings and others was to stretch it up or down around the major 3rd and typically end a phrase on the root or the 5th, Clapton's style grabbed it and pulled it right up to the major 3rd and added a wider smooth vibrato to it, and used it to end or connect phrases. It was noticable, more like Albert King than B.B. but not the same way Albert K. stretched it up.

So many of the earlier attempts at Berry's double-stop style were pretty - interesting though. Where Berry had that tone up and funky and full, a lot of the British guitarists had a thinner tone and it often sounded weired, to me. Like on the Kinks "You Really Got Me", that solo has a good tone but it's hard to figure out what he was trying to do with it. :) I think the energy spoke loudly though, even still.

And Jeff Beck, probably my favorite of them all for some of the stuff he did. He's still kickin' it. Onery.

He played in Oakland at a theater there a few years ago and the reviewer I read raved about it. Would love to see him again now. The review said there was no microphone onstage and Beck said nothing when he came out, or all night and beyond a wave now and then and at the end, he just played. And pretty well, from what the review said. :)

Edited June 16, 2006 by socks

[ChasUFarley]

And Jeff Beck, probably my favorite of them all for some of the stuff he did. He's still kickin' it. Onery.

Do you have the box set of his work - Beckology? It's worth getting.

When I met Hubby in 2000, I knew little about guitars - I paid very little attention to them. He told me he could play guitar, but I remember thinking, "Uh, yeah. Right..." I'd heard stuff like that before from men who thought I should just swoon when they said it. But Hubby wasn't kidding - the guy has chops. He's taught me a lot about guitar since then, and I've tried (a few times) to teach him more about the "mechanics" of music (especially sheet music - something most guitarists will cringe over!) - like sight reading.

At the same time, he turned me on to great guitarists like Beck, Page, and Harrison. Sure, I knew who they were, but didn't have an appreciation for their art. With Beck, since he's been recording since about the same time the earth cooled, I had no idea that he was in some of the groups and stuff that he was in. My favorite Beck song - it's "People Get Ready" - it's got an awesome feel to it, and no one has a better rock and roll voice than Rod Stewart. It's another great example of Brits getting the blues.

Chas, my dreams tend to be weird technical musings...I dreamed I saw a Hibachi Bass at a Garage Sale - it looked like a Rectangular Stienberger Bass and had an Hibachi Grill built in near where the volume controls would be. In the dream I was worrying how a bass player would play while grilling - realizing the only safe way was to play the bass laying on your back. And the smoke coming off the grill would be a good stage effect. :)

Reading your post makes me want to break out PhotoShop and see what I can do... This is just too weird to let it slip by...

Edited June 16, 2006 by ChasUFarley

[T-Bone]

ChasUFarley, I might have to get that Beckology. I've always liked his stuff - just never bought any of it on CD. Well, I did have some LPs a long time ago - but I haven't replaced everything - - yet...

Socks - thanks for the technical explanation of Clapton's technique...Clapton is still one of my favorite guitarists. Not being a guitarist - I can't explain my preference technically - it just seems his leads go somewhere. And they're very thoughtful and - - almost minimal - he puts in enough of what the lick needs. Whereas, to me Alvin Lee hit me as a blazingly fast show-off - at least in his early days - haven't kept up with him in a long time...Keith Richards is THE epitome of a rock guitarist! Very rough, dirty, bold, etc...Page is good but...It's funny there's a lot of groups that all I liked was their first album - like The first Led Zeppelin Album, first Jethro Tull, first James Gang. It's like something changed after the first album.

Edited June 16, 2006 by T-Bone

[socks]

I don't have Beckology Chas, but it sounds like the one to have. People Get Ready is a great tune, I agree.

Guitarists??? Sight READ???? Oh my. You're going down the road now Chas. It's a fact that many of the most accomplished guitarists in all genre's haven't read music or built their repertoire from the written note. Yet, the instrument lends itself to personal experimentation and learning. So waddya gonna do? Your husband's got the Stuff. What else is there? :)

I probably liked "Truth" the best of all the Beck albums, and it was the first. His playing just keeps getting better it seems, but I did like the combination of Stewart and Beck. I saw them too at the Fillmore, shortly after that first album and Rod Stewart was just getting out of that phase where he says he'd get off behind the amps when he was singing - he was out front for most of the vocals but he'd kind of drift off too sometimes. It was a good combination - Ron Woods was solid on bass, and Beck was off to the right, facing at an angle to Stewart, just ripping. He had a gold ring on his left hand he used for little slide parts, just slipping down a note here and there for effect. Very nice sound, Les Paul through a bunch of Marshalls. BLASTing.

T-Bone, yeah, that feel Clapton's got is immense. He really put down a mark with his vibrato, that way he moves the note. That articulation usually has a lot to do with identifying a player's sound. Some guitarists have a nervous fast sort of tweaky vibrato. Claption's is a signature sound, one of those that is now learned as part of the bag of styles every guitarist has to be able to play in the popular realms. It's also a good launching pad too for your own sound, a place to start.

And Harrison. George. The "Quiet" Beatle. Sort of the world's brother. It would be hard to leave him out, as he definitely had a range of styles he played, including blues. He never really settled on that style it seemed, and seemed to be one of the Great accompaniests. He served the music and the spirit of his band. I don't think a musical effort could ask for more than that. He always had lots of great little riffs and hearing the story told now he didn't write them all, but he played them, adding his own style to it. And he definitely sold a few Gretsch's for them over the years, I'm sure just by playing them.

Edited June 16, 2006 by socks

[Tom Strange]

ahhhhhh.... (that was a sigh).... am I the only one who has always wondered how the Yardbirds managed to bring all of those guys to "age"? Or was it that they already had "it" and the Yardbirds were just lucky enough to find them one after the other? Or do I just wonder these things because I'm an earth bound non player?

[socks]

Good question Tom. Two views of the band's history are contained

HERE AND HERE.

The one focuses some attention on Page's history and influences, but covers how each of the three- Claption, Beck and Page - came through the band. The second has an overall history.

At that time the music scene in England was pretty active, to say the least, with pop bands all over the place. These guys were less pop, and so filled a spot for "musicianship", on blues guitar styles.

I"ve got my preferences of course, and they're debatable. Beck would have been, to my mind, the most accomplished at that time. Clapton was certainly growing quickly, but if you've ever heard the version of "Stepping Out" he did with Clapton and the Powerhouse (with Steve Winwood singing and playing organ in that band, also doing an early version of Crossroads that's completely different than the later Cream version, much funkier) you'll get a feel for his development at that time. Page was never a favorite of mine, just a few things here and there.

While an instrumentalist enjoys the opportunity to improvise freely, it's also a breeding ground for snooze-fests. I think that's why some ensembles shine briefly but without challenges and change they'll tend to stagnate. These guys moved around a lot and in the process were challenged as they went. Clapton with John Mayall, definitely. Beck managed to keep his groove going in his own band, with Rod Steward fronting, and primarily doing structured songs with great solo's. Page went big-time with Zeppelin.

So while the Yardbirds were more pop-oriented, they offered some interesting opportunities for these guys to step up, make some dough and get seen by more people. It was definitely a good gig for them, It sounds like while it wasn't fully satisfying it had it's rewards. And as a result The YB's made it's own mark.

[socks]

Invisible Dan-if you do decide you're up for making pickguards, I've got a couple in mind too. Would be interested.

[ChasUFarley]

This is rare Mathman post:

================================================================

I saw Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana at the Tweeter Center in Marshfield, MA. (Used to be called Great Woods) in 1995. After Beck was done there was nothing left for poor ol' Carlos to play. Don't get me wrong - Carlos is great - but Beck had been to the moon and back. He did some of his old stuff off Truth, like "Freeway Jam" and lot of his "Guitar Shop" stuff. It was the most awesome display of rock guitar playing I've ever seen. It culminated with an instrumental, "People Get Ready" that was breathtaking. My number one guitar is a Strat Plus because that's what Beck plays.

Another great guitarist I got to see was Buddy Guy at Club Casino at Hampton Beach, NH. I was in the CocaCola Box because one of my former student's dad was an executive with the company. He had his Victoria amp with everything on 10, the way a 16 year old would set his amp. He played with tons of emotion and fire, and was right on the money. He's a great singer, too. Jimmy Vaughn opened for him and I don't even remember what he played, Buddy stole the show.

[ChasUFarley]

Socks --

Mathman saw your babies pictures on your link - I'd told him about your blue Dragonfly - georgous! But he wants to know if your Tele is a Custom Shop jobby?

Enquiring minds, once again...

[T-Bone]

Tonto and I saw Buddy Guy a few years ago in a small club venue - wow what a show. He was wearing yellow bib overalls, polka-dot guitar, had a wireless transmitter on his guitar and was walking around the tables...By far his best album imho is Damn Right, I've got the Blues.

[ChattyKathy]

A different string instrument than most of what this thread has had (I think). :)

Enjoy please:

A Tribute to Peador O'Donnell/Monkey Let The Hogs Out

The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn

Hide and Seek

[Tom Strange]

thank you my friend from the sock drawer for the links and your thoughts on the subject...

here's a couple of questions that invaded my brain because I've been watching public TV tonight...

1) Pete Townsend? Do you knowledgable folks consider him good? ...or is/was he just prolific?

2) John Denver? Not a rock guitarist, but sure does seem to put some nice music with some beautiful (though sometimes sappy) lyrics...

Just wondering...

P.S. Until the satellite went out (hooray rain at last!) I was watching the video from Clapton's Crossroads festival here (was it last year?)... which, if they ever have it here again, any or all of you are welcome to crash here if you want to attend... I hear it was very well received among the musical types...

[socks]

This is rare Mathman post:

================================================================

(Mathman, welcome! :)

I saw Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana at the Tweeter Center in Marshfield, MA. (Used to be called Great Woods) in 1995. After Beck was done there was nothing left for poor ol' Carlos to play. Don't get me wrong - Carlos is great - but Beck had been to the moon and back. He did some of his old stuff off Truth, like "Freeway Jam" and lot of his "Guitar Shop" stuff. It was the most awesome display of rock guitar playing I've ever seen. It culminated with an instrumental, "People Get Ready" that was breathtaking. My number one guitar is a Strat Plus because that's what Beck plays.

Another great guitarist I got to see was Buddy Guy at Club Casino at Hampton Beach, NH. I was in the CocaCola Box because one of my former student's dad was an executive with the company. He had his Victoria amp with everything on 10, the way a 16 year old would set his amp. He played with tons of emotion and fire, and was right on the money. He's a great singer, too. Jimmy Vaughn opened for him and I don't even remember what he played, Buddy stole the show.

Yow! Beck and Carlos! That would be firey. Beck and Santana would be sort of bookends I bet - Carlos is very expressive from what I've seen, whereas Beck is more contained and focused, like the music is flowing down to the fingers and out. I"d love to hear any of "Truth" today, must have been great!

Nice seats for that Buddy Guy concert. He's something, very much a Banner Bearer for the Blues.

[socks]

The Dragonfly is a pretty guitar, thanks Chas! Plays very much like a Strat, but is a little livelier, in the body.

The Tele's right out of the box, production line. It's a different design for Fender, has a slim contoured body making it a very comfortable hold, and a set neck. The pickups are Dimarzio's. There's a single/double coil tap on the tone control to switch between sounds. It doesn't have a stock Tele sound, although the stock Tele sound is more or less in it I've found if the tone knob is rolled off just a tad. But it pushed really nice, and the neck is very nice for my hands.

I really like it, in fact just changed out .010 rounds on it, which it really liked and put on a new set of .09 rounds.