rct

Take care and good luck Steve. rct

That was without a doubt the hardest, awfullest, absolute WORST 90 days of my life. I vaguely remember it. rct

Outstanding week or so in Yellowstone. Got snowed on the way out, the pass down to Dubois was bad, Mrs drove it like a pro. Overall a great elk rut week. Columbus is a great town. They have the Columbus Museum of Art, in which hangs one of only six(6) paintings in America by Artemisia Gentileschi(1593ish - 1656). I promised Mrs we would spend two nights here and get to that museum. We are spoiled by Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery down in DC, and the stuff up in New York and Boston on up to Salem MA, so we are schnobs about art. This museum is fabu, Mrs ecstatic to see Bathsheba. Great lunch there too. Columbus has the other reason we always stop in this town, Watershed Distillery. Their Noccino is made from Ohio black walnuts and puts anything we can get from Europe to shame. Finally had dinner there after all these stops and the food is just as creative as the drinking. If you are a Columbustanian you are indeed lucky to have these guys to feed you. Still high from dinner, head home tomorrow. rct

Sitting in Columbus OH tonight, on our way back to the great east coast after a week out in the woods. Rental car broke. If you are a Hertz member, call tomorrow and cancel your membership. Absolutely useless if you need anything at all. We'll manage as we always have, by ourselves, on our own, we'll handle it. rct

Sitting out a storm in Lincoln Nebraska, on our way to Yellowstone. rct

CRISTAL

lolz I love history. Leo wanted to make a new guitar, what became the Strat. He said "they really like the 2 pickups in a Telecaster, they are going to love the FOUR pickups in this one!" He was slowly doubling from Precision and Esquire to Tele to the next one. Funny guy. Cooler head, George, prevailed, and the Strat was a 3 pickup guitar. rct

Yup. This is why you are able to buy "vintage" guitars all checked up and stuff. That's how we did it. Except, it was the other way around. Get home a 4am and leave it in the car, you get up at the crack of dinner time, take it back for the next night*, lather, rinse, repeat. rct *9pm-2am, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Lived that schedule from about 15 to about 22 years old.

For my generation, from my area of white trash America, Japanese guitars were, and always will be, copies. They only made American company guitars in Japan and then other areas in the orient in order to knock the bottom out of the copy market over there, and no other reason. So it's a no for me. rct

I had a 2011 50th Anniversary 61 Reissue that had a neck like that. rct

I have. I don't. rct

Juicy. Sweet. rct

I've always been lucky to have Other Guitar Player sing it, or be the only guitar player in a band that does this song. The main figure can only be played by one guitar player, so having the other one sing it, like this band now, leaves me to play it just as apparently sloppy loaded as Paul was most of the time. Whatever you do, MURDER that friggin solo. They'll remember you forever if you do. rct

If you are a Strat/Tele/Les Paul player an Explorer will seem all neck, like a Firebird. I would take mine out and usually use it for only one set. Something about the body size and point at which it joins makes the neck seem about 4 feet long. Not a guitar I could play without looking for very long at all, so back to Tele or Strat I'd go. They have made somewhat shrunken versions, I remember one in the 80's that was a tad smaller all around. I don't know if that helped with the over neckedness of it or not. Good luck. Great guitars and a hoot to play. For a while. For me. rct

lolz I was not permitted into the paint shop at Fedner Mecca, regulations and such. So I had a coffee and a nice cheroot with a handful of painters at a picnic table out by the dock where they were putting pallets of Strats and Teles in trucks to be delivered all across this great land. I had a b0ner. They told some good stories, especially the two guys that did sunbursts, by hand, because that is the only way you can do them. What a great bunch of people, extremely dedicated to what they do, and not a one of them much more than a cowboy chord player. There was a tele on the picnic table that I was thinking about buying. It was fun. At the acoustic guitar Mecca in PA, we had beers and such with a guy named Chris IV and a few other craftspersons types. Them too, dedicated, all of them including Chris were much better guitar players than I, even though not a one of them could mash out even a decent version of Alright Now or Smoke On The Water. I would guess, with all my being and heart and guitar playerness that Gibson Incorporated LLC is chock full of the very same kind of people. I never made it to there and probably never will now, but I am sure it is much the same, a place that makes guitars and all of the warts that go along with making guitars. Perfect is the enemy of good. rct

That qualifies as an iconic nut and overspray job. rct

"...hang on fellas...no...no I think I got a bad cable in there somewhere...no just talk a minute or two..." lolz rct

Christ he plays the main figure like 7 different ways on the recording. The guy couldn't remember lunch, so what he did each time through was probably completely lost to him. Why do people insist on demonstrating how smart they are by taking something that needs ZERO analysis and then talk dumb about it? Just listen to it, do it with your band as well as you can. It's one of theee most fun songs to play ever, it doesn't need any more than that. rct

AND STAY OFF MINE

Nice write SparkDude! I agree with all of it. Except I don't think of that as a secret weapon. I think of it as a requirement. Like Kid, I'm ready to walk out the door right now to do whatever anyone wants to do in my admittedly small box of stuff. Be good at what you do, it is it's own reward. rct

The Firebird is a cheapo. The Tele Custom he used in Blind Faith, with the strat neck on it? Fedner is knocking that one off for a mere $11,999. I had a giant poster of God using that guitar. Always wanted one. rct

Yeah, I've use a few of them, the old Heil from the 70's was about the best sounding one. Modern ones haven't been so great, but I haven't fooled with one since 05 or so. No shame there brother, that's is some Fine The Girl is Fine. I get to do Rocky Mountain too much and Do You Feel not enough. rct

Dammit. Hate talk boxes, have never had any luck with them. I use a wah for them. Sucks. rct

Well said. rct

They do. The springs are even better now though. In pictures I have from them days, you can see the match stuck in there to hold it in place. By the time Fedner decided that quack was cool and everyone wanted it so they erroneously put in 5 way switches, quack was long over. We got bored with it fast, even Eric did. Once the 3 way was gone and you didn't have to break your guitar to get that sound it was just no fun any longer. I don't ever quack, haven't since back then. I do go from back to front and back, sometimes quickly. Never, well, rarely ever use the middle, I used to take them out. I also wire the bottom tone pot to both back and middle as it will help Mrs sell these highly modified guitars should she have to. I used to unwire the tone pots on all of my guitars, only volume. A real pain if you want to trade in a hurry. There, another free secret weapon or so. I also have vague memory of turning the jack plate upside down on strats, so it bulged out not caved in. That didn't last either, not that I ever did that in my vast pantheon of tonal secret weapons. Mentioned it for a friend. rct