sparquelito

Printer ink cartridges. 😐

Here, I'll start with some of mine. This is the Gibson corner of my music room. Photo taken just a minute ago. 🙂

It's the thing about guitar web forums. Everybody wants to see photos of each others guitars. It's like guitar pornography. I can't explain it any better than that. 🫠

An engineer, a statistician, and a physicist are out hunting. They spot a buck, and each take turn to try and bag it. The physicist goes first. He pulls out his lab book and quickly calculates the trajectory of the bullet, assuming it is a perfect sphere in a vacuum. The bullet falls 20m short of the deer. The engineer goes second. He pulls out his engineering pad and book of projectile assumptions. After a few minutes he’s ready. He takes aim and he fires. The bullet lands 20m passed the deer. The statistician triumphantly leaps in the air shouting, “We got it!” 😃

🥰

In my first band (a garage band, I was in high school) we just tuned off of each other. The bass player was normally the most in tune, and he kept his bass regularly tuned to the piano in his mother's house. So he would strike a 12th fret octave on the top E string, and the lead guitar player and I would tune ourselves from there. Close enough for rock and roll, I guess. The lead guitar player, Curtis, would often sneer, "Tuning up is for pussies!!" 😬

Very much teal, and I love it. 😛

Nah, I'm good. If I took one of those pills, I would become a hazard to the household and the entire neighborhood. 😐

Every freaking morning I wake up with a steady pulse and a bit of a chub. That's the best day of the year. 😃

Well, the Wreck Of The Hesperus is gone. Fellow called, and drove over from 4 miles away. Easiest five dollars I never made. (I gave it to the guy. He seemed like a nice chap, and he was wearing a vintage MTV t-shirt, so I knew a fellow traveler when I met one.) 🫠

Oh yeah, that's right. Nice case! I love Hagstrom guitars. Always wanted a Metropolitan Spinster, but could never find one in the colour I sought. 😐

I sure do hope I get some legitimate replies, and not the usual scam callers. Such a nice guitar case I am offering for sale. Any professional guitarist would be lucky to score this item today! https://huntsville.craigslist.org/msg/d/madison-ibanez-hard-case/7662182785.html 😋

Does that case hold a 2015 Gibson Les Paul Less Plus, by any chance?? 🤔

Never heard of one before, but this fellow's description and technical information summaries are extremely detailed. He uses a LOT of vowels and consonants. https://reverb.com/item/53988069-gibson-les-paul-collectors-choice-cc-18a 🤔

I inherited this Buck 110 some time after my brother in law Sean passed away. His father (my father in law Jim) gave it to me after a year or two of hanging onto it. Sean carried it all the time, and in fact had it on him when he dropped dead from a heart attack. It's a 2005 model 110, or so I have been told. I need to hit the brass bits with some Brasso, I reckon. 😐

A very sad thing to wake up to this morning. Prayers to his family and the entire Parrothead Nation out there. 🥲

WOW. What a line-up. I would be most interested to see Tool, and how they will perform those complex songs live. No slight to the other legendary bands. Would love to see them too. 🙂

I have watched a few of them. Rick Nielsen (ridiculous number of guitars), Dweezil Zappa. A very fun video watching experience!! 🙂

Petey, my Rat Terrier, found a candy wrapper that my wife accidentally dropped. Sophie the Boxer looks on with interest. 🙂

And I want a maple fingerboard. So there's that. 🫠

So if I want a fretless Gibson Les Paul with f holes and a Floyd Rose, you're saying it's going to be a bit expensive? 😗

The Severalls Industrial Estate, Colchester, just off the A12. The middle of the night. *ring ring ring* *ring ring ring* John – (fumbling for the phone, and answering it) Hullo? Voice – Turn on the Scrambler, now. John – What? Oh, uh, wait just a moment. (unlocks a sliding panel beneath the side table, and flips a switch) Voice – Okay, I have a green light on my end, and you? John – I’m green here too. Who is this? Voice – It’s Carlos, at Gibson guitars. What in blazes is going on over at Peach Guitars, John? John – What do you mean, Carlos? Everything is shipshape and Bristol fashion here, mate. Voice – Well, some bloke has got ahold of one of the GoCu Custom Darkbacks, and he’s blabbing about it on the internet! Says he got it from your shop, of all places. John – I’m aware of that situation, and I have it under control. One of our newer employees got it in a few seasons ago on a trade, and didn’t know what he had his hands on. Before any of us knew of the thing, it was gone on a trade-in deal. The customer emailed us not long after that, and began asking questions. We held him off with the usual admonition that what he wanted to know was ‘Confidential’. Voice – You call that ‘under control’? That’s not good enough! Blast it all, man. This is a major foul-up! The GoCu Darkback sub-kiloton nuclear guitars were a limited run of covert weaponry that we built for the CIA, at top dollar, and under the strictest assurances of maximum secrecy. To have one in the hands of an unwitting civilian is unacceptable! John – It’s not my fault that the Americans lost control of some of their assets in Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. You know as well as I that seven of the original run of twenty-five have been spotted outside the theater of operations in the past few years. Voice – And this is the eighth then. So what are we going to do about this? John – You didn’t let me finish. I notified MI-5 directly we received the inquiry from the civilian, and they reported back a week later and said it was all handled. Voice – Handled, handled how? John – The same way the Double O agents handled the other Darkbacks that the Americans lost control of. They broke into the blokes’ flat in the dark of night, removed the 0.7 Kiloton ALNUKO pickups, remote trigger switch and wiring, and replaced it all with standard Gibson pickups and bits of kit. And as in the other seven cases, the unwitting owner was none the wiser. Voice – Except that this latest guitar owner is talking about it on the Gibson guitar forum now! John – I would say that that is your problem, mate. Not my lane. Voice – And what do I do if people ring us up with questions about these guitars? John – Do what you’ve always done. Play it loose and cagey, act ignorant, and if pressed, tell them that the information is confidential. Send them a free t-shirt. It’s what I do. Voice – Right. Okay then, Carlos out. John – Over and out, Bob’s your uncle and all that rot. *click* went the phone, and the security interface light turned red. John – Blast it. I’ll never get to sleep now. May as well get up and have some tea. John shuffled off to the kitchen, and behind the two-way looking glass, the KGB surveillance gear quietly continued to record the empty room. 🤔

There will always be interesting, thoughtful young songwriters crafting great new music. The problem is, given the state of today's 'popular' music scene, how are we ever going to get to hear it? What is sold and pushed out into today's market is by and large formulamatic, repetitive, mindless junk. Junk that features singing that is computer lilted, auto-tuned, and predictable. Particularly when it comes to pop-country music. To listen to ten or more minutes of pop-country music whilst riding around in your car is an invitation to lose your mind, and to lose all will to live. It always amazes me to perform and sing 'classic rock' and vintage country songs at any give event or show, and to witness young people, and I mean young people, singing along. Kids in their teens and twenties know every word to every Journey song, every Fleetwood Mac or Bad Company song, and every Hank Williams song. That should tell modern music producers and music marketing executives something. Kids would rather dig thru old album bins in search of vintage treasures than tune into their modern pop-hip-hop-rap-dance nonsense. So, back to my own question, how are we ever going to hear the really good new music? I guess the answer is right here. The internet. Word of mouth. Click-click-clickity-click. Shazaam. There it is. 🙂

I ordered both the latest Tears For Fears CD, The Tipping Point, and a much older solo record by Roland Orzabal, Tomcats Screaming Outside last year. Gave them both a good listen recently. Roland is a unique songwriter and musician. His solo work features left and right limits that are far outside the pop sensibilities of Tears For Fears. Good stuff, no matter what. Last year's Tears For Fears record was brilliant. And much of it could have easily sold and found airplay in 1992 or 1995. If you hate deeply personal, introspective, intelligent power-pop, please do not listen to either of these gems. 😗