I look at life a bit differently, and like to post my weird thoughts. I like musicial instrument repair and woodworking. For trying to live a somewhat normal life, a lot of weird things happen to me. Instead of putting up with it, I post about it in this blog.
Well, here we are again, it's my "Best of Blog Posts: Year in Review." It's my best blogs of 2018.
I've been writing this blog since April of 2008. Since 2011 I have been writing my "Year in Review: The Best Blog Posts of." When I started this blog I wanted to average one blog per week. Every year I have attained my goal. This year, including this post, I will have written 56 individual blog posts.
At the end of every year I make two lists for my "Best of" blog posts. The first one is the top five blog posts that I love. The second list is the most viewed blog posts.
First up are my favorites. This year will be a little different. I couldn't whittle this list down to five. So here are my top 6 personal favorite blog posts.
#6. The Ghost at Grandma's house.
There's a ghost haunting me at Grandma's house. So I go in search of him/her/it.
#1. Everything Will Kill You, And Other Things I Learned From A High School Play.
I know the play was meant to be anti-alcohol and anti-drug, but I really needed alcohol and drugs to get through watching the play. It was like a car crash. Except that a car crash can be entertaining.
So there you have. Another year, another great end of year list. In over ten years I have written 677 blog posts. It's hard to believe it's been that long. But hopefully I will be able to continue this blog for many years to come. Whether or not anyone keeps reading them, I'll keep writing them. Take care, and happy new year everyone.
It finally happened. I had a bad "New Guitar Day." It was bound to happen sometime in my lifetime. But some of this is on me. Let me start at the beginning.
As I was looking over the Rondo Music website, home of Agile Guitars, I saw a B-Stock guitar that was exactly what I was looking for. It was a Les Paul style guitar with P-90's. I didn't want the P-90's so much as I wanted the P-90 route. I was going to put mini-humbuckers in it.
It's easier to find a Les Paul style guitar with P-90's than mini-humbuckers. Since I was going to change pickups anyway, even if it had mini-humbuckers, I looked for the best deal I could find. Unfortunately, that came to bite me in the butt.
So this blue flamed, Les Paul styled guitar was actually marked down quite a bit in price. It was considered B-Stock due to some damage on the fingerboard. I thought, "Well, that's nothing. I'm sure to accidentally bang it around in the first week. It's going to have more dings than that in a short time."
So I bought it at a greatly discounted price due to the damage and finish imperfections. When I received the guitar I had so much going on I didn't actually play it. I took it out of the box, and put it on my workbench. I then went out of town for a few days. So I had it for a bit before even getting to mess around with it.
Once I played it I noticed the action was insanely high. I thought, "Well, it probably just came from South Korea, and no one has even looked at it. No matter." But matter it did. Usually when I start work on a guitar I do everything at once. This was no different.
I started with a fret dress. I then removed the P-90 pickups. I realized to fit the mini-humbuckers I would have to do a few modifications. Namely, I needed to cut holes in the route so that the pickup feet would fit.
Here is what it looked like after I cut the holes for the feet:
I also had to drill holes for the mini-humbucker pickup rings. (Note: not pictured.) That took a bit of time and effort as the rings just barely covered the hole.
After a lot of back and forth I managed to get the mini-humbuckers installed, I started to set the guitar up. That's when I noticed I was having problems with frets, 14, 15, and 16. I still had dead spots.
I couldn't figure out why that would be. That is, until I looked down the neck. It was then I discovered that where the neck met the body, the heel was kicked up. I was instantly furious. Not just at myself, but at Rondo Music for letting that guitar out of the factory.
For those who know me, know I worked as the repair department for Dean Guitars. At Dean we never would have let a guitar like that be sold, even as B-Stock. It should have been marked at X-Stock, stripped of it's parts, and the body destroyed.
I wrote Rondo Music since they don't have a publicly listed phone number. I told them I had modified the guitar, but since it shouldn't have been sold in the first place, could I return it? Frankly, I received a lot of attitude in the message back.
I wrote explaining that I was, in fact, a luthier who actually went to luthiery school, and apprenticed under a master luthier. I told them that guitar should have never left the factory. I'll admit, I told him that when I received the guitar, the strings were so high you could shoot arrows off of it. Of course, they had the action that high so it would make the 14th, 15th, and 16th frets playable.
What I received back was an E-mail critical of my skills. It also stated that they dealt with 50,000 guitars, and knew what they were doing. Also, if I had bought a Ford or Chevy, modified it, and tried to return it, would the dealer accept that return? He didn't think so. But he finished the e-mail saying, just return it, and they would see what they could do. He wasn't promising anything.
I'll admit, I was pretty hostile. The e-mail was written in a very nasty tone. So I went to work on the guitar. I took the mini-humbuckers out, and reinstalled the P-90's. It was then a thought occurred to me. If I sent it back, they would just try to set it up and then send it back to me. Well, since they did such a shitty job the first time, why would I trust them to do it a second?
So I set the guitar up to where it would be playable. That way, if they said, "Nothing was wrong with it," I would know they didn't even try. That, or they have some really lazy and incompetent people working there. So I set it up.
I raised the action on the high E (treble) side. I had both sides at 2/32nd's. That basically what I set a Floyd Rose equipped guitar to. That way, players can dive bomb or pull back as far as possible and it won't fret out. Would you know that just raising it that much cleared it enough so that all notes were playable? Again, I was furious at myself for not trying that earlier. I just got into too much of a hurry.
So now I had a dilemma. If I sent the guitar back, they would look at it, play it, and say there's nothing wrong with it except for the holes I drilled in it. They would then just send it back to me leaving me in the same place I was before.
So after consulting a friend I decided that I wouldn't return it. When it comes down to it I modified the guitar. After fret-dressing and setting the guitar up correctly there was nothing Rondo Music could do with it. I doubt I was going to get a refund, so why bother trying to return it?
So I wrote a very straight-forward e-mail saying, "After continuing work on it, I made the guitar playable. Since I had modified the guitar I understand I couldn't return the guitar for a refund." I left it at that. I also received a very simple return message that said, "Thanks for the update."
Now, I understand I should have looked the guitar over before I started work on it. I'm just so used to performing all my work at once. I've found there's not much I can't do, but I'm used to working on guitars that would pass a basic inspection.
What upsets me is the way the e-mails were worded. They came across as pretty nasty. I mean, I'm actually a returning customer. That's right. I bought an Agile guitar four years ago. I wrote a blog about it. Here it is:
So it's not like I've never dealt with Rondo Music before. I like my Root Beer colored Agile. I thought it was a better quality guitar than any of the comparable South Korean made Epiphone Les Paul's. But this blue 2500 fell far from the tree.
And the lousy thing is I put the P-90's back in it. I have been working myself back up to putting the mini-humbuckers back in it, but I just haven't had the motivation. In fact, I forgot to take photos of the guitar with the mini-humbuckers in it, hence, why none are posted on this blog.
Eventually I will get around to installing the mini-humbuckers. After I do that I'll post a blog reviewing them. The pickups I bought were a set of Alnico 2 mini-humbuckers by Artec.
Again, what upsets me about this guitar is the way I was treated, and that Rondo Music would let a guitar like that leave their factory. I have it playing alright, but it should be so much better. I'm also hoping that the kick up at the heel doesn't get worse with time. Right now, I'm not sure I will ever buy from Rondo Music again.
I really enjoy playing my Epiphone Les Paul Custom. I performed a lot of work on it to make it play this awesome. But I had a problem. (A white people problem.) I did not like the bridge pickup at all. So I made a few changes. Here's the list.
As I wrote in Part 1 of this blog post, I started with a Dean Mountain of Tone pickup in the bridge position. Basically it's Dean's version of Seymour Duncan's Custom 5 pickup. I hated the lack of mids in it. It just wasn't my sound.
What's funny is that I actually have a Seymour Duncan Custom 5 in my parts drawer. Since I really disliked how it sounded, I performed a magnet change on it. I learned about changing magnets from the Seymour Duncan Forum. It's been a great way to achieve new sounds from pickups.
For those who don't know the Custom series pickups are all the same wind with a different magnet.
So I changed the Alnico 5 magnet out for a ceramic. That way I would end up with the original design of the Custom pickup. It had a bit more mids, but I still didn't care for it. So back to the workbench.
Next, I changed the ceramic magnet for an Alnico 8 magnet. Now, Seymour Duncan doesn't actually make a "Custom 8" pickup, but that's what the folks on the Seymour Duncan forum call it. I tried it, but I still thought it was thin and just not that great.
I was aiming to change the Alnico 8 magnet for an Alnico 2 magnet. However, I saw and bought an interesting pickup off of Ebay. Anyone who knows me, knows I love bladed pickups. And on Ebay I saw a bladed pickup with a silver baseplate for only $19 plus free shipping. I thought, "I have to try this out."
So I tried it out. You know what? I loved it. The sound fell right between a Bill Lawrence (Wilde pickups) L-500-R and an L-500-L. And that's the sound that I have been looking for. For years I've used an L-500-R in the bridge. It is a very PAF meets bladed pickup sound. In other words, mid-scooped with lots of bite.
I've tried the L-500-L, and it's a bit compressed for my taste. The L-500-XL does metal really well, but I wouldn't use it for anything else. So this new pickup is what I have been looking for, for a long time.
You can find it listed as: Twin Blade High Output Bridge Output Humbucker Pickup Black Nickel Silver Baseplate. The seller is sanman8753.
So I thought, "Why stop there? Let's find a matching neck pickup." Well, the seller didn't have a matching neck pickup, so I searched for one. 95% of the bladed pickups were for the bridge position. However, I found one neck pickup that intrigued me. What got my attention was that it also had a silver baseplate. It was, however, a bit more expensive than the bridge pickup. It cost $38, but had free shipping. It still cost less than a GFS or equivalent pickup.
You can find it posted as: New Alnico V Twin Blade Rail Hot Humbucker Guitar Pickup Neck or Bridge - Black. The seller is: Allsoundstore.
If you will notice, the blades are a lot thicker on the neck pickup. I think this brought out a much thicker sound. It has a bit more mids than an L-500-R. I'd say the treble is about the same. The real difference is that the bass is huge on this pickup. I will say it had a lot more compression than the L-500-R.
I brought the treble side up to the strings where I normally do, but I had to lower the bass side since the bass was too overwhelming. After I did that it seemed to find it's sweet spot.
The good news, is that, the pickups blended well. I really dig the sounds I can get out of this guitar now. Surprisingly, I can achieve some really interesting and usable sounds using the tone controls. I didn't get to play it as much I would have liked today, but I am looking forward to playing it in the future.
Hell Bus. There was no other way to describe it. A bunch of self absorbed asshole 7th graders. When adults say, "When I was your age, we didn't dare do..." Well you know what? I did. All the way back in 1988-1989. We were juvenile. We were rude. We were borderline criminals.
I should start at the beginning, Sligh Jr. High. It was a 7th grade center only. If you've ever seen HBO's "Oz" or a prison documentary, Sligh was like that. Fights, weapons, drugs, gangs. I mean, I came in from a pleasant, caring, learning environment. This was now prison rules. I was not prepared.
The place was so bad the principal was fired halfway through the school year. That just didn't happen back then. Wait. I'm sorry. He "retired" halfway through the school year. Still, that just didn't happen.
I've since found out that 12-13 year old kids are the worst human beings on the planet. They are self absorbed and full of hormones. They hate adults, other kids, and most everything. They steal, curse, fight, gossip, and So you can imagine at the end of a long day when the kids finally break out from prison... I mean school. They go insane.
Here are the highlights. There was one girl Melissa who didn't want to be in school. She was a headbanging, cigarette smoking, white trash chick who made straight F's. I don't think she passed 7th grade, much less any of the others. She would fight who she wanted. Fuck who she wanted. And liked to sexual harass Cass, the one good kid on the bus.
Melissa had either developed early or been held back a few grades. Either way, she had a pretty good set of boobs. And she liked to shove those braless boobs right in Cass's face. I mean, really grab him by the back of the head and stuff them in his face.
I constantly had my pencils stolen on the bus by a kid named Richard. Back then, they liked to play this game where they tried to break a pencil with another pencil. Some of them got so good at it, they could crack a pencil in one or two tries. You can see how they ended up going through a bunch.
The one thing that we did, mind you, should never be allowed was throw wadded up paper balls out the window at other cars and people. Especially people with their windows rolled down.
I remember one time someone threw a paper ball out the window, and hit a jogger. He flagged down the bus, got on, and talked with the driver. He then asked if, "Anyone wanted to step outside? If anyone wanted to "dance" they should step outside." I had never heard that term before, but he actually challenged 7th graders to a fight. No one took him up on his offer.
I have to admit something even my parents didn't know. I must have gone through 10 times the amount of notebook paper that year than any other year in school. And yes, 90% of it went out the bus window.
I remember the time I really got in trouble. I threw a paper ball out the window, and it hit perfectly right on the windshield of a passing car. The driver flipped out, swerved, and almost hit the bus with his car. He flagged the bus and pulled it over.
So they were trying to figure out who did it. Well, mostly girls sat in the front of the bus. Most of the boys were in the back of the bus... wrestling.
No I'm not kidding. That day a whole bunch of them were in the back of the bus wrestling. The paper ball also came out the left side of the bus, so that narrowed it down. So there was just a few of us that it could be.
Eventually everyone finked on me so they wouldn't get in trouble. The bus driver called my house, and told my Dad what I had done. Yeah, I got in a bit of trouble for that one.
Some of the other great things we did back including singing filthy songs. The "2 Live Crew" had come out with their debut album back in 1986. They had a song called, and I'm not kidding about this, "We Want Some Pussy!"
What ended up happening is that the boys on the bus would yell/sing, "Hey, we want some pussy!" Then the girls would yell/sing/callback, "Hey, we want some D.I.C.K.!"
There was one time where everyone thought it would be great to outright scream in each other's ears. Sometimes you would sneak up on someone and yell. Other times a person would have you do it intentionally to see just how much direct screaming they could take.
And I really want to emphasize just how close and loud we were screaming in each other's ears. I'm talking about two inches away, and at loud as we could possibly scream.
One time everyone decided to play, "Bloods and Crips." They were waiting to get off at the main stop (not my stop) so they could have a mass fight/wrestling match. Yeah, I didn't get to see that one. I hear it was pretty intense. Luckily, they only did that the one time.
I, myself, can only remember getting into one fight on the bus. It was actually with a girl named Candance. She was repeatedly kicking me. So I punched her in the face a few times. Of course, you shouldn't hit a girl so I caught a lot of crap on that one, even if she was kicking me. Honestly, I never liked her.
As I write this it's 30 years after the fact. I can only imagine what I would read if I had kept a journal of that time. Actually, it would be like a Steven King novel. Seriously, when I describe Sligh Jr. High these days the first question I ask is, "Have you seen HBO's "Oz?" Yeah, it was that bad. The bus ride, less so. But not for our bus driver. We really made that a Hell Bus.
In the world of guitar pedals it seems it's all been done. When I first started playing I had ideas of what would make a great "new" sound. Then I would find out someone had created it years ago in the form of rack gear or guitar pedals. The best you can hope to find these days is a better quality/better sounding brand of guitar pedal. A brand that does one what you want better than another brand.
A few weeks ago I had an amazing experience. I was able to sit in a room with not one, but two women playing dueling singing crystal bowls. It was wonderful. Here is a YouTube video of one of the women, Dru Ann playing her set of bowls.
Here is Dru Ann and Ashley playing dual singing bowls. This is what I was able to experience for forty minutes. Make sure to turn up your volume to really hear/feel/experience the sounds of the singing bowls.
For those who don't know, a set of bowls look like this:
Here's a photo of them with lights in them. The lights correspond to a person's Chakras.
The two musicians, Dru Ann and Ashley, gifted me with sounds I had never heard before. What really surprised me was just how loud the singing bowls were. It was rather loud and intense. Since the ladies set their bowls facing across from each other the sound was split like a stereo (versus mono.) It also set up a dynamic rotary speaker type of effect.
As I was meditating/thinking/plotting, a thought came to me. I don't think a sound like this exists in the guitar world. If it did, you would need lots of pedals. But what if there were an all in one guitar pedal that could make this sound? What if there was a "Singing Bowl Guitar Pedal?" How would it be done? Well, I got to thinking about that.
First up, it would need to be a long pedal. One that would have a number of foot-stomping switches on it. Kind of like this:
The first switch would be a delay switch. In fact, now that I think about it, it could be a delay with a looper. At first the pedal would delay the signal, and then loop it four times.
Next in line would be a feedbacker with distortion. You could set the level of feedback, and the delay would carry the signal. I know distortion makes people think of metal, but this would be a subtle distortion. Just enough to fuzz up the signal. And now that I said fuzz, maybe a fuzz pedal would be a better choice than a distortion.
But what really sells this pedal is the next effect in line. Next would be a rotary speaker/tremolo effect. This is what would give you a dual/stereo type of sound. The rotary setting gives it that "heartbeat pulsing" effect that the singing bowls are known for.
So this is how the pedal would work. You would have a clean signal go into the pedal. The delay acts like a sustainer when the delay time is extended.
Next, the looper would have a setting for how many loops you would want it to perform. My first choice would be for the note to loop four times. But I think an option for it to loop between two and ten times would be usable. Of course, you could set your loops via a knob.
Next would be the feedbacker. The settings could range from subtle singing to intense Nirvana type feedback. The distortion or fuzz knob would change the setting from clean as glass to angry bees.
Next up would be the rotary speaker. Since all the other settings are controlling tone and distortion, I would have only two knobs for this pedal, speed and depth.
So now we can all start working on this pedal right? Except with all the technology built into one pedal it would probably have a store cost of $800. Mmm? Yeah, that's not really feasible is it? Now I know why they never built one.
Note: All names have been changed to protect the guilty. Any coincidence of living persons is completely intentional and hilarious.
A month ago I had a completely wild experience at my friend Candace's house. She had invited a bunch of her friends over for dinner and to hang around the outdoor fire pit. Candace told me, "I had to meet this friend of hers named Sofia. She was the female me." Well, how could I not meet the female me?
I got to talking to Sofia. She was a lot of fun. She was also half my age, but it didn't seem to matter. We were really getting along well. I can see why Candance wanted us to meet each other.
After dinner all of us ended up sitting around the campfire. Candace had a variety of drinks for everyone. Namely, red wine, mead, beer, whiskey, and cider. Now due to a number of medical conditions I can't drink alcohol, It was Coke Zero for me all the way.
There was this nice married lesbian couple there. Let's call them... Tegan and Sarah. So Tegan breaks out a vape pen. No big deal. I'm just glad it wasn't a cigarette. It was then that a saw Sofia take a drag off of it. That surprised me since she said she really hated cigarettes.
After taking one hit off of it she started coughing badly. It was a complete coughing fit. I asked her why she was taking a hit off of it if she hated tobacco so badly? Guess what? It wasn't tobacco. That's right. Cannabis is now legal in Florida. I hadn't even considered that it might come in a vape pen. But that's when the fun started.
You see, Sofia started tripping... hard. It was then that I learned some new terminology. Trip-Sitting. Here's the Urban Dictionary definition:
Trip Sitter. Noun. Someone who stays sober while another does some form of hallucinogen, in order to keep them from doing something crazy. I.E. Jump out a window or attempt suicide.
Honestly, so much happened so fast. Sofia had only drank half a hard cider. Seriously, about 6 ounces out of 12.
What we found out later is that, she had started taking Lexapro only four days beforehand.
She had mixed Lexapro with alcohol, a big no-no, and then took a hit of cannabis off a vape pen.
That's something you really don't want to do. This kicked off a bad trip and a hilarious series of events.
Okay it wasn't that bad of a trip. It was more like this.
The things that came out of Sofia's mouth were awful, laugh inducing, incoherent, violent, loving, and overall bizarre. Here are the highlights.
The first thing Sofia needed to do was find the ground. Now, normally the ground is underneath your feet, but she needed to be sure. So she laid out flat on her back directly on the lawn.
She also needed people to hold her hands at all times. So I knelt on the ground next to her holding her hand. That's when the barrage of insults started. Things like:
"I don't know you well enough to give a fuck about you."
I sang a line from a Bon Jovi song. I can't remember which one. That's when she told me, "I hope you never used that line on a girl." I told her it was a line from a Bon Jovi song. To which she replied, "I hate Bon Jovi!"
I also sang a line from another song. Again, I can't remember which. She said, "That song is terrible!"
"I'm going to punch you/kick you," was said about 100 times, easily.
"I'm never drinking again!" was also stated about 100 times.
She was having to work to keep her soul inside her body. It kept trying to escape. That's when Sarah (of the lovely lesbian couple) said, "The cannabis is opening your 3rd eye. You are being aware of the universe." So Sofia was working hard on keeping her soul inside her body. I mean, she was really concentrating hard on it.
Sofia's response to her 3rd eye opening was, "I don't want it open! Make it stop! Close it!!!"
Sofia said to me, "You remind me of my brother." (Then whispered) "I hate my brother."
Of course, she had to have two people hold her hands. I took one hand. Tegan (of the lovely, lesbian couple) took the other. Sofia was pretty adamant about us holding her hands. "Hold my hand! Don't let go! Don't leave me!"
More great one liners came out of her mouth such as, "My Mom smokes so much pot. She is totally going to make fun of me." (For not being able to handle her shit.)
It was then that Sofia kept grabbing lawn grass, sticks, dirt, leaves and whatever she could grab, and piled them on top of my hat.
As she was rubbing my face she just then noticed that I have a beard. "Oh! You have a beard!" To which I replied, "Yes, I've had one for a long time." (I mean, I didn't just instantly grow it in the last three minutes.)
She then proceeded to rub my face and beard for quite some time. I told her that "I didn't mind it. In fact, I rather liked it. Namely, since I was half-beagle on my Father's side."
Her response to that was only what I could call, "incoherent babbling."
While she was rubbing my face and beard she reached up and started running her fingers through my hair. She then started crying because, "My hair was so naturally beautiful without any product in it, and it was wasted on a guy!" Note: I do have beautiful hair. But to be honest, I did have some product in it. But Sofia didn't have to know.
For a while she really started to freak out. "I just want it to be over!" In all fairness, she had been tripping for about 2-3 hours at that point. It reminded me of the old time stoners telling newbies, "To just go with the trip. Don't try to fight it."
Talking about kitty cats really calmed her down. But then again, who doesn't love little kitty cats?
Every time she would make one of her threatening remarks I would just respond with, "This is a very intimate, spiritual experience we are sharing. I will remember this for as long as I live."
This of course was met with mixed reactions. I remember Sofia saying, "I hate you. No wait. I'm sorry. I don't want you to think I'm like this. But I hate you."
There was also a lot of, "Fuck you's!" thrown my way. After she had said that for about the 100th time, I said, "Okay, if you really insist..."
She responded, "No! That's not what I meant! I wouldn't have sex with you!" Being the utmost smartass that I am I had to ask, "Why not? I know where the clitoris is!" This, of course, was met with laughs from everyone. It did help that most everyone there was more than a bit inebriated.
Then things took a turn to the dark side. Sofia said, "I want a knife!" This confused/amused me, so I had to ask, "Why?" Sofia said, "I want to stab myself! Right there! (Points to her thigh.)
I had to put my foot down. "No! You're not getting a knife! You're not even getting a fork! You are only allowed a spork from now on."
Every now and then she would "come to," and say, "I don't want you to think I'm like this." Then she would go right back to tripping, and say, "But I do hate you."
Luckily, Sofia's bad trip only lasted a hair over three hours. (Sarcasm.) I could handle the insults. In fact, I found them laugh out loud funny. But my knees and ankles paid the price from kneeling on the ground for all those hours.
You know babysitters get paid well. I really think that I should have gotten some sort of cash payment out of trip-sitting. Although, in all fairness, I did get this kick ass blog post out of the experience. You can't put a price on that kind of experience.
Also, I know Candace was (maybe) trying to set Sofia and I up. It didn't work out that way. But hey, it was a fun evening none the less. Maybe next time around the fire, Sofia will stick to drinking ice water.
Today, as I write this blog post, it is December 8th, 2018. It's been exactly 14 years since Dimebag Darrell was murdered onstage. As a guitar player and a fan of heavy metal music in general, Dimebag was my greatest influence and my favorite musician. He's the reason I love Dean Guitars and Bill Lawrence pickups.
Every story has a beginning, and this is mine. If you've ever seen the Pantera home videos, (I had mine on VHS,) there was a scene in the first video where Phil Anselmo talks about Pantera being a word of mouth band. For me, that was exactly how I discovered Pantera.
Pantera didn't get played on the radio. You heard about them from a friend. All my heavy metal friends were talking about this kick ass band from Texas that had a totally original metal sound. They were heavy without sounding like static noise. They had strong vocals that spoke to exactly how I was feeling. I could tell this was a band that was going to take heavy metal in a direction never taken before.
At the time Pantera's album, "Vulgar Display of Power," had just been released. I was watching MTV's "Headbanger's Ball" when their video for, "Walk" comes on. I had never seen that level of intensity at a concert. At that point in my life I had only been to a Beach Boys concert. Being hardcore at a Beach Boys concert meant you stood up in your seat.
But this was unlike anything I had seen. I'd seen "The Pit." I'd seen "Stagediving." But I had never seen people being passed around while a pit was hardcore raging. Fans were diving off the stage, and the band encouraged it. Again, I had never seen such an intensity like that.
One day my headbanger friends tell me that Pantera is coming to town. They are going to be playing the USF Special Events Center in Tampa. I said, "That' great! I'm just around the corner from USF!" And I really was. I was barely two miles from there. So we all bought tickets and my friend Darren said he would drive us there.
When the day came, Dec. 1st, 1992 I could barely sit though school. I was 16 at the time, and this would be my second major concert ever. (Yes, right behind the Beach Boys.) Luckily my friends had been paying attention to the radio. It seems that the show had been moved to downtown Ybor City at the Ritz.
The show said, "Doors open at 7 PM." I had taken the bus home, and of course, I was the last stop on the bus route. I had barely made it home before 4 PM when I hear a knock at the door. It was all my headbanger friends. I asked what they were doing there so early? They said they wanted to get to the show early to have a chance to meet some of the members of the band. I said, "Come on? What are the chances of that?"
So we left, and were in Downtown Ybor City hours before showtime. We decided to walk up and down 7th Avenue. It seemed the show was going to be started even later because they had to set up all the gear later than usual. Again, moving the show from USF to the Ritz messed with their schedule.
So we were hanging outside the Ritz near the tour buses when some folks walked out. One of the guys was walking towards the backdoor of the Ritz. It was then my friend Randy yelled out, "Yo J.!!!" The guy turned around, and yelled back, "Hey!." It turned out he was the guitar player for the band who was going to open up for Pantera. A little band called, "White Zombie." I had seen their video for one of their songs on Headbanger's Ball." As I remembered back then it was ….."Thunder … something."
Of course, that song would end up flying up the charts once it made it to "Beavis and Butthead." That song was "Thunderkiss 65'." The guitar player was named J." Randy had seen his name in the advertisement of our local rock magazine. J. was cool. He waved back at us as he entered the building.
As we turned the corner we walked right by the tour buses. It was then this cute chick who was barely five foot tall and maybe 80 pounds walked out. I said, "Hi," and kept walking. I later found out as I was watching the show that she was the White Zombie bass player. You might have heard of her, Sean Yseult.
If you ever watch any White Zombie video you will notice how every bass she plays looks huge. It turns out the basses are normal sized. She is just that tiny. She was also amazingly pretty with huge blonde (at that time) curly hair.
So our headbanger group continued down 7th Avenue. We walked into this independent used CD/Tape/Record store. And who should be there but 3/4 of Pantera! Phil, Darrell, and Rex were hanging out looking at the CD's. (I later found out that Vinnie Paul was giving an interview with 98 Rock at that time. He was live on the radio telling fans to come to the Ritz.)
My friends approached Darrell, and he welcomed us like we were family. I talked to him about seeing Pantera on Headbanger's Ball, and that level of intensity in the pit kind of scared. me. He was all like, "Naw man! You gotta get in the pit!" My friends had better questions for him than I did. Again, we didn't have the internet at the time, so I didn't know much of his background. Again, I was also 16 years old at the time. What do I ask a mainstream musician who actually made it to MTV?
Again, I have to say he was so cool to us. He could have blown us off. He could have said he was busy. He could have said no questions. But he didn't. He was the nicest guy in the world to us. And all these years later it still means ever so much to me. It showed me just how important it is to treat fans. Because I've met a few rock stars that didn't treat me too well, and left me feeling disappointed I had met them in the first place.
After standing in line for a bit we finally get in. The show starts at 8 PM. I only knew the one song by White Zombie (Thunderkiss 65'.) Again, this was before "Beavis and Butthead" helped them become household names. Most of the crowd didn't know who they were and hadn't even heard "Thunderkiss 65'." But I thought they were musically different from anything I had ever seen before.
When Pantera came on it was exactly like the video for "Walk." People immediately jumped sideways and the entire place became a mosh pit. The one thing I'll never forget was how loud it was. I was wearing earplugs, and my eardrums still hurt the next day.
What amazed me was that Dimebag was the real deal. I stood in the back watching him play. There was no way anyone could fake that. I had never seen anyone play a guitar with that much talent, aggression, determination, and vigor. I didn't play guitar at the time, but I know that if I did I would be playing a Dean guitar.
Get this, the floors of the old Ritz were wooden. They had then thrown these old rubber mats over it. It was so loud that the floors were vibrating. And I don't mean just a little vibration. My feet were going numb because the floors were vibrating so hard. That's right, it was so loud the floors were vibrating like they were going to sprout wings and fly.
I also remember it being close to 50 degrees outside. Florida actually does get somewhat cold at night, especially in December. But there were so many bodies going crazy inside the Ritz it must have been 100 degrees. It was actually tough to breathe in there.
I actually went in the pit a few times, but I could only stand it about 30 seconds. Namely due to the lack of oxygen, heat, and linebacker type tackles I was taking. This was not a rookie mosh pit. This pit was for seasoned pros.
Now, I am kind of a big guy. There were a lot of folks "going up" and getting passed around place. I decided I was going to try it … once. At the time I was around 200 pounds. I went up, and they had trouble holding me up. I ended up being passed to the back. About eight guys ended up holding me at chest level. I yelled at them, "I'm too heavy! You can just set me down!" That when they laughed, and threw me forward.
I then started rolling forward over top of the crowd. I was rolling/spinning and gaining speed towards the front when I saw I was near the security gate at the front of the stage. It was at that point the crowd tried to throw me on stage. But let's be honest, I was too heavy. They ended up throwing me over the gate. I saw the security guards coming at me, and I just curled up in the fetal position.
They tackled me, and I assumed the worst. However, they saw I wasn't going to fight back, and they told me to crawl over to the side. So I crawled on my hands and knees to the left hand side. As I was crawling all the security guards were ready to tackle me in case I tried to jump on stage. However, I was happy that I made it as far as I did, and I wasn't about to give them any trouble.
So I made it out the side security gate at stage left. I found my friends and they hi-fived me for making it so far. I said it was awesome, and I never wanted to do that again.
Near the end of the show my friend Randy ended up getting hurt in the pit. He fell on his head. Yes, he was getting passed around and ended up being dropped on his head. He actually hurt his shoulder worse than his head. I helped him outside so he could sit in Darren's car. The next song that played was, "Cowboys From Hell."
Now you're probably wondering how I knew that if we weren't inside the Ritz. Remember what I said about the music being loud? Yeah, we could hear it just fine outside the club. I swear it must have been 160 decibels inside the Ritz.
Randy and I weren't exactly feeling great after expending all that energy inside a 100 degree club. We were now outside in the fresh air, which was great, but it was also 50 degrees outside. We were also soaked in our own sweat from head to toe. Luckily, we didn't have to wait long for Darren and Jim to join us.
We all ended up taking a breather while the parking lot emptied. Since I lived closest I ended up being dropped off first. It was around midnight when I got to sleep. In the morning I begged my Mom to let me skip school, but she wasn't hearing any of it. If I wanted to stay out all night I had to deal with the consequences. That being, getting my butt to school.
I was lucky enough to see Pantera two more times. I believe both were in 1994. The second time I saw them Biohazard opened. I knew all of Biohazard's songs so I was glad to see them. The third time I saw Pantera, Type O Negative opened. I knew their album, "Bloody Kisses" back and forth, so again, I was ecstatic to see them. Except for the fact we were late, and I only got to see their last two songs.
I missed seeing Pantera come through the Bay Area a fourth time. That time they had John Bush era Anthrax open for them. I still kick myself that I missed that show. I only heard about it the day of the show, and it was sold out by then. Little did I know that would be the last time Pantera would come through Tampa.
So now I sit here finishing up this post. I'll admit, I've been putting it off for years. It's a happy story, but with a sad ending. It's hard to believe that one of the greatest guitarist of all time was murdered on stage along with a number of his road crew.
I think of all the music that could have been. I imagine Dimebag like I would Mick Jagger. He would just keep playing music until he was 90 years old. He would never stop. But I am thankful for the music we do have. I'm also thankful for all the music he inspired in myself and others.
There is a mystery in the house. The mystery.... of pie! No I'm not talking about a woman's private parts. I'm actually taking about pie. You know, apple, cherry, chocolate, blueberry, pumpkin pie. Let me start at the beginning.
It was before Thanksgiving. I went out to the garage freezer to bring in some meat and frozen vegetables for dinner. That's when I saw this staring at me.
I came back inside and asked, "Why are there ten pies in the freezer?"
"It's for Thanksgiving!" I was told.
That set my mind in gear. Let's do the math. There are four of us for Thanksgiving. No one else has been invited. I am not supposed to eat pie due to the high amount of sugar. Now, I will have a piece here and there, but not a whole pie. And definitely not 2.5 pies.
I presented my case about having that much pie. I was told, "It's also for Christmas."
I thought, "Okay, I guess that makes some sort of sense?"
Over Thanksgiving five pies were cooked, so that made sense. That is until I looked in the freezer today.
There are now seven pies in the outside freezer, plus I found another pie in the house freezer. That means post-Thanksgiving, we are now at eight pies. Ten pies minus five pies does not equal eight pies!!!
I know a lot of you think that I am the dumbass. "Why are you complaining about pies, man? There are so many other things you could complain about."
Here's the problem. That many pies are taking up the space of other foods. Things like vegetables. Things I like such as chicken nuggets. Actually anything else for that matter. The freezer only contains a finite amount of space. If it's 1/4 full of pie that takes away from other things that could be sitting in its place.
I just think something like one pie per person would be a much better ratio. I think that would be the norm. But that's just me.
