Observations From The Blues Bar

I went to see Chuck, an old friend play the other night.  He plays bass for The Damon Fowler Band (http://www.damonfowler.com/), but he was playing with his own band that night.  Any time there are a bunch of people in one spot, there is always going to be a weird dynamic.  Here's my observations from my night at the blues bar.

#1.  Blues players make what's known as "The blues face."  You know how people make funny looking "O" faces or awful looking "duck faces?"  Well, blues players make "blues faces" when they play.

Well, it's not just for men, women can do it too.

In fact, they had a woman blues player up there, so I got to see the "female blues face" in action.

#2.  Danger!  White Man Dancing

With cheap beer comes great responsibility.  Seriously, you get enough beer in some of the older guys, the bad dancing will come out. 

 

 

It's not pretty folks.

 

#3.  Killer Karaoke. 

 

So this particular bar would have Karaoke in-between the band's sets.  Sometimes it was okay.  Sometimes it was awful.  Which leads me to #4.

 

#4.  Every rose has it's retarded singer.

 

So this guy decided to sing some Karaoke.  The problem was he sang with a retarded lisp.  I'm not hating on the retards.  But you know how a lot of them have a retarded lisp?  Well, this guy sang like that.  And he wasn't even retarded! 

 

And then there was this woman who sang one of my favorite songs, "I Hate Myself For Loving You," by Joan Jett.  All I could think was, I hate this woman for singing this song.  It was pretty bad.

 

#5.  Bad Requests.

 

This I could not make up.  The band was in-between songs talking about what they were going to play next.  Out of nowhere this chick comes up on stage and starts asking this blues band to play .......  wait for it.......  Staind. 

 

That's right.

 

The band that plays this:

 



 



Was asked to play this:

Yeah, don't ask me cause I don't know either.

#6.  No black people at the blues bar.

So I know that it's been said that white people stole the black man's music.  I know the blues started in the South with the black community, so why is it that there are no black people at the blues bar?  Something to think about.

#7.  Didn't he just play that?

Now remember, these guys are friends of mine.  And I'm not afraid to admit that they are much better players than myself.  That said, all these blues solos are starting to sound the same.  I mean, it takes real talent to play them, and the tone is great, but for some reason they all start to sound the same after a while.

#8.

To the heavily tattooed chick.

(Dramatization)

 

Please tell me about your relationship with your Father.



#9.  End of the night.

Please Lord, don't let these people drive home.  Please.

Guitar Project #7, The Rosewood Telecaster

So I'm back in the workshop.  As I am finishing up one Telecaster I am starting another.  I think it was more luck that determined my choice of wood than brains.  I inherited a huge piece of Rosewood.  It was big enough to make a Telecaster body out of it without having to glue pieces together.  It was a rare piece of wood that is the perfect size for a guitar body.

Back in 1968 (I believe) Fender made an all Rosewood Telecaster for The Beatles George Harrison.  He used that guitar on the last few Beatles' albums, as well as his solo album, All Things Must Pass.  It had a very distinctive sound to it.

So I knew that this would be the perfect project for me.  Here's a picture where I have just started the rough cutting.

I then laid out the cutting line for the neck pocket, pickups, and control cavity.  I put a few forester bit cuts in the cavities so the router bits could get started.

In this picture, you can see where I have used a mini-router/dremel to route out the cavities.  It may take longer, but I have better control over what I am doing, and where I am cutting.

Next is the view of the back of the guitar.

I am worried about a place right in the middle of the guitar.  If you look (side to side, middle) at the back, you can see what looks like a crack.  It's where the middle of the tree was.  It's a calcium deposit.  I will probably have to fill and glue it up.

I did a bit of sanding on the back, and boy, is this rosewood hard.  It's also heavy too.  I'm betting this guitar will have a weight balance similar to a Paul Reed Smith.  In other words, a very heavy body, but the overall balance will be nice.

More to come when work continues on it.

No Cover Songs, and Good Cocaine, Part 2

The original post: http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/04/no-cover-songs-and-good-cocaine.html

It has been one year, and three weeks since I thought about covering Dick Justice's ole time rag, "Good Cocaine."  Yesterday I finally performed it at Sacred Grounds Coffee House.  It's not that I've been lazy, I've just had other things to do.  Like work and stuff.

But a few things actually held me back.  First, the song was recorded in a tuning other than standard E, and then on top of that a kapo was used.  So, the first thing I had to do was find the correct chords, and put them in E standard.  Then, I had to change them around to fit my voice.  Let's be honest, I don't have the best vocal range.

I also had to update the lyrics a bit.  It's a bit of a blues tradition that every player will change the song up a bit. Like I had said earlier in my previous post, I wanted to change up the part that refers to certain groups as "monkeys."

Like any performer will tell you, generally the first time you play a song live it doesn't go that well.  Well, it couldn't have gone any better.  I played it as the first song right off the bat, and it just killed.  I wished I had of recorded it.  I was also very thankful I had a friend Josh playing percussion for me that night.  All in all it was a great night.

And I think I would be remiss if I didn't post Dick Justice's version here.  It is a funny video.