Live Stream I :: The(e) Speaking Canaries :: The Joy of Wine

So, I’ve been thinking about sharing cool and unusual music on the web (specifically on this website) in a cool and unusual way, and I want to give live streams a go. Just sitting and listening to an album the whole way through is a rare enough thing in the MP3 era anyway, so the primary goal is to get me to sit down and listen to something from start to finish. And just like I write this website for myself and if people want to read it then that’s cool too, doing a live stream of an album is an open invitation for anyone else to join in should they so desire.

Maybe we can get some kind of ‘internet music book club’ type vibe happening.

So without further ado, I’d like to cordially invite anyone who cares to my inaugural weirdo online listening party, the subject of which will be the amazing and supremely hip debut album by The(e) Speaking Canaries – The Joy of Wine. It will be held on this very website (I will have sort out a Ustream channel or something similar) at 10:30AM GMT, Saturday 22nd June 2013.

Guitar :: Cable Myths, Cable Facts

This is a post I would have been very interested in reading 18 months ago when I was putting together my current rig, and is a lesson in why ‘better’ is not always ‘best’.

The rig in question is built around a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp, with a Keeley TS808+, xotic BB Preamp, Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Cry Baby, and a fancy RJM switching system, because coming from 10 years of Mesa/Boogie Mark IV I just couldn’t deal with learning to tap dance. One of the big treats that I gave myself (other than a whole new rig) was an Evidence Audio Lyric HG cable, a solid-core, very high end, and very expensive cable. Buying a high end cable is an effort to maximise the tonal bandwidth between the guitar and the amplifier by minimising the loss of signal at this crucial stage in the chain. The Lyric HG is an incredible cable, and performs this task absolutely flawlessly. The difference between the Lyric and the merely very good Van Damme that it replaced is dramatic – and if that’s what you’re after then I cannot recommend the product highly enough.

In addition to the Lyric, the RJM Effect Gizmo has a buffered input, which means that anything past that jack isn’t going to lose any signal no matter how long the cable run – what goes in the front stays true into the front end of your amp, which is nice when you’ve got pedals racked up and not necessarily right next to the amplifier. So where’s the beef? A perfect reproduction of your guitar’s tone through the Lyric, and preserved into the front end by the buffer on the RJM…can’t complain, right?

This is where too good comes into the equation. There’s so much top coming off the Telecaster, and through the Lyric it isn’t going anywhere but into the front end of the pedalboard. With so much tonal bandwidth coming from the guitar, super-high-order overtones don’t get lost like they do with a merely mortal cable, and with some distortion chucked in the mix it adds a distinct metallic ‘squink’ on the top end. Yuck.

So this week I decided so mix some stuff up, and learned a very important lesson about ‘the best’, and how doing it ‘wrong’ is sometimes the right way to go. I stuck the Cry Baby out front, and used the standard input instead of the buffer. The tone – rounded out on the top, still really pronounced in the middle…a touch less bottom, but a serious step in a very tasty direction.

Of course, Stevie Ray Vaughan had the same idea, using Radio Shack guitar cables with his mega-bucks Dumbles, vintage Vibroverbs, and Marshalls. Of course, with a dark rig and humbuckers it might be a very different story, but if you’re in the Telecaster business, you might be well advised to save your cash – and improve your tone.

New Music :: Upsilon Acrux and More

Upsilon Acrux are that rarest of birds – a band that I have discovered for the first time that is awesome and hasn’t already broken up. The band has gone through a ton of lineup changes, but, like their music, they haven’t exactly been the predictable (‘bassist leaves band and gets replaced’) type, instead recording each album as an almost entirely new group. The only consistent member is Paul Lai, one of the guitar players, while the rest of the band has been made up variously of (multiple, simultaneous) drummers, horns, bass, rhodes, and synthesizers. The track above (In-A-Gadda-Devito) is a little bit too twiddly/tappy/mathy for my taste, but serves as a good intro. The best combo of this more accessible style and their noisier stuff is Farbenklan Seven on their second album In the Acrux of the Upsilon King.

Just like Don Caballero was a beachhead for my trip into the Pittsburgh-centric 90s Math Rock scene – which yielded such great discoveries as Breadwinner, Knot Feeder, and what has become one of my all time favourite bands: the(e) Speaking Canaries – Upsilon Acrux is becoming something of a springboard into a modern-day LA freak scene (oh, it’s a scene, man), as well as unearthing some interesting influences from way back when.

My latest finds on this journey:

Realization Orchestra

Goblin

For a special bonus, here’s Upsilon’s excellent version of the above track, retitled ‘Night of the Goblin’:

And for an even more special bonus, Cheval de Frise is the perfect band to relax your mind after a journey into dissonance and odd-times. Not Upsilon related specifically, but if that’s the poison, this is the remedy.

For Sale :: Renault Sport Clio 172

For sale, and not a guitar or amplifier. It is with reluctance (we are moving to London) that I am selling my Renaultsport Clio 172. Details below, please get in touch via Autotrader. Car is located in Sussex.

Renaultsport Clio 172, black, great condition, and incredibly low mileage. MOT until June 2013, tax until October. Fully equipped from the factory: air conditioning, climate control, automatic xenon headlights, automatic windscreen wipers, traction control, CD player with steering wheel controls, electric windows, electric door mirrors, alarm, remote central locking with two keys, alloy wheels. Cambelt replaced (with receipt). Very nice example of a great little car, fantastic condition inside and out, and with incredibly low milage. Move to London forces sale. £2,650

Prince :: Let’s Go Crazy [REBOOT]

Prince, who totally gets the internet, pushed out a bootleg-sounding, dirty, filthy, bluesy reimagining of Let’s Go Crazy on Vimeo today.

Note-for-note rehashes of decades-old classics are boring for the brain-equipped audience and for the brain-equipped performer.

Relentlessly sleazy, garagey recasts of decades-old classics are awesome.

Bandtastic :: Cougar in the Workplace

(2007 – 2009)
Cougar in the Workplace was an instrumental band from Boston, MA. Mike, Andrew, Gray, and Carson played music to scumbag out to with your friends.

I found Cougar in the Workpace on a Last.fm related-artists binge a couple of months ago (I think it started with Piglet, see below), which is still the best way I’ve found to get into a scene, man. (This scene happens to be ‘short-lived somewhat-mathy, somewhat-post-rocky, not very popular high-school-age bands from about 5 years ago’.) Anyway, this morning I happened across their YouTube account, which has some shaky cameraphone footage of a bar gig they played in 2009 and appears to confirm my diagnosis: bandtastic.

Dig that Telecaster with the mini-humbucker in the neck.

Jamming ::

I went for a jam this evening for the first time in I truly, honestly cannot remember how long. We occasionally played the Doors, or Miles Davis, or the Rolling Stones, or Rage Against the Machine or others, but mostly just noodled, picked up a groove, and ran with it. It’s pretty crazy how much fun you can have playing the same chord for a quarter of an hour. It is to my great shame that I have neglected to play music with others since leaving college…and it’s something that needs to be redressed.

[Gear wise, the BFDR and TS808 get exponentially richer and more touch sensitive with higher volume. Two dirt pedals, Fender amp, Telecaster…the simple rig is pulling me back in! (Albeit a simple rig with MIDI switching and conditioned power.)]

Recording :: MESA/Boogie Mark I

For the last six weeks or so, I’ve been sucked in by the convenience of amp modelling. Being able to plug and play on headphones at any time of day is very appealing when you can’t always find the time to set up a rig, or aren’t able to do so at a neighbourhood-friendly hour!

Anyway, earlier this week I decided to set up a ‘weekend rig’ (a ‘Sunday sports car’-type arrangement), and I’ve spent a very pleasant, very lazy afternoon doing some recording. Nothing particularly inspiring music-wise, unfortunately, but I was for the umpteenth time blown away by my Mark I Boogie. This thing records so effortlessly. Seriously, all you have to do is stick a mic in front of it, and that classic, super-thick tone is just there straight away.

Even though the music-assembly wasn’t going so well, I did bounce out a very little sample of the Mark I, which you can hear on Soundcloud. Great fun!

(Telecaster -> Keeley TS808 -> Mark I MESA/Boogie 15″ -> AKG C1000S -> Logic Pro)

Guitar :: Fixing the Telecaster Jack

For me, the Telecaster might just be the best designed anything, ever – the two-pickup configuration, the slab body, inline-6 tuners on the headstock, three-way switch, and a pair of pots on the control plate have remained constant for more than six decades. It’s simple, it’s functional, and it’s beautiful, and that ticks all of the boxes I care about when it comes to products that I want to use every day. The Stratocaster comes close, but it’s just too fancy; as an instrument and as a product, the Tele is number one. With that in mind, I present the following alterations to the Telecaster not necessarily as ‘improvements’, but as ‘customisations’ that make a great instrument – for me, at least – better.

The Jack Solution

A problem I’ve found with the Telecaster is the loosening over time of the jack socket, probably one of the most annoying things that can happen to your guitar. This started happening to my white Tele a few years ago, and is an issue which has more recently afflicted my butterscotch US deluxe – as an aside, the fit and finish on the US deluxe instruments is clearly superior, in my experience, to the US standard, so I was a bit surprised to see it succumb to the loose jack problem.

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Gear :: New Rig Build

And so, the result of many weeks of research and furious eBay selling has arrived in the form of my new rig. Having played master volume Mesa/Boogie amps for the past decade, I’ve never really explored the world of pedals and single-channel amps. Well, that all began to change a little earlier this year, when I purchased the Xotic Effects BB Preamp. Hooking the BB between a Telecaster and my (recently departed) silverface Princeton was a simple, dynamic, and totally badass little rig; pure rock n roll. After a couple of months with that rig, it dawned on me that single-channel + pedals might just be the ticket. I set about designing such a setup, and selling my collection of amps, pedals, and guitars to raise some funds.

Well, five amps, four pedals, two guitars and a drum kit later, my new rig is here. And yes, it rocks.

My aim for this rig has been to get away from the more hi-fi, boutique-y tones I’ve had in the past, and to capture some rock ‘n’ roll grit – AC/DC, Led Zep, Neil Young, SRV – ‘authentic’ guitar tones. The Boogie amps I’ve used in the past are really, really amazing sounding if you play a Strat, or something with humbuckers…with the Telecaster, though, there’s always been something missing. This rig is totally designed for the Tele, switching hi-fi sterility for something a bit more loose and rocking, much more suited to my axe of choice.

Of course, I took a ton of pictures during the build, and there’s a big gallery below. There’s room for another couple of pedals in the rack, and I look forward to experimenting further (the excellent Rothwell Love Squeeze compressor has already taken a turn in front, and is headed for eBay).

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