Well howdy! Snuck one up on you on Thursday this week. So here it is – the weekly Friday official news page update blog, Thursday edition – because why wait ‘til the last minute?
Checked in online with the latest Juan Alderete reports – I remember him from Racer X and met him once with the Mars Volta. Good guy. Monster player. In January he had a bicycle accident and was in a coma, suffering traumatic brain injury. He’s back with the world, talking, walking with help, getting lots of therapy, and it looks like even posting simple things himself. So grateful to walk. So grateful for what is still possible and will get better given time. Bless him and his family and his caregivers. This is very inspiring to see. I know new normals are difficult; but for most of us, whose would we rather have? And how are we handling ours? I wish you the strength and grace of Juan Alderete.
Another hot week in the shop, I love it. I love getting sweaty and stinky and covered in sawdust, and when I’m spent, walking away down the sawdust covered trail from the workshops knowing there’s a piece of paper with a bunch of things now crossed off and a bunch of musical instruments a step or two further in their journey, along their path of change and transformation. I’m down 11 pounds and I’m kicking ass and taking names, feeling great. That doesn’t sound like much, but remember – I’m 5’3”, and a small guy. Another 5 to go – the hard ones. The first 10? Good southern summer workshop workouts and some discipline… those were my “Italian half” pounds – the discipline to not eat everything I want and not pack more on my plate until I was ready to explode, and think of that as “full” and normal every time. You Italians know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. These last five? These are going to be brutal. These are in the genes from every male on pops’ side… in some cases, OVER the jeans. Let’s just say I wrote a song in the shower last night called “Lord I Got The Jewbelly Blues.”
Well I’ve pep talked myself ‘til I’m blue in the face
Dropped 10 pounds and picked up the pace
But there’s still a belly I tell ya I’d like to lose…
Oh Lord - I’ve got the Jewbelly blues
(“Everybody sing it!”)
Yeah the Jewbelly blues - I got it bad!
A paunchy little Hebrew just like my dad…
OK, that’s quite enough. Oh stop it, it’s true and I can say it. It’s my Jewbelly and I can call it anything I want. Jewbelly, Jewbelly, Jewbelly. Trust me, it doesn’t mind; it’s been hanging around for years. So it’s going to be tough, but like anything else - if I take the steps, I get there. Or I at least get better than I was yesterday, which is always worth aiming for and helps the bigger stuff take care of itself. Steps.
Yes, we have stopped taking orders for a while. We need to catch up with some and parts supply needs to catch up with others. I know “years” is not unusual as far as the wait time for a boutique instrument from a known maker, but between you and me I just don’t LIKE quoting 13, 14 months… I could book out 2 years in a matter of months if I wanted, but just like a bigger company with a bunch of workers that could PROCESS that may more orders in a more reasonable time, that’s not what I want. That’s not the way I work best. It should be the vision of whoever is at the helm of Birdsong years from now when I’m just out in the woods singing back to the birds, to let it grow like it wants to – like it can and could very easily. But that’s not me, and that’s not now. I’m just going to work on orders we have and inventory builds for a while. I put more up - for now, the bodies in inventory are your chances to get in the que… or just hang tight for a bit. It will all happen when the time is the time. If you have ANY questions, you can always call me – 512.395.5126 is the number.
So, this week we’re going to talk “Main go-to tools.” Not shop tools like the router or that special spokeshave, though to me it’s much the same in that these are the tools of your craft that you pour yourself into your art by using… and there’s a relationship there beyond something like, say, a toaster. I mean the tools with strings, the ones you reach for. I don’t know what it’s like to be that player with one guitar that they do everything with. I think about it, I ponder it deeply, and I hope I am creating basses and guitars worthy of that potential for the player. Like, “THIS one you MARRY.” I love that concept, and I like it in other areas of life. But when it comes to tools of creative inspiration, I’m sort of somewhere between Gautama Buddha’s quest for enlightenment and Tommy Lee at a sorority kegger. Here are a few current voices and magic carpets I reach for:
1. Fender Coronado II, 1969 or so. My second of these – the first I got from a good friend but I just couldn’t make anything happen with it. It wasn’t mine. This one, specifically, is one of the greatest guitars I’ve ever owned. Think “A 335 for Tele players” and you’re spot on. Now, this one isn’t made any better than the other old Coronados and it’s no more stable. But it’s had the absolute hell played out of it and a soul of ananda put into it by layers of sweaty shared moments of magic in hands I’ll never know. It came from the Chicago area and inspires me every time I touch it. In my hands, it sings – so I’m one of the chosen ones along its path on through, and I’m very grateful.
2. The bass! Birdsong Especial Supremo, “Scott’s Bass” etc. We did a three piece batch of sister basses to it for the 15th Anniversary. I know most of you come here for the basses, but I only really have two. Functionally, really, if I were to go play a gig I AM a one bass guy. I mean, my bass quest was kinda over a long time ago and building versions of that became my life and who I am. So there’s no big bass collection and honestly, once I had the SD Curlee brand up and running, with these latest models… I sold my old ones. I’ll be building a new one of those for me at some point, but I have no interest in thumping on anything but a 31” scale out of this workshop. Ever. The main tool, the go-to bass, is this special Birdsong made from cypress from one of the many trees lost along the Blanco during the 2015 flood that tore through our town. I couldn’t fix the tragedy, but I could fix this little piece of it and help it be beautiful again.
3. A Frankenstein pawn shop Tele – “Ol’ 78” – this does not refer to its year, it refers to how much I paid for it. Yep, 78 bucks. I saw it hanging, saw the Strat neck on it with the sanded headstock, and knew it was some assembly of parts… which were well worth the number I saw on the SALE tag, which I casually looked at twice to be sure. Then I played it for about ten seconds. Good Lord. Somebody put DAYS into massaging these parts together and getting that neck SO right. This is one of those times where - by chance, by skill, probably both - the best in all the pieces all lines up and it transcends its components. Probably a Squier neck, I don’t care. Instantly, my thoughts went from “This is a great body for a Bruce Springsteen Tele build…” to “This is the greatest Tele I’ve ever had.” And it wasn’t mine yet. “Wanna plug that in?” “Naaah, I’ll just take it. Gonna swap pickups anyway.” Like hell. One of these rail jobs cost someone more than what I was paying. No guitar rings like this one did with those shitty old strings on it (all 5 of them) and won’t sing. I played it cool but I was on it and whipped out the cash so fast ol’ Benjamin got whiplash, and down the road I went. A bit of soldering and a dead middle pickup swapped, and this has a whole handful of its own twangy and funky voices. The tone knob turned out to be a push/pull tap on the bridge pickup. I did a ceremony for whoever had to let this go.
(The body leaning up against it is a D’Aquila Imperial guitar I’ve been working on now and then, from the same cypress as my bass. I have other sonic tools strung heavy and tuned down for electric jazzy stuff, and this will be a main solid body guitar for that. One day I’ll get it done. Your builds come first!)
AND… a bonus!
The most recent. Like a lot of you, I sell some stuff to buy others and lately it’s been a lot of selling two and buying one. I’ve let go of guitars I LOVED but that just weren’t bringing what I needed to the specific sounds I’m chasing now. And the quest takes priority over just having in most cases. When it comes to more expensive instruments, I go for the Ed Bolian approach. He’s a car guy, held the modern day Cannonball record for a time, and into high end Italian sports cars. His approach is to buy the cheapest/worst examples of the best cars, getting a great deal on something with perhaps intimidating issues but that he understands how to take care of, being familiar with the breed. Someday this will translate into a Gibson ES-175 and a first year 1978 Ibanez George Benson GB-10. I just can’t swing those yet. For now, this – from 1977. #3 on the bucket list. The strange Gibson Howard Roberts models of the ‘70s look to me like turn of the century art. It’s basically, for you jazz guys, a 175 with a floating pickup and an oval soundhole like a 19-teens Orville Gibson mandolin instead of F-holes. For years I couldn’t stop looking at them, until it finally became absolutely beautiful to me. I wanted the Ibanez “Lawsuit era” copy with their old script logo (I have a thing for Ibanez jazz guitars), with the Deco-licious L5-style tailpiece they put on them, and it had to be dark wine red. I was holding out for a full size humbucker, but Ed Bolian would have bought this one with the mini humbucker. It sounds really good. Lots of potential here. Will it stay? Will it fit in somewhere as a go-to tool? Is it the hollow body answer to the step-and-a-half down jazzy stuff I’m doing? Will the big goofy pickguard stay on it? Who knows. But it’s getting the TLC it needs and we’re going to dance, I can tell you that. We will have our dance.
What are yours? Which puts the next note right under the finger for you? Let me know and tell me their stories. And good luck with your steps this weekend and next week, whatever they are – may they be toward betterment, fueled by inspired vibrations, and make good ripples. I love you. Have a great weekend and give it a good soundtrack.
Listening to: Deep Purple Stormbringer; John Coltrane Live at The Village Vanguard; Vedic chanting; Ten Years After – Winterland 08/04/75; Grateful Dead Workingman’s Dead.