Well well, we meet again. Here is this week’s dose of random thoughts & happenings from across the workbench… hope you enjoy! Happy Friday!
Variety is good. In possibly the oddest playlist of all time, I went from Jay Reatard’s Blood Vision album to Dean Martin’s Greatest Hits… to Oasis Unplugged. You know, the one where the pain in the ass singer showed up for the biggest filmed show in the States after a three-day bender and his guitarist brother, who wrote all the songs anyway, said “Uhh.. no way” and went out and sang the whole show himself? That one. He nailed it, too. With zero drama. And, really, sometimes that’s worth the bigger load to carry and a few uncomfortable moments. Strap it on and start the walk yourself, if that’s what the moment requires. I could have followed that with some reggae, or bhajans from India, but as it is it was quite the trifecta. Those first two alone – if that segue had been an earthquake, it would have swallowed a state. But the melody in all of these, the way the notes flow over the chordal movement, is all stunning to me no matter how it got dressed up or textured for its time and place. I hear it in everything if it’s there. That came to me through Neil Young – I heard Like a Hurricane and suddenly these became two separate moveable parts working together rather than just “This song.” The movement of the chords and the movement of something on top, be it voice or guitar. These were layers. It was a moment of enlightenment. I’ve heard it in everything since, and synesthesiated it into how I see life.
Random bit #2: It rained! Good pours, sprinkles for another day or two, and everything stayed moist for a bit. Not enough to take the designated survivor pieces of life out of their little lifeboats of crates and bags and put them back where they normally live, but enough to think about it. It would be different if it were family photos and stuff that normally sits aside anyway, but it’s a few templates and special bits, clipboards of order info, song folders and wills, favorite guitars in cases with GO on blue tape… stuff I reach for daily, not in their spots, instead in a crate; not just the bug-out bags and old pictures. I want to see August in the rear view and a few more inches on the rain gauge before I bring my alert level back a notch to normal. Which is already two notches higher than most, because it’s still way out way out here and we’re our own first responders. Temps have dropped too, thank goodness. The mornings have been beautiful. Summer is a test every year physically, but most of that is mental anyway and I love to sweat in the workshop. It feels so healthy. But it’s nice to really be comfortable too, and I do look forward to fall a little more every year!
In the workshops, quite a cool spectrum of instruments coming together at this moment – prototypes of extreme simplicity in the woodshop I won’t talk about until (and if) they turn out like I’m aiming for, and in assembly is one of the wildest Birdsongs ever – a symmetrical rainbow 27-piece body scroll-horn set-neck 6-string Bliss bass I really need to get back on. Sometimes there are days on end to carve little trim pieces of ebony, really one of my favorite things to do, but I had to pull away and throw myself at a handful of other builds parts came in for. With the last of that batch in final assembly (an epic 3-pickup Corto3 and a blackened Sparrow Special) I can go all-in on the Bliss. In finishing are two Fusions and a special-order custom-body aromatic cedar Sparrow, and a handful of super short scale necks for some upcoming builds. In sanding & routing are a few more basses & guitars. But there’s breathing time built into next month while I get going on the fall batch. More beauties to come! I think back to the first time I actually cut wood to build a guitar 25 years ago and can’t believe it turned into all of this. Small compared to bigger brands, but still so many so far and so long. What a trip.
AAAAND… Amidst all the goings-on of the past week, a package arrived. But it wasn’t just any package. It wasn’t the usual little box of back-ordered guitar parts, or even camping accessories, or the occasional painting from a former mafioso or ‘70s car magazine batch… it was hot sauce! But it wasn’t just any hot sauce; this was ROCK STAR hot sauce! And not just any rock star, but none other than Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda, bullseye-guitar-wielding co-axe-slinger of not just ANY band, but Twisted Sister. Yes, Twisted Sister. I have both – not just ONE, but BOTH - Cherry Habanero and Peach Carolina Reaper. Both are very fresh-fruit-first and then whammo! The peach is very hot while the cherry is more medium-hot – both are just outstanding. www.twistedhotsauce.com. OK that’s it for this week, not sure I’ll be back to an every-Friday blog here but one never knows what next week will bring. Stay tuned, and “Stay Hungry”, folks!
