Guitar Talk

I went to the studio yesterday. It didn’t pan out the way I had anticipated. I had it in mind to re-record the acoustic guitar part. There’s buzz on the original track. It's a buzz only I can hear, but I thought I'd bring my guitar in and replace the Gibson J45. I learned that you can’t replace a Gibson J45. I have a nice guitar, but it didn’t record well. It sounded thin and lacked the depth I was looking for. I was disappointed with its performance.

            Sound is a funny thing. It’s no accident that Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan used Stratocasters. Some guitars are proven and I learned that the hard way yesterday. I’m still going to use the tracks. I’m going to combine the two and bury the cheap sounding guitar in the background. Nothing is ever wasted. 

Freaky Boy Pete

I went to the music store to buy new strings for my guitar. I’m going into the studio on Thursday and I wanted to record with new strings. Music stores make for interesting adventures. There’s the fantasy of buying whatever you want. Everybody has the same fantasy, but only a select few can do it.

I always walk straight for the Martin and Gibson acoustic guitars. There’s a special room for those. I walked in yesterday and there was an Asian kid that looked like Yoko Ono playing a scale real fast. It sounded like the Corinthian scale, or Dorian mode. He kept playing it over and over at lightening speed.

I picked a Martin D15 and the kid started to laugh. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me for picking up a guitar, or because I picked up a Martin. He got up and went into the next room. I started to play a Big Bill Broonzy tune. I could hear the kid playing the same scale over and over in the next room. Then he stopped playing and came back into the room I was in. He laughed as he entered. The kid was touched in some way. He swapped guitars and went back into the next room, and started playing the same scale. The kid thought he was a wizard, a metal genius, but he was limited to just one scale. 

            I stopped playing and started to wander around. I found an acoustic bass, and sat down and played it. The Wizard showed up and sat down next to me. He started in on his scale. I was fiddling on the bass and figured out the scale he was playing. I played along with him, but The Wizard was offended by my entry into his domain. He played the scale faster and faster. I kept up with him until The Wizard couldn’t go any faster. He had hit the speed wall. He seemed confounded by this, and at last out of frustration, he stopped playing altogether. The Wizards powers had been naturalized. The Wizard had been defeated.    

The Great Recession

I heard the hum of the freeway in the distance this morning. It was a strong hum. There were a lot of people trying to get to work. I haven’t heard it that strong in some years. I’d say the great recession is over. Who needs economists, prognosticators, experts, when you have the freeway as a barometer.

When the economy was bad, the vibrations coming from the freeway were weak. It was just a little swarm of bees in the morning. There was not much activity, or less than usual, I should say.

            When you live in Los Angeles if you sit and listen you’ll hear a freeway. I’ve been listening to freeways for years. It’s my job to listen. I noticed that when the economy went bad the freeway noise was reduced. Less people going to work, less cars, equals less noise. But today, this morning, the noise was back. The humming of the freeway was strong like a giant swarm of agitated killer bees just trying to make a buck.