scottb

I recently assumed the personna of "Louisiana Shorty" to perform a couple blues tunes at an office party recently. Probably more than half the people in attendance didn't know it was me until told later.

I would go right to IN STEP which was his last and IMHO his best. This was after he cleaned up.

Listening never hurt anyone but when Randy starts asking you to dress like the indian, you'd better run like mad!

Powerful is right on several accounts. His hand strength is ridiculous! How he could bend like that with those heavy strings is mindblowing to me. (.013, .015, .019 (plain), .028, .038, and .058!) GHS Nickel Rockers by the way. A string I was ridiculed here for using. I always liked their tone straight out of the box, not as bright as other brands. Maybe why he liked them as well as he changed strings every night on every guitar.

Satin Doll...No Satan's Doll... HELL YEAH!

That looks pretty nice. What kind of tuners does it have? How is it broken? I've got some spare parts lying aroung and something might work. I've even got two whole sets of tuners out of Squier guitars that I could send you to replace the whole set. I also have a bunch of humbuckers lying around I could send you as well if you wanted to reinstall a humbucker. 2 chrome Epiphones, 2 chrome Mighty Mites, 2 black Mighty mites and chrome humbuckers that came out of my Tele (which I couldn't send you in good conscience - they SUCK!)

I made a custom pearloid pickguard with standard humbucker routings to allow more versatility in future pickup selection. I also changed the controls to a one volume, one tone knob setup and relocated the pickup selector switch to the bottom just for personal preference. I installed GFS P90 pickups with pearl covers and replaced the witch hat knobs with pearl topped chrome dome knobs. Replaced the factory tuners with some Grover minis. A few string height adjustments, set the intonation, changed the strings and presto! (Anyone looking to replace pickups should check out GFS. Very good and much cheaper than comparable pickups from the big boys.) This guitar looks great, plays nicely, stays in tune and I'm getting a vintage strat sound from the neck pickup and a great tele twang from the bridge. Mission accomplished.

Welcome to the next installment of Pimp My Axe, where I take cheap, ugly, bad playing, foul sounding guitars and transform them before your very eyes into beautiful looking, sounding and playing instruments. This subject of today's episode is a Squier Telecaster Custom. Of the Squier guitars, this is one model you shouldn't have to hide your face while playing. Reviewers have praised it for its feel and tone. Complaints have been predictable, pickups not so good and tuners may or may keep it in tune. I would like to add that in black it is just plain ugly. Another Darth Vader guitar if you will. (I borrow that phrase, which I quite like, from a board member who commented on my black Cort) Anyway, here's the before story. My guitar, purchased on ebay, did sound bad and I suspect the prior owner replaced the pickups with even worse one's when he sold it to me. The pickguard was scuffed, an apparent attempted to polish out a scratch. String bending by any self respecting Buddy Guy disciple sent this thing 1/2 step flat.

I'm selling some guitar pickups on Ebay and got a request about shipping them to Germany. Other than shippng costs, are there other fees involved ie customs, tarriffs, mafia payoffs, governmental bribery?

Someone actually responded to that video by commenting that the robot really nailed Coltrane's tone!

Two quick thoughts 1 Someone was a big mingus fan. 2 On the Corner?

I guess since so many of you are disgusted by even the thought of salted watermelon (I'm almost certain most of you have never tried it) there's no use for a thread about BOILED peanuts. (that's a Jimmy Carter smile)

My wife salts hers. I think its OK with salt but prefer to leave it alone. A more important question in my watermelon experience is: Seedless watermelons ie genetic mutants vs the natural melon as God intented. My wife has been getting the seedless variety lately. (I can only assume it has something to do with the kids.) I have yet to find a seedless watermelon with a flavor worth eating more than a small piece extracted from the exact middle of the melon. There's nothing quite like a real good melon that is so flavorful you can't help but keep eating until you're literally sick and can't make the car ride home without a mason jar.

Stew Mac has the good stuff. Professional quality finishes and clear coat. I actually use auto body paint from a spray can! It a cheap alternative and the results are pretty good. There's a guy who sells ebooks on how to finish guitars (which is where I learned a lot of the important details on getting a quality result) and he uses Krylon spray cans. Check out his and his customer's results HERE

Before I really got into jazz I listened to a lot of blues. Basically I got tired of listening to trite lyrics waiting for a guitar / harmonica solo. Lately I've been listening to more blues since I made a compilation disc for a blues themed party at work. (I also performed a blues number written about a coworker which was a big hit with the staff) Since I've been out of the scene lately, are their any new blues acts that I MUST hear? I guess my favorite modern blues group was Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets. I love that Texas guitar, Chicago harp combo. (RIP Sam Myers)

This signature above is consistent with the others on ebay currently while yours looks a little different. Certainly after millions of autographs it could have evolved. It would probably take an expert to determine if it's consistent with other signatures from that time.

This seems odd to me. When I try to track my shipment, the last entry is departing Sacremento on 7-29. Is the truck lost somewhere? Abducted by aliens? Hijacked by ninjas? Frankly, I'm worried

Just got confirmation of shipping. Actually got an email from concord then an email from FedEx. Which brings me to a total of 4 emails. Hopefully I'll have the disc by Tuesday.

Has anyone received their shipment without getting the third email with the tracking number? I got the first two emails quickly and the shipping date was supposed to be Tues the 18th but I haven't got the 3rd email to confirm shipping and certainly haven't seen any discs. My order number was 566x

and this one shows how glossy the finish came out. Even got good reviews from my wife who couldn't care less.

Here's a couple more. This one shows the true color a little better. The flash set off the metallic flake and makes it seem too bright.

and here's how it has ended. New paint, new Les Paul Jr wrap-around bridge, new knobs and pickup rings (just for aesthestics) and PRS Dragon pickups.

After nearly 18 months and at least 4 complete paint jobs, I actually have a playable guitar!! It actually plays very well, the Agathis body is light but still has nice tonal qualities and the Dragon pickups go a long way to improving the sound from the stock low end Mighty Mites. For reference here's where it started...

I just upgraded to the 24 bit remaster of this via yourmusic.com and hats off to Verve for a GREAT reissue! Sound upgrade is terrific and the SIX bonus tracks bring the disc from 5 to 11 tracks! I'm not a fan of Verve's packaging and artwork but at least they got the important stuff right.

Not like I've got time for another hobby and I certainly don't play my guitars as much as I would like, but I've decided to learn some blues harmonica. I've always loved that Chicago blues amplified harmonica sound and have wanted to try my hand at playing. So I finally got a book and cheap set of harps and I'm on my way! Anyone here play?