ACDC Retrospective: The Lists

The entire time that I have been listening through all these albums, I have been keeping a list of "good" songs.  These are songs that I felt were a good listen and not something I would change the channel on if it came on with the radio.  In the end, not including duplicates or live versions, I came away with over 80 songs.  That is a surprisingly large amount of "good" songs for a band and further exemplifies why ACDC is the most successful rock band of all time.  I could easily to throw all these songs on a playlist and be done with it, but there's a couple of problems.  First, frankly I am a fan of well done, live songs.  Many times this adds a rawness back to the original studio song.  The complication added in with ACDC is that this is the only way to get a Brian Johnson sang version of the classics as well.  Then we have the "goof off" and super "sleazy" songs of the Bon Scott era.  I actually like "Big Balls", "Can I Sit Next To You Girl" for what they are, but its not what I listen to ACDC for.

Pass Number One: Mega List

So the first time I went through the huge song list with a quick listen to each song, lingering only with songs that I knew less of, I came out with a "Mega-list" of ACDC that is 60 songs long.  The Brian Johnson era was not immune from my culling, as I got rid of some of the very similar songs between "Ball Breaker", "Stiff Upper Lip" and "Blow Up Your Video".  Next I went through and substituted the "Live" versions of songs like Back in Black, Thunderstruck, and a handful of others.  When I came to a point, such as "The Jack" where the Scott and Johnson songs are different enough, or both had their own merits, I went ahead and doubled them up.

Pass Number Two:  Personal Favorites

The Mega-list serves its purpose; a whole collection of ACDC history right there for me to just randomly fly through.  I realized that I had songs on there that I do not necessarily consider my personal favorites, but are so iconic I could not leave them off.  Songs like "Sink the Pink" and "Riff Raff" are used in tons of movies and you might not even know their names, but chances are you've heard their riffs.  I wanted to have an even more personal list of favorites that I never get tired of, and I'd never want to skip ahead to a "better" song from.  I will share that list of 35 songs here in album release order:

*denotes a new song I learned or only learned to appreciate from doing this adventure

Its a Long Way to the Top
TNT(Live version)
Dirty Deeds(Live version)
Let There Be Rock
Hell Ain't a Bad Place To Be
Whole Lotta Rosie(Live Version)
*Rock "N" Roll Damnation
*Gimme a Bullet
Highway to Hell
*Girl's Got Rhythm
*If You Want Blood
Hell's Bells(Live Version)
Back in Black(Live Version)
You Shook Me All Night Long(Live Version)
*What You Do For the Money Honey
Have A Drink On Me
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
For Those About to Rock
*Let's Get it Up
*Rising Power
*Stand Up
Who Made Who(Live Version)
*That's the Way I Wanna Rock
*Meanstreak
Heatseeker(Live Version)
Money Talks(Live Version)
Thunderstruck(Live Version)
*Let's Make It
Hard as a Rock
*Cover You In Oil
*Honey Roll
Rock 'N' Roll Train
*Skies on Fire
*Stormy May Day
*Decibel

Notably absent would be "Ride On' in this list since I talked about being surprised by it so much, but one of the reasons it surprised me was how uncharacteristic it was of the Bon Scott era.  Its a detour of the rock sound and so while its in the mega-list, its not in my favs list.  I'll use both lists still depending on my mood.

And with that, I conclude my Retrospective on ACDC.  I have probably quadrupled the amount of songs I like from ACDC and learned many new favorites as well.  Several new songs are songs I would love to be able to play on guitar one day.  While my favorite ACDC song did not change over the course of this, I did discover just how many great songs are in the Bon Scott era that I never realized were his(I assumed there were only a couple of albums with him).  I found Ballbreaker is my new favorite whole album(though Back in Black is still my fav overall), and I gained an appreciation Razor's Edge and Dirty Deeds.

ACDC Retrospective: Album by Album

I'm going to go album by album and give a quick run down.  In the description I will put the predominate sound/genre/style, my favorite track, small review and a star rating.  I do not include compilations or live albums.  I chose the international versions of albums as well.

High Voltage(3 stars), Blues Rock
-This is the roughest sounding of the albums, but this also means its one of the most raw.  A big take away from this album is you will swear you've heard Chuck Berry or Little Richard play the riffs before.  Angus hasn't yet started doing his classic riffs yet.  My favorite is "Its a Long Way To the Top".

Dirty Deeds(4 stars), Blues Rock
-A direct continuation of High Voltage.  The mature parts got more mature, and the raunchy parts got even more raunchy.  They tried to up themselves and in general I feel they did.  My favorite is a hard choice... but Dirty Deeds is just iconic.  With Dirty Deeds we start seeing Angus take center stage in solos.

Let There Be Rock(3 Stars), Blues Rock
-We're getting more rock than blues by now.  A few of the songs start sounding like what you'll get for the next 20 years, but the band is still rooted in the bar room blues rock here.  My favorite song is easily "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be".

Powerage(3 stars), Rock and Roll
-This is the first strong "ACDC" album that will set the tone for the rest of the band's history.  The band will go back to some blues rock some, but this is where they start pioneering Hard Rock.  There are still some blues and some Chuck Berry influence, hence the Rock and Roll classification.  My favorite song is Rock and Roll Damnation, and marks the first "favorite" off an album that is a song I had never heard before.

Highway To Hell(4 stars), Hard Rock
-Powerage gets kicked in the ass by Mutt Lange and Hard Rock is fully realized.  The last of the slow and sleazy Bon Scott era songs appear here, and while other songs on the later albums might try and copy, they just don't get the feel like this era.

Back in Black(5 stars), Hard Rock
-Not much I can say about this album, it is the best selling rock album of all time around the world.  My favorite song?  Holy crap is this the hardest one to choose my favorite by far... In the end I have to choose "Shook Me All Night Long" because I've known it longer and love its video too.

For Those About To Rock(2 stars), Hard Rock
-The sound is there for this album, but this is the start of really repetitive  choruses that go a few bars too long.  This will haunt the entire Brian Johnson era.  My favorite is by far the title track.  The band brought it, the lyrics just sort of slipped by

Flick of the Switch(2 Stars), Hard Rock
-The band tries to reconcile the older Bon Scott era with the new Hard Rock era and success.  Its a decent album, I just wish the lyrical content was less repetitive.  I'm not expecting Shakespeare, but repeating choruses just grates me.  My favorite is Landslide.

Fly on the Wall(3 Stars), Hard Rock
-It really is a shared sound with Flick and Those about to Rock.  Only there are a handful better songs than Flick of the Switch.  My favorite is probably Stand Up.

Blow Up Your Video (3 Stars) Rock
-SO close to being an amazing album, but it loses its momentum after the first 3 songs.  The band was flirting with more "modern" forms of blues, giving them a sort of Rock and Honky Tonk sound.  My favorite song is Heatseeker, which I learned to like with ACDC Live.

The Razor's Edge(5 Stars) Hard Rock
-Brilliant.  They flirt with Arena Rock style guitar shredding, but stay grounded in the Hard Rock sound they established with Back in Black.  My favorite song from this album is currently my favorite ACDC song of all: "Money Talks".

Ballbreaker(4 Stars) Rock and Roll
-Really good.  The group revisits what they tried with Blow Up Your Video, but do it much much better and more successfully.  My favorite ends up being Hard As A Rock because the riff is so simple and memorable, like older ACDC.

Stiff Upper Lip(1 Star) Rock and Roll
-The only album I was disappointed in.  Its the closest thing to phoning in or doing the rock version of elevator music.  There is almost no change in the songs throughout the songs.  The problem of repeating chorus lyrics is finally matched by repeating instrument parts as well.

Black Ice(5 Stars), Hard Rock
-Brilliant again.  While there are a couple of questionable choices by the producer(Brendan O'brien), the band came back strong and rocked things hard.  Songs about wanting to rock, living like a rock star, and continuing to rock all the time.  In the end, Rock and Roll Train is addictive in lyrical content, and the guitars are memorable and catchy, one of the "perfect" ACDC songs.


The star ratings are my thoughts over all, but it doesn't mean the highest star ratings are my favorites.  For example, I like Ballbreaker better overall than Black Ice despite being rated 1 less star.  And even though I have Highway to Hell higher stars, I think I like the Dirty Deeds album better than it also.

Just for those that may be curious, while Highway to Hell has to be my most memorable cover, my favorite cover is on my least liked album.  I love the statue of Angus on Stiff Upper Lip and would like a small replica for my desk.

ACDC Retrospective: Why

The Start of the Journey

Over the past few months I have taken an ACDC record one at a time and given them several listens.

I guess the first question is ask and answer again is "why".

ACDC was very integral to my formative attitude towards things.  It was a constant reminder of what it means to have a little "rock and roll" in your life.  "Highway to Hell" was one of the first records(in actual record form too) that I remember, that and some Muppet Christmas record my mom owned.  I grew up on the essentials, and remember when Razor's Edge was new.  I remember when the videos for "Shook Me All Night Long" were done.

But not just that.

I have finally, REALLY, started on the road of learning guitar in a meaningful and lasting way.  While Angus was not the soul reason that I chose to get a Gibson SG, he's easily 50% of it.  I have all my life wanted to be able to play "Highway to Hell", "Back in Black" and "Shook Me All Night Long".  The guitar of Angus and Malcolm is a pure blues-rock style guitar that I have always enjoyed and thankfully is one of the first genres you can learn competently as a guitarist.  Even Angus' advanced soloing work is fun variations and tricks within the pentatonic and blues scales.

Then there are my black-out areas of which I did not have much listening experience with ACDC.  My Bon Scott era knowledge was larger than I had believed when I started this adventure, but it was still greatly expanded by listening to the era.  My biggest surprises came from listening to early recordings.  The "Fly on the Wall" and "Flick of the Switch" era was another blackout section, and to tell the truth I did not know much about the album before those two, or after those two.  Finally the last black out era was everything after the release of "ACDC Live", other than Harder than a Rock, Stiff Upper Lip and Rock and Roll Train.  That's 3 of around 30 tracks I had never heard.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely.  With the exception of a grand total of 1 album out of 18(or 14, depending on how you count them all) that might be considered "wasted" money, I would say that is a hell of a career.  Some bands get a handful of albums in under a decade to make a career on.  ACDC has had huge success in 4 different decades.  They have a 10x US Platinum "Highway to Hell" in the 70's.  In the 90's there was the 5x US Platinum Razor's Edge.  The 2008 "Black Ice" is 2x US Platinum.  The 80's Back in Black is the SECOND highest selling album of ALL TIME in all the world.  More than Madonna, more than P-diddy, more than any Beatles album.  All this means is that over all these albums, there is lots and lots of quality rock.

I kept a listing of my favorite songs on each album.  I have 29 new "good" songs that I never knew existed, on top of the over 20 that I already knew I loved.  The hard part will be to create a "must have" playlist without including all of those.  I have found that while I love many songs on a lot of albums, there are 4 albums that I feel are a cut above the rest.  I have learned that ACDC is influenced greatly by their producers.  When family or the band are in charge, they get more and more like their idols, when they get someone else in there, they tend to get pushed to be more the "hard rock" they helped invent.  In either case, I love what they do.

I have to say that my favorite memories while going through the albums were that of "Ride on" being a huge huge surprise.  I am also proud that they did not take the route so many harder acts do; when a softer song gets popular they don't put out a new album with half being soft songs trying to bilk it.  I enjoyed being able to hear Mutt Lange's influence and understand its him in there.  This is because I know my Def Leppard and my Foreigner songs from classic rock radio, and can tell the similarities from all those albums he produced.  I love a strong come back, and ACDC has had the most legendary ones.  "Back in Black" is what every band hopes to pull off when they lose an integral member.  "Razor's Edge" is the "we can show these young'uns how to rock" come back, and "Black Ice" is the "we ain't dead yet, we're still F*ckin' rockin", and with each I was so happy to hear them doing their thing.  I also enjoyed how "Blow Up Your Video" was an "almost there" kind of album, with a detour back to hard rock, but was revisited with Ballbreaker to great success.

So there will be a few more posts coming.

1. The Album Summations
2. The Ultimate Playlist

To everyone that stuck through and read my weekly updates and posts about this, and largely I've said everything I said here before in those, thanks for reading.

TrainWreck and Thunderfunk

Trainwreck is an amp you have either never heard of or know them notoriously.  Trainwreck has become the only challenger in recent memory to the highly sought after "Dumble" amps in the 30-50,000 dollar amp range.  So what are Trainwreck amps and why are they so rare?

Trainwreck was a series of amps put together by Ken Fischer, an amp tech out of New Jersey.  From the very beginning Ken had a lot of health problems, culminating in a life cut short in 2006 and a production line cut short at only a little over 100 amps.  Ken's designs are exercises in simplicity.  When you look at modern Marshalls or newer Dumbles, you will see vast arrays of electronics, wired with many filters, creating these crazy complex marvels of modern technology.  Ken's designs were the opposite of that.  When you look at a Trainwreck on paper, you may go "that's it?".  Just like baking, sometimes its the care and thought that goes in to a work, instead of the amount of ingredients.  Ken's designs were unique, new, and while some say influenced by Vox, were his own.  The "purity" of the signal path leads to touch dynamics and a "quickness" to the amps that other designs lack.  I am generally a "new tech or you're a cave man" type of person, but there is this word called "elegance" and if you can put elegance in your simplistic designs, there's art there that I appreciate.

How does this get to Dave Funk's spin on the A.M.P. 420, the Thunderfunk?  Well Dave was an amp tech, one of only two amp repair workers approved by Ken to work on the Trainwrecks.  In fact, when Ken was at his worst physically, he asked Dave to make two amps that were sold as Trainwreck amps, which are well documented, and verified due to the low numbers of Trainwrecks in existence.  Ken named each of his amps a girl's name instead of using a serial number, and so it is easy to track and keep records.

When I hear people compliment a Trainwreck on youtube or in a print review, I hear so many familiar things.  I hear about how fast the signal goes from playing on the guitar to hearing through the amp, and how it changes how you can play.  I have had the same thing happen with my Thunderfunk.  After playing it for months I got out the old Trace Elliot while I was demoing some compression pedals a friend let me barrow.  There was lag in the signal, the Trace Elliot, a tone machine of the rock gods, was "slow", and I never expected this to happen.  So when I read about the Trainwrecks, the lightbulb in my head went off.  Quite recently I was reading the forum on Freedom Stompboxes, and someone in another country wanted to make a Thunderfunk clone since they could not import one.  Several people said "wow, that looks really simple, should be no problem if you know what you're doing".  Again, the same thing said about Ken's Trainwrecks.

I find Dave's work really awesome, and the whole story behind all his pedigrees to be interesting to read.  The whole Aoucstic 360 story, the entire drama filled life of the Amp BH420 legacy, to the birth of the Thunderfunk as a sort of very complex yet very simplified amp making it among the top bass amps in existence.

Thanks to Dave's own website, http://www.thunderfunk.com/, the Trainwreck Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainwreck_Circuits, and Talkbass.com for all the info.

ACDC: The Mutt Lange Albums

Here we come at last, after over a month of listening to ACDC albums, in order, repeatedly, I get to the end of the Mutt Lange produced albums.  Three albums, 2 singers, and enough classic hits to fill a best of album release themselves.  Some of the most iconic rock songs of all time on are this list:

Back in Black
Highway to Hell
For Those About to Rock
Shook Me All Night Long
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Those Five songs alone would be enough to make a rock band millionaires for life and immortals in glory.  This is only the tip of the ice berg of this era.

Looked at sequentially, I think you can see the influence of Lange in the band quite well.  The first album they did had much more of the original ACDC feel to it, and not just because Bon Scott was still with them.  There's some genuine rock and roll mixed in with the pioneering Hard Rock sound coming through.  It is with Back in Black and Brian Johnson's introduction that we leave a lot of the Rock and Roll behind, and are full in to Hard Rock that will exemplify the successful albums and songs from here on out.  If there is a low point, we see it in the 3rd and last album, which is still a great selling, and overall good album.

Let's talk about that 3rd album, as its the one I have heard the least of.  I read that they went to France and had troubles with the technical side of their first chosen recording space.  That kind of things leads to tension and resentment in most cases.  They ended up scrapping things and heading to a place outside Paris.  I think the band was feeling the strain, and it probably lead to them parting ways with Lange.  Lange, himself, was a very busy man at this time.  The #1 album before and after "Those About to Rock"'s #1 stint was produced by Lange as well.  He was establishing what would be almost as huge a stint with Def Leppard, and would produce The Car's hit album: Heartbeat City.

Then, after the release, the band embarked on this huge, multi-million dollar stadium tour of the United States.  The stage had the now famous canons, the Hell's Bell, and enough pyro to wage a war.  It was a hard, fast, and physically draining tour.  After all of this ACDC decided they needed a change, and did a few stripped down, less successful, albums in the manner of their earlier career(of which I have not really listened to them yet, and I'm actually excited to be doing that soon).

For Those About To Rock has really great songs, but its hard to follow up the greatest selling rock album of all time.  I think what was most missing was some Angus solos.  Almost all the songs are pounding, head banging, driven songs, but they lack the "break" in the energy for a Angus soaked solo that is memorable.  The production is there... in a big way.  There's lots of overdubbing, lots of backtracks with chorus and echo effects, Lange is probably the strongest sound in the band outside of Brian Johnson with this album.  If Giving the Dog a Bone from Back in Black, or Touch Too Much from Highway To Hell were among your favorites, then you have an entire album of these kinds of songs in For Those About to Rock.

It is one of the greatest stints in music between a band and a producer, and it was one of the greatest eras of rock that influenced the genre's most popular albums for a decade after, and home guitarists for decades since, and it was great to listen to.  I feel like I hit a peak, but I know there are several hits that I have not gotten to yet, and I know the newest album as of this writing was freakin' awesome.

 So on I go through the albums.

Hand Wired Amps: Convincing myself

There are several trends which are very hot right now in the Guitar amp world(much different than the bass amp world, believe me).  The big names are scrambling to make cost effective versions of both of these trends.  One of the trends is the "lunch box" tube amp.  Lunch box amps are very small compared to what people think of when they think of tube amps.  They are also low wattage designs meant to sound like their big brothers at much lower volumes.  People realized you do not need 100 watts... like ever, unless you're pro-touring venues without PA support.  This is not the trend this post is about. (pictured: a lunch box amp compared to its big brother, with almost 50 pounds weight difference)

Hand wired is another trend.  It has been around longer, though a lot of it was due to boutique snobbery.  A lot players rejected it because it is SO cost prohibitive.  Nowadays  though, with the realization that you can live fine with sub-30 watt guitar amps, some more cost effective hand wired amps are coming to market, putting in reach of people that are reasonable, and not gear-snobs themselves.  Let's start with the easiest way to explain what they are; Visually.

That is a printed circuit board, a marvel of 20th century tech.  It is clean, easily mass produced, and works really well.  Its the familiar green board you see on almost all electronics these days, from the cheap 2 dollar radio to the expensive $1000 smart phone.  What could possibly suck about it?  As you can see, those components are TINY.  Also, they are linked by the printed circuits.  If something burns out, you have a risk of it burning parts of the board out, severing more connections and generally making a mess of things.  Also, you need someone familiar with the workings of circuit boards to get any repairs done, and that's a more rare kind of specialist.  Many times you scrap the whole board and start over with a fresh new one, which is not cheap compared to how cheap the manufacture cost is.

That is a hand wired 18 watt Marshall clone.  Look at it for a bit.  Notice how things are connected with mostly wires and how things are larger, and you can tell individual parts from one another.  The cost to manufacture this sort of hardware is at the higher end of amp manufacturing spectrums.  You need someone that knows what they are doing, and they have to do each piece by hand.  The benefit to consumers is that you do not need a degree in electrical engineering to work on them.  This is hobby level stuff and there are many "do it yourself" home kits for these kinds of amps.  Many vacuum cleaner repairment would know enough about electrical work to be able to work on these amps.

That is the benefit that is starting to convince me that I may want to go this route.  I despise having to send something in for repair work.  I hate negotiating prices, I hate the moving target that is an estimate, and I hate that I can't really tell the quality of the workmanship.  Hand wired amps allow for all of that to be in the open.  Whatever they use to fix the thing can be readily bought online, and easily price matched.  Its the same components that go into anything electronic of this type.  Also, it is not inconceivable that I would be able to do the repair work myself eventually.

The reality check is that its not 100% positives.

While Hand Wired is said to be more reliable, what they mean is that an amp tech can have it repaired and fixed faster.  If you're going to be moving around with the amp, chances are a PCB amp will be more reliable due to literally less wiring.  Hand wired amps are typically heavier too, while being less complex.  You can get certain bells and whistles added that more "modern" designs have, but it will cost you.  Cost is another one.  For what is "basic" in today's amp world, you will be paying over $1000, and that's just a head; no speakers.  I have gotten used to digital reverb in my amp head.  I could use a pedal, sure, but that means I would want an effects loop now too.  Those are all cost added luxuries to hand wired amps.

I can see why people like hand wired amps, and I can also see why they are way more expensive.  In the end though, since I'm not keen on owning a million different amplifiers, I think I need something a bit more modern.  Its just a bonus that means it also comes out cheaper.  I may be spoiled, but I want my emulated lines out, I want my built in digital reverb, and an effects loop is almost mandatory.  I have never been one for being a "60's cave man".  On the bass side of things I tend to stay top of tech in the class.  The guitarist of me has given in to the fact that I need tubes, but the bassist in me won't let me give up what I'm used to.

Bon Scott: Retrospective

I am at the end of an era.  I have made it through multiple listenings of the Bon Scott ACDC era.  I've made a playlist of my favorite songs from this era and listened to it almost daily.

Bon Scott was every bit the rock and roll singer he sung about being.  I do not doubt his authenticity in leading the kind of life that is reflected in his songs.  These songs are sung from experience, a kind of life that by all accounts the entire band lived during this era.  The music of the band in the earlier days was very Chuck Berry inspired, but toward the end started branching into harder blues and Little Richard energy.  The latter part, I can only assume was Bon Scott gaining more influence in the band.  Bon Scott's rock and roll hero was Little Richard.  Scott's screeching howl makes more sense when you think about this fact.

My favorites that feature Bon prominently are the ones where he gets "real" with us.  I like "Its a Long Way to the Top", "Ain't No Fun", and "Let There Be Rock".  I also like the songs where he stretches his singing ability a bit, like "Highway to Hell", "If you Want Blood", "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be", and "Rock and Roll Damnation".  Finally, I can't forget his sleaziest, most witty songs "Big Balls"  "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "The Jack".

Bon was also every bit as sleazy and dirty as I had heard growing up.  He does not disappoint, coming up with very smart ass and very nasty word play in his lyrics.  There is no making a saint out of Bon Scott, and that unapologetic attitude just makes him that much more a rock and roll legend.  The thing is, there are a couple of songs where he seems to bare his soul a bit.  An early example is "Its a Long Way to the Top", but the best example of this is "Ride On", and I feel like he was growing to have some maturity to him by then.  Like with all life cut short, I have to wonder what we missed out on when he left.

Growing up, without the internet around, I heard all sorts of stories about how Brian Johnson became the new lead singer of ACDC after Bon's death.  I had heard that he was a cab driver for them, and the band liked the way he yelled.  I speculated later that he probably was not a cab driver like we think, but was just driving them around from a studio or gig they both had taken part in.  There are some more less credible stories as well.  The truth, I found out, was that it was Bon that picked him.  One night Bon came back from watching a show, and told the band about this singer he had just seen.  He told the band that this singer really howled on stage, got on the floor and tore up on stage.  He told the band that this singer really had "it", he had that Little Richard mentality, he really knew what rock and roll was about.  It just so happened, that was the night that Brian Johnson got appendicitis and he was genuinely howling in pain.  Anyway, after the band realized that Bon would want them to go on after him, and continue being a band, the first name that came to Malcolm and Angus' mind was Brian Johnson, because they felt he had been given the "ok" by Scott all those years ago.

Mutt Lange, more than his marriage.

I wrote earlier that I was surprised that the "ACDC" sound was established in Powerage instead of Highway to Hell.  It may have sounded like I did not give Mutt Lange enough credit for the work he did with the band.  This can not be further from the truth.  Listening to the albums he did with them(Highway to Hell, Back in Black, For Those About to Rock) has given me a lot of insight.

In Highway to Hell I hear Mutt's influence in many places.  While the band seemed to learn how to play together in Powerage, Mutt had a huge influence on Bon Scott's vocals.  The lyrics are tighter and less loose, and there are backing vocals used in the background.  The songs seem to take on a less nebulous structure, and get even further away from the rockabilly sound that defined early ACDC.

The reason why I know this is Mutt's influence?  Because of Def Leppard.  You see, after his stint with ACDC, Mutt was hired to work for Def Leppard.  Their most important 3 albums were done by Mutt, and all the songs you likely know from the band had Mutt at the helm.  You can hear so much a similar tone.  The recording, the song structure, and most of all, the backing vocal tracks, are pure Mutt Lange.  You can hear it across all those ACDC and Def Leppard albums.  Def Leppard was a huge influence through the late 80's, as were the ACDC albums of his era, so you can hear this whole Mutt Lange style everywhere from Poison to Motley Crue.  There is a lot of hub bub over the Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" era of music recording, and I do not think Lange gets enough credit for his style taking over in the late 80's.

By the way, I know I have some good ole country folk in my social circles, I don't know if readin' this is your thing, but Mutt Lange is THAT Mutt Lange that married Shania Twain, and produced her biggest albums.

Powerage by ACDC

I started this journey through ACDC with a few preconceptions.  Many of them were true.  I thought the Bon Scott era was a dirty era with songs about wild rock and roll life; this was true.  Some preconceptions were not true.  I thought Bon Scott had only done 3 or so albums.  I now know that Scott was there for many more hits and albums than I had previously thought.

I knew that early on ACDC took lots of inspiration from the 1950's rockers, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.  I had figured that the "middle" era of classic hits and THE "ACDC" sound came about largely as the influence of Mutt Lange producing Highway to Hell.  The first couple of albums only reinforced this, as these albums are very much rock and roll, and not yet "hard rock".

Boy was I surprised when I listened to Powerage.

Powerage is the album BEFORE Mutt Lange met up with the guys.  Powerage was produced and mixed by the same guys that had always did the ACDC albums before; Angus and Malcom's brother George, and his friend Harry Vanda.  From track 1 to the last, the sound is much more what I hear as "ACDC" than what came before.  Instead of quick power chords, the guitar tones are allowed to breath.  Instead of a bluesy sort of solo, there were some fast play, and unless I"m mistaken there was some tapping.  Instead of a Chuck Berry ripoff(that everyone from Jimmy Paige to Keith Richards have admitted to doing, its not a black spot to get lent a song by Chuck), there were ACDC riffs.  Its like Malcom and Angus finally let go of their hero's inspiration and started paving their own road.

This has surprised me and given me MORE respect that I already had for the band.  They have admitted that they are a band that need direction from a producer.  Famously they disliked Rick Rubin's approach.  Rubin made a career of getting put in charge of bands that have been dicked around by record companies, and using his clout to give them freedom.  Brian Johnson complained, "we hardly ever saw the guy".  This wasn't neglect, he was doing what he does, he was letting the band do whatever they want.  Anyway, I had assumed that the big transition from an early blues rock band to the biggest hard rock band of all time was because Mutt Lange had taught them a thing or two about recording, and the success of Highway and Back in Black lead to them keeping that voice.

Now I know they came up with the sound themselves as a natural evolution of their touring, writing, and chemistry as a band.

Album Thoughts: Black Sabbath 13

My first album thoughts post.  I suppose this is going to be a kind of "History of the band and I", then "track by track listening", and then "final summations".  Let's see how it goes.

First up, a little personal history with Sabbath, yea?  I mean, I'm not a magazine "journalist" or anything.  If you're reading this, I suppose you're a friend of mine.  So let's do this.  Sabbath is on my short list of all time favorite bands, and for sure the 70's era Sabbath is my favorite metal band of all time.  As of today, when you hear me play "metal" on my guitars, you probably hear more of Toni Iommi in my playing than anyone else.  Slow, pounding riffs interspersed with a tempo change, and maybe a solo.  I would have to say that in my own playing, "Into the Void" is tied with Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" for biggest inspiration.  My favor of the Gibson SG has just as much to do with my favor of Iommi as my favor of Angus.

I have to add a note here, and this will become important as you read my Album Thoughts, I listened to the Spotify version.  Come to find out, the Spotify version lists a selection of "bonus" tracks that aren't a part of the initial album release.  So my tracklist looks as follows:

1. "End of the Beginning"
2. "God Is Dead?"  
3. "Loner"  
4. "Zeitgeist"  
5. "Age of Reason"  
6. "Live Forever"  
7. "Damaged Soul"  
8. "Dear Father
9. "Methademic"  
10. "Peace of Mind"  
11. "Pariah"
*12.   "Dirty Women(live)"
*previous Black Sabbath song from older album

My first listen through, I could not help but hear earlier songs in the songs as I listened to them.  End of the Beginning has a strong semblance to the original song "Black Sabbath", Zeithgeist takes very clear inspiration from "Planet Caravan".  Is this bad?  Well the first parts of the album are not going to be any game changing songs for me, but you know what?  It sounds like Black Sabbath.  Probably my favorite part of the first 4 songs is "Give me the wine, you keep the bread".  At first it sounds like something a drunk would say, but remember that wine is also blood in the Christian communion.  That's classic Sabbath lyrical content right there.  End of the Beginning and God is Dead get a lot of promotion, which I think is sad because its the least interesting songs of the album. The next 4 tracks get away from this "We gotta sound like Black Sabbath" formula stuff.  Age of Reason is probably my favorite of these 4 tracks.  Its epic and varied.  Live Forever is musically sound, and well done, but I dislike the lyrics to the song and so its a killer for me.  Damage Soul reminds me of the earlier tracks of this album, but with the lyric style of the last few.  A pass for me.

So if you're connecting the dots here, this is not looking good for the album.  I was thinking the same thing, in fact that's where I stopped listening to it the first day.  I had other stuff to do.  The next day I was out smoking my pipe and decided to lug my tablet outside to listen to the rest while I smoked.  I re-listened to Damaged Soul just in case I had listening fatigue yesterday mess with my thoughts.  My thoughts pretty much staged the same.

Then.  It happened.

Dear Father started.  This... ok this sounds listenable... no wait, this is AWESOME.  FINALLY a song I think I will listen to more than once... probably alot.  If you look at the title and think we've gotten some Ozzy solo bleed over, some kind and sad song, you are mistaken.  This is a song about a priest living with the conscience of a sexual predator.  Probably 30 years too late to being "edgy", but the lyrics do hit home without beating around the bush.  No subtleness here, "you left my life in ruins", "you knew just what you were doing".  The riff is AWESOME.



And here is what I found out this morning as I sat down to write this.  This was the last track in the initial release.  WHAT?  You're telling me that if I bought the album as it was, I would get this great song and be left with no where to go? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Luckily we have 3 more tracks.

Methedemic.  It starts out all acoustic, and I let doubt creep in my mind.  Then, we get this fast tempo Sabbath song.  Not the typical Sabbath that the public thinks it is... and... and holy crap, did Geezer Butler wake up?  I think this might be the first time in the album I've heard him stand apart from Iommi.  Well Butler getting into it must have woke Iommi up too.  Let's see if this ride continues

Peace of Mind.  The next song starts out like a Sabbath song, like maybe it's going to be more "we need to sound like us"... for about 2 seconds, then the riff kicks in.  YES!  THIS IS A NEW SABBATH SONG.  This is fresh like their stuff in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but without SOUNDING like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, is that confusing?  It doesn't sound "derivative" of their old stuff like End of the Beginning, it sounds like "new" Sabbath during their best.  Geezer is playing all over the place in a good way, Iommi is keeping up while not stepping on his toes.

Pariah.  A song about cults with Geezer and Iommi sped up.  Another quick playing song like Methademic and its good.  Geezer is nuts on this song too.  Where the hell was he in the first half of the album.. Wait, did I say first half?



How about the whole "real" album.  How did these "bonus" songs not get put on the album?  They are easily the best.  Look, I have owned albums by these guys outside of Sabbath.  Iommi's self titled was amazing, he had so many fresh and new ideas in it.  The whole initial 8 song release(until #8) I wondered where that Toni was.  Hell, Geezer is one of the best bassists of all time, and I forgot he existed while listening to the first parts of the album.  I was really worried, and the reason I stopped listening on track 7 yesterday is because I thought to myself "are there any songs you'll be re-listening to?" and I had to answer "no"  Then Dear Father kicked in, and the band showed up.  I have to wonder if the first tracks were some of the earlier recordings, and the last bit of the album was when they got serious about releasing it?  I can only speculate.

I've listened to Peace of Mind 3x during writing this and reading news this morning.  That wins as my pick of the album.  If this is the last of the new stuff from Sabbath, I feel like they did great.  I complain a bit about the beginning of the album, but really, there is nothing grossly rejectable.  By the end, the band shows why they are the Godfathers of Metal.

The Flute; Expanded

I was watching Cave of Forgotten Dreams last night, when the talk changed from cave drawings to paleolithic tools.  This was when I first found out about paleolithic flutes, and particularly the oldest one ever found.  The flute was carved from vulture bone, and was also found in the workshop of some paleolithic Da Vinci.  Carbon dating all the tools and pieces of art in the are gives evidence that the flute is 40,000 years old.

Made by a Master

The flute itself is a 5 hole flute.  The cool thing about this flute is that it is not only the oldest undisputed flute as of the movie, it is not just a simple hollow tube with holes.  This flute was the making of an artisan.  There are notches all along the sides.  The reason for this is that the bone was cut in half, long ways, and hollowed out using stone tools.  This, using the notches as a guide, the two pieces were put back together and sealed with an air tight sealant, perhaps a primitive animal glue.

The Sound

The flute was created with only the thought to sound pleasing to the ear of the maker.  The 5 holes do have markings, but it is believed these markings are just guidelines from the artisan, rather than a "known" system of flute making.  The closest approximation to modern instruments is that it is a Pentatonic based note pattern, instead of a chromatic or diatonic flute.

Some Time

To put this in perspective for myself, I looked up a few known facts about something made so far back.  When this flute was made, there were lots of animals that no longer roam the Earth.  The big cats; Sabertooth tigers and Cave Lion, were still alive and well known to the maker.  Tribes related to the maker would soon make cave drawings of Woolly Mammoths and Cave Bears.  The world certainly did not look the same, as the English Channel was a barren, dry piece of land because there were glaciers over the alps that were many thousands of feet thick.  The flute is twice as old as potter, thirty thousand years older than the oldest known bow, and it goes without saying that it pre-dates written languages, walled cities, and when this flute was made wheat was nothing but a wild grass.

Audience

Another animal that was still around when this flute was made was the Neanderthal.  It is virtually impossible that Neanderthal man did not have contact with homo sapiens of this era.  We can only speculate if it was peaceful or horrendous.  There is possibility that Neanderthals have heard us make our music with our instruments.  It is impossible for us to know if Neanderthals had their own music, but evidence suggests that if they did, it was voice or percussion based.  One of the distinguishing features of Humans is that our paleolithic sites have tools and art created out of bone, while Neanderthals have no such trinkets at their sites.  Therefore, one of the distinguishing features of modern humans compared to the neanderthals that died out is that we have complex music, and they did not.

Using tools to make music is a heritage of all humanity.

Day 60

I'll start by saying this:

The 60 Day Challenge is to set up some Facebook-like Ubisoft thing and keep it updated.  It is also to play an hour inside the game.  My Ubisoft page did not like to update, so it says I have a grand total of... 9 hours played, which is horse-shit.  Next, I did not stick to playing the whole hour inside Rocksmith.  I am going to practice wherever it inspires me to practice, and some days it was figuring out how far I can push my amp's tone shaping abilities; some days it was practicing unplugged on my porch while I watched it snow.  Some days I spent 4 hours doing nothing but Session mode.  Some days I did 45 minutes of Guitarcade and then switched to my amp.  So technically I did not take the 60 day challenge "correctly" so take that how you will.

Day 60

Before...

It has been 60 days since I started using Rocksmith.  When I began, I had some theoretical knowledge of what I was supposed to do with a guitar.  I had some years of experience playing bass guitar.  I could fake my way around to sounding like I could play something resembling blues.  I have a sound file of me trying to make what I understood as "power chords" sound like a song.  It is pretty terrible now that I listen to it.  My fingers were awkward past the strings that my bass had.  My picking was super sloppy, and so "wrong" that my finger nails were scrapping against the strings and hurting for days.  Fretting on the thinnest strings hurt like hell, and felt like the strings were going to shred my finger tips.  If someone showed me where to play, I could do some stuff... mostly sounding like a bassist trying to play guitar, but I could not come up with stuff on my own in a "correct" way.

After...
(next paragraph omits things I already learned by playing bass, the lists include only things I learn and attribute to Rocksmith)

After 60 days I have knowledge of the Pentatonic scales and how to use them in a band setting.  This is directly attributed to Rocksmith because I practiced with the bands in the Session section of the game.  I can improv play lead in whatever key a song calls for.  My picking has come full circle, I now have a much better attack on the strings, especially strumming.  My fingernails never touch the strings.  My fret hand no longer hurts when I use them all around the neck.  My fingers were numb for weeks while they got used to playing, but now have full feeling back in them, and retain their toughness with dealing with strings.  I have a few pages of chords that I know from memory and can switch between many of them fast enough to play songs.  I can sight recognize chords being played by people I watch.  I can improv in blues, rock, heavy metal, and I can imitate 60's psychedelic rock, 70's hard rock, 90's indie alternative and punk, and several types of metal.  I can do a little funk.  I now can palm mute, use double stops effectively, play harmonics and somewhat tremolo pick.

What of Rocksmith?

I know I'm forgetting to list stuff.  I think that's pretty good progress for 60 days with a "video game".  I can fully recommend Rocksmith 2014.  I also encourage people to not get the original 2013 edition, because all the things I highly love and have highly helped me are not features in 2013.  Easily the most amazing thing about Rocksmith 2014 is the session mode, followed by Guitarcade and then the tone designer.  I think that as time goes by I will find the Riff Repeater to be invaluable as well.  Things in Rocksmith 2014 have pushed me further than I could have gone on my own by just practicing an hour a day by myself.  I am much further than I thought I would get in the 60 days, not only in music theory and knowledge, but application as well.

Do I consider myself a guitarist?

That's a hard question.  I do consider myself a bassist.  So do I know as much on Guitar as I do on Bass?  I think perhaps so.  But then why will I not call myself a guitarist... it has got to be my hangup on chords.  I just will not consider myself a guitarist till I can sit in with someone and have them say "its (insert chord progression) in the key of (insert key)" and be able to play that.  In reality... if I have the balls to call myself a bassist, then I should be able to call myself a guitarist too.  If I was asked, I would say "I could play a little guitar".  So yea... I guess I'm a guitarist of the beginner variety.  I do not know if I approached this as a beginner guitarist would though.  I came at the game wanting to learn to be good at jamming and session stuff.  I'm not here to learn some songs, I'm here to learn what to do during ALL songs.  I'm not here to learn what someone came up, I'm here to learn how to come up with my own stuff.  My musical goal is not to have a band, and play concerts.  I want to get together with some friends, have some beers, and do some jam room rock.  I'm well on my way to being able to do that.

Where do I go from here?

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog.  I had fun doing the 60 day challenge, and I really hope to keep this pace in learning guitar.  If this inspires you to get Rocksmith, let me know, it would make my day.  Posts here will slow in pace.  It will be added into rotation in my main blog that I link to my real life friends, and so perhaps one post a week.

What about your playing?

I am going to continue playing the Guitarcade, especially because it is fun.  I am going to continue through the lessons as I come to things I need to know or practice.  Songs I am going to do differently.   I am going to come at the songs in game with a hybrid Rocksmith/Youtube approach.  The session mode is still my #1 source of practice and would be worth buying the game for alone.  60 days are over, but I know I've only begun, as cheesey as that sounds today.  The challenge never said that after 60 days you'd be a guitarist and know how to play a million different chords with only your pinky.  It is a great start, however, and I certainly could recommend a beginner to do a 120 day challenge.  Then a 180 day challenge, whatever keeps them practicing and playing.

Any final words?

Rocksmith is not a effortless method to learning guitar.  Someone that is used to figuring out video games and working on accomplishing achievements and moving on is going to have problems.  You can not approach it like a video game.  You have to approach it like learning anything else.  You have to redo lessons, you have to redo practice tracks, you have to repeat things over and over until it becomes muscle memory, and then do it again.  Rocksmith is a lesson plan, it is a teaching tool, it is a learning device and a guitar technique encyclopedia.  It is not a "get rich quick" scheme.

Do not under estimate the value of Ducks Redux.

Make something new.

Be creative.

If you're not creating,

you're consuming.

Be a creator, bring something new to this world.

Justin.

I had a friend once that owned an Epiphone Les Paul like the one pictured above.

His name was Justin.

Of all my friends I feel like Justin and I had the same love of 70's rock music, taste in beer and wine, video games, cooking and pipe tobacco. His blue Les Paul had this big square Led Zeppelin sticker on the top, behind the bridge.  He took it off later, and it left this big faded square there.  He ended up sanding the finish and kind of destroying the guitar lol.  We used to be out under the garage, him with his guitar and me with my bass, and we used to noodle around a bit.  He did teach me to play a version of Sunshine in Your Love once, probably the 2nd song I learned on any instrument.

Justin passed away a few years ago.  Every single time I feel like I'm getting better at guitar, my heart hurts, physically it has pain.  Every time I pick up my guitar, I feel one of the only regrets I have.  I want to play guitar with my buddy so badly, but I can't.  I have dreams where I meet him and show him that I'm learning.  In my dreams, with him watching, is the only time that I can play 100% perfect.  I know he would have bought Rocksmith as soon as it came out, I"m sure of it.  He would have had so much fun with it, and I know he would have came over and we would have played the multiplayer stuff in game together.

I used to give him so much shit about liking the band KISS.  I am not a huge fan of KISS, they're just not my thing.  A bit theatric, and they had a disco album.  We once watched a live concert of KISS while having a few beers, and Paul Stanley came up and said his famous line "You wanted the best, you got the best" and I mimicked that except I said "You wanted the best, but all we have is KISS!" and I used to say that all the time to Justin, just to give him shit, and laugh.

He got the last laugh though.  Because one day I'm going to have a Les Paul style guitar in blue.  And every time his birthday comes around, I'm going to play a new KISS song in his memory.

Day 59

Just a practice day.  Nothing new to report.  I"m playing around with staying in the same key, moving from minor to major Pentatonic.  I feel like I need to look up some suggestions and advice on doing so.  I feel like I'm on the edge of where i need to seek out advice in general too.  There are things I see players do, or things I hear them do, in their jam sessions that I really need to learn.  Its hard to learn such a thing unless you're there.  Its hard to articulate what you're asking unless you are there and they are playing and you say "that, that right there, show me how you did that".  Search engines are kind of too ambiguous to be able to do that.  The best you can do is look up "tricks" on youtube and hope the thing you want to know is one of them.

Saw something on Rob Chapman's channel today.  If you read this frequently, I talk about loving to play in the key of G, and how I really think the G chord sounds great to my ears.  Chapman put up videos about the new Gibson 2014 line of guitars, and in it he says to Cap-10 "I swear, maybe I'm crazy, but I swear that G sounds the best on a Gibson SG", which is the guitar I use.  So I wonder if I would have liked G so much if I had been playing another instrument instead?  I just think its weird that this comes up weeks after I first said I liked G.  Makes me think maybe I have a better ear than I thought?  Who knows.

Tomorrow's post will be my 60 day recap.  I don't really know what I'm going to write, but I'm assuming I'm going to outline where I'm going on my blog in the future, if I decide to continue it.  The blog has helped me keep at it as much as having Rocksmith itself.  Anyway, tomorrow, whole post dedicated to my 60 day challenge ending.

My bass and Day 58

My bass.

Well, not my actual one, but the same model.

Where as my father was the one that helped me get my guitar equipment, it was my mother that helped me get my bass guitar.

How far do I go back?  Well.  I never liked the look of Fender instruments.  They looked too much like the era of cars I was never much into either.  One day, while waiting for a friend to show up at a gaming shop, I went into the music shop next door.  In there I saw, for the first time, a group of Warwick basses.  These were unlike the stereotypical bass.  They did not have an inch of thick paint and finish.  They did not have these gigantic guitar inspired bodies.  They looked like a piece of wood carved by hand into theses slick shapes that I had never seen before.

(pictured: someone luckier than I with a collection of Warwick basses)

It inspired me to pick up and play bass as my main instrument.  I only casually looked at them, far too scared to touch instruments of this quality and cost.  In fact, the cost of such instruments(a fraction of what they cost now actually) made my heart sink, but it was something to aspire for.  There was one in particular though.  This one was unlike the others as well.  It was this creamy white... like the whole thing was made out of the same wood.  When I moved around it, the woods shimmered as if it was a holograph... but it wasn't paint or holograph, it was a natural feature of the wood.

Years later I would be in a good job making enough money that I could possibly spend it on such a luxury.  I know good gear doesn't make you a good player, but I wanted not excuses.  If I sounded like shit with the best gear I could hope to have, then I had only myself to blame.  Its motivation for me.  I found out that, just my luck, this bass was a limited edition.  Only made in the year 2003.  The 2003 Bleach Blonde Thumb bass.  I spent time looking for it, this was before it was so easy to find good stuff on the internet.  I went to music shops all around for the next year and 1/2.  I found a 2004 special edition, which was nothing like my white whale, in North Carolina.  I was brave enough to play it, and it made me want my 2003 so much more.
(Pictured: 2004 ltd Corvette)



I wanted this Bleach Blonde Thumb bass so badly that when I petitioned a friend to paint a piece of art for me, and I told them "whatever you want to do", they found the silhouette of a thumb bass and did that.  By the time the painting was done though, it had happened.  I found the bass online for sale at a major retailer.  The problem was, my credit was not good enough to get an account to buy the bass.  I just did not have the credit history.  So my mother checked her rating and it was 1 dollar over what the bass cost.  She let me order it using her credit, and soon I had my dream bass.

  

I've learned a lot with this bass.  I've learned that I don't deserve it, and I'm not good enough to own it, but I work at getting that good.  I learned I shouldn't own a bass I'm too afraid to hurt, ha.  I've learned how to work on necks, adjust bridges, and fiddle with pre-amps.  She has the sweetest, smoothest high registers I've yet to hear in a bass, and sometimes I get a fleeting amount of inspiration and make her sing like she really wants to.  People warn about going out and getting an instrument that's too good for you, but sometimes it can teach you humility.  Sometimes it works out.

Day 58

Better late than never.  Still, I got the post in before the deadline ha.

I did play today, I just had things to do so I did not get the blog post done before I left the house.  Rocksmith was a little rushed.  I did 2 String Skip Saloons, 5 Scale Racers till I crashed, 2nd level of Castle Chordead till I died once, and a Gone Wailin' just because it had been a while.  Then I went to practicing over on the amp.

I'm doing this thing where I'm remembering older 70's rock songs and just trying to play stuff that sounds similar to the main riffs.  I'm moving around the neck and trying to pick out where it sounds most accurate.  Maybe its helping train my ear?  I have no idea, but I'll learn how close I was to a few of them later.  With this exercise I'm coming up with some good sounding stuff myself.  Stuff that sounds nothing like what I"m remembering in my head, but stuff that still sounds good.  One of my favorite riffs is from me wanting to play something that sounds like "Magic Carpet Ride" on guitar.  Its a song that I know the bass part of, one of the earliest I learned the bass part of, and so one day I'd like to be able to play it on guitar.

I need branch out a little bit.  I know I feel an affinity to 70's rock, and blues based blues, but there's this whole section of light 'airy" rock riffs that I'd like to learn.  I want to be able to copy John Fusciante's style in case I ever play with my one really good bass friend again.  Higher registers just don't sit well with my ears, and I'm not really good at using them to produce music, so its something I really need to work on.

Gaining volume and day 57

Gain and Master Volume

To a bassist using solid state, the relationship between these two are very confusing.  To a guitarist, it is a little more obvious.  If you ask both what gain is, they'll usually give you a blank stair, and the guitarist will talk about getting a dirty signal.

If you look at a guitar as a signal transmitter, you can perhaps understand gain a bit more.  The signal from your guitar is relatively low, that is why passive instruments with no batteries are still the most prevalent.  The current created by the magnets and the strings is enough of a signal.  When it gets to your amp, it will encounter 2 stages in most amp designs.  The first stage is the "pre-amp".  This is the stage where this tiny, small signal gets boosted.  This is where your tone is "shaped", if you are to make changes to a signal, its much easier to fine tune the signal if it is larger. That is what the Gain does, its a knob that increases how big you transform your signal.  If you make the signal very large, you get pre-amp distortion.

(Pictured: to the left are the small pre-amp tubes, to the right are the large power amp tubes)

After the first Gain stage, the pre-amp, the signal goes to the power amp stage.  Again, this stage takes whatever signal you give it and makes it much larger so that it can power the speakers enough to make a mechanical transition of the signal.  If you have boosted the signal to great levels in the pre-amp using gain, then it will distort this power section as well.  It also means you get a HUGE increase in volume.  Power amp distortion causes the tubes to get very hot, and will wear out your amplifier components.  Power amp tubes will glow with the fire of a thousand suns when overdriven hard.

(pictured: power tubes, some people aren't used to seeing things lit up like this in electronics unless its LED's)

That is why the Master Volume knob was invented.  It sits between the Pre-amp and power amp stages(technically it is pre-amp).  With it, you can bring down the signal strength before it gets to the power amp section, but it will let the pre-amp distortion through.  Pre-amp distortion is popular because it is much lower heat and voltage, and is also cheaper to do all around.  You can get that distorted sound while keeping the power tubes working at normal temperatures, and keep your ears from getting split from volume.

Solid state bassists, of which there are more than tube users these days, don't have this kind of distortion usually.  So how do they know how much gain to use?  Well... they get a helping hand.

Day 57

I have pretty much explored my guitar amp and can now manipulate it to do what I want fairly quickly.  Not too bad for having it for a decade right?  Yea lol.  I made it a point to know how amp EQ works with bass. A lot of people I've known that played kind of have these super complex and powerful EQ's and have no idea what they're for.  They max them or set it all at 12 o'clock and call it a day.  Then they talk about needing this or that pedal for this sound.  I wanted to get away from that.  It is a habit of mine to see that kind of stuff and want to not be that way.  When I got the Thunderfunk, I was like "I really REALLY need to educate myself if I'm going to have this kind of amp". I remember my bass bud coming over a good number of years back and him not being happy with not getting a Claypool sound.

"its gotta be his fingers or his carl thompson"

I informed him that Claypool likes to play full mids blasted.  A "frowny" if you look at it on a graphic EQ.  I EQ'd it in, and sure enough, there it was.  He then played Tommy the Cat and made me realize how much I suck at bass.  Anyway, recognizing EQ'ing and sounds has always been important to me.

So far I switch between as light a distortion as this amp can get(which is not very light lol) and a high gain metal sound, which it is surprisingly good at doing.  Sometimes it gets pretty fuzzy too.  I have some stuff to learn about the frequencies and how they interact with the band.  Like, I don't know the mid frequencies in Guitar, so I don't know if boosting them will interfere with the bass player's sounds.  The whole reason you do not want to scoop a bass live is that you kill "your" frequency.  You boost where you overlap with the drums, and you muddy up the guitarist by interfering with his highs, while your relatively instrument free play area of the "mids" is cut all to hell.  That's a "scoop", and its only great in your bedroom.  I need to research the guitarist's play area.  It sure seems a lot of people scoop a guitar and it seems more accepted.

The Perfect Circle and Day 56

Getting a little nerdy here, but maybe you'll find it interesting.  The first part might look like a text book, but keep going.

Most western music is separated into a measure.  This is a musical unit that transcends all instruments.  When written down, you see a fraction used to help tell you how to play the piece of music.  The most common notation is 4/4, and it is called "common time signature".  It is literally the most common found.  From blues rock, to pop music, 4/4 is found all over the place.  On paper it looks like this:

What the numbers mean is pretty easy, and this isn't really an educational post.  The first or "top" number is the number of beats in the measure, and the bottom number is the length of the notes.  This means 4/4 means 4 quarter notes used in each bar.  Don't dwell on that too much.  What we're looking at today is the C that is written there.

Well, 4/4 time is known as several things.  The term "Common Time" is a more recent one that has come over time.  Many people think that the "C" there is for common time, but the notation is older than this name.  The "C" came many many years before the fact that 4/4 emerged as the most common.  We need clues.  Well 4/4 is also known as "Quadruple Meter".  That one is simple... maybe not any help to us.  It is also called "Imperfect Time".  Oh, hey, there we go.  Imperfect time.  If 4/4 is imperfect, what is "Perfect".  The time signature of 3/4 is "Perfect Time".  But why?  Well what changed.  There's a 3 in there.


When all this notation was being created, much of it was for religious usage.  The bulk of higher educational music was being done by the Church for their choirs.  Is there any Christian religious significance to the number 3?  The Holy Trinity.  This is why it is considered perfect, it is a holy number.  To Christians perhaps the holiest number.  The problem is that there are so many numbers used in notation, it could be confusing, so they needed another symbol for "perfect".

That's where the "Perfect" circle comes from.  A circle is a continuous line going on forever, unchanging, and perfect.  So 4/4 timing is not so perfect, its "Imperfect", but its close.  How do we show that something is "Imperfect".  How about a broken circle?  That's right!  The C used to represent 4/4 timing is not a "C" at all, so it can not stand for Common Timing.  It was originally a broken circle to stand for Imperfect Timing.

Day 56

Yesterday I had the epiphany that the Minor and Major Pentatonic overlapped in a way that certain shapes were the same on either side, and opened a huge amount of alternate ways I could play along in certain keys.  Today I learned that you can take the shapes you like, and find them in the same key in both minor and major pentatonic.  Because I am new, it is the first minor pentatonic shape(E at the 12th fret) that I know well and can call upon the easiest when I'm doing improv phrasing.  Now I know that if I just shift my hand and keep the same shape, I hit the MAJOR E pentatonic at fret 9.  That is super close and makes it very easy to have a kind of duality to my improv in a very simple way.

I really should just focus on learning the other shapes as well, and combining them.

I still have my same flaw, through all of this new playing and learning.  I learn, and I can talk theory, but I'm not as good with the application.  This is my same flaw in many hobbies and non-hobbies.  I'm strong on the "book learnin'" and not so much on the application.  I call it the "lazy supervisor gene" or some such.  It seems to do nothing but piss people off haha, including myself.

Along with Knockin' on Heaven's Door, which I need to play more but the Pentatonic realization has had me practicing other things lately, I have been playing some other songs just to... I don't know, test the waters? or some other appropriate phrase.  It feels really good to be watching and realizing what the favored scale of a song is.  I'm not "there' yet, but I'm getting able to see what's underneath a song.  That these songs aren't just magic that take place, but are methodical in approach.  Actually, I am quite looking forward to finding a good song that defies my ability to classify and "see" the method.

Legendary: Hunterburst and day 55

The Mighty Hunter-burst Les Paul

Before playing his Appetite for Destruction Les Paul, Slash had a Les Paul that the whole band remembers as a turning moment in their careers.  It was a sign that they were "making it" in the world of music.  It inspired them to work harder, player better, and get stuff done.  But this Les Paul did not make it with them to their debut album.  What was with this Les Paul?

To start talking about the Hunterburst, we have to go back to the time.  Today Les Pauls of all periods are coming out in droves, there are Les Pauls at every notch in a wallet.  In the late 70's and early 80's, the only way to get a Gibson made "like they used to" was to find a Gibson made back then.  I've said here before, for years Les Pauls were mistreated and thought of as lesser guitars.  They went through periods where they were hated, periods where they cost dirt money, and periods where they sat on pawn shop walls for years.

Steve Hunter of Alice Cooper was tired of looking for "that perfect 50's Les Paul".  He was not the only one.  Los Angeles' music scene was a hub of custom guitars.  Cheap customs were a way for a luthier to get skill for when that big dog comes knocking after hearing one of your guitars in a hip, new band.  Steve was one of these big dogs.  He got a Les Paul 50's copy made in the shop of Max Baranet.  Max rented luthier space in his shop, and there were several working there at the time.  Roman Rist, Max's apprentice, claims he spots several hallmarks that Max put into guitars, and that Max himself made it.  Max did well over 150 instruments a year at the era, so its easy to see how he could not remember it.  In pictures of the era, you can tell the Hunterburst from the AFD by the fact that the Hunterburst is a wider "quilt" maple top, while the AFD is more pinstripe flame.

Like many great Legendary instruments, the story of them starts with someone else not keeping it.  Steve Hunter got into the Super Stratocaster scene that Eddie Van Halen fostered, and decided to be rid of his custom Les Paul copy.  It went to the store of a guy named Howie Hubberman.  Howie was notorious for giving struggling bands deals on credit and trade ins.  Slash traded in a few of his guitars and was able to get The Hunterburst on credit.  Howie says that Slash was always good for the money, but probably payed it off well after getting rid of the guitar.

Now why is this guitar legendary if Slash got rid of it?  Well, Guns N Roses was not popular over night.  The image that Slash created and still performs under today was not yet established.  When he got the Hunterburst, that's when the band blew up.  Everyone that was a part of the LA scene in the mid 80's saw Slash playing this guitar.  Guns N Roses got their record deal on the back of the skill used with this guitar.  The AFD guitar gets the glory, but when GNR was struggling, hungry and playing their hearts out as a means to make a living, it was the Hunterburst in Slash's hands.

The Hunterburst currently resides in a museum.  Sadly it goes unplayed.


Day 55

If you are a musician well versed in theory, you're going to be bored by today's post.  If you are not a musician, you'll probably be bored by today's post too.

I am redoing and fleshing out my rough pages before putting them in my notebook and today I did a diagram of all the parts of the Minor and Major Pentatonic scale.  It hit me today that they overlap because they both use the same shapes.  Maybe I'm under representing this somehow...  I realized that a Major C Pentatonic in the first shape, is the same as a shifted Minor A.  Now, the chord tones are different, but the shape and place, and notes are exact.  This opens up my improving soooooooo much.  Also, this means I can find any key in minor or major using the same shape.

Its kind of like finally seeing the forest for the trees.

I used the session mode to map this out.  Again, it is so good for visualizing concepts that can be told to me, but sometimes I need a visual way of seeing it, which is why I have a habit of diagramming things on paper and in notebooks.

I am seeing the relationship not just the math of the theory.  This is like the next step for me to be able to hear something, know what is being played, and being able to solo or rhythm over or under it and be "correct" and not just "noodling around till something sounds right".  I could do it on paper, not just in practice, and other people will be able to look at it and say "yea I see what you're doing".  It makes me feel like I'm becoming a musician, not just a guy that can "play some bass and guitar".