Sunday, January 11, 2009

Those guitar clips I promised

Okay, never mind the fact that I just woke up, put on a baseball cap to hide my scary hair, and took the videos with my crappy cell phone, the guitar speaks for itself. This is the "No-Nocaster" in all its glory. My phone only will do short clips, thus, the concise wanking. Also, not all of the guitar and my playing is in the pictures because I had to prop up the phone on a pillow. I couldn't tell where I was in the shot and got tired of things being perfect. You can hear what's going on well enough. Anyway, the guitar feels and plays great. I'm playing dirty in most of these clips. That's how I like it.

This clip shows some twangy rhythm playing with the amp mildly overdriven. This is probably as clean as I like to play in most cases.

This is the 1998 Fender Stratocaster "Deluxe" that I bought new in 1999 and is my most modified from original guitar. A Strat is a great "hot rod" in that you can take a whole bunch of parts and swap them out--modify to your taste. It is hard to do that to something more precious, such as a Les Paul. Anyway, 1998 was a great year for the Mexican Strats. I changed the body from a black MIM to a three-tone sunburst 2007 American Standard Strat body. However, the secret to great guitar tone is in the neck. If the neck doesn't have it, it never will. So, already having a great neck, the better body enhanced everything nicely. This is my most comfortable guitar to play and the most versatile. The neck pickup and the two "quack" positions (#2and#4) are this guitar's signature sound. Good for SRV, Mayer, Frusciante, Hendrix, and more funky styles.

This is my early '70s Les Paul copy, a Japanese made model by the Suzuki instrument company. It isn't the most desirable copy, but it is still a great guitar for what I paid for it. It is the most full bodied and sexy sounding of all my electrics and the most temperamental at the same time--the most woman like, if you will. It doesn't like to stay in tune, loves to shift with the humidity level, and it hurts my back if I play it too long. Love hurts. But when I get it dialed in, I just can't get enough of this guitar. Makes me want to save up for the real thing. Someday, perhaps.

The amp I was playing through is my '57 Gibson Skylark, all of 5 watts with a tiny 8" speaker. This small amp is still plenty loud and you can hit the sweet spots without killing off your sperm and glassware. It's funny that the engineers back then thought that the distortion produced by this amp made it an inferior design. I helped it along with my own modifications when I restored it.

Enjoy!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude... If I could throw my panties up on "stage" via your blog, I'd totally do it. The new baby sounds amazing. NICE!

Logophile said...

oooooo
look at you go!
Or rather listen.

But um, if Mega throws his man panties at you? That I don't need to see, ok.

The Grunt said...

Meggypoo~ Go right ahead, like it's your bachelorette party.

Logo~ Thanks! BTW, Megatropolis is a woman and wears nice underwear.

Jay Ferris said...

I don't wear underwear; would it be an insult to throw my socks at you? They're clean, honestly.

Scott said...

That is some great shit man. I am beyond impressed right now.

Chris Wilson said...

A request: Do a Carlos Santana riff.

Christielli said...

I always wish I was musically talented.

The Grunt said...

Jay~ Throw money. I'll take that over panties, socks, or bras any day.

Scott~ Thanks! The secret is just sticking with it and finding the swing in your rhythm and picking. Rock and roll may be an old term, but the slang that it came from describes exactly how you should approach the guitar, IMHO.

Chris~ I don't know any Santana licks at the moment, but I'm sure I could figure a few out. Just don't ask me to play Stairway to Heaven.

Christielli~ Well, I wish I was good at math. I'm alright at math, but not exceptional.

NYD said...

Watched the vids yesterday, but was at work so I didn't take the time to comment.

Man, you have got to borrow someones video camera and make us a longer clip!
The No-nocaster sounds pretty cool and the Gibson copy is a honey!

I prefer my sound a little twangier probably because I am used to playing acoustic.

Be Grunty!

The Grunt said...

NYD~ Thanks! I do need to make a longer video. I'm really not into cameras, so I'm happy with whatever. That's my excuse. Anyway, I wish I could have played through my other amps because the amp I played through doesn't showcase my Strat as well as the others do. Anyway, the great thing about electric guitars is that you get such a large palette of colors (tones) to work with. Guitarists use such terms as brown, crunchy, twangy, chimey, hair, fat, thin, quack, piano, bell, chunky, round, resonant, to describe their tone. The only right or good tone is the one that suits your playing style. BTW, I am big into acoustic tone as well.

Jules said...

Very nice little glimses into the rocker Grunty... thanks for sharing, Sweetie!