121 Months Of Views

That's right, I've been blogging right here at the same URL for over ten years!! 

Crazy, right?
Boy, the internet was a very different place back then, as was digital photography.
"Photobloggers" like me are a dying breed.
Now it's all about news, shopping, gossip, and connecting via Facebook, etc.
And pr0n.

One thing that hasn't changed is that Blogger's (my hosting site) spellcheck still flags words like internet, blogging, and spellcheck. Funny but true.

Anyway, February was a weird month for me, so I forgot all about posting on the actual anniversary and decided to do it today.


Since this post is about me, here are some selfies I took today. (Spellcheck didn't like selfies, of course).

In the backyard with my 8-string bass, using my Samsung Galaxy S3.
We're getting the S5 in 2 months, and I can't wait.
This phone has a great camera, but the newer model is much better.
This is one of the only pictures of me that shows some wrinkles on my face, so it intrigues me. People always assume I'm around forty, rather than my true age of 52. It's cool, and I'm lucky and grateful. As a joke I always say "Beer and weed keep me young" but of course none of that is true. Gets a good laugh every time, though.

At the biggest jewelry store in town. Sylvia just got a raise and wanted to celebrate with her 1st diamond earrings. It's a very impressive building and operation. If you live here, you've fallen asleep during their informative half-hour infomercial.


Over the years I've blogged less and less for many reasons, and what I miss just as much as making (NOT just taking) pictures is the writing.
Just like tonight, I pop open a beer or three and start typing. When I was in school, essays were fun and an easy A grade, but I was never much for verse so writing lyrics for my music never amounted to anything. Very frustrating!
So blogging reawakened the dormant author in me and I always enjoyed it for it's own sake. Never mattered if anyone liked it or commented on it, I just did it because it made me feel good.

Recently, my blogging led to a chance to write something that'll get seen a LOT more than anything I post here.
A young singer that I ran sound for in 2012 needed a new biography for her website, and she remembered the blog I had done during my tenure in the band: A Beautiful Mess Featuring Natalie Rose
The writing was decent, and I liked the photos. Her father was very impressed when he found it and Views of TX, and wouldn't shut up about what a great writer I was.
So over the last two weeks I spent about 7 hours working on her bio whenever some spark of inspiration (or guilt about taking too long) might strike.
It's a different breed of writing, being a weird combo of reporting and selling. Walking a fine line between truth and promotion.
I've done it in the past, usually for myself and my illiterate bandmates, but this was a far more high-pressure affair because she's definitely going to be a big star someday so good work could lead to something. Which is weird, because I could go back to doing her sound and lights anytime I wanted to. Just burned-out on traveling and running sound after being in this business since high school. I've been offered the bass job a few times, too, but don't do country music and I just want to play bass and write heavy music with Televators.
Anyway, here's her website: Natalie Rose.
Click on the "ABOUT" tab.
I emailed it to her yesterday morning and it was on the site within an hour, and she says she loves it.
All in all a good day, this special 121 month anniversary. 


Speaking of my band Televators, we're playing next Sunday March 22nd.
Some tattoo convention thing--should be a ton of metal fans in the crowd.

We play for maybe an hour, starting at 3pm.


In conclusion, thank you for visiting Views Of Texas.
It's nice to know that people spent time looking at my photos and/or reading my words.
I appreciate you.

Hysteria

From recent experience I have to agree that the bassline of this song makes a great demo if you want to show off your programming and robotic hardware project. An incredible tech achievement!
I've got my hands full trying to play it through one time without stumbling badly.

They say that "muscle memory" requires up to 2000 repetitions to get it right but I never bought into that before now, because I like to interact freely with the other musicians. This song screams out for "Charge Ahead" on the bass and hope for the best.
What is the "exit strategy" should you blow a note? Get out of synch and where do you go?

God forbid the drummer comes in a little faster than I can manage.

Okay, I'm Over It

SO close!!
My spirit was crushed for over a week, and life had no meaning.
Time to move on and make the Spurs better enough to go all the way in 2014--won't take much!!

Televators News: We are playing at Leather & Lace in Austin this coming Wednesday July 3rd, and back here in SA at The Falls on Friday the 5th, and Boneshakers the 6th.

Our nephew Aaron is graduating from basic training at Lackland AFB (SO proud of him!) and related events are also scheduled for July 3,5, & 6. Going to be a busy week.
Good thing I can kick back on the 4th of July, right?
Nope--my first time running sound for the brand-new country band 5th Wheel is on the 4th. It's a rougher, harder-rocking country band than my last one so I look forward to finally hearing what I've gotten myself involved with.



My pepper crop this year is coming in nicely.
The jalapenos and serranos taste great and have good heat.
The chili piquins that wintered in the garage are plentiful, but both of my very old chiltepins aren't fruiting so it's a good thing I found an amazing wild specimen in the alley that's going to get dug up and potted when I get the time. This lush little round bush already has enough Scoville units to blister the mouths of everyone within a rifle shot.


I want this:

A little too white for my tastes, although it has the advantage of changing color depending on stage lights.
Perhaps some thin trim of fine wood veneers, or maybe airbrushing select areas of black.
Then there's steampunk details...

Pimp My Band

TELEVATORS have a lot of cool things happening soon that I'll be sure to let you know about in a timely manner.
Shows (including at least one here in SA) and our CD release top the list, and in conjunction with the release we're scheduled to do some internet radio station interviews. Following that will be actual physical product for sale on Amazon and other sites, so start saving your beer cans for the recycling $$$.

The photo shoot we participated in up near Austin a few weeks ago yielded a lot of fun pics of my bass for me to play with, but we recently got some of the content from the photographer they had hired.
Here's my favorite:


I was a little worried, but looks like us old farts still remember how to look like a band.
Don't get me started on the colors and exposure choices, though.
Kid photographers these days with their Instagrams and chlamydia and Photoshop dyslexia...


Saturday before last my phone went screwy and all my contacts disappeared.
WTF?!? is an understatement.

Turns out they had vanished from our carrier's online backup and everywhere else.
As I went to my texts to copy the most important ones down, the names of my peeps disappeared before my eyes, leaving only their numbers!
Weird.

We both had the original Galaxy S Fascinate and Sylvia's had been powering-down or locking-up randomly for several months already so we said screw it and went to Best Buy on Sunday and bought a pair of Samsung Galaxy S IIIs for $50 each.
Just...WOW!!
What a great device.

Among other things (meaning everything) the camera is a huge improvement, with a much smarter flash system, true macro capability, and many more megapickles.

I decided that my new phone needed a new custom wallpaper, and coincidentally remembering how my infrared camera "sees through" some guitar finishes I decided to do a quick and dirty IR of...what else?...my bass.
Sorry.



We were about to leave the house for the rest of the day so I didn't bother doing a proper session with lights and a dark background, etc, just shot it on the beige carpet and threw some ham-handed Photoshop at it much like the first photo above received.

I'm fascinated by the fact that the black stain around the edges of the bass is invisible to IR. I first discovered this with my Ibanez Artist guitar with a nearly identical "Antique Violin" finish, but when you consider that it was made in Japan in 1977 while the bass is 2004 Korean, plus the advances in finish materials, it's really quite remarkable.

More guitars need to be shot in infrared so I can get a handle on this phenomena.

Iceman On Location

On Sunday, Televators went east of Austin (Yay Toll Road 130!) to visit Austin Music Ranch for a photo shoot.
We're working with a promoter up there and the shoot pulled together several of their artists, models, and the ranch itself.

It was an interesting afternoon.
When I got bored and my bass got heavy it seemed like a good idea to put it down, so I did.
A lot.

Austin Again & Again

Last Wednesday Televators played with three other bands at Red Eyed Fly in downtown Austin.
Hooka Hey from Paris France was really good. (Their video is NSFW, in case you look it up)


We played well, and debuted our new song 'Sonetto' which features acoustic guitar, a more melodic bassline than usual, and Led Zep-ish vocals and drums.


My favorite moment was when we finished our set with the driving 'My Paradigm'. After the thunderous ending there was 3 seconds of silence, then a member of another band on the bill yelled "How the hell do you follow THAT?!?!"
Exactly how it should be done, my friend. Take no prisoners--go out and kill.
We cracked up.


Still deeply in love with my new-ish Ibanez Iceman bass and Peavey MAX tube pramp. Great tone inspires me to play better.


Just two days later we were back in the State Capital to return to Wire Recording studio and get down to work mixing the 3 unfinished songs recorded last April.



Our producer Lee Popa spent too much time and called-in all his favors mixing 'Milk Run' on his own, delivering a fine final product. Then he dropped the rest of the project, violating our contract and exposing himself to a nice lawsuit, but instead we chalked it up to lessons learned and we're still going to attach his name to the final results since that's all we have left of any value.


We used Wire engineer Joey B for mixing last Friday, in a marathon 7pm to 7am session.
Joey really knows his way around the studio, and is a cool relaxed cat to hang with.


It's interesting that we get to combine the convenience and speed of recording digitally with ProTools, but get to enhance and warm up the sound with piles and piles of vintage tube audio gear culled from famous studios world-wide. My bass might get run through a compressor used by The WHO while Bex's vocals are catching a vibe from something that the Beatles or Stones once used.


The rest of the band went back to re-do vocals and stuff on Sunday, but I missed that trip.


Not to fear, because I just went back up to Austin for the third time in a week for more mixing this Wednesday.
10pm-7am this time, and we finished 'The Visitor', our next release. The other two should be done in a few days, hopefully without my help.


Mixing is a tedious and exacting process, and we found the perfect engineer for us. Joey and Televators plan to work together from now on. But man, after hearing the same song again and again and again all night long, I'm so burned out on it that listening to the results is the last thing I want to do.
No wonder many artists never listen to their own recordings.


Some of you might wonder why I didn't mix it myself, given my 25 years of experience mixing live shows.
Well, the studio is a totally different animal and the results will be heard for years on all different kinds of sound systems from iPods to car stereos, home theaters to REAL theaters (SHHH--it's a secret for now).
I just don't have the gear or experience to do it justice, and that's cool.
Besides, live sound is more like playing an instrument.
It can be creative, spontaneous, and fun.
Plus, if you make a mistake people often blame it on the band and forget about it two seconds later.


Once 'The Visitor' gets mastered (yet another engineer performs final tweaks to make it fully compatible with all playback environments and CD pressing) I will post links so y'all can hear it for free (before you buy it on iTunes).
Once the final two songs are mixed and mastered, we'll be approaching record labels to try for a recording contract as well as looking for opening slots on major tours.

Again I ask: "Why didn't all this happen when I was younger?"
But hell, if bands that I grew up listening to can still do it...

Set My Alarm For Christmas

I could definitely sleep for a few weeks at least.

The Televators show went well enough. Played my new bass the whole night, and loved it. I had been afraid that it's big body would overwhelm me in my emaciated condition, but it doesn't look too bad:

But jeez--I'm swimming in that shirt and my jeans are baggy, too. Need a tailor badly.

Early Voting is a wonderful thing. No crowds, and you can choose the most convenient location. Highly recommended!

This post is coming from my old computer while the new one is in the shop. Hopefully it's just the video card that needs replacing--if it's the motherboard going bad I'll be building a new machine and it won't be cheap.

My truck had been acting up for the past month--stalling at red lights and sometimes in the middle of rush hour traffic, which tends to add stress to your life as it flashes before your eyes. Took it to Bring Your Own Parts on Bandera and they drove it around town for two days and never could get it to act up, which is the way these things always go. After checking for water in the gas tank, fuel pressure, spark, and a few other things they apologized profusely for not fixing it and charged me $80. So far I'm happy with the deal, because in 3 days of heavy driving it hasn't acted up once--not even a hint. Feels like it used to, so it looks like they fixed it much like I fix sound gear. Open things up, push and prod, then re-tighten the nuts. Crossing my fingers...

Did I mention the new camera? Since dropping my Alpha 300 it was never the same. The sensor shifted so far that composing a shot was mostly guesswork and the sharper center of the lens was sending it's info way off to one corner. I got fed-up and ordered a used Alpha 200 body from KEH and it's been great, at a price that's lower than repairing mine would have cost. I'm having some doubts about how the exposure looks on the LCD, but will get it ironed out soon.

Can't believe that the new NBA season starts for the SPURS in less than 24 hours. Going to sit quietly in a dark house and watch the game. Unplugging the doorbell. Yes--I'm bailing on Halloween this year. As much as I love scaring the kids (and parents) there's just no way I can put up the show in time tomorrow. The above list of things plus working 6 days/7 shifts a week killed any chance of it. Despite amazing early tests, I never was able to finalize the design and implementation of my newest scene, either. Oh well, there's always next year... GO SPURS GO!!!

Fruits Of My Labors

Been working at my new day job for 6 weeks. My hours have more than tripled and I just got a 25% raise, so it looks like the boss is happy with my performance. May have to quit the bands someday if this trend continues. Finally had enough cushion in the bank to splurge a little, so I just bought this:

Hated borrowing a different bass amp for every show, and found this Peavey Mark III Bass amp head at Krazy Kat's for the right price. Made in USA in the early 1980s--the golden age of Peaveys for me, although plenty of their newer stuff is even better. Their amps are THE toughest and most reliable ever made by anyone anywhere so even though it's 30+ years old, after I open it up for cleaning and inspection it will have my complete confidence. Sounds just like I expected, too. Works well with my PV speaker cabinet it's sitting on, though I'm going to get another because more = more. It's been decades since I celebrated a New Amp Day, and it feels great. In semi-related news, a product photo I made for my company's listings was quickly promoted to become THE master photo for that item all across Amazon. Lucky or good I don't know, but it's pretty cool. Should have snuck a small ©kak onto it and added my name and this blog's URL into the jpg's exif data. Does anyone know how to make paragraph breaks in the new Blogger interface???

Trailers And Amps

Ever have one of those weeks when it seems like everything is a little off?

TRAILERS

Coming home from a show in Kerrville in the wee hours of last Saturday morning, everything was fine.
Just two band brothers yapping about The Spurs and music and such while dragging a heavy trailer up those damned hills on IH10.
I pulled up in front of our house, unloaded my personal gear, and bid my boss good night.
Some time later he called with the news that the trailer's axle had parted company with the suspension in a most catastrophic fashion and asked my advice on what he might do about it:
Being late, I was tired and a bit in my cups, so I wasn't particularly helpful.
He was only a mile from his house, but had to call a tow truck to get the trailer the rest of the way.


The tire grabbed the fender and folded it up rather well while also shredding.



Somehow, the other fender sustained damage as well.
I'm just glad it didn't happen while I was driving in the middle of Nowhere, Texas.
We had to split the gear between our pickups for the next gig, which luckily was a private party that didn't require all of it.

He bought a new (used) trailer today that's a bit bigger in every dimension but height (to fit his garage) so the good news is more space for more stuff.
Bad news is I'm still going to hit my head at least twice a week for the next few years.


AMPS

By my count I have used at least six different amp/speaker combinations since I started playing bass a couple years ago, first with Loud Nine and now for Televators. It gets old pretty fast, borrowing stuff and never getting the chance to settle on ONE amp rig that you can get used-to and fine-tune over time.
If I wasn't a sound expert I think I would have gone insane, but luckily it's fairly easy for me to get wildly different products to do what I need them to do.
Doesn't mean I like this situation--it really blows and I hate it.

A big step forward was buying a Peavey bass speaker cabinet from my friend Buz.
It was part of the rig I used with great success in the studio two months ago.
Still need to pay him for it...

While working up amp situation #7 this week I took a peek in the rear port of the cabinet and spotted this:
WTF???
Never seen such a thing--a bottle of something was neatly wedged between the frame and cone of a speaker.


Mickey Mouse Shampoo & Conditioner.
The kind you find in your hotel room at Epcot Center or Disneyland I suppose.
Buz had zero idea where it came from or how it got there.
And yes, it's location will have an effect on the sound but with the other 3 speakers involved it would be hard to notice, even for an "expert" like myself.


It took a while for me to take a hard look at the bass amp that's been sitting in Bex Televator's practice room, rather than treating it like a carpet-covered nuisance that's only good for banging my knees and holding up my soda and camera bag. When I finally had no choice but to use the thing there were issues with random volume drops, so I brought the sucker home and took it apart.
As I suspected there were some cracked solder joints on the input jack, and a couple more on one of the power transistors.
Fixed in mere minutes thanks to the best invention in recent years--the cordless drill/screwdriver. (Mine is a 24-volt Black & Decker we got at Target for a mere $36 with many accessories).

As it turns out, for a basic "practice" combo amp it has WAY more features than usual.
In fact, it's preamp section is a near clone of the one Buz let me use in the studio minus the tube section--it's all solid-state circuitry. Good thing I have a tube preamp/direct box to put in front of it for some old-school tone through the amp and also sent to the PA system.
I did a bunch of stuff to the 4x10" cabinet, including the addition of a big metal 1970's vintage Peavey logo and removing the casters so it'll stack nicely. Not done yet, but getting close.

Used this rig at practice tonight and we all agreed is sounded fine.
I'll be using it for the next Televator's show, June 23rd at Charlie Brown's on Starcrest. Hope to see some of you there.

This doesn't change anything. I still NEED a complete bass amp system of my own.
I've selected the specific items I want, and it's going to sound way better than rigs costing 3x as much.

Too Many Basses?

I'm tripping over the damn things in every room!
Sylvia got scared by a soft bass case that I had left in a strange place this morning--in the dark it could have been mistaken for a dog, I guess.

In addition to my own 4 and 8 string instruments:
Think I'm about done fixing the neck and bridge on this acoustic/electric Ibanez. It was seriously jacked.
I will miss being able to sit at the PC and learn songs off youtube without an amp or headphones.
Definitely on my wish list.


Next to the Ibanez is one of Steve's basses that I'm thinking might come in handy when the Televators go into an Austin studio next month. It's a Fender (Japan) Jazz Special that combines the best features of the two most popular and long-lived basses in history. He has it strung and tuned for the bottom four strings of a 5-string, so it's got a thin and easy to play neck yet still goes into the deep sub frequencies. Too bad I don't know how to play our songs in this tuning, or if it's even possible.


This is John's BC Rich 5-string that Rikk has been using in our country band A Beautiful Mess. It's got some electrical issues that I hope have been sorted out tonight.
In the foreground you can see the precision Klein Tools fine gauge wire strippers my brother got me for Christmas.
Sylvia hooked me up with an almost exact clone (that was MUCH cheaper) from Northern Tools for the thicker wires, which is the smart way to go. Finer copper strands need finer tools, but when you get into the lamp cord range it's really not a big deal.
Ashamed to admit that in all the years (okay, 3 decades +) that I've been fixing electronics and making custom cables, my toolbox has always held some seriously shitty wire strippers. For precision work I would use an ExActo knife, very carefully and slowly.
These quality tools are wonderful.
I feel like an idiot for cheating myself by being too cheap and using crap tools.

Only bass missing is the most important one--David's Korean Ibanez SR500 that will be used for the vast majority of the Televators studio sessions.
I need to put slightly heavier strings on it and adjust the bridge and neck accordingly in time for our show on March 30 at the Evil Olive Lounge.
Neck truss-rod adjustments take time to settle down, so hopefully I'll be bringing it home from practice tomorrow night.
And with any luck I'll be able to restrain myself from playing it too much, so the new strings will be right at the perfect age for serious recording--not too "zingy" but still kinda bright and responsive.


On the subject of recording, I actually spoke on a conference call to our producer last night for the first time and it turns out that he Google-stalked me and found Views Of Texas.
Besides recommending that I may want to lower my internet profile in the future (don't know how I feel about that) he also had some fun at my expense with the name of my old band The Hitmen mentioned in the last post.
I guess he wasn't told that every single Televator has been in The Hitmen at some point, especially our guitarist who founded the band and was the only one to stay from beginning to end--10+ years.

Good thing my bandmates don't include this blog in their usual web surfing--they had zero idea what the hell he was talking about so the faux pas went unnoticed.

Just Checking In

Hmmm...what's new?

After the show, I took off the strings and gave my 4-string bass a good cleaning.
Rosewood fretboards like some lemon oil every year or so--otherwise they get too dry and might crack.
Under the strings around the pickups there's usually a LOT of what looks like dust, but is mostly skin cells and (if you're playing it hard enough) pulverized pick.
Not going to clean the other bass until I get new strings for it. Taking off 8 strings and putting them back on is a royal pain.


Halloween went well enough.
The kids started coming before dark, so the early-birds missed the fire and smoke and lights.
We only had 45 tricksters, which is a tie for the lowest since I've been keeping records.
Only 1 teenager got TacoBell sauce, and two little ones managed to fall down on our porch.
I had some photos, but accidentally deleted them from my CF card, thinking they were already on the PC. No great loss.


It rained just enough on Monday for the roads to be as slick as goose poop.
Some guy in his 20's driving a nice new-ish Dodge Charger didn't look and pulled-out 30 feet in front of me, then stopped.
I hit the brakes and started sliding, and he put it in reverse and spun his wheels to no effect.
Time slowed way down until the impact with his front fender, which wasn't enough to move his car more than a couple inches.
We cleared the street (something everyone should do--the cops aren't going to be reconstructing anything unless there's a fatality, so get the hell out of everyone's way!) and surveyed the "damage".
He was all "That dent was already there, and this scratch is no big deal".
I took that as a good sign and said (in my jolliest voice): "Let's look at mine!"
Then: "I got nothing. Wanna call it good, and be on our way?"
With that we shook hands and took off, which is NICE.

Some people get too wrapped up in procedures to look at the big picture.
The police probably had 250+ minor accidents to deal with that day, which would mean at least a 45 minute wait, and the "damage" was below any possible deductible, so what's the point?
Live and learn--he's sure to look both ways from now on, and I'll continue to be a perfect driver who's only accidents are someone else's fault. Or something like that.
My neck DOES kinda hurt a little...


Ever try to sign a little girl out of school when the relevant paperwork has been misplaced? Not so easy in this day and age. Adventures in babysitting. The whole time we waited, the kid was begging for my phone so she could play Angry Birds, then they finally tracked-down mommy in Las Vegas. Verbal permission isn't really kosher, but apparently I was so calm and patient and understanding (compared to A-hole parents?) that a correct judgment call was made in my favor.
Here's my little nugget Jada 6 years ago:
They grow up so fast, or so I've heard.


My new band has a show coming up in December so I'll be busy learning more songs for that, plus we're recording a Christmas Carol spoof I first wrote about 15 years ago. I'll post a link when it's done.

Practice Makes Perfect

It's a true enough saying, but there are at least two qualifiers.
You can only attain the level of perfection allowed by your innate skill and talent.
And you need TIME.
Practice takes time, which is often in short supply.

I can only take so many hours a day with headphones clamped to my skull, pounding out heavy rock with twice as many basses as normal in the mix.

Thankfully, the modern world makes learning songs much easier than it was when I started playing back before the Bicentennial.
I'm in front of my PC switching sources from CDs, mp3s, YouTube, and the band's website. A compact mixer and a small tube preamp for my basses take up less space than my old practice amp.

Still, I'm wiped-out and just want tonight's show to be over so I can have some beers and try to forget all the mistakes I'm going to make in front of a big crowd.
I'm scared, and that's a feeling I always used to avoid by practicing enough to really know the material.
But there's just no time...

Bugs And Basses

Waiting for my best friend Buz to arrive from Phoenix late one night last week, I spotted this cicada shedding the dirty exoskeleton it had inhabited for years in the dirt:


Prepping for his visit has taken a lot of my time, which is why postings have been a bit scarce in these parts.



During the years I was in The Hitmen and The BeWires, Buz was my favorite bassist that graced those bands, but sadly he never put up with the politics and bullshit long enough to suit my desire to listen to great rock bass night after night. We agree on most details of equipment and technique, and now that he's here I got to take pictures of a truly rare and crappy bass in his collection:
Resonator guitars (usually called Dobros after an early and popular brand) used a vibrating steel diaphragm to make them louder in the pre-electric days, but they are a terrible idea for bass guitars. Fender made a few in 2003, and I have the honor of doing a little work on this one.


Mostly we're helping each other out while enjoying good company and doing a little damage to our livers. I repair his headphones and bass gear while he upgrades all of our computers.
We play to our strengths and resources, then take an occasional (solo) pee in the back yard in this fine post-rain weather.

Hope y'all will forgive me for neglecting my internet friends in favor of real flesh and blood ones for a change.

Not Much Happening...

It finally rained this week!
Being woken up by thunder, and lying in bed listening to the rain--sweeeet!

But then I found that the storm had done some damage--a big section of tree was cracked, but it landed on a lower part so taking it down was complicated and dangerous. I had to jump off the ladder with a saw in my hand, then later as it finally fell the rest of the way I almost got my arm torn off by the rope I was using to pull it free.
No pictures.

I DID take a picture of the tiedown bungee attachment thingies that I added to the front of my truck's bed.
It had a front pair already, but they are recessed in the floor and hidden under my bed liner. To install these I made some steel plates that are on the other side of the body's sheet metal, to distribute the stress better than any washers could.
Lots of drillpress and grinder action.
Best part was--these were salvaged from my old Mazda pickup right before I got rid of it. I was walking past it one day and saw them, and thought "I wish my new Dodge had those". It only took around 45 seconds before I realized that all it took was a wrench to get the process started.
Now the band's lights don't tip over when I haul-ass around corners.




Not much else to tell, so here's a picture of my basses:
I never get tired of looking at them.
Just wish I had more opportunities to play them.

More STYX

It's been two weeks since the rodeo and concert, and I'm still blogging about it?
Lots of other stuff has been happening, and I'm way behind.
Remind me of this when I'm complaining that I don't have any new pictures or stories.


Ricky has changed basses and Tommy's now playing a Les Paul, so you can tell that we've finally moved past the 1st song.
JY never changes guitars, and in fact has played this exact same Fender Stratocaster from the beginning.
A friend of his in college invented a distortion or booster circuit of some kind and installed it in the guitar. JY could never get the same sound out of any other gear, and got hooked on it. Forever friends, a boy and his Strat.




This guy sings almost exactly like Dennis DeYoung, the original keyboardist who sang some of the hits, but I think the new fella is less pretentious.
I explained to Sylvia that the other guys hated Mr. Roboto, Dennis's concept album that almost killed their career, and that they wouldn't play the title song. I was right.





Here Tommy is playing a 12 string electric that looks like someone took a saw to a Telecaster. Like me back in the day, he even played a solo on the 12 complete with bent notes. What a little stud.


I had just finished telling Syl about how the band was formed by the Panozza brothers, who played drums and bass, but who were now too old or too dead to tour.
Then who walks up onstage but Chuck Panozza! Ricky Phillips switched to a 6/12 doubleneck so Chuck could play some bass and feel like a star again.
After this song he sat behind the drummer and rested, then played the rest of the night. Two basses at once?
Very Spinal Tap at times, but they made it work.

Thanksgiving Day 2010

The band had to play last night, because just like the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year, the day before is the biggest drinking night of the year.
I got to play bass at the end of the night, and it was a lot of fun:
To be honest, I really miss playing regularly and am trying to get this part of my life fixed. It's terribly frustrating and depressing.


Here's a view of the sky just before the cold front blew in:
From the '80s to the 40's in a couple hours--on a drive across town I started with the AC in my truck and ended up switching to the heater.


In a newish neighborhood ("The Parc"--how pretentious!) on FM1516 near Converse my brother detoured me to this scupture of a deer made from scrap metal:
It's huge--at least 40 feet high. You can get a sense of the size by the bicycle sticking out of the buck's chest.
It was already dark and I didn't have a tripod, so I did the best I could for a photo. Definitely going back for daytime color and infrared pics--especially since the high thin cirrus clouds I love for IR photography are finally back in season.


Sadly, some rotten scumbags stole tools and clothes and jewelry out of a truck parked at the family gathering today. Instead of shopping for Christmas on Black Friday, they'll be buying necessities just to get through their visit, which is just wrong.
At least nobody got hurt, although I would give thanks if the thieves had an "accident" and lost their teeth and maybe some fingers...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! 

Sorry I've been too busy to take nice pictures lately, but with Christmas coming soon you just know I'll be shooting some cool stuff for our card so be on the lookout for the outtakes.