i didn't go to europe (but i will, rest assured). i had an itinerary, recommendations, new trek-ready clothes, a sigg water bottle... i was even in the running for a free eurail pass on facebook (total bullshit contest, by the way)! then i got a message from my friends in ice nine kills asking me to go on tour with them for 2 months. i struggled with the decision. here i was, trying to get away from being a broke musician for awhile, expand my horizons and set out for new territory... i ended up accepting the offer.
i had always been a fan of the band since playing shows with them, but i had no training in their style of music. after a week of 6-8 hour practice sessions, i knew the parts. unfortunately i didn't have a menacing guitar to go with the music, so i started looking. i settled on one of these:
it's an SG-X! i first heard about these guitars though the fall of troy. i found one on craig's list in manhattan and went down there as soon as i could. i love its simplicity - one pickup, one volume, one tone. coil tap gets some decent single coil sounds. it weighs about half a pound, which was great for such a grueling tour schedule. all in all, a great find. for the first half of the tour i ran it through my pedalboard (to be detailed later) and the band's mesa dual rec and 4x12. i had a lot of noise issues with the high output pickup and the mesa, but a noise suppressor semi-fixed that. i blew fuses at consecutive shows, but midway through the tour we scored a hughes & kettner matrix for $50 (what?!), and although i usually hate solid state amps, it did the trick for the rest of the tour. i'd love to check out some h&k gear in the future.
the tour was intense, fun, trying, financially draining, and a great experience. we had an amazing group of people and i miss them all. since i've already linked a few things, i'll add one more: oceana, a young band from florida. aside from being genuine and hilarious guys, they're a great band. heavy with a gigantic groove, melodic and thunderous all at once. they're kind of like godzilla drenched in soaring delay destroying mothra copycat bands with deadly plodding breakdowns. they're writing a new record right now and have a demo of anew song on their myspace. i've played it numerous times for the past couple weeks. very excited for the newness.
this blog will be about me. hopefully no rants, definitely some raves, and links to stuff that i'm really diggin at the moment. expect music, movies, books, gear, food and drink, websites, recipes... and on and on. we'll see how it turns out.
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