*** The guys over at www.MusicianWages.com came up with the wicked idea for this blog topic, and asked a bunch of people to participate, if they wanted to. So if you're reading this via a link on MusicianWages.com, that's rad, and you already know how much MusicianWages.com and the guys who run it kick ass. ***
So it's the last couple days of 2009, and we're about to leave the land of the single-digit-2000's. New decades are interestingly cool, for some reason. I'm not sure why, but things tend to get divided that way. We know that on January 1st, 1970, the hippies didn't all turn in their flower power for disco balls. Changes happen more gradually than that, but looking at a decade's identity can be informative, if not fun.
So after having lived the last 10 years, what advice would I have for myself back in 1999?
That's a damn good question. I could get reeeaalllyyy deep and say that I wouldn't want to tell myself anything, because then it would alter who I was and thus change who I became which would make 2009 me no longer exist... but that's too geeky. Let's assume the question is of philosophical and perhaps even spiritual nature, and now we'll see what I got.
In 1999, I finished up my 2nd year of community college (taking GE classes and practicing a lot) and transferred to the University of North Texas as a jazz guitar major. That's when I moved out of my parents' house in central California and moved to Denton, Texas. It was a lot to handle all at once in several departments, but I was confident and plowed through. I'm not going to say it wasn't difficult (in fact it was hard work and lots of challenges), but it was a great experience.
Undergrad in Texas led to moving to L.A. and a Masters degree at U.S.C. That led to developing gigs in L.A., to playing in several bands and making a few records, to touring the U.S. extensively. And that led to doing my first solo record, and that led me to now... I'm making a second record under my name.
So if I was going to give advice to myself back in 1999, knowing what the next 10 years would be like, I would tell him this:
----------------------------
Here's the deal... the next ten years are going to have a lot going on in them. Up's, down's, this way, that way and everywhere in between. I'm not going to bother trying to explain anything in detail, except this:
In the next ten years, you will learn A LOT about life, about music, about yourself, etc. By the end of the decade, it will all boil down to these three things:
Integrity
Determination
Perseverance
This isn't the secret of life, or a guarantee for happiness, or anything like that. It's a mantra -- a way to approach life.
Integrity: Know who you are, what you believe, and what you want. Do not sacrifice or ignore your integrity for anyone.
Determination: Motivate yourself to achieve, no matter how big or small the goal. Your life has a purpose -- seek it, and honor it.
Perseverance: Life is full of obstacles, difficulties and challenges. Learn to deal with them while staying as positive as possible. Integrity and determination can easily falter without perseverance.
There ya go. Enjoy the decade, kid.
----------------------------
Now, I was starting down the path to that idea back in 1999, but if I had heard that back then it probably wouldn't have meant that much to me. I didn't arrive at the understanding of what all that meant to me until after having the experiences over the last 10 years, so hearing the advice wouldn't help much... but I guess that's not really the point, is it?
Giving advice to yourself ten years ago asks you to "sum up" the last ten years of your life, kinda like how we assign identities to each decade... so I guess that's what I just did. It's not an end-all-be-all statement or conclusion -- if the exercise teaches us anything, it's that in life we always have the opportunity to change -- physically, mentally and spiritually. In fact, it's nearly impossible to avoid change, even if you really don't want it to happen. So, in 2019 will I still believe my mantra? Or will I have evolved it into something else, or abandoned it completely? It's hard to say... fortunately. I like the experiencing part -- it kinda happens all the time and there's no replacement for it. At least, that's how I feel about it today.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Recording a New Album -- Part 2
I'm documenting the process of making my 2nd album -- this is part 2:
Sunday, December 20, 2009
My First Re-finish
So this is a bit guitar-geeky, but I enjoyed doing it, so I'm sharing the experience.
A couple weeks ago my good friend forwarded a Craigslist ad selling an '89 Carruthers S6 (strat), which is something I've been wanting for a while. There were EMG pickups in it, but the guy had the original pickups that came with it, Seymour Duncan SSL-1's. It had a pretty psychedelic paint job, the neck felt a little funny (like its back had been sanded down), and the clear pickguard had been badly damaged, but the price was a steal so I bought it. My thoughts were: buy a new neck from Carruthers, replace the pickguard with a black one, take the paint off and make it a natural finish. After that, I would have a John Carruthers S6 for less than half of what it costs to order one new.
I didn't jump right to that idea -- I did bits and pieces slowly to see what was worth going ahead with. In hindsight I could have done things more efficiently, but I wanted to make sure each step I did worked and felt right after it was done before doing anything else. A little cautious, but smart, I felt.
The first thing I did was to play the guitar a lot to decide if I really wanted to invest in a new neck. I A-B'd it with the neck on my Carruthers tele, and headed in to John's shop after a couple days. They quoted me a new neck (which I got to pick out, btw), a new pickguard, and a pickup replacement (after putting the SSL's in I had discovered one was dead). It felt right so I put down a deposit. A week later I came back to pick up the guitar. While I was there I also probed Carruthers about how one might go about removing the finish. He told me to sand it down with 220 grit... for a long time. Sounds fun.
I successfully forgot to take a picture of the guitar in the condition I bought it in, but here's a picture of the guitar with the new neck and pickguard on (and the old neck next to it):
Next, I played the new neck and got acquainted. It felt great, so I started contemplating the finish. It had a "thing," I guess you could say, but the overly craziness of it was simply too much. I thought about how much work it would take to re-finish it myself, and decided that I was capable enough to do a decent re-finish to a natural finish. Plus, it sounded like it could be a fun project. I went out and bought some materials and sanded a test area on the back of the guitar.
After about an hour of sanding by hand I had barely made a dent, and I decided a new tactic was needed. I borrowed a powered palm sander from a friend and planned on taking the guitar apart so I could go to town with the power sander. Before diving into tearing the neck off, I called up a friend who used to work at Carruthers to ask him for any cautions or pointers on taking the guitar apart. He gave me his advice, which included taking the body itself back to Carruthers to have him run it through his planer. This thing could remove the paint off the flat surfaces in only a couple minutes. He suggested I then ask John what kind of paint stripper to buy to take the rest off. Lastly, he told me what kind of lacquer to get (Bar Top) and how to finish it myself.
Excited about the prospect of saving myself a lot of work, as well as being stoked about the fact that I might pull this off, I took the guitar apart. I left the entire pickguard assembly together since there was no need for it to be taken apart. I also took measurements of pickup and bridge height to make sure I was able to put it back together just as it was. Hopefully it wouldn't lose the brand new setup it had just gotten when I bought the new neck.
I then took the body back to Carruthers shop, exactly one week from the day I picked up the new neck. I got some funny looks from one of the guys (understandable -- I just took apart a guitar they had set up), but after a quick inquiry about using the planer, John took me into the shop and I watched as he worked his magic. He had the front and back completely sanded down just below the paint line in about 2 minutes. Then, he took it over to a large belt sander that he used to remove the large areas of paint on the contours (that bit saved me another hour of work at least). He recommended a paint stripper for me, and I thanked him for the help and headed to the local paint store. I picked up some lacquer, sandpaper (600 grit), steel wool (#0000), and some black spray paint to paint the red, blue and yellow pickup covers and knobs.
When I got home I set up a little MacGyver-inspired rig so that I could strip the remaining paint. I wish I had taken a picture of it, because it was pretty awesome. I took a hanger and ran the hook end through one of the screw holes in the neck joint, and hung it on a mic stand. Yup. Pretty cool. It took a couple of hours to remove the remaining paint, and it was relatively painless (however very chemical-y). I didn't do the best job with the paint stripper, so the wood got a little discolored in places, and scraping the paint made some divots, but I started to like the idea of it not turning out all slick and clean. It was going to have character, and I was okay with that.
After some sanding and wiping, I got the lacquer out to do the first coat. I taped up the neck joint so as not to possibly change the dimensions with layers of lacquer. I also taped up the spring plate and screws on the back, as well as the ground wire soldered to the bottom of the electronics chamber. My rig from stripping the paint translated over to applying the lacquer, and it was pretty easy to do. This picture is what it looked like with a fresh coat of lacquer drying:
For a while the process was to apply a thin coat of lacquer, let it dry for a few hours, then sand lightly with the 600 grit before the next coat. I repeated this process for a couple days before arriving at what looked like a decent satin finish (I went with satin over glossy -- wasn't feeling the shiny factor). Also, while waiting for coats to dry, I painted the pickguard covers and knobs, and after they dried I put them back in the pickguard assembly. I most likely will want to buy a new set of black knobs, however, because while the spray paint worked well on the pickguard covers, it didn't work as well on the knobs.
Before putting the guitar back together, I used the steel wool to buff the finish a bit, and then wiped it down to remove any steel wool dust. The bridge went in first, then the springs, then the pickguard (with the ground re-soldered), the input jack, the neck, and finally the strings. I tuned her up, plugged her in and she played beautifully. Everything felt like it did before I disassembled it (close, at least), so I was relieved.
I'm very happy with how it turned out. It definitely isn't perfect, but I still think it's cool because I did it myself. I'm looking forward to playing it a lot and having it age along with me. I'm also interested to see how it records. In my opinion it's really hard to beat a Carruthers guitar. John just knows what he's doing, and it shows in how well they play. I'm sure she'll be used several times on this new record I'm going to start tracking for soon. In the meantime, she'll be getting used to looking so damn good.
A couple weeks ago my good friend forwarded a Craigslist ad selling an '89 Carruthers S6 (strat), which is something I've been wanting for a while. There were EMG pickups in it, but the guy had the original pickups that came with it, Seymour Duncan SSL-1's. It had a pretty psychedelic paint job, the neck felt a little funny (like its back had been sanded down), and the clear pickguard had been badly damaged, but the price was a steal so I bought it. My thoughts were: buy a new neck from Carruthers, replace the pickguard with a black one, take the paint off and make it a natural finish. After that, I would have a John Carruthers S6 for less than half of what it costs to order one new.
I didn't jump right to that idea -- I did bits and pieces slowly to see what was worth going ahead with. In hindsight I could have done things more efficiently, but I wanted to make sure each step I did worked and felt right after it was done before doing anything else. A little cautious, but smart, I felt.
The first thing I did was to play the guitar a lot to decide if I really wanted to invest in a new neck. I A-B'd it with the neck on my Carruthers tele, and headed in to John's shop after a couple days. They quoted me a new neck (which I got to pick out, btw), a new pickguard, and a pickup replacement (after putting the SSL's in I had discovered one was dead). It felt right so I put down a deposit. A week later I came back to pick up the guitar. While I was there I also probed Carruthers about how one might go about removing the finish. He told me to sand it down with 220 grit... for a long time. Sounds fun.
I successfully forgot to take a picture of the guitar in the condition I bought it in, but here's a picture of the guitar with the new neck and pickguard on (and the old neck next to it):
Next, I played the new neck and got acquainted. It felt great, so I started contemplating the finish. It had a "thing," I guess you could say, but the overly craziness of it was simply too much. I thought about how much work it would take to re-finish it myself, and decided that I was capable enough to do a decent re-finish to a natural finish. Plus, it sounded like it could be a fun project. I went out and bought some materials and sanded a test area on the back of the guitar.
After about an hour of sanding by hand I had barely made a dent, and I decided a new tactic was needed. I borrowed a powered palm sander from a friend and planned on taking the guitar apart so I could go to town with the power sander. Before diving into tearing the neck off, I called up a friend who used to work at Carruthers to ask him for any cautions or pointers on taking the guitar apart. He gave me his advice, which included taking the body itself back to Carruthers to have him run it through his planer. This thing could remove the paint off the flat surfaces in only a couple minutes. He suggested I then ask John what kind of paint stripper to buy to take the rest off. Lastly, he told me what kind of lacquer to get (Bar Top) and how to finish it myself.
Excited about the prospect of saving myself a lot of work, as well as being stoked about the fact that I might pull this off, I took the guitar apart. I left the entire pickguard assembly together since there was no need for it to be taken apart. I also took measurements of pickup and bridge height to make sure I was able to put it back together just as it was. Hopefully it wouldn't lose the brand new setup it had just gotten when I bought the new neck.
I then took the body back to Carruthers shop, exactly one week from the day I picked up the new neck. I got some funny looks from one of the guys (understandable -- I just took apart a guitar they had set up), but after a quick inquiry about using the planer, John took me into the shop and I watched as he worked his magic. He had the front and back completely sanded down just below the paint line in about 2 minutes. Then, he took it over to a large belt sander that he used to remove the large areas of paint on the contours (that bit saved me another hour of work at least). He recommended a paint stripper for me, and I thanked him for the help and headed to the local paint store. I picked up some lacquer, sandpaper (600 grit), steel wool (#0000), and some black spray paint to paint the red, blue and yellow pickup covers and knobs.
When I got home I set up a little MacGyver-inspired rig so that I could strip the remaining paint. I wish I had taken a picture of it, because it was pretty awesome. I took a hanger and ran the hook end through one of the screw holes in the neck joint, and hung it on a mic stand. Yup. Pretty cool. It took a couple of hours to remove the remaining paint, and it was relatively painless (however very chemical-y). I didn't do the best job with the paint stripper, so the wood got a little discolored in places, and scraping the paint made some divots, but I started to like the idea of it not turning out all slick and clean. It was going to have character, and I was okay with that.
After some sanding and wiping, I got the lacquer out to do the first coat. I taped up the neck joint so as not to possibly change the dimensions with layers of lacquer. I also taped up the spring plate and screws on the back, as well as the ground wire soldered to the bottom of the electronics chamber. My rig from stripping the paint translated over to applying the lacquer, and it was pretty easy to do. This picture is what it looked like with a fresh coat of lacquer drying:
For a while the process was to apply a thin coat of lacquer, let it dry for a few hours, then sand lightly with the 600 grit before the next coat. I repeated this process for a couple days before arriving at what looked like a decent satin finish (I went with satin over glossy -- wasn't feeling the shiny factor). Also, while waiting for coats to dry, I painted the pickguard covers and knobs, and after they dried I put them back in the pickguard assembly. I most likely will want to buy a new set of black knobs, however, because while the spray paint worked well on the pickguard covers, it didn't work as well on the knobs.
Before putting the guitar back together, I used the steel wool to buff the finish a bit, and then wiped it down to remove any steel wool dust. The bridge went in first, then the springs, then the pickguard (with the ground re-soldered), the input jack, the neck, and finally the strings. I tuned her up, plugged her in and she played beautifully. Everything felt like it did before I disassembled it (close, at least), so I was relieved.
I'm very happy with how it turned out. It definitely isn't perfect, but I still think it's cool because I did it myself. I'm looking forward to playing it a lot and having it age along with me. I'm also interested to see how it records. In my opinion it's really hard to beat a Carruthers guitar. John just knows what he's doing, and it shows in how well they play. I'm sure she'll be used several times on this new record I'm going to start tracking for soon. In the meantime, she'll be getting used to looking so damn good.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Creativity
I believe I mentioned a while ago that I had started writing for another record... well, I think that was almost a year ago that I started, but I had a brief pause in my life that didn't allow for many new songs. I assembled a lot of ideas as voice memos on my phone, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks or so ago that complete songs started materializing.
I believe I know why it took until a couple weeks ago, but I'm not going to pretend to understand how creativity works. What I can say is that these few weeks have been an incredible experience, and I feel very fortunate to be in it right now.
Around the end of November I looked ahead to December and saw that I had very few commitments or responsibilities to fulfill, and I sorta made a choice to let go of everything for the month and see if any songs come out. I didn't have any expectations or fears about it -- just let go and see what happens. By the 2nd or 3rd day I was in possibly the most relaxed and weightless vibe I have ever been in. Then, little bits of song and lyric ideas start coming out here and there, and songs are coming together, appearing out of nowhere. Believing heavily in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I've continued to let go, and the creativity and vibe have kept flowing.
I feel pretty blessed to be able to do this right now. It's truly amazing how much joy creativity brings me, and to be as far in it as I am is quite a treat. I continue to refrain from having expectations, including about how this 2nd record is going to turn out, but I do acknowledge and respect the opportunity that I am enjoying right now. I'm doing my best not to take it for granted.
It's a little sad when I realize that the month is going to be over before too long, and responsibilities will return, but fortunately I also believe in "this too shall pass." Nothing lasts forever, and that's okay. In fact, I wouldn't want it any other way. (I rhymed just then... that may end up in a song) I remind myself that appreciating every moment doesn't have to stop January 1st. Plus, it appears as though I will have enough material for the album, so I'm excited about moving on to the recording portion of the process.
I definitely appreciate what I get to do... I'm a lucky dude.
I believe I know why it took until a couple weeks ago, but I'm not going to pretend to understand how creativity works. What I can say is that these few weeks have been an incredible experience, and I feel very fortunate to be in it right now.
Around the end of November I looked ahead to December and saw that I had very few commitments or responsibilities to fulfill, and I sorta made a choice to let go of everything for the month and see if any songs come out. I didn't have any expectations or fears about it -- just let go and see what happens. By the 2nd or 3rd day I was in possibly the most relaxed and weightless vibe I have ever been in. Then, little bits of song and lyric ideas start coming out here and there, and songs are coming together, appearing out of nowhere. Believing heavily in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I've continued to let go, and the creativity and vibe have kept flowing.
I feel pretty blessed to be able to do this right now. It's truly amazing how much joy creativity brings me, and to be as far in it as I am is quite a treat. I continue to refrain from having expectations, including about how this 2nd record is going to turn out, but I do acknowledge and respect the opportunity that I am enjoying right now. I'm doing my best not to take it for granted.
It's a little sad when I realize that the month is going to be over before too long, and responsibilities will return, but fortunately I also believe in "this too shall pass." Nothing lasts forever, and that's okay. In fact, I wouldn't want it any other way. (I rhymed just then... that may end up in a song) I remind myself that appreciating every moment doesn't have to stop January 1st. Plus, it appears as though I will have enough material for the album, so I'm excited about moving on to the recording portion of the process.
I definitely appreciate what I get to do... I'm a lucky dude.
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