I've Moved!

Yup, I've decided to move my blog. Blogger is rad and everything, but Living Music has a lovely new home inside the new version of my website. I feel a link coming on...

www.GaryMelvin.com

Click on over and give it a look! The paint is still drying, but she's fully-functional and chock-full of lov-el-y content and things to do. I'd describe all these wonderful features to you here, but it's much more fun to discover everything yourself!

So if you've checked in here to read my posts, and would like to continue to read about what I do, please re-direct your clicking to my website (subscribe-able via RSS & email!), as this will be my final Blogger post.

Thanks for the start, Blogger, but it's time to move on to new ideas and endeavors. See you at GaryMelvin.com!

Recording a New Album -- Part 4: Photography

Well, whaddya know? It's Part 4! This covers my trip to St. Louis to work with photographer, Rob Mizell.

Recording a New Album -- Part 3: First Rehearsal

The process continues! Here's part 3, which covers the first rehearsal with the band in preparation for recording:

Recording a New Album -- Part 2.5

A lot of things have happened in the process of recording my new album since my last update. Since they are all things that mainly involve me and not other people doing stuff, I decided not to sit down in front of a camera again just to shoot me talking. So this update is a non-video one, purely for you readers out there.

The image above is how I organized and kept track of all the song fragments that fell out of me in December. I used the lovely ability of my iPhone to record over 150 voice memos, which I then had to go through in order to work from. The songs all came together very fluidly, but in order to stay in the creative space I wasn't switching gears to record them. Thus paper, pencil, and iPhone all got together and organized where audio snippets of verses, choruses, bridges, etc. were to be found.

After finishing the writing process (which is where I left off with Recording a New Album -- Part 2), the next step was to record rough, acoustic demos of the songs. The idea was not to create a concrete arrangement, but rather to sketch the song, putting the different pieces and sections from my memos together into a starting form. This allowed me to get an idea for what each song sounded like in it's entirety, as well as the whole group of songs as a unit.

It turned out that the arrangements that fell together from my notes worked out pretty well. I only spent about an hour recording each song, but the initial arrangements felt good, and worked as a good place to start. This is also allowed me to share the songs with those whom I needed to, which brings me to what happened next.

I contacted a producer, who I learned about through a friend, Derren Raser. He had recorded his last record with this producer, and I was blown away by how good it sounds. This producer's name is Chris Hobson, and we spoke about the possibility of working together. I told him about me and what I do, and he did the same about himself. We've been working out details and logistics, and while we haven't signed anything just yet, I'm about 99% sure Chris will be producing.

I also nailed down a rhythm section. My good friend Robin Everhart, who played bass on "Spare Time," will be joining me once again, and another good friend, Chad Wright, will be playing drums. I've made charts for all the songs, and the three of us will be getting together next week for our first rehearsal. Together we will start to figure out how to approach each of the songs from a band's perspective. While I have a general idea for how to approach most of the songs, my plan in leaving the songs raw with the demos was to allow this rehearsal period to shape the songs and the record into something that each of us influence. I'm choosing the producer and band members purposefully -- picking guys who's input and creativity I respect and admire. After a few rehearsals, Chris will be joining us for the final rehearsal before we track bass and drums... which gets talked about next!

Another accomplishment was finding a studio to record "basics" (aka bass and drums). A friend introduced me to a great studio here in L.A., and after confirming dates with everyone, two days were booked for the end of February. On those days, the three of us will go in and lay the foundation for the record. I'll be playing guitar and singing, but they won't be "keepers." The focus will be on drums and bass (which require the bigger studio setup to do live, which I wanted to do), and everything else will be done in overdubs at various locations where a large room and setup is not necessary.

As if all that wasn't enough for me to be doing, I also thought ahead to what other content I would need to go along with the release of this new album. After realizing I needed new photographs taken both for album art and promotional use, I contacted a photographer who I've worked with before and admire greatly: Rob Mizell. Rob lives in St. Louis, and thanks to my large collection of frequent flier miles, I will be flying out there in early February for a couple days. We have a basic direction for the album cover, and we'll also be shooting a bunch of other stuff for me to use on the web and for promotional materials. Speaking of the web...

Most of what I've talked about so far has been done with phone calls and scheduling, but this next thing I've been up to is more creationism: I've been working on redesigning my website. Thanks to massive help and wisdom from my good friend, Cameron Mizell, I've been learning how to use WordPress and at this point have a new site design that is about 85% finished. Once I have new pictures, I'll be able to finalize a color scheme and finish entering content. Originally I thought I wouldn't have the new site ready until after the new album was done, but it's been going so smoothly I think I might launch the thing within a month or so. Rad.

So there it is. A lot has happened, and I'm excited about everything that's coming up. It appears as though I did enough thinking ahead to get this new album recorded and released in a pretty efficient time frame, including a new site... not bad. Stay tuned for more updates, some of which will be in video form, complete with other people in them and everything!

This is fun... I'm glad I'm doing it.

Dear 1999

*** 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.

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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.

Recording a New Album -- Part 2

I'm documenting the process of making my 2nd album -- this is part 2:

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.