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I love Parazaider’s extended flute solo in “It Better End Soon” on the Carnegie Hall album. Chicago was my first concert (our Dad took me and my younger brother & sister) and my first musical influence. RIP, Walt. Tell Terry we miss him.

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The Vanilla Zen was and is my Favorite Zen. I have sworn off all Love Pedal Products do to his service. I bought a bunch of LP”s on SNS buying two to three at a time and had issues with mulitple pedals. That is ONE customer, with mulitple problems. I have had the Jubillee and other drive pedals with horrible floor noise issues, that was deemed “Part of Circuit”. The Shampooie that I bought used that had horrible crossover between the sides where you could hear the tremolo even when it was off. After contacting LP, he said “That circuit never worked out and they all have similar issues.”. I have since moved on and I can’t believe that Hermida hasn’t. That pedal is a goldmine and more players should be using it. Jubilee has been replaced with the MXR Duke of Tone Lovepedal Amp11 has been replaced with MXR TImmy Echophonics replaced with the MXR Echoplex Gen 5 replaced with another MXR Echoplex The best replacement for the Zendrive is the Barber Burn Unit, it’s more flexible, the service is second to none. Barber has a pedal that will replace any of the above mentioned and they sound fantastic with ANY AMP.

My Lovepedal Zen is very good. I've had a love hate relationship with Klon's and Zen's. So, I've had about a half dozen of each including the tube Zen (worth a small fortune for the early one's apparently). The Zen I have now is more likely a product of my learning how to use it than anything. Unless there are differences in the extremes of each control, I think you can dial any of them in to sound good. Same thing with the Klon pedals. Nothing maxed and nothing exactly the same on the specific one's I've owned. Just not as easy to get to sound right as people might think. I read that Robben Ford doesn't look at the controls, when he sets his. Don't know if that's true, but it makes sense.

I’ll add a pair to the HFC count.

In other words, just shut up and play 🤷

I watch all Shane's videos because he's a real, gigging musician. He'll always add that it's his opinion, but his playing's great, his tones I think are great and the reality is if you're getting gigs with names like he is, they don't care what you use as long as it sounds good and works.

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Mine is a bit more customized I guess. Korina body and neck, f holes, upgraded binding, etc....All from the factory, not aftermarket, aside from the MaryAnn/Ginger poker chip. It has the regular wind Lollar Imperials, not low wind. A great match. YMMV, of course. Of the very many Hamers I have owned, this is probably the last one I will ever let go. To extent DCR is meaningful, the Custom Custom is around 14, while the Imperials are designed to be "PAF style", at around 7.6 and 8.4, with the low winds being a bit lower. I am inclined to think the low wind might be less desirable, though they are touted as being a good match for hollow and semi hollow guitars. I have multiple guitars with the Imperials and never have been disappointed. FWIW, a more recent acquisition has the high wind in the bridge. In that guitar I think it works great, though I might add each pickups has a 3 way switch to go from series to parallel to single coil. In that case, I think the higher wind gives more versatility, as you can dial back the output.....But you most likely do not want to mess with adding holes to yours for mini-switches. 😉To be clear, this guitar does NOT have any such switching, just the regular 3 way.

The vxt is a hybrid that comes at it from the opposite side from the Duotone, design-wise; the DT was designed as an electric guitar with the best electrified acoustic sound, and the vxt was designed for acoustic players going toward electric. Wacky scale length too, but some may love it.

Thanks for the listen and the kind words!

Ben, I listened on headphones, the mix is fabulous. Great work capturing their work and their vibe. Seems like they can just send you guys out on tour for them if they don't want to do it.

Good for you! I wasn't giving mine up.

Nice. I almost got one but found my smaller keyboard stand could stand behind my Z stand by configuring it a little differently. Maybe I stood it on it's end, I can't remember. It takes up some floor space but it works.

Kate Hudson 🥰🤪 I think she looks better than ever. Maybe because I'm getting old?? Never even knew I liked her that way. It wasn't what I thought it would be. Great performances all around. I too had a an older sister (by 8 years!) that influenced me through her music collection.

This popped up this morning.....I know there are a lot of mixed feelings re the Dead. This popped up this morning and made me chuckle, re the time a band that had already disbanded was booked without our knowledge to play at a gig way out in the sticks. Our former lead singer booked us at a place we had played months before. He mentioned the name of our band...."No, we want someone different!" Scott thought a moment and the first name he could come up with was "The Warlocks"...."Cool, book them".......The real Warlocks had been touring the west coast playing anywhere they could. We were most definitely NOT them. Well, we no longer HAD a band and our English lead guitarist (and the only one with any measurable talent) had left for the Navy (Viet Nam era). But we were booked. We got together with a local wunderkid who was 19 but was playing like Jeff Beck. Did not even have a singer. (Drummer: "Our singer has the flu and is home puking his guts out". Drops mic.....) So we just jammed all night. Everything from Green River to Greensleeves. Surreal. We actually DID get paid. Anyway, you might also chuckle.....No, I DID NOT type all that follows! Ron McKernan suggested the band go electric. 1965. Palo Alto, California. A small folk band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions was playing acoustic shows around the Bay Area. Their members included a guitarist named Jerry Garcia, a rhythm player named Bob Weir, and a young man on harmonica everyone called Pigpen. Pigpen had grown up on the blues. His father had been an R&B DJ — one of the first white DJs on Black radio stations on the West Coast. The kid had taught himself harmonica and piano listening to his dad's records. Acoustic folk wasn't doing it for him. He wanted electric blues. He wanted volume. He wanted what Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf had. He suggested they plug in. They did. They renamed themselves The Warlocks. Then the Grateful Dead. Eight years later, on March 8, 1973, Pigpen's landlady walked into his apartment in Corte Madera and found him dead on the floor beside his bed. He'd been there for two days. He was 27 years old. The band he had pushed into existence had replaced him a year and a half earlier. The next morning, Jerry Garcia spoke at his funeral. "After Pigpen's death we all knew this was the end of the original Grateful Dead." Here's how he got there. Ronald Charles McKernan was born September 8, 1945. San Bruno, California. Irish-American family. His father Phil was a radio DJ who specialized in blues and R&B. The McKernan house was full of Lightnin' Hopkins records, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf. Young Ron taught himself harmonica. Then piano. Then a little guitar. At 14, he got a job at Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto. That's where he met another kid who liked the blues. A guitar nerd named Jerry Garcia. They played in folk bands together. Jug bands. Bluegrass. Ron tried out the name "Blue Ron" for a while. It didn't stick. A girlfriend started calling him "Pigpen" because his approach to hygiene reminded her of the Peanuts character. That name did stick. In 1965, he convinced Garcia to plug in. The folk acoustic band became an electric blues band. The Warlocks. Then the Grateful Dead. In the band's first years, Pigpen was the frontman. Not Garcia. He had the voice. He had the harmonica. He could work a crowd in a way no one else in that band could. Mickey Hart, who joined later as second drummer, said it this way: "Pigpen would come out and he'd get people up. Jerry couldn't do it. Bob couldn't do it. Phil certainly couldn't. But Pigpen could. As soon as Pigpen got up, everybody got up and danced." He sang the songs that drove the early Dead. "Turn On Your Love Light." "Hard to Handle." "Big Boss Man." "Mr. Charlie." Songs that were less about wandering jam-band exploration and more about Saturday night drinking. In 1969, Warner Bros. — the band's label — ran a Pigpen Look-Alike Contest. He was that famous. The biker hat, the leather vest, the mustache. But the band was changing under him. The other members were taking LSD constantly. They were turning into psychedelic explorers. Long jams. Free improvisation. Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh were pulling the music away from the blues and into deep space. Pigpen didn't touch psychedelics. He drank. Whiskey. Cheap fortified wine. He drank like the bluesmen he'd grown up listening to. His role in the band started shrinking. The new music didn't need a blues frontman. It needed a more conventional keyboardist who could keep up with Garcia's guitar. In 1968 they brought in a second keyboardist, Tom Constanten. Pigpen's musical contributions dropped. Then his body started giving out. By his mid-twenties he had liver damage. Cirrhosis. He also developed primary biliary cholangitis — a rare autoimmune liver disease unrelated to drinking. The two together hit him hard. In August 1971, he was hospitalized. Doctors told him to stop touring immediately. The Dead hired Keith Godchaux to replace him. But Pigpen wouldn't disappear. He kept coming back. In December 1971 he rejoined the band to play harmonica, percussion, and organ alongside Godchaux. He toured Europe with them in spring 1972 — the famous Europe '72 tour. He was visibly sick. Pale. Thin. His tour manager Sam Cutler later admitted he kept Pigpen supplied with alcohol on the road, because Pigpen wouldn't get on stage without it. On June 17, 1972, the Grateful Dead played the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Pigpen walked offstage that night and never performed with the band again. He went home to his apartment in Corte Madera, north of San Francisco. A small place. He lived alone. He stopped drinking. The Dead's biographer Blair Jackson said he didn't drink for the last 17 months of his life. It didn't matter. The damage was done. He stayed mostly inside. Read books. Played acoustic guitar and piano to himself — instruments he'd rarely used in the Dead. Some of those recordings would surface later as a bootleg called The Apartment Tapes. He ate almost nothing in his final months. On a day in early March 1973, Pigpen got into bed. He was half-dressed. He started to lie down. A blood vessel near his liver — already destroyed by years of drinking and the autoimmune disease — burst. He bled internally on the floor beside his bed. His landlady came by two days later. She had noticed his car hadn't moved. The lights were on. The back door was open. She walked in and found him. Cause of death: gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Liver failure. Age 27. He joined Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison — all dead by 27 in the previous three years. Pigpen had been close friends with Janis. They had shared a love of whiskey. He was buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto. A few miles from the music store where he had first met Jerry Garcia. Here's what makes this story matter. Pigpen wasn't a junkie like Hendrix. He wasn't a poet like Morrison. He didn't have the public meltdown Janis had. He was a quiet, kind, introspective guy who happened to be the only member of the Grateful Dead with any real blues credibility at the start. It was his idea to plug in. It was his voice that drove the early shows. His harmonica that gave the band texture. His friendship with Garcia that made the whole thing possible. Jerry Garcia later said: "Pigpen was the only guy in the band who had any talent when we were starting out." Then the band moved on. They followed the acid and the long jams away from his blues roots. They replaced him with another keyboardist. They kept making records. He kept showing up. Kept singing the songs he could still sing. Kept drinking on tour just to get through the night. Then he died alone in a small California apartment. The Grateful Dead would tour for another 22 years. Sell millions of records. Become a multi-generational institution. Most Deadheads who came along after 1973 don't think about Pigpen at all. But Jerry Garcia did. He said it at the funeral. The original Grateful Dead died with Pigpen. Ron McKernan. Founder. Frontman. Replaced. Forgotten. His crime? Drinking like the bluesmen he loved. His legacy? A band he started that outlived him by half a century and barely mentions his name.

I don't mind the tool itself, I just hate the major impact these massive data centers are having on our infrastructure... massive usage of water, electricity, producing heat, land, etc... taxing resources, thus raising our utility bills 🤬 "with very little employment after the initial building construction"

I ordered one through BCR Greg. IIRC, the specs were satin transparent orange with P-90s and tortoise binding. on the neck and body It was a great guitar and very light, probably 7 lbs at most. Sounded amazing.

Man, in the early days I wanted to learn amp building / modifications. Guitar modifications. Doing my own fretwork. Now I'm buying every guitar I've ever wanted along with amps and pedals. Oh, and a pickup set I got just for Peter Frampton's autograph. Guess what, I just suck. I needed to practice more and think less. Now it's too late. So I'll just sit here and look at all that I've acquired.

I had a Lovepedal zendrive a couple years back. Cool pedal. Sounded good. But just not for me and whatever I have that could be considered a “style”…. This almost makes me want to try it again to see if I could get along with it this time around. Cuz…. Tubes….

I've soured a bit on Lovepedal. It's really hard to get support on your pedal from him if it doesn't work. I would know. The other thing is he at least once shut down his business due to personal issues and went completely dark for a long period of time. People who had stuff with him for repair were basically SOL. IDK if he found a way to make it up to them offer. Basically, I'm saying if you buy something from him treat it as being without any kind of warranty or support. It's less a complaint about the quality of the product. Also, I've had something like 7 different zendrives before that shut down. One sounds exactly like an original, and the rest all sound different. It's confusing AF but I kept the one that basically looks and sounds identical. I also still have an OD11 which is basically a Tim with one wrong value according to a dude on TDPRI who analyzes such things. 11gauge I think.

I can only guess it's 'cos she comes across like she works at a Waffle House that she isn't a huge name. Just watch this. Chops? You want chops? Damn. And tasteful.

Cold solder joint?.. bad capacitor?.. intermitted tone pot?.. I'd just replaced the whole thing while it's out 🤷

I got one of their "blemished" pickups for a Malcolm Young Gretsch I have. On the sale page they picture the actual pickup you're buying and in my case, I could not see a thing wrong with it. Sounds great too of course.

Josh is da man! A year or so ago, he brought to my attention a pickup he was winding for another customer & he thought might interest me: a Van Halen-esque wind somewhere in the neighborhood of Ed's p'up on Fair Warning / Diver Down. Dayumm. It rocked in my HEL Spitfire 1! Then he wound a slightly different one, still in EVH territory but with a slight tweak to the high end, and I put that in my HEL Spitfire 2. Boom!! Killer! So, I ordered one for the upcoming Star Spangled Star. Tone report will come as soon as I get it in hand. Was anticipating acquiring another guitar so I ordered yet one more of the tweaked EVH. That acquisition fell through BUT... ...as fate would have it, I'm going to be acquiring another Hamer and this newest Gravelin is going in that one!!! Stay tuned!

Josh is my GoTo pickup guy. His personal touch is second to none, I no longer ask what Magnets, or wire, or anything. I explain what I’m going for and he works his magic. Everybody and their brother wind pickups nowadays, and f you find a guy that won’t let you down because he cares about your tone you better hang on to that guy.

Love the pickups he made for my old bullet bass.

Josh is a freaking pickup genius in addition to being a genuinely great guy- knows so much about pickup building- nuances that blow my mind. Screws vs. hex vs. slugs, rough cast vs. polished, pole piece length, square vs rounded whatchamajig 😆, and of course, alnico vs ceramic. We were chatting recently about p'ups and he got a brainstorm in the midst of talking about modding pickups. Decided he was going to experiment with a certain shaped something or other and a certain type of screw pole piece and I should test it out. Just like that.

Gorgeous!

So do I. Working well for years. I‘m paypaling effortlessly to Ted from good old Europe. Nothing simpler than that.