tomteriffic

And if headed south from Detroit, it can stop back over with me.

Very sorry to hear this, Frank. Condolences to her family and the whole Hamer family too.

Most Esteemed Redhead, being ten years my junior, sometimes missed out on cultural and musical references I take for granted. One such situation arose yesterday and I plunked Steppenwolf's "Monster" album down. I'm always impressed by the quality of their recordings. Tight, crisp straight-ahead rock with a minimum of gimmickry, even when they get kozmic (like, say, the middle of Magic Carpet ride).

Winters are tough on guitars around here. That said, I don't sweat the solidbodies much at all. I have one particular acoustic that seems to be especially susceptible to humidity changes and it has a Planet Waves (I think) sound hole humidifier. Another less susceptible one has a home-brew soap dish jobbie in the case. About a month ago I put a room humidifier down in Buzzard Gulch because even the basement was getting pretty dried out. It seems to have helped some fret sprout on a couple of guitars, probably saved some from true dessication.

It looks sort of like a Kahler rout, only way to big, way too deep and on the wrong side of the body. Doubtless it will be home to some new harebrained "innovation" that will disappear faster than a zoot suit SG.

Probably not list-worthy but interesting: The New Riders of the Purple Sage did a song called "Dirty Business". Jerry Garcia played pedal steel on it. He did one (and only one) very slow up and down wah sweep that took the entire song to complete.

The movie left me cold, but the books were a scream. It might have been four years of 24/7 exposure to Brits, but that certainly helped me to get the humor. I got an 8 day funeral punctuated by a day of Christmas. My family has a multi-generational tradition of doing important stuff (being born, dying, getting married, etc. around various holidays) and they didn't disappoint this year. Oh and about 3 lbs of a St. Louis local delicacy, toasted ravioli.

Jon, is that one of the ones built for Bill Kaman?

Beat me to it. Nice to read you Al! Long time!

That one was hard to let go of. I had kept it in favor of this one, a very cool blue from BadgerDave with a Pigtail intonatable wraparound a BCR-tweaked Gibson minibuckers: But I hung on to the red one's fraternal twin, it goes out on every gig and covers all the classic electric 12 tones just fine. From the Stevie Damn Clay collection:

"Everything organized and packed in its own box. Headstock is still good but I removed the packing around the headstock, we are packing it too tight blocking the space between the head and the end of the case. Body is tight enough with packing to not let it shift forward. I'll post a picture tomorrow and have it on its way. Plays Great, Looks Great and it was an Honor to have it pass though my hands. " Yep, it was getting pretty cozy in there a couple of months ago! i can only imagine it now!

When I was a kid and trying to learn how to improvise on piano, I voiced a concern to my teacher that I'd come up with stuff that had been done a zillion times before. Charlie explained that that was just part of the process and then said "And besides, screw 'em! Johnny Bach wrote everything. It may be upside-down or backwards, but he wrote it. And his kids filled in the cracks."

Which then raises the question. Is Miss Pamita still doing the Cheap Chick thing?

If 4 or 5 chords in a row are proprietary, fast forward to 4:55 or so (and catch you some kick-ass Duane Allman in the bargain). THAT would be worth squabbling over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFvAvsHC_Y

The output transformers can be an issue, Rob. I don't know about that bassman circuit in particular, but many a Concert and Super Reverb has been wrecked by changing to a 1 x 12, 2 x 12 or 1 x 15 speaker setup and hooking up an 8 or 16 ohm load to a 3.2 ohm output transformer.

Back when I was bringing teh rawk, I took two guitars. Toward the end of that run it was a Special FM paired with my Frankenstrat with a cobbled together EMG David Gilmour setup and a (gasp) Kahler. Before that it was an Ibanez Studio or something else with humbuckers and that Strat. They pretty much covered anything we did. The best bit was that whatever wasn't being used was placed directly in front of my 1 x 12 combo amp. It's a little-known rule that, no matter where you place an amp like that, it will always be pointed directly at the club owner's (or whoever pays you) head. Having the guitar in front of the amp spread the sound out a little. That reduced the number of complaints and increased our odds of getting paid. These days, my dippy little folk 'n' roll trio covers a lot of ground and musical history, from '30's southern "black people in a little white church" gospel/blues right on up through current Americana/roots rock. Even though I hate it sometimes, I usually take 5 guitars to the gig. To wit: 1: Ovation "longneck" 27" scale, tuned to D or "drop C" for lack of a better description 2: Hamer Duotone Custom. In a pinch I can do most of the show with this one. 3: Martin or Taylor Acoustic. More likely the Martin these days. I'm trying to retire the Taylor. 4: Hamer Eclipse 12 for the poppy, jangly 60's stuff. 5: Some form of straight-ahead electric. It can be a Vanguard, Special with firebird pickups, EMG Strat, Studio Goldtop w/P-90's. etc. Whatever strikes my fancy on the way out the door. It will typically get used for the entire last set, almost regardless of the material. The amp of choice these days is a Fender Super Champ XD head on a Seismic extra deep 1 x 12 cab with an Eminence Red Fang. A Teefus modded Classic 30 (2x12 extension optional) or Music Man 210-65 are also available, depending on the gig.

Whoo-wee! The crown/clown princes of Hamer Badassery, all in one picture!

Happyhappy, Dan. Hope things are good down your way.

Vanguards. Screamin' Corvette guitars. Lightweight, fast and rude. Somebody buy this.

I spy an Artist Ultimate in there too.

Final list was well north of $10K, not sure about the exact number. They started out at $5K, IIRC. What a dumbass way to fill the hole on the pickguard.

And the inlays are off-center

Paul's band will most assuredly rawk it up. Those guys really bring it.

Does the General know he has a certifiable lunatic working for him? Not that there's anything wrong with that....