Thundernotes

It's your party - lay down the law! Who wants ear-bleeds from "I want you to surrender" or "Mustang Freebird" anyway? If this "big room" is akin to a high-school gymnasium, volume is automatically going to be a problem. If I might offer a suggestion: backline the stage with an assortment of pre-approved amps and be done with it. I've done this at weekly jam sessions with great success. It also reduces change-up time between acts dramatically. One overpowered instrument f***s up the whole mix for everybody. You have the right idea.

About 13 hours

Just over 15 hours for me. It's entirely possible that I could make it. I've been meaning to get out to Champaign, IL which is only 3hrs away. Maybe this will work out.

A bunch more wood on the neck - I think that's the main reason a 5 works with only one rod. The BEAD is a great option for you and like Greg said, it's reversible.

You can't do that. You'd have to reposition every one of the frets to correct for the altered scale. It's also unlikely that the mass of the 4-string neck with single truss rod could handle the tension of 5. Maybe - but it's not something I'd try.

There are places where that still happens...

One possibility: Fender licenses its products (along with the Jackson stuff) to be built by Warmoth. Bolt-neck Hamer-shredder kits from Warmoth would make for fun winter projects....

eeeeeeew That was awful.

750 guitars per year output x $3000 each (I'm guessing) = $2.25million gross revenue. FMIC paid 117million in this deal? Hamer has to be no more than a very nice, but very small piece of the puzzle. We'll have to wait and see what shakes out. For Fender, getting Hamer is kind of like when the Red Sox got Series MVP Mike Lowell as a throw-in on the deal for 20 game winner Josh Beckett.

You're being naive if you think that any of those things matter a whit to some corporate bean counter. Sadly true. Those guys have a long-term "vision" of about 90 days max - until the next quarterly report. It might depend on whether they're musicians and craftsmen instead of Harvard MBA's. I have my doubts.

Hamer doesn't own this board anyway. Whether they (FMIC) could get snippy about our use of the name.....eh, maybe. More than likely, we'd provide a valuable customer base "street team" for them to build upon. It might not be all bad for either party. Maybe now we can bring Gary Hoey back in the fold...

Nah, just the neck joint:

I wonder if Uncle Rick will be discouraged from this sort of activity in the future:

Introducing: The Squier Standard. Forgive my pessimism, but I don't see how it improves the brand. Small-scale production and attention to detail seem like they'd be foreign concepts in an FMIC world. There may be truth to that "pre-Fender" term. We may need passports for the factory tour.

They are a perfect example of over-compressed blast-mastering. Probably the worst I've seen. I have to roll off the bass in my car in order to listen to them. Great band but bad production on the CD. I agree Steve - the Ataris "So Long Astoria" is in my CD player right now. Energetic young chaps, aren't they?

Great band - their drummer lives here in town and our daughters went to high school together. My current favorite unknown band is Waltham: http://walthamtheband.com/ Some of the older ones I liked were Head East, The Hooters, Honeymoon Suite, and the Vapors

time to fire up that duo project! one asshole is better than 2-4 assholes, ha. I've already got that in the works - probably solo, but I may find a suitable duo. No matter what happens with the band, they don't work enough for my tastes, so I'd like to pick up 2-4 more gigs a month doing something. Too bad Lou doesn't live a half-hour closer: we could be "Silent Thunder".

The recent change has been one of carelessness. "Fuggit - let's just play" In a way, it was almost nice when it started a few gigs back. He seemed to have relaxed a bit. Normally, the recording mentality made him all pissy if the mix wasn't exactly to his liking. But the relaxed attitude combined with a hefty dose of liquid brain-flush (schnapps) made our normally tight arrangements look like a train wreck on jam night. Not good. The keyboard player seems to be trying desperately to hold things together. I give him a lot of credit for that, since we've put a couple of years work into this. I'm sure there are family issues or something behind this problem, but we have a job to do too. It's a very frustrating situation.

I'm feeling the need to vent about a crappy gig last night and what I see as an emerging trend with my band: We have a lead singer who's more into recording and professes to "hate performing". Why he agreed to participate in this band is puzzling to me, but that's the way it is. Even more confusing is a recent kick he's been on to spruce up the website and work on advertising more. This weekend we were rocking a local bar and some issues began to worsen. Over the last few gigs, our lead singer/guitarist has been messing up with greater frequency and severity. Forgotten lyrics (for which he tries to make up funny replacements and fails miserably), muffed solos, screwed up arrangements, and the like all combining for an unprofessional display. I'm not talking about hitting a bad note or stumbling on a lyric here and there - I mean acting like he doesn't give a shit any more. He's been taking 35-40 minute breaks where he's getting trashed out in his car, apparently. I don't really care what the reasoning is, but we have some high-profile and high-paying gigs coming up soon. I'm not sure I want to take the stage having to fear a meltdown from this guy. I'm the one who books all the shows and has relationships established with agents and clubs, and I'm not about to blow the reputation I've built just to keep going with this guy. I want to keep working and expanding in this area, while it looks like he doesn't. His not being in the band would effectively terminate our operation. There's no getting a sub for someone who does 2/3 of the lead vocals and besides, he and the keyboard player are good friends - I think if one goes, the other does too. So how do I approach this? Straight confrontation? Ask what his preference for the future is? Lay down the law? Just quit and move on by myself? One thing's for sure, I'm not going to plead with him to clean up his act. I'm leaning toward saying that it's OK if he's not into it any more, and let's just cancel the schedule and move on with our lives. Thanks for listening

There's nothing more creepy than listening to a balding 50 year old singing about banging a chick in his Camaro. Great if he can do it, but I don't want to hear about it! We play a mix of new music and classic rock and it goes over just fine. The band ranges in age from 43 to 52. The trick is to choose carefully so you're not singing about teen angst or stuff nobody can relate to. When it comes to classics, dump the tired old songs everybody plays and do something people haven't heard a cover band play before. You'll be surprised how well it goes over. No Mustang Sally for me!

Cool. I hope it turns off the output to your amp while it's doing its thing! I hate live-tuning on stage