Little 8 bar improve here before powering down the studio last night. Since Easter I’ve been on 14 airplanes and had fun times in Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Texas & Florida, even a stop in Germany and always quite happily return to the studio. Most of what I do here is help other folks make recordings and it’s always funny to me when something like this gets under my fingers and I think…I don’t know, maybe I should record that. It sounds kinda good and I won’t remember it later. And then it’s like I’m somebody else and they’re saying, dude..you’re in a recording studio. Turn on a mic and record it right now. And then I’m like…oh wow, right. I could do that. 169 dollar Gretsch guitar here that’s been living next to the console. It was in open D, so that’s what we got. That’s my dad’s mill inspection hard hat up there. He worked for US Steel.
Poolside pics here of my Headway Unicorn guitar. These things are weird, scarce and deceivingly high quality guitars. I received it as a gift from a great Dobro player named Junior Barber in 1987. Folks in the North Country who know anything about music will genuflect at the mention of his name. He was in the same league as Jerry Douglas…just a super classy monster player, with no pretense whatsoever. Anyhow, I was in my early 20’s and I had an acoustic guitar + my National Triolian but did not own an electric guitar. Junior stopped by and jumped out of his truck with a Blue, Wilson tennis racket bag, containing this guitar and gave it to me. I played all my earliest NYC trio gigs + @christinesantelli123 gigs with this guitar. You hear that thing bout “green lights” and Junior giving me this guitar was a major Green Light for me. Ps - the story of Headway is a fascinating bit of Japanese guitar-making history. They tooled up with the money and top smarts but only produced guitars for a little under 3 years before the factory caught fire and burned everything up.
That is a nice looking instrument and it looks right at home with the taste of @ejanepool - Something that doesn’t immediately present; though this looks like a traditional Triolian style resonator guitar, it’s actually a tri-cone! It sounds great, plays great and I’ve really been enjoying my time with it! Kudos to @muleresonatorguitars and thx to @jpoconn
Had such a great day yesterday doing spring stuff in the backyard. 1. Cleaned up in the shed. 2. replaced the top of my #blackandecker Workmate 3. grilled burgers for the family and ate around our table. Now, here’s a little quiz for NYC based, in-the-trenches, roots musicians and music fans. The 2 amps pictured were saved from the burn pile by me and have been living in my shed; the Roland Cube, for many years and more recently the Asdown. All I’ll say is that these 2 amps have made more music in NYC area clubs than any I can think of. Who did they belong to?
Hey ya’ll, I’m always pleased about heading up to Beacon for a set at @townecriercafe Incidentally - it’s the oldest, single operator, music venue in the country! Heartfelt thanks to Phil for keeping this institution running so well. I’m hitting at 6:30 on Friday and as Phil would say, admission is complimentary!👊🥰
We took a trip to Sintra where there are several palaces and the ruins of a hilltop fort that dates back to when the Moors had dominion over the land. While exploring we stumbled onto a little trail and had it to ourselves for a couple of clicks. Janie grabbed a little key of C harp thingy.
Pictured here at the international headquarters of #nysora We could tell you but then…we might have to kill you.🤣 with @ejanepool & @drbluesnyc ps - What they’ve built is truly cutting edge tech and education.
