actually, soon, I plan to execute a copyright and big sharing operation, stay tuned
Beatles, Zep, Dylan, Syd Barrett, T-Rex, Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits,
radiohead, Strokes, Stripes, Hives, Fugazi, Trail of Dead, bjork, beck,
Velvet Underground, The Walkmen, Wilco, Interpol, Modest Mouse, the WHO,
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Doors, Nirvana, elvis, Television,
Queen, Metallica, Hendrix, Greg Brown era Cake,GuidedByVoices, the Smiths,
Smashing Pumpkins, Lou Reed, Bowie, Loretta Lynn, Zwan, Basement Jaxx,
Cream, Tom Petty, Boston, Cornelius, Zappa, Gang of Four (damaged goods),
Kevin Shields (city girl,loveless), Supergrass (Za), Wesley Willis,
Iggy & the Stooges, Low, Meat Puppets, Kraftwerk, the Cure, Blind Faith,
yeah yeah yeahs, Bob Marley (and other reggae), Daft Punk, chuck berry,
Flaming Lips, Aphex Twin, Peaches, The Rosebuds, Pixies, Sandra Covin,
Stephen Malkmus (Oyster), Sonic Youth, The Sames (download their mp3s),
Grateful Dead, Paul Simon (graceland,ms.robinson), Rolling Stones, SRV,
Johnny Cash, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Leo Kottke, Django Reinhardt,
Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Wings, Joy Division,
the Melvins (going blind), Annie Hayden, Sheryl Crow, the cranberries,
the postal service, U2, the microphones, buddy holly, the evens,
pavement, tegan & sara, matt sweeny/bonnie prince billy, ted leo,
iron & wine, q and not u, medications, yo la tengo, the clienetele
selected other classical, blues, rap, bluegrass, etc non-rock things
(can you tell I love rock?) + more to come as I find them
teenage favorites: Smashing Pumpkins, Alice In Chains, Pink Floyd (post-Syd)
childhood favorites: James Taylor, Raffi, Nancy Griffith (MCHammer,newkidsontheblock)
in elementary school the song "great balls of fire" blew me away
update: saw an amazing orchestra concert, Schostakovich concerto for violin #1 op. 99,
blew me away, and I've been hearing some more nice classical stuff in my music history
class, so it looks like I'm getting back into it after many year hiatus
also, the Walkmen blew me away in concert--amazing show--wow! (spring break 2004)
fugazi did the same thing a few years ago
HERE is my favorite live Zwan recording, a Beatles cover--Don't Let Me Down (nice version, nice tone (diezel VH-4), nice guitar solo) update: actually I found another zwan recording i like better...try to download "wasting time" if you can...spectacular
Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Radiohead - Kid A, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Strictly Personal, Beatles - Rubber Soul, Abbey Road, Let it Be, Magical Mystery Tour, Velvet Underground - all albums, Smashing Pumpkins - Pisces Iscariot, Led Zeppelin - I and II, How The West Was Won, Bjork - Vespertine/Medulla, David Bowie - Low, Talking Heads '77, many Bob Dylan albums, Tom Waits - Rain Dogs and Bone Machine, Zwan - mary star of the sea, the Walkmen - Bows and Arrows, white stripes - all albums, Strokes - Is This It?, Beck - Guero, Cake - Fashion Nugget, Fugazi - The Argument & Red Medicine, Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Matt Sweeny & Bonnie Prince Billy - Superwolf, (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here...also I love Nirvana and Alice In Chains unplugged ... most Pumpkins albums, Cornelius - Fantasma, Beck - Midnite Vultures/Sea Change are also very solid albums...flaming lips soft bulletin is pretty good, and have enjoyed Good News and Moon/Antarctica from Modest Mouse).
I love a lot of other albums, these are just the ones I think are cohesive pieces of art ... or just really strong collections of tracks, like a straight A report card. more to come as I realize them.
GUITARS: american strat (my first electric guitar) w/ Bill Lawrence L-280s, 60s Guild Starfire III with non-original pickups, Danelectro 59-DC, Jackson OC-1 Outcaster lace sensor blue and unknown humbucker, Ibanez Talman TC420 w/ DeArmond 2Ks, Supro Lexington (sort of jazzmaster-ish), Gretsch Pro Jet, Blueridge acoustic (falling apart), Alvarez MD-90 acoustic, SX Jazz bass, Yamaha G-65A nylon string (70s?). (SEE PICUTRE AT BOTTOM!) my eyes are on: some sort of les paul, then perhaps a 335 type and a tele
Eventually I might want: tele, thinline tele, Italia modena, vintage guild solid bodies (such as the S-300!), Gibson SG faded or 70s SG (faded brown, or white/cream--Ian MacKaye style), Gibson Johnny A. Signature, les paul, various danelectros (such as a U2 with a P-90 in the neck), G&L ASAT special (just like Geoff Farina's(karate)), 70s telecaster deluxe, fender starcaster, various strats, hamer newport, charvel surfcaster, rickenbacker 330 (jetglo), more 335 copies (hamer echotone, agile 335, gibson 333), gibson es-125 or similar, guild capri, koll duo/super glide, (godin radiator, vaccaro astrolite or generator x, kramer aluminum neck), something with Burns Trisonics and TV Jones TV'Trons, and the various bill lawrence humbucker sized pickups, and harmonic design Z-90s, fender esquire, fancy-pants acoustics (J-45/100?collings?taylor?D-28?), nice classical guitar, vintage hofners (175/176, 4578/ambassador), some Gretsches, fender jaguar and jazzmaster (candy apple red w/ matching headstock, or black, white, or sunburst), 12 string guitars?, hagstrom III and H II N, epiphone casino, reverend spy (sold: gibson LP special faded, epiphone dot (nice), second Outcaster, Oscar Schmidt Bluesman (avoid!)) YES I AM A GUITAR ADDICT
PEDALS: Reverend Drivetrain II, 70s Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi, Marshall Shredmaster, Danelectro Tuna Melt Tremolo (would like to replace with Voodoo Labs, which won a shootout), Boss RV-3, E-Bow Plus (sold: Visual Sound Jeckyll & Hyde, Proco Turbo Rat, Vox V810 Valvetone, SIB Varidrive, block logo MXR Phase 90, some of thesee pedals were nice but I didn't use them enough to keep) Would like to try Tonebone and Keeley pedals, reissue NYC big muff pi, MXR Distortion+ and Distortion II and Micro Amp, Fulldrive II, and many other OD and distortion units (burriss boostiest, jekyll and hyde again, and a boost of some sort)
AMPS: '60s Selmer Treble n Bass mk II with Avatar G212H cab (experimenting with speakers), '60s Sears Silvertone 1484 Twin Twelve (modified: bright cap on channel 1 volume pot) with original Jensen C12Q speakers, Fender Deluxe 85, would like to own eventually: Vox AC30, Marshalls (JTM-45, 50 and 100 watt plexis), Watkins Dominator, vintage Fenders (twin, dual showman, pro, tremolux, super, deluxe, champ), maaaybe something botique (bruno?victoria?budda?diezel?Dr.Z?carr?) (sold: boogie rectoverb, fender deluxe 112[first amp], Fender '67 Bandmaster head)
also DC Pedalboards pedal board (for sale!), Peterson VS-1 Virtual Strobe Tuner (the best), Dunlop Tortex 1mm picks (eventually perhaps maybe: Dr Z Airbrake, Smicz TADs 1-2 watt tube adapters, Axess Electronics BS-2 or VHT Valvulator, Voodoo Labs Pedal Power, Bill Lawrence low-capacitance cable) still experimenting with strings. used to love ernie balls, but they break all the time. D'Addario and Dean Markley strings are nice, and bulk packs of d'adds from musician's friend are very affordable. check out www.webstrings.com ... the acoustic strings and flatwounds (for the guild) sound great and are inexpensive. i didn't like the electric strings on some guitars, but others have. I also did not like GHS boomers or rotosounds (.09s) DR hi-beams were harsh/strident/brazen on my strat. on my alvarez I love ernie ball earthwoods
ecording Gear: Aardvark Direct Pro Q10, Audio Technica 3035 and Studio Projects B1 large diaphragm condenser mics, SM58, ElectroVoice RE11
Here is some information on Trail of Dead's gear and other info from guitarist Kevin Allen and producer Michael "The Wizard" McCarthy. A well-known band that communicates with fans...wow!
Godspeed You! Black Emperor gear
Greg Brown, formerly of Cake and currently of Deathray -- his gear (love that fashion nugget tone!):
Onstage and in the studlo, Brown's Carterisms take a modern turn on a 1965 Gulid Starfire running through an early-'60's 30-watt Silvertone 2 Twinn 12. "I'm amazed at the number of old guys who come's up to me and say "That was my first amp," he says. Gregs only effeet is a Rat distortion pedal used to "compress the sound a bit," and even on albums his tone is characteristically reverb-free. His Goya nylon-string has a Barcus-Berry pickup that routes to a Fender Sidekick.
Syd Barrett used a 60s Fender Esquire through a Selmer amp (he's pictured with different models), also a strat and danelectro DC-59 a veces (that's spanish for "at times"). according to some sources, also a Watkins Dominator amp in the studio on some tracks
More Gear Bands (I like) Use YES I AM A GUITAR GEEK/NERD
Here's a Java program I wrote for CPS 001 at Duke: Amp Selector
my VST page. (TLS maximizer 1.1 available for download)
DOCKWRESTLING! A beautiful site by Lucas E and Mikey C. I made dockwrestling (DWF) t-shirts in high school once-upon-a-time
Poor quality photo of a watercolor + marker painting I did in high school I also did some silkscreen prints of this image in my Duke class.
Some movies and books I enjoyed: salinger, Vonnegut, catch-22, tolkein, dune, hgttg, shakespeare, angela's ashes, brave new world, 1984, alas babylon, hemingway, things fall apart, heart of darkness, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, from heaven lake, poetry, ben hur, star wars IV V VI, mulholland drive, early james bond, brando films, kubric stuff (clockwork orange, dr. strangelove), schindler's list, angela's ashes, fellini's 8 1/2, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, y tu mama tambien, the graduate, spinal tap, road warrior, knights, masked and anonymous, urban cowboy, immortal beloved, bram stoker's dracula, men at work, spider man 2, office space... as a kid: jurrasic park, land before time, back to the future I&II, wayne's world I&II, ghostbusters I&II. and the little prince, and I love to watch live music performance. I'm not a big reader these days...I miss it.
Interesting Fact:
We know that 1,337,347 guitars were sold in 1999, of which 720,088 were acoustics. Of the acoustics, 659,088 were steel-string guitars, which means that of all the guitars sold last year, about 49 percent were steel-string acoustics. If we apply that percentage to the string numbers above, we can guess that approximately 10,500,000 sets of acoustic steel-string sets changed hands in 1999.According to the April 2000 issue of The Music Trades, sales of fretted instrument strings amounted to $150,764,000 in 1999. This figure lumps acoustic and electric, nylon and steel all together. No information is available about the number of units, but if we estimate that an average set of strings costs $7, that would mean that merchants moved about 21,537,000 sets of strings in 1999.
www.trianglerock.com -- pictures, songs, links, show dates (triangle bands) www.duckonbike.com -- more triangle bands...download laramie uk's "anytime" demo www.thesames.com -- my favorite Durham band...check out their MP3s! www.rebelcarloadrecords.com/scovinpage.html -- Sandra Covin, another great former Durham artist (there's only 1 song to download at the moment) www.wxdu.duke.edu -- my new favorite radio station...listen in streaming audio www.wxyc.org -- UNC Chapel Hill's radio station, streaming audio, nice www.allmusic.com -- it's true, they've got everything !!! www.pitchforkmedia.com -- indie and popular music reviews and news...grrr www.ebay.com -- a great place for fickle guitar geeks www.gbase.com -- guitar gear classifieds, pretty useful www.harmony-central.com -- guitar gear reviews/forums www.audioforums.com -- for recording questions http://trentino.best.vwh.net/ -- Amp Tips (READ FOR SAFETY) http://store.yahoo.com/earplugstore/ -- ESSENTIAL www.vintagehofner.co.uk/gallery/gallery3/selm.html -- Selmer Amp info www.ampwares.com/ffg/ -- info on old Fender tube amps www.provide.net/~cfh/fender.html -- info on vintage Fender guitars www.simulanalog.org -- FREE and good sounding JCM-900 VST plugin www.knufinke.de/sir/index_en.html -- FREE + excellent VST reverb www.echochamber.ch -- .wav impluses for the SIR reverb (more on KVR forums) www.kvr-vst.com -- all the free VST plugins you could ever dream of www.digitalfishphones.com -- I'm a big fan of these FREE plugins www.rondomusic.net -- CHEAP QUALITY GUITARS, basses, pedalboards, cases!!! www.nelsonic.com -- nice looking affordable LP, tele, hollowbody guitars www.ravenwestguitar.com -- cheap PRS-style guitars www.myrareguitars.com -- weird/cool + affordable guitars Italia Guitars -- beautiful guitars, mike at myrareguitars sells these www.guitartrader.com -- sometimes good prices on new guitars, great pictures www.warmoth.com -- better yet, build your own! or get a better neck www.usacustomguitars.com/usacg/ -- more bodies/necks www.musikraft.com -- more bodies (lower price) and necks www.frettech.com -- "Assembled Axes" nice discount parts and assembly services + instructions www.dccase.com -- nice + affordable pedalboards www.avatarspeakers.com -- great deals on speakers and cabinets www.webervst.com -- highly regarded vintage style guitar amp speakers, and more www.voxshowroom.com/northcoast/index.html -- British guitars, amps, parts (Vox grille cloth for your Avatar cabinet) www.billlawrence.com -- awesome and affordable noiseless pickups and low capacitance cable www.lollarguitars.com -- Jason Lollar, excellent pickups (pricey) (i'd pick these over Lindy Fralin) www.vintagevibeguitars.com -- Pete Biltoft's excellent and affordable pickups www.crcoils.com -- Jim Wagner handwound pickups, nice, exorbitant, the holy grail of strat pickups, I've heard http://www.cinternet.net/~rewinder/ -- JM Rolph pickups, real deal PAF tone www.skguitar.com -- Steve Kersting custom handwound pickups www.guitarelectronics.com -- extensive wiring diagrams/instructions, all needed parts www.guitarnuts.com -- wiring and shielding info www.deaf-eddie.net -- some awesome wiring ideas www.axess-electronics.com -- nice buffer/splitter, amp switcher, &c what seafood you should and should not eat things i found amusing: Matmos, a band White Ninja comics, hit or (often) miss, I like the drawings www.fenslerfilm.com, watch the "PSA"s Oolong the rabbit--headperformance!!
Between Going and Staying by Octavio Paz Between going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The circular afternoon is now a bay where the world in stillness rocks. All is visible and all elusive, all is near and can't be touched. Paper, book, pencil, glass, rest in the shade of their names. Time throbbing in my temples repeats the same unchanging syllable of blood. The light turns the indifferent wall into a ghostly theater of reflections. I find myself in the middle of an eye, watching myself in its blank stare. The moment scatters. Motionless, I stay and go: I am a pause.
