We’ve been in our “new” place for about 9 months or so now, and we’ve still only put up one piece of art.   Here is a giclee print of my work “The Searchers” on canvas. It is a great feeling whenever I see a piece of my digital art out in the real world.    This photo is from about 2 months ago…  yeah I  know, I need to post more often.

This is one of the few pieces of  my digital art that exists in a physical format.  You could say this is an extremely limited edition piece.  The only other one hangs in the home of my friend Mr. Jason Fanoe.

You can see this piece and more of my art here.

My Guitars (from left to right):

1. Agile Valkyrie (Gibson SG copy)
2. Agile AL-3000 “Rootbeer” (Gibson Les Paul copy)
3. Res-O-Glas National Supro reproduction (custom built)
4. 2000 Gretsch 6120- Brian Setzer Signature model (1st edition)
5. 1994 Fender ‘62 Reissue Stratocaster
6. 2007 SX-SJM 62

James Hetfield and the wall of green flames! *photo from Metallica's Facebook.

Last night Kristen came along with me to San Jose’s HP Pavillion, also known as the Shark Tank to see Metallica’s final show of the year.
It was a night of glorious, ear and earth-shattering, face-melting, shaking the pillars of heaven heavy metal! We missed opening band Volbeat’s set, but caught the last 3 songs by San Jose’s own Machine Head. Then after 30 minutes or so of anitcipation the lights all went down. The audience started screaming.

Then the moment we were waiting for came… Ennio Morricone’s “Ecstacy of Gold” started playing. (If you don’t know this dramatic piece of music…this is the music played before the final gunfight in the movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”) When this ended, crazy laser lights were all over the place as they played through “This Was Just Your Life” – the first track off of their latest album, Death Magnetic.

Overall, they played a set of 2 hours of music… and most of it was heavy including half 5 songs from Death Magnetic, songs off of Ride the Lightning, and of course fan favorites “Enter Sandman” and “Master of Puppets”. During their encore they played some cover songs by Diamond Head before ending the night by requesting that the audience be prepared to sing 3 words at the right time and for the venue’s lighting guy to turn all the house lights up so that the bad could see all of us. They then ripped into the classic “Seek and Destroy” off of their first album, Kill ‘Em All.

James Hetfield and Rob Trujillo bring the metal! *photo from Metallica's facebook page

The show was an amazing spectacle. Lights and lasers, 4 giant white coffins hanging over the stage were moving up and down, and yes, there were bursts of fire! The band has not lost their edge and sound aggressive, brutal and in my opinion HEAVIER than when they released their first album. It was an awesome night of music with many diverse groups of people coming together as one as they sang together, screamed together, and of course head banged and threw out the devil horns together! I can’t wait to see them again.

\m/

Thanks to Alan, Keith, Michael, Mark and Larry for coming out to the show with me!

Some details:
Body: Res-O-Glas fiberglass in the Valco Supro Airline style by Guitar Kits USA
Neck: Eastwood Guitars Airline reproduction
Pickups: 2 GFS Humbuckers from Guitar Fetish dot com

This axe is going to be a serious Rock ‘n Roll machine! I’m going for a modern minimalist look with only 2 knobs (volume) and a 3-way pickup selector.
Though I’m doing a modern take on this vintage design in general, I’m opting for a retro Bigsby-style tremolo system. On the electronics side of things, I’m skipping tone knobs entirely. More importantly I’m getting these humbucker pickups coil-tapped. I’ll have a wider spectrum of sounds available as I can switch from single-coil to double-coil pickup sounds on a whim.

Here’s a preview of I want this guitar to be:

Stay tuned for progress on this project…

That’s right! After skipping it last year the party is back on! Saturday October 3rd! See you there!

Recipe from the tag of a bottle of Cabo Wabo Reposado I received as a gift.

Recipe from the tag of a bottle of Cabo Wabo Reposado I received as a gift.

the master, the originator

I’ve been playing electric guitar for 20 years and for a few years before that as a kid I wanted to learn how to play…simply because the electric guitar was so damn cool. As a musician I feel immense gratitude to the man who really made the guitar become a “hero” of instruments..no longer relegated to the background but really becoming the lead instrument. Without him modern music simply wouldn’t exist.

Some friends and I had this plan to fly out to New York City for a day just to see Les Paul play at the Irridium jazz club to catch his weekly gig. Now I really feel bad for not making it happen.

Anyway, my guitars and amp seem a bit more precious this morning. We lost a friend, a hero, a teacher and a great explorer. I’ve heard and read various accounts saying that the man was also a genuine nice guy. If you play guitar strum a little over the weekend. I will be.

RIP Les Paul…. you will be missed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul

Recipe from the tag of a bottle of Cabo Wabo Reposado I received as a gift.

Then after a short break, the headliners Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine rocked the main stage.   If you’ve never heard of them, you’re in for a treat.  They take popular rock,rap,metal, and top 40 songs and turn them into swinging lounge music.  Richard Cheese is also a sharp-tongued quick witted comedian who seems to actually feed off  random interrruptions from hecklers in the audience.  He actually told one guy he’d never get a dat making the dolphin noises he was yelling… and then got him to tell us his facebook screen name so that we could all take out our phones and add him as a friend because… there was no other way he’d have any friends.  If you ever have a chance to see them live, please do so! You won’t be dissappointed.

There may be some minor glitches around the site this week… but I think overall we’re in good shape. Any weirdness will be corrected quickly.

Good night folks!