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Well I finally figured out how to post the picture - My new H535

May have posted this in the past, But since we're focusing on fuzz here.... Never a fan of it, but given this is a Lucinda Williams tune, and I'm a big fan of the fearless Stuart Mathis, I thought...why not get way out of my little box. This is from the Be Good To Yourself project, and since we were tracking nearly thirty songs, I figured I'd better come up with a variety of tones and approaches. I'm pretty much down with what Randy (fdx99) observes in his notes, above. As I recall this track was my Tele for electric rhythm, a Nashville tuned Red Label Yamaha FG-110, and the fuzz was my Nash Strat, bridge pickup, into my Low Power Tweed Twin clone. The fuzz was an MXR Hendrix Octavio, which has a pretty great fuzz! Fuzz is there in a couple of early chords, but doesn't really appear until the guitar outro, last 1:30-ish of the tune. I'm a little proud of this one. The vocalist is eighteen-year-old phenom Māya Beth Atkins.

I have very good aim, that was from 105 yards or was it decibels, I can’t remember. Here is the latest, I’ve been working on it diligently day in and out. This morning I got the hammer and chisel out and made a lot of noise!

Well congrats!! I always liked that gtr. If I remember correct some guy at a PSP shredded the hell outta that thing, back in the barn days? did it justice for sure. A good repair shop should be able to repair the neck & truss rod.

Beautiful guitar DBlues. IIRC, you sold it because of the neck. The top also has mineral streaks and, at that time, some here considered the streaks to be a bad sign; it is not a bad sign. With a little research you’ll find mineral streaks are indicative of maple grown in wet areas where the ground has plentiful minerals. The maple that grows best in wet areas is the red maple AKA swamp maple. A fair number of ‘59 Pauls also have mineral streaks. I’m not at all opposed to mineral streaks and even covet them; so much so that I’ve planted red maples in the wettest terrain at the ranch for the next generation. That’s my, long winded, way of saying Happy New/Old/Refurbished Guitar Day. She’s a Looker!

Here's another cool fuzz, this is a germanium pedal Ryan built for me, a Rangemaster style treble boost combined with a Big Muff with an adjustable bias. At 22 seconds in the first fuzz lick kicks in, and at 2:06 I crack it wide open for the slide solo!

When I'm recording demos/songs, I have a few fuzz pedals that I love the sound of, and almost all of them are germanium based. But I've always been against using fuzz pedals on my pedal board because of the instability of the germanium transistors used in most of the pedals that I like. When they work, they sound killer, but if the temperature changes in the room, so can the sound of the pedal. But recently, my buddy Ryan, my guitar partner in crime, and who's a fuzz afficianado of the highest order, gave me a silcone based fuzz made by Analogman, the BC183 Sunface which has earned a permanent position on my pedalboard. It just makes the solos cut so much better. And it's ridiculously consistent sounding. I love combining it with my Origin Effects M-EQ Driver for serious vowel like singing sounds! Not the prettiest board, but it gets thew job done... the solo i play at the end of this song is the BC183...

Another 2.45 inches and it will be just like Willie's Trigger!

So, our group had a tee time at a golf course on the other side of the river, which meant that I paid the toll to get to Indiana. While I was over there, I decided to run by a local shop, Maxwell's House of Music. This is a sister store to Mom's Music which happens to have been started by the drummer of the first band I went to see as an 8th grade graduate. (Ok, enough back story...) My thought was to see if they had a Blues Driver in stock. I would rather support a local store than Guitar Center. Two local shops I check didn't have any in stock. Maxwells had the standard pedal, and the guy was more than happy to plug it up to try. "What do you have for an amp?" He pulls out a Princeton Reverb for me. "What do you play?" That's a bit trickier. I explained that I've got several Heritages with humbuckers but recently got my H-530 with P90s. We walked over to the wall and I pulled this one down from the wall. It was a choice between this ES-330 and a 335 next to it. It was a very nice guitar, but was it nicer than my 530? Nah! It does have some nice grain. Other than the block inlays, there's wasn't any real advantage. They played very much alike. I still don't like the plug on the front rather than the rim. At $3500, it was priced between the Custom Core and the standard. A fellow about my age was picking up a white Tele and he and I jammed a bit on some blues. He said he's still got his father's original '64 ES-345. In the end, I left with a Blues Driver. I'll be pulling out the pedal board later today and cranking it up.

I've never personally relic'd a guitar (or re-licked one). But some of the best Telecaster tones I've ever heard came from a Nachocaster which is a heavy duty relic'd guitar. This one... I think the one I played cost $6000. And up to that point, I would've never ever considered spending that much on any guitar, modern or vintage. The most I've ever spent is $4500. But that guitar had me rethinking about what a guitar is worth. It was that good. As a matter of fact one of my best friends bought a used one just like it for a $1000 more, and he thought it was the deal of the century, HE LOVES IT!!! And the fact that you could nick it, dent it, whatever, and wouldn't lose a cent of value is kind of appealing. These guitars now sell for over $8000 new, and there's a waiting list. He sells them that fast. So people pay even more than that for used ones if they want one immediately. Frankly, I don't think I'd like if the man himself, Nacho, made me one that would look new. It just felt so good, and better than any vintage Tele that I've ever played (I've played a few). A few weeks before I played this one I had a 50's whiteguard Tele at my house and this Nacho smoked it! Here's the only song that I recorded with it, a song which came out of me with less than 20 minutes of play time on it. The pickups just sang and the vibration in the wood rattled my ribs...

Feels like an Old Friend (50 yrs) _____________________ New Friend ( 5 wks) Neither one has the finish worn off.

At this age, being "on drugs" means BP meds, cholestrol meds, heart meds, NSAID meds, and a little blue pill to help you "rise to the occasion". 👴