we're well on our way out west now. thanks to all who made summercamp great. we'd like to thank our old friend chris ragan for joining us again to light up the stage this weekend.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome jason huffer to the fold. some of you may know jason's work as LD for our friends in P Groove. we look fwd. to working w. jason.
I'll be posting a lot more summercamp pics & vids as I get them together over the coming days. thx again for everything! see you in flagstaff...
what a day... hot. not bonnaroo hot, but pretty darn hot. our daytime set was a lot of fun. I really like opening the fest, playing a sunny afternoon set & then getting to enjoy the festival a bit.
I took almost 3 hrs. of video yesterday. plan to edit clips & post in the coming days. (see below for a quickie)
- buckethead was a monster, as usual. his backing band could barely keep up.
- junior brown made my day. perfect sunset set. the weather, music, friends - all perfect. (it would've been cool to see buckethead sit in)
- both darkstar sets were really good. I love this band. the acoustic 'let it grow', as well as the electric 'stranger' late night, were stellar.
- UM was great. the 1st set closer "believe the lie" was awesome. I LOVE this song. fwiw, they looked great too. JW is a great fit.
- along those lines, I'd like to thank yesterday's special guest LD. we had one of the industry's top lighting designers help out with yesterday's set. our thanks to mother nature ; ) (we'll have some other special guest LDs this weekend)
hey folks, sorry I've been remiss in my blogging duties. now that we're back on the road, it'll take a few days to get readjusted to our other lives & schedules. when we 1st get out on tour, I still wake up @ 6:30am every day - even when we're up until 2:00am the night before. it usually takes a few days to get "reassigned". it's a bit odd living this way, but we've done it for so long. I think I'll save it for another topic, another day.
today, I'm more excited about my new amp! I'll always be a 13 yr. old in the guitar shop (except instead of lusting after flying V's, my tastes have changed - some. I still like V's - are you reading this Gibson? korina is esp. nice ; ) back to my 'new' amp!
LOOK!
This is an Oldfield Marquis 30 in a new custom bamboo cab. I'm a big fan of bamboo. it's a great alternative to hardwoods & it's sustainable. it's as durable as oak or maple (some say more so) & is less susceptible to water damage. it can also grow as much as 3 ft. in 1 day. (we've used it for all of our hardwood flooring @ home too).
Being a big fan of bamboo as a green alternative, I was particularly drawn to the speaker cab I'm currently using, which is made by Hard Truckers (the same guys who made all the cabs for the Dead). they offer a eco friendly version of their Fatty cab made out of hemp plywood w. a bamboo veneer. in addition to sounding as good, or better, than a typical birch or pine cab, it's also significantly lighter (that is, before I loaded it with vintage JBL D120f spkrs which weigh a ton). here's a pic of the back:
I started talking to Paul Gussler, owner, designer, & builder of Oldfield amps about rehousing my Marquis 30 combo (the dark green one you've seen on stage for the last few years) into a new bamboo head cab to match the Hard Truckers speaker cab. Paul & Glenn (from HT) spoke about some of the details, & we were off.
There were some initial tests to see if the bamboo would stand up to the rigors of traditional cabinetry (ie. dovetailing, splintering, etc.) & it did great. There was also the issue of taking my old amp chassis (which used it be in the rear facing up) & flipping it over to fit into the new head (now lower front panel facing fwd.). needless to say, paul did a 'spongeworthy' job!
the final piece involved working with Hard Truckers to develop a grille for my speaker cab that was also green (I'm a huge pain in the ass). they sent me samples of bamboo, hemp, & silk. ultimately, we opted for the unbleached hemp. it's actually very similar to the grille cloth used on Fender tweed amps from the early to mid '50s (TV front & wide panel tweeds).
Thanks so much to paul & glenn, & the girls @ HT, for hanging in there with me. clearly, one of the coolest amp rigs on tour...
this week, I was able to see the new film, BURMA VJ. it's an award winning documentary that has won over 20 awards @ various festivals around the world, including sundance. The film is scheduled for release in major cities in the coming weeks.
"This film BURMA VJ is comprised largely by material shot by undercover reporters in Burma. Some elements of the film have been reconstructed in close collaboration with the actual persons involved, just as some names, places, and other recognizable facts have been altered for security reasons and in order to protect individuals. ”
Armed with small handy cams undercover Video Journalists in Burma keep up the flow of news from their closed country. Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, acclaimed director Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. The Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon.
Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. ”Joshua”, age 27, is one of the young video journalists, who works undercover to counter the propaganda of the military regime. Foreign TV crews are suddenly banned from the country, so it’s left to Joshua and his crew to keep the revolution alive on TV screens all over.
With Joshua as the psychological lens, the Burmese condition is made tangible to a global audience so we can understand it, feel it, and smell it. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching. "
"These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."
I just saw the new movie yesterday. in a word, awesome. I went with my sister (who used to watch the original series with me in the last century) & my son (who's never seen a single trek related movie, tv episode, etc). we all loved it. the theatre applauded when the film ended. it was tense. the character development was great. the FX were top notch. acting was great.
you don't have to be a trekkie to enjoy it, although getting some of the history probably adds to one's geeky enjoyment (like knowing what the "kobayashi maru" is). the story is a prequel to the original series & follows the coming together of the original crew, & even includes capt. pike (again, another geeky pleasure dating back to the pilot episode, but not nec.).
I live on the fringe (literally). our house is so far on the outskirts of town that our neighbor's property line actually demarcates the town line. we're only 10 minutes from anything, which isn't a lot, but it's how we like it. we're surrounded by beautiful farmland. the point is, it's not exactly the suburbs. but it's not exactly living off the grid either. our lawn is far from green. most of it isn't even 'grass' technically. if we let it grow, it would look like a typical field in upstate NY. keep it cropped close to the roots (like my head) & it kind of resemble a lawn. it still has to be mowed on a regular basis or else it's a lost cause. we tried going wild & free & it was just out of control (not exactly amber waves of grain). a lot of our 'lawn' is actually spotted w. various kinds of moss, which I love. most folks would try & kill it off, but I'm thinking about cultivating it. in fact, I was thinking if I could get it to take over the whole thing, it would look awesome (scotland, ireland, new zealand??) & not really require any maintenance. I actually think there could be a future in sodding people's homes with moss instead of grass. it's greener too.
