Quote of the Day

A physician can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

Bass Porn

Who needs girls when you've got guitars and drums? says guitarist Dive from Small Glass Planet, after having a therapeutic jam session with drummer brother Full.

Well, guys. You do need girls.
A girl.
With a bass.




Now I haven't picked up my bass in a while. Not working with a band made it seem pretty pointless bringing the old beauty out. But oh how do I miss it! I only truly realised when I cranked it up, pumped out a few favourite riffs and started moving around the room like the old funky idiot I used to be.





Living in the vicinity of a brilliant photographer helps for getting some truly gorgeous shots of what it looks like when you thunk out an open E. Many thanks go to Kate for the use of the pictures she took today.



Meanwhile I was more occupied with grooving away, getting reacquainted with Big Daddy, my long lost ballsy friend who only really gets cranked up beyond a quarter when I have a gig. Shame.



No, I wasn't going to let it go to have a smoke. I can do two things at once, thankyou. Actually, I worked pretty hard on drinking beer and playing also while I was gigging pretty regularly.

Kate's suggestion was to send me over to Dive and Full via the post, in a cardboard box.



So what's the verdict, guys?
Would you adopt the female bass player if the mailman brought you one?

Fucking Americans!

Today I was rudely ripped off by the good ol' yanks. I could have played the world's biggest playable guitar. But no. I got to play the biggest playable guitar in the southern hemishpere, because some yank went and built a bigger one. Typical.

It's 5.82 metres long (no, you can't have that in feet, yanks, you've already beaten it anyway), 2.019 metres wide and the length of the strings to the bridge is 3.98 metres. I think the people of Nerrandera, where it is kept, are a little embarrassed by it now, because they don't seem to care for it very well. The neck is propped up on a filing cabinet and it's chocked up by a couple of bricks at the back end. The poor thing is in dire need of tuning.

I had a go anyway.

Meet the family: Joey

”Here is where you start: Play one note on one string and pour in every ounce of your heart and soul. Then repeat.”

Meet Joey (and of course the gorgeous woman pictured with Joey is Kate). Joey is the classical guitar I came across in a pawnbroker shop in Tamworth – a town known for being the Country Music Capital. For this reason I picked my Joey up as a complete bargain. It seems to be hard to appreciate a classical guitar in a town that is centred around the world’s longest line dancing record attempt every year. The woman in the shop was hell bent on telling me that the little blue steel string piece of mass-produced crap sitting next to this one was much better.

Joey is a dynamo for me. It has a gorgeous comfortable neck that just makes me want to play. I can feel the back purr against my chest as I strike the deeper notes. It is easily the guitar in my collection that I have most identified with, and been immediately comfortable with. It’s brought out a deeper emotional connection in my classical playing.

I came across the above quote in a book I’ve been dipping into lately - Zen Guitar. I’m not a fan of the way it’s been written, which causes me to keep putting it down, but some of the thinking is great. It strikes me that the body of this quote is a major reason that Joey and I have clicked so well. I named this guitar to somebody that I am not afraid to pour my soul into, and it reflects in the instrument and my attitude toward playing it. Through this, my playing has more of an emotional focus than a technical one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a control obsessive who would rather do two hours of technique practise than actually learn a new piece, but now I’m listening more to how I express myself musically, and giving my soul that form of expression.

A nonmusician is thrilled to be doing music and is quite happy to sit there and plunk one note all day. And is very alert to the effect of that. Nonmusicians really listen sometimes, because that’s the only thing they have available to them.
- Brian Eno

I took Joey with me to meet Kate this weekend. It was an amazing experience. I spend most of my days introducing students to guitar with the expectation that they learn something straight away. That’s what I’m paid to do – give you a guitar, sit you down, help you play. Have you come out of a half hour lesson with material that keeps you interested and has built your knowledge. And that expectation is reflected by the students as well. They want to play, they want to be a musician now. With Kate, there was no expectation. I let her experience the Joey in her own way and I was fascinated. She listened, she experienced the sounds that she produced in a totally different manner to anybody I’d ever watched before. She related to it by listening to the sounds and making an emotional connection with them.

The shame is that I cannot teach this way – there needs to be a little more forward motion. However the experience has made me revisit the wonder of striking just one note and hearing it for the first time. The Hey! I made that sound happen! feeling of accomplishment these kids I teach must have. I can appreciate it more, and allow them the time to appreciate their achievement too.

Guess who!

Dearest Dive, my guitar weilding friend from across the world, who brightens my days with constant affirmations of "You are the Groover" and who I am delighted to find any opportunity to tease...

It appears that you are extremely interested in the latest Old Dead Guy series being brought to life by the fantastically gorgeous and talented Kate Isis.

Well, I have a secret.

Thunderbolt is supposedly buried in a town near mine. This whole area is wrapped in history with his name. Anyway, this town that is a short drive away from my own sports a monument to the local bushranger proudly, and in typical local council style, next to a storm drain.

I got a phone call yesterday telling me that it was a local football (none of this soccer crap - real footy here) grand final in Thunderbolt town. Nothing special? Well it seems the Old Guy got dressed for the occasion...




Just thought you might be interested.

With much love and hugs,
Vic

Meet the family: Jerome

Jerome is the cedar Tanglewood I bought a while back and teased Dive about...

Happy Birthday, Dive.

Meet the family: Bertha

This post has an alternate title - Stock Photo for Dive.

Bertha is my 335 copy.

She inspires fingerstyle jazz.

She plays like the real thing because she's not a young cheap copy.



She has a dodgy input jack but all is forgiven.

Meet the family Part One: Big Daddy

So finally I get around to the series I want to dedicate to Dive, the lovely guitar-toting balding ball of occasional rantiness. This man has recently made a comment that has become a mantra for me:

"You are Vic.
You are the Groover.
You don't need to be anything else."

And Big Daddy is where the groove really lies. Previous to this amp I was using something with less than half the power, and not being able to hear myself clearly at large gigs. Big Daddy is responsible for the confidence of The Groover.


(Apologies for the pic being dark, but you get the idea.)

I've danced on this amp.

I've jumped off it.

I've been blown away sitting in front of it.

I've sat on it and played a low B with the octave below doubling turned up, feeling the delicious slow vibration roaring through my entire body.

I've carried it across carparks, lamenting the tiny wheels that can't handle any surface but carpet and feeling strained for days from the effort (but loving it).


I've found a lot of myself in using this amp. Big Daddy.

Playing dress-ups: Part One

So I've been playing bass for a local musical society production. The Musical Director has picked his band basically from people he knows will work well together and be fun in the process. And fun it's been. The band is nestled in behind the stage (normally it's off to the side in the local productions) so virtually nobody from the audience can see us. We've even had comment that people think it's a CD. So we were joking about before the shows started that we should dress in pyjamas so that we'd be comfortable.

It's gone a bit nuts from there. Each night has a different theme. So the easiest most tragic choice after pyjamas was eighties night. I hit the op-shop and hacked away at a pair of jeans, a jacket and then piled a shitload of gel into my hair. The looks we got when we walked into the services club where the show is playing were priceless.

The themes are a topic of bar discussion after the show (Where else? We're musicians) and have included suggestions from the cast as well. Whatever idiot thought that we could dress up as the food groups was just pushing the friendship, though. It's been an ice-breaker between the band and the cast and I've met a lot of cool people through it.

Then we have the shot some might have been waiting for. "Formal dress" night. That's right - Vic in a dress (cue: those reading gasp at the surprise). I told the entire cast that it was a once in ten-year thing and not to get too excited. I had one lady who I'm sure was trying to convince me I could pick up a nice young lad in what I was wearing. I just smiled and nodded and thought not a chance honey.

This series of shows is the most I've ever dressed up for anything and it's been fun. Normally I'm the person who finds any excuse to turn up in jeans and hang out away from the action - to be a part of the plain furniture rather than a feature wall, but through the last two weeks of dressing up I've come out of my shell a little more as a person and it's fun.

And she has a kick-ass voice