Fuzz Guitar Show 2013

I'm throwing away money left and right these days, today I went to the Fuzz Guitar Show in Eriksberg/Göteborg. Fun stuff and they had a student discount on the entrance fee, which is why I went ;)

There was a discount on Gotoh vibratos (or tremolos if you like being wrong), but I couldn't find the one type I want for my guitar. Fortunately actually, I don't strictly need one, yet. Bought two packs of EB 11 sets, but I found no Tortex yellow packs, bah. Pedals were not very interesting, Rockboxes look nice, cost too much and imho sound pretty boring and "perfect". Lundgren pickups had a booth, but I've already ordered me a set of Curtis Novak lipsticks, gonna have a lot of fun trying to figure out how to shred with those.

Best part was looking at old 2nd hand guitars and price tags on strats from the 50-60s. I need to get a car first and learn to play properly though. Worst part was thinking about the rich douche bags who'll buy them and defile them with their rubbish playing or just put them on a wall, like putting a tiger in a 5x5x3 m³ glass box :p

Tomorrow I'll watch an acquaintance from the Chalmers Aerospace Club from back in the days parachute his way down to Earth. I'm not gonna, I'll just watch and point.

Paul Gilbert!

Paul Gilbert played for his Vibrato tour yesterday evening in Gothenburg and I was there :D

Best parts: Thomas Lang's drum solo, Emi's crazy keyboard solos and their cover of Man on the Silver Mountain (not counting Paul just being there, of course)!

My guitar saw quite some action too after that show...

Update(2013-04-24): Just wanted to add: WHOOOO, I saw Paul Gilbert live! \m/ >_< \m/

Easter and pedal mania

So Easter passed by and gave me the flu for the first time in 14 years. It's been a long time since my mom forced me to stay in bed...

I bought a Yamaha THR10 recently and that thing has had me playing a lot more than before. Really nice solid state amp for clean-ish sounds, but it's a bit bright and the gain channels are too harsh. Still, better than the 5W tube amp + Zoom g2.1u combo I used before.

I was thinking a lot about the SG clone, but my brother convinced me to buy proper pedals instead. Some of the best advice I have ever been given. I got myself a Strymon El Capistan tape delay simulator, Greenhouse Stonefish chrorus and Hartman Germanium Fuzz. Bit expensive boutique pedals for being my first pedals ever, but they sound amazing. A bit of delay and soft chorus and I can paint soft dreamy landscapes and space scenes like never before, and the Fuzz when I need it to go dirty and grimy. Check youtube for reviews and examples, all I can say is I couldn't be happier. I'm currently looking at the Maxon 9-series for an overdrive pedal and the Barber Tone Press for compression and I hope that should be it for some time, after all I plug it all into a THR :p

I'm doing ok these days, seems like my heart has stopped leaking blood and feelings and I can concentrate on programming and playing the guitar with full passion again. I'm attributing my increased will to be happy to my guitar pedals, they did wonders. So I should get the other two really soon :D

Went to a concert yesterday, my friend's wife played the harmonium in a church, and there were some other musicians playing the church organ, singing and whatnot. I've been to a few of her "shows", but I'm still a bit mesmerized seeing a world so different from my own.

Helped a friend from France with the horror build-story that is Geant4... Going home from work at 20.40, like a Ph.D. student in physics should :p

Update(2013-04-21): Got a Maxon OD9 and Barber Tone Press in the end, good stuff. Maxon sure has a bunch of od/ds-pedals, but the dark OD9 seemed like a good fit to the bright THR10, and the 808 was a tad too tame. The Tone Press seems like a really lovely compressor, I really don't know much about them, but the output is really soft and not as "plonky" as some cheaper compressors are. Those two pedals together made for some fun shredding. My setup is very noisy atm, I need to sort that out before I record anything (I know, I'm a perfectionist, but it _is_ gonna happen).

Oh right, gonna watch Paul Gilbert live at Sticky Fingers tonight! :D Camera ready...