Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Creative

The Electric Cult

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Epiphone Dot Archtop. I've played on this since 2004 (mine has gold hardware).

Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner. It seems silly to pay $80+ for a tuner pedal up until you have two beats to fix an out-of-tune string on stage. Also, chromatic means good for alternate tunings!

Last night as I put the finishing touches on my electric guitar’s pedal board I realized that I have become that musician, with his own persnickety alchemy for how his guitar sounds.

I really don’t understand how I became that musician or how anyone else becomes one, but I definitely am one now, and I am fully prepared to find myself insufferable.

How does it happen?

I’m not talking about playing. I get how to learn to play (and how to be insufferable about it). Western music is a system executed on a device. Notes on a guitar are the same as math on an abacus or Super Mario Bros on a Nintendo. I took six guitar lessons to learn how to play Ziggy Stardust and then struck out on my own, and I seem to be doing fine, even if I still don’t hold a pick correctly.

The thing that puzzles me is the layer on top of the music. The technology layer. Gauges of string, hardness of picks, choosing wood for a fretboard, different pickups for guitars, types of pedals to get a sound.

SansAmp VT Bass Driver. Though owned pedals before it, this analog amp-simulator finally got me to join the cult.

Boss GEB-7 Bass Equalizer. I already had this per the recommendation of Peter Mulvey to help keep my alternate tunings punchy and bright. Now I actually use it on a bass!

Did you know that electric guitars don’t even come with an instruction book? This is an electronic device more complicated than your typical kitchen appliance. I mean, the blender has little explanations under each button. A guitar? How am I supposed to know what the pickup selectors do, or what string gauges work best, or anything else?

My electric came with a warranty card and a little brochure advertising yet MORE electric guitars for me not to understand.

(As for tone, once I picked a few favorite songs and read up on their guitar tones. The first one was “Go Your Own Way,” and I learned that Lindsey Buckingham ran his guitar through a broken tape deck to get the right tone. Very helpful.)

I suppose the answer is community and experience – two things I’m not very good at doing. I want science. I want a fact sheet.

For many, many years my musical community was Gina. That’s it. When I won my first electric guitar in a contest I’m pretty sure I had to borrow an amp from her so I could play it.

Boss TR-2 Tremolo. I already owned this (to simulate old amp tremolo), but it became one of my favorite weapons in Arcati Crisis.

As for experience, I didn’t have any! I never had money to try untested solutions and I wasn’t out playing anywhere or with anyone (except for Gina). Hell, it took me over a year to even get good at TUNING.

The Loop-Master ABY Pedal. Gina started playing her own electric guitar, so I needed to be able to switch between us into the signal chain. This rugged, custom-built ABY pedal works in both directions!

Neither deficit really impacted my acoustic guitar playing, but breaking into the electric world was a different story entirely.

There is this cult of electricity, where you sacrifice your money and time to crafting that perfect tone only to have the electrons snatch it away from you with little notice. They’re fickle little beasts, and after a few early mishaps we didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

I think that’s why both Gina and I shied away from electric guitars for so long. We didn’t even like playing amplified for a while after a disastrous first gig in Drexel’s quad. Even after we got okay with amplification, we were still happy to keep things acoustic.

Weirdly, it took bass guitar to put a crack in the electric dam for me. When I bought a bass to fill in for Filmstar, I immediately understood something was missing from its tone. It didn’t sound like THAT bass sound, which is something a lot more discernable and tangible than guitar tone.

Seymour Duncan SFX-07 Shape Shifter Tap Tremolo Pedal. The more I played the TR-2 on Gina's slower songs, the more it bugged me that I couldn't match the tremolo rate exactly to the song's tempo. Not anymore ;)

Boss OD-3 OverDrive. Further research into Lindsey Buckingham yielded the fact that he now plays solely through a Boss SD-1, but I think it sound is a little thin. The OD-3 one has a thicker crunch.

I realized I didn’t have the money (or muscles) for a high-end tube amp, so I bought a SansAmp pedal to beef up my tone, but that gave me a bit too much 125hz, so I added a Bass EQ pedal, but I also wanted to add some fuzz to a few passages, so I started playing with distortion pedals.

Suddenly, I not only had a bass tone, but a burgeoning pedal board to plug my electric guitar into. It only took a few Arcati Crisis rehearsals to realized I wanted different things for my electric than I did for my bass.

A year later the result is last night, holed up in the attic working out the signal chain order of my new overdrive and tap tremolo pedals.

Learning the technology layer of music is an iterative process. It’s trial and error. You have to hear a tone on the radio or in your head before you have somewhere to go, and then you need the disposable income to get there.

I still don’t understand it. I guess some musicians have bandmates to learn from, friends to chat with, or a favorite guitarist to emulate.

Gina and I have always only had each other, but as we’ve become more confident as a band I realize we’ve also formed a community around ourselves – Jake in Arcati Crisis, our friend Chaz, Glenn from Filmstar, Josh Popejoy, Cris Valkyria and her bassist Lou Paglione, & Maria from Bedroom Problems.

MXR M182 El Grande Bass Fuzz Pedal. I've been struggling with a distorned tone for my bass. I tried the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, but this is far superior.

MXR M-120 Auto Q Auto Wah Pedal. This is the one effect I covet for my acoustic guitar. Joshua Popejoy uses it to great effect, and Ani DiFranco uses a similar effect.

And you know what this group of people hs in common. None of them learned this shit from science – even the ones with formal training. They groped around until they figured out what they liked.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always found that musician to be so insufferably annoying – not because she bothers me, but because I’ve never been sure how to become her.

Well, now that I’m her … err, him, in my case, but probably still “her,” since all my idols are women … anyhow, now that I’m me, I don’t want anyone else to feel that way about it.

I might be a member of the cult of electric, but I vow to always share my trade secrets, and never make it sound like a bunch of technical gobbledygook.

Are you another member of the electric cult? What are your favorite electric guitar gadgets? Which major pedal in your setup do I need to know about, stat?

Crushing On: RedCo Audio

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RedCo Audio saved my studio, my sanity, and my bank account. If you are wiring a studio, a patch bay, a home theatre, or any other kind of DIY multimedia project you should buy your cables exclusively from RedCo.

Is that a ringing enough endorsement?

Let’s backtrack for a second. In every occupation, hobby, or pastime there are hidden costs that do not reveal themselves until you are in too deep to avoid them.

Well, maybe not entirely hidden, but at least not obvious. When you buy a new photo printer, you know it will need paper and ink, but you aren’t always thinking about how expensive those glossy papers and photo inks will be, and how you might need a new card reader for all your massive files.

The same goes for any musical hobby. You assume your big expenditures will be your instrument, amplification, and various tone devices – and wow that is already a lot to expend, let me tell you. Instead of equipping myself to play bass from scratch in the last 12 months I could have put a down payment on a brand new car or a timeshare.

Eventually you get there. I did, and I am historically terrified of electric rock signal chain technology. I’d prefer something lower-fi, like a stick tied to a washtub. But I persevered – I got my ideal instrument and signal chain set up in my custom home studio, only to realize I didn’t have enough cables, and when I looked them up online I found that a 2ft patch cable costs THIRTY DOLLARS.

WHY WOULD THAT BE?

This actually looks pretty elegant, as washtub basses go.

I have learned my lesson from cheap cables that crap out every six months. I now understand that the cheapest option will always cost you double in the long run. After nearly falling out of my chair from seeing how much the patch cable was I hesitantly searched for the 35ft XLR I needed from high-end brands like Mogami and Monster…

…all the blood rushed from my face. I almost fell out of my chair.

I was going to have to drain my entire savings account to cable my studio. Not only that, but the cables weren’t even what I needed! In one case I needed a 35ft, not 50ft, and right angle TS connector, not straight TRS – but that didn’t exist. I’d be spending a mint on the wrong options!

Enter RedCo Audio. They are a small company in Connecticut specializing in hand-made custom cables. And, not just custom lengths. You can pick everything from the gauge of the cable down to the angle of the connection. They can make audio cables, coax connections, and custom multi-channel snakes. They have every option you could every imagine, including the very same materials used by Mogami and other boutique brands.

A 50ft Mogami studio-quality XLR? $110 list price. A 50ft RedCo XLR with the same materials? $55. That doesn’t even account for the fact that you might only need 45ft, and wouldn’t mind a lighter cable gauge. (New price? $38)

A $300 spend at RedCo got me a dozen new cables totaling over 250 feet, which would have cost more than $1000 to buy retail. I’ll admit, it was super-confusing to pick all the right cables and connectors, but I left notes in each order about what I planned to use the cable for and RedCo gave me an unexpected personal call to recommend a few changes in my order, which they made for no additional cost.

Two weeks later, I had a box of brand new custom cables on my doorstep, each the perfect solution to a need in my home studio.

I love RedCo Audio. Love love love. I will never in my life buy studio cable anywhere else, and I’ll always get exactly what I need.

Make It Special

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Every time we have an Arcati Crisis show I want to make it special.

I can’t help myself. When you play in the same city to largely the same crowd over and over again you have to keep it interesting. Spice things up a little.

Well, tomorrow night at the Tin Angel (7:30p, $10, you should come) is going to be spicy enough – it’s our first show with both Zina on drums and Jake on bass. It’s also my birthday show. It’s also our nearly annual Fall Extravaganza.

I decided that wasn’t enough special for one show, so it’s also going to be a CD release party…

Thanks to brand new mixing software and a few quick car trips and a week off from work, Arcati Crisis is ready to release our fifth totally DIY album at tomorrow night’s show – and it sounds really, really, really good. I’m in a bit of disbelief that we played it or that I mixed it. It’s a 10-song, 18-track LP of one of our first shows with Zina on drums at Philly venue The Fire, and it’s only available as a fan appreciation reward from the band.

What that means exactly I’m not sure. I’m going to figure it out while I’m asleep.

Of course, even with a week off I’m going to be up until the wee hours of the morning before a show burning these suckers, but that’s the price I pay for instant gratification.

the gift of me

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Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

Alright, how do I do this without being insufferably both maudlin and self-congratulatory.

Fuck it, it’s my birthday.

Over the summer I received a phone call. I was sure it was a prank or mistake. From what I could make out from the rapid-fire message, someone wanted to interview me for a magazine.

As it happened, I was jumping through a lot of life’s other hoops that week, so I didn’t return the call. But then I got another call. This was a real person, and yes she was looking for Peter the musician. She wanted to do a brief profile on me for a local indie music mag called Jump Philly – yes, a physical magazine, not just a blog.

Now, I’ve been featured in media before. Probably the best mention was during one of the Blogathons, when I was quoted on MSNBC. But that time and all of those other times I was being mentioned in relation to something I was helping to produce.

Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

This time I was being mentioned for producing myself – in particular, my songs for Eric Smith‘s novel.

I had an amazing, hilarious conversation with my interviewer Lauren over sushi on South Street. I coached myself on staying on-message before-hand, but it was no use: get me in front of someone who keeps asking me questions about music and see how well I stay “on-message.” I wind up telling anecdotes about Jem.

(Lauren immediately inquired with glee, “That was on the record, right? Because I am totally using that.”)

The one message I managed to hammer was spelled Dee Aye Why. Every answer dovetailed back to how I did something myself. Taught myself guitar. Got the keys to Drexel’s recording studio with just one term of classes. Self-recorded every song of mine ever released.

The issue came out around Labor Day. Before I could see it, someone at a wedding told me they had picked it up and seen a picture of me. Me!

The photos were taken some weeks after the sushi. Eric, Lauren, and I chased good light all over South Street with photog Ashley Hall until we found our spot.

She snapped away. I coached myself on staying on-message. With my body-language, I mean. I notoriously hate just about every photo of myself taken by anyone except for E and, apparently, MikeyIl. Everyone catches me in these gawky moments between moments. And I don’t like to smile with teeth, because it makes me look silly.

To say I was awaiting the issue with trepidation would be an understatement. There was so much message to be off! I’d probably come off sounding like an ass and looking like Goofy.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. And, let’s not misconstrue me here – I am not bragging about being phenomenally on-message in my interview and photo calll.

Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

No. First, I was in the hands of professionals who cared about getting my story right.

And, second, my life as a whole is what I want it to be, so what is there to get wrong? Lauren talked about my many musical endeavors, all true. Ashley shot a trim and – dare I say – slightly muscular looking version of me beside the ever dashing Eric Smith.

I had nothing to object to, and I have nothing to object to today. As far as I am concerned, thirty is a signpost on a road of awesome goals achieved and dreams realized. It means I’m old enough to call out petty bullshit for what it is, and for people to know to take me seriously even when I am proposing the most outlandish thing.

That’s a far cry from turning twenty, ten years ago, when I blogged: “The world is the container of a finite amount of possibilities both big and small, and i don’t think any chain of events will ever make me truly happy even if you substitute in all of the right jobs and friends and lovers where there are just empty spaces right now.”

Tell that to the guy in these photos.

Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

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I am radically Do-It-Yourself when it comes to music.

Since Gina is also a dedicated DIYer we always go that route with Arcati Crisis with no questions asked. We record ourselves, design our own graphics and websites, rehearse at home, and are now working on creating our own merchandise.

Filmstar is different. They DIY some things, but not others. They’ve been to a recording studio, used a rehearsal space, hired a photographer, and are even discussing working with a manager.

I try not to unduly influence the band with my mutinous DIY ways, but when it came to dropping big dollars on studio recording when we had never been through the process before I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The result was last month’s drum engineering session in our dining room, which I spent a big chunk of yesterday mixing down. [Read more…] about Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns