Guitar Nerds Anonymous

Fun

@RonAsheton that guitar is teh sex - replace the wiring loom. 50's set from Monty's has good rep.

My explorer probably needs a treble bleed mod, but too lazy.

Sounds so good out of phase. I'm learning Black Magic Woman atm...

I'll have to look at that, definitely cheaper than a new set of pickups!

shameless plug for some gear for sale > https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/400625/#comment17572951

@RonAsheton did you get the tricone in the end?

I've got nowhere to put it!!

Since when has that ever been a reason when it comes to guitars?

I just don't have any more space for guitars, my office/studio space is overflowing with the fuckers!

1 in 1 out hahah.

I'm in the same boat. There are guitars taking up all of the spaces now we have emptied the spare room for renovating. No space to store them and no space to play them

It isn't the worst problem to have tho', is it? 😜

No, I do need to sell one though and probably move another to work. And if anyone has magical ideas for storage I'd be pleased to hear them.

1 in 1 out hahah.

This is where I'm at now but TBH I don't 'need' another guitar (unless it's a paisley Tele, a Travis Bean TB3000 or a plexi Dan Armstrong). I had thought I'd be two Juniors lighter by now but the mates who were so excited to buy them a few weeks ago have gone very quiet.

Just re-bought an Iridium and blown away by how much I like it compared to when I previously owned one. Clearly I have fickle ears, or maybe it just sounds better with my current monitors.

Anyway, means my Walrus ACS-1 is up for sale. Anyone interested at £150? Think that's a pretty good deal. It's great!

Not strictly guitar but songwriting... For the last week or so I've been making a concerted organised effort to finish a song that's been kicking about for at least a couple of years and although I'm kinda blocked, i'm actually finding the process strangely interesting.

My run-rate is about one a year lately so i'm not worried about the amount of time it's taking, no-one is exactly waiting for it so I'm letting myself do some navel-gazing as to what does and doesn't work. Thought i'd stick it down here in case anyone else finds it helpful.

The thing that I'm finding interesting is that the central foundation of the song is the bit that I think i'm gonna have to kill off if i'm ever going to finish it. The lyric is build around a couple of images and feelings that are all tied up with the passing of my last grandparent shortly after I became a parent a few years ago. What does it mean when someone dies? What happens to all of those memories and all of that love. All of that. What Not a novel concept i'm well aware, but it's a classic theme for a reason. All of the lyrics kind of spin off off from this super-vivid childhood memory of being with my grandparnets in this kind of (probably imagined) idyllic pastoral situation. But as i've fettled and changed the song and added and deleted verses i've come to realise that the one bit that I just cannot live with is the bit that overtly references that memory. It just really sticks in my throat when I sing it. It feels forced and like really obvious piece of artless sentimental guff right in the middle of what (i think) has turned into a reasonably decent piece of writing.

It's the trigger's broom effect.

I came to the realistion this morning that it has got to go. Now -just need to replace it with something. *chews pencil and looks thoughtfully out of window

Still on the hunt for a P-Bass btw. Hit me up with your bargains.

Have not got bargs but there are some very cool old Yamaha Pulser and Ibanez Blazer P-Bass type things on Reverb often...
MIJ Fenders also?

lookin at MIJ fenders for sho

Totally chimes. I did an interview years ago with Chuck Prophet and asked him lots about songwriting and at one point he said "sometimes you gotta throw the best part away". I didn't get it at the time but now as I struggle with the over-complex over-thinking crosswordy fucking bin fire of most of my own sad-ass writing attempts I really do. My current intent is to try to keep things simple and to stop rejecting any lyrical or melodic idea as soon as I spot the influence (and there always is one). This has resulted just this week in half a song that I actually like but cannot for the life of me generate words for a middle 8 or a third verse. Also, it sounds like Nick Lowe.

It's really hard as an older person to write lyrics. When I was young, I put my whole self out there; ugly bits, romantic bits, angry bits. But the older we get the more our spiky edges are rounded off. And the less as listeners we respond to naked emotion; the more we respond to the craft of expressing that emotion, the lesson learned from that emotion - the profundity of it. And the older I get, the more I realise I was not as profound as I thought I was when I was young.

I've not got past that block. Everything I've written for the last four years has used other people's lyrics. I think if you've got an idea you're happy with, and only one bit is causing you grief, you're doing better than most, and it's worth sticking with. Sometimes the most painful bit of a song for the writer is the best bit for the listener.

I can totally relate. Almost every lyric I write makes me wanna puke, very difficult to get anywhere when I'm judging myself so brutally. Small wonder I never get anything finished!!

Totally chimes. I did an interview years ago with Chuck Prophet and asked him lots about songwriting and at one point he said "sometimes you gotta throw the best part away". I didn't get it at the time but now as I struggle with the over-complex over-thinking crosswordy fucking bin fire of most of my own sad-ass writing attempts I really do. My current intent is to try to keep things simple and to stop rejecting any lyrical or melodic idea as soon as I spot the influence (and there always is one). This has resulted just this week in half a song that I actually like but cannot for the life of me generate words for a middle 8 or a third verse. Also, it sounds like Nick Lowe

Ha! amazing. And... when can I hear it?!

And the older I get, the more I realise I was not as profound as I thought I was when I was young.

This is basically what all of my songs are about now.

You just have to let stuff go sometimes. For me it's about finding that balance of not being completely happy and not working it to death and standing half a chance of ever finishing anything. Difficult to manage when you have limited time to work on stuff meaning that the process gets stretched out over a much longer time period. Stuff gets stuck.

I find it fascinating that my own "rules" (they're not written down or anything) are so flexible in certain specific circumstances as well. Like, I'm not a fan of overly specific references, but then again i like just enough specificity to make a situation seem real, but then again... ad nauseum.

Another one is that I will not let anything overly "feely" that doesn't actually make grammatical sense pass... but then again sometimes I do. I was called on it the other day when someone had to learn one of my songs to sing harmony on it - they asked "what are you singing there" and when told them, they asked "does that make sense?". My response was that "It sort of does... to me.. at a stretch... well, I know what it means anyway". The point being that I say to myself that that logical grammital correctless is a red line for me, but then i wave it through if it sounds good, and flows, and i kind of like the slightly odd ambiguity...

Writing feels like puzzle solving to me. And i hate puzzles.

Also puzzles is an objectively funny word.

*thinks: muzzles, guzzles, pizzles

etc