Busier than a cranberry merchant

"Busier than a cranberry merchant" is an expression my Grandmother used to use. It always baffled
my sister and I. Far as I can tell cranberries don't have a due date on 'em?

Anyway, been very busy at the new Cowboy Technical Services with a lot of mixing. We finished mixing Ted Morris's debut record from Stockholm and headed over to the historic Pencil Factory Building in Greenpoint to master the stuff with Paul Gold at Salt Mastering.



After we got Ted's master all tweaked out we did the final sequencing on the upcoming New Heathens record titled "Hello Disaster" then as we were quite hungry from all this tweaking we headed back to Williamsburg for dinner.

It has been raining every few hours here for the last 7 weeks but riding in the pouring rain is no problem
when you have Peter Lugers as your destination


The Rocky Track locked up out front of Lugers.

Paul, Tim Hatfield and I proceeded with the Lugers experience.
Rolls with Luger sauce


followed by the Lugers version of a salad


I'd never had the Lugers bacon before. I think it may have been oven cooked. Fantastic.


Steak for 3
I didn't get a picture of the Lugers hash browns because knives and forks were flying at that point

And some streudel


I've said it before but Lugers aging process of their Porterhouse really brings out the difference in taste between the rib and tenderloin sides of the steak.

Back to more mixing this week with a great band from Cleveland called Robbing Mary and a fun gig with Chip Robinson and the Roscoe Trio the other night at the Lakeside.

Busier than a cranberry merchant.

Last Weekend

Last weekend I went out for a little head clearing ride around the East Village on my Vivalo. Heading uptown
along Avenue B I figured I'd go past my street and keep going for a while longer when WHAM something hit
me in the right side of my head just below my helmet. I steadied myself on the bike and raised my hand
to my ear to see that there was no bleeding. I didn't hear anything strange so I turned around to go back
to the corner of B and 8th to see what was there. I figured maybe some kids where throwing rocks or apples
or maybe a golf ball (that's what it felt like). I got there and saw the guy getting in his cab and nothing going
on down 8th Street. I'm sure I had a huge questionmark above my head/helmet at this point when a couple that
I could only describe as "Times Readers" came into the crosswalk and declared "You hit the bird" while pointing
to a little wren that was there on the pavement. I, a "Times Reader" also mind you, replied "the bird hit me"!

I was ok. My ear was ringing a little but that isn't new. There was nothing on me except the graphic of a couple
upside down Columbus Tubing birds on my Trackstar t-shirt.

I then realized that I had to take a picture of the departed bird who, as one of my friends told me later, was untethered by
the rules of one way traffic in the city. I think the bird was either in high pursuit of another bird or trying to beat it into
Tompkins Square Park to make some kind of afternoon bird hoedown. So I took a pic of the little thing to share
on the internet 'cause that is what we do nowadays.

WTF?


Bird on B


Vivalo

Hard to Explain

It is hard to explain just how much fun I had last weekend in Raleigh with the Yayhoos
at Joey's house party and the anniversary gig at Slims. Terry did a good job explaining.



Thanks to Spanking Charlene, The New Heathens, Joey, Chip Robinson, Van Alston and the dancing girls led heroically by Florence Dore.

felt like I needed some...

...inspirational music




The Yayhoos will be playing this Sat in Raleigh, NC at Slims Downtown

Esquired

Ok,
a gear post.........

We recently moved the recording studio. I had to put a lot of stuff in storage and also brought some stuff home. My black
Todd Hanson Tele, built by Phil Maneri at 5th Ave Fretshop in Columbus, OH ended up under the bed for a while.



While cruising the Dr Z Amp Forum I read some talk about Esquires. The Esquire was the first Fender guitar and it had one pickup (as opposed to the 2 pickup Telecaster). Now this topic got me thinking about the drastic difference in output between the 1 pickup Les Paul Junior and the 2 pickup Les Paul Special.



Those 2 guitars are virtually identical in construction except for the electronics. The Special is a great guitar but anybody who ever heard the Great Fatsby Leslie West play Mississippi Queen knows the Junior is a fire breathing horse on its hind legs by comparison. So, Since I have 4 other Telecasters I decided to mess with the black one.

I read up on Esquire wiring options which had a bunch of muffling capacitors wired into the switch that would eventually become the pickup selector then I rode over to Rick Kelly's Carmine Street Guitar Shop to check with Rick on which way to go with the switch before I got out the soldering iron an all. Rick builds some Esquire type guitars out of 150 year old pine that came out of some film directors Bowery Loft. Anyway, Rick told me to bail on the switch entirely. "Check mine out. I don't use the switch at all." This made sense to me and turned out it was about 10 times easier wiringwise. Really only one wire to move.

I rode home and opened up the black tele. Removed the neck pickup and moved the one white wire and boom I had a very loud straight to the amp Esquire thing going on.



This made sense but anybody who's seen an Esquire knows it isn't all about the sound. If you are gonna be honest it is also about the clean aesthetic of having just one pickup. Now since I had bypassed the switch I wanted to take that clean thing to another level too. I'd seen a couple guitars that my friend Creston had made that had custom plates on them. Creston sent me to Callaham, the awesome parts maker who fabricates a lot of the hardware that we use in the Stonetree Guitars. Bill Callaham sent me a custom made plate with no switch holes in less than a week with a set of his bridge saddles and an Esquire pickguard.

So here it is, the 1 pickup, no switch Fender Style Fire Breathing Horse.


Esquired

Advise for the Steel Player

I always liked Buck Owens & His Buckeroos. One of my musical heros Lou Whitney used to tell me
a lot of stories about wild Buckeroos gigs that he went to in Arizona back in the '60's. Beehive hairdo havin' women swarming
the stage and all. Lou called it "Combo Country". The small self contained band as opposed to the lush Nashville productions of the time. Great stuff all of it.

One time I was down at Lou's recording studio in Springfield, MO to produce a record for artist Jono Manson and we were talking about putting pedal steel on one of the tunes.
Lou mentioned that original Buckaroos steel player Tom Brumley was living nearby and playing shows at his family's theater in Branson. Holy moly. Lets get Tom Brumley!

Lou got a hold of Tom and a few days later Tom shows up at the studio in a sharp little Mercedes with his pedal steel and a new reissue Fender Bassman that had been customized for him by the Fender folks with a JBL K-130 15" speaker ("the only speaker for pedal steel" said Tom).

Tom got set up and before we played him the song I went out there to talk to him about what we were looking for on the song.
I was kind of nervous about it and I think Tom could tell. I told him I really needed to let him know the direction for this part.
I hoped that it wouldn't offend him but I told him that I was just going to go ahead and tell him the same thing that I told
any guy who was gonna play pedal steel on a track that I was producing. Tom is giving me the "Ok, kid" look.
I'm still nervous about it and Tom prods me "Ok what do you need"?
And I'm still beating around the bush "Its just what I have to tell all the pedal steel players......"

Tom is still waiting...

"Well, I always tell 'em to play it like Tom Brumley"


Well Tom did a great job for us on Jono Manson's song "No Strings" from the record Little Big Man that features Will Rigby on drums.
Tom also told us some good Buckaroos tales about his first gig with them in Arizona where he flew down
to meet Buck who told him he "had a steel for him". Turns out it was in pieces in a box and Tom had to build it before the gig.

One of the best stories he told was about being in the studio with the Buckaroos. Usually Buck and his super guitar playing partner Don Rich would have the songs worked out and show them to the band in the studio. They'd usually cut a coupld songs at a session. This is at Capitol Records in Hollywood. On one day they had 2 down and had a little time left for one more. Buck and Don showed this song to the band then with only enough time left on the session for one take Buck leans over and tells Tom "play something you can get right the first time"

And that song became another of Buck's hits "Together Again" with a first take track from everyone including Tom's solo.


Tom played in Rick Nelson's Stone Canyon Band and Dwight Yokam and Pete Anderson had him play steel on most of Dwight's heavily Buck influenced stuff. A couple years later I brought Tom into the studio to play on the Backsliders "Southern Lines" record. I didn't have the 15" JBL with me and I heard about it from Tom. Went home and got one that we keep in the studio now. So steel players, play it like Tom Brumley!

Tom Brumley RIP

Glen

Stumbled across this one from the great Glen Campell with the Stone Temple Pilots.
If you read my old blog on my website you know I got to meet Glen one time
as he attended a Steve Earle/Jackson Browne gig in AZ.
Best to you Sir.