The weekend Thread

[deeaa*]

My sister came to visit us at the cottage so her and my kids got to bathe together properly :-) they absolutely love the hottub, they spent hours in it, 3-4 times a day.

[Brian Krashpad]

Oh my gosh, those kids are too cute. Looks like good times!

[deeaa*]

Yep Brian, and they're also quite a handful...2 to 11 yrs olds, nice age spread so minding them can be a lot of work indeed :-)

This weekend I'm gonna go see a couple of bands. There's a rock festival in my town called the Rock Cock festival (let's see if the moderation lets that by) and on Saturday the tickets are only like ~50 bucks and there's a couple of good bands, most importantly Danko Jones which is one of my favorites, and I've seen them live before. Also classic punk, The Exploited from the UK, and Sparzanza from Sweden might be worth a look....the rest of the bands aren't so interesting. It's in a park nearby, but I've never gone there for some reason. At least I could have gone to my mom's apartment as that's located right opposite the main stage and there you can hear the bands play quite perfectly.

I always tend to miss good bands that visit our locality...I was _gonna_ go see Maiden with my sister's husband when they were here a month back, and I really shoulda seen the previous festival where System of a Down, Wolfmother and Avenged Sevenfold played among the others about half a mile from my wife's cousin's house...we were going there for sure but I had to build a guest room at the cottage just then...and I woulda gotten free tickets to see Accept, Judas Priest and Queensrÿche on the same stage a while back but I was too lazy to go, all worn out and tired just that weekend...right now I'm kinda regretting I didn't go but at the start of the summer I'm always so tired and listless from teaching all year, all I want to do is do some physical hard work and drink beer, really have no interest in anything requiring brain activity etc...hardly make, listen or play music all summer long. Teaching just wears you out mentally so strongly that it really takes the whole 2 months usually to start feeling anything creative or joy of life again...I always make music and listen to music in the fall mostly, before the work wears me out. Actually I read a study of teachers that their stress hormone levels and heart rates start approaching normal levels in the average after 6 weeks of uninterrupted holiday. Word, man, I tell you.

But now, the wife & kids are out of town all weekend...and after 2 months my poor brain has finally somewhat recuperated from the long winter of schoolwork and it's showing some activity towards music interests...so Danko it is! And LOADS of beer&vodka!

[Duffy]

Deeaa,

I really like that hot tub. Does that have an electric circulating pump and a water filter? Or do you just drain it and clean it and replace it with fresh water?

[deeaa*]

Just drain it and fill it anew every time. A bit over 500 gallons. Really simple, really. I have a gasoline water pump with a 1" tube that goes into the lake a few feet deep underwater, has a sort of glass fibre (like insulation material) filter at the end so there's no debris or algae in the water intake. Takes about 20 minutes to fill the tub. Then you just drop in firewood into the submerged, marine-grade aluminum stove inside the tub (separated by a safety fence) and warm it up - that takes about an hour or so to get to body temperature. Has to be filled to a marked safe level before firing up as the aluminum could melt otherwise.

Then it cools of a grade or two in an hour, so if you want to spend several hours in it, at some point it's best to throw in a couple of small logs while bathing.

Some people do keep the water in the tub for several days even, and add some cleaning agent into it, but I have no need for that since it's by the water anyway...only makes sense if you have to fill it with tap water (in which case it also takes like an hour to fill up).

[deeaa*]

Danko rocked!

[Brian Krashpad]

Great pic Dee!

We need details, of course.

[Duffy]

Deeaa, what guitars were they playing, if you noticed?

[deeaa*]

He played the entire set (1:15) with the same custom Explorer, just a single P-94 at the bridge as far as I can tell. Looked like a normal explo otherwise...it had this apparently bound top with a very reflective bluish-black lacquer surface. The bassist also just played the same bass, again a custom or modded standard B-bass. This time Danko only had a Hiwatt, no longer two amps, no effects I could see or hear.

Doesn't get much more straightforward pure rock than Danko...just three guys who play and sing loud and well. He's no lead guitarist either, so it's all riff driven and his charisma and powerful rappin' keeps it going. The bassist is a key element as well, being a trio, and his gnarly overdriven bass is a driving force indeed. Them guys can really groove!

The festival was nice and set up well. We got there around seven at night, just in time to see Blockbuster, which is a local teen band who play exactly the kind of music Airbourne does, AC/DC on steroids. Even played a couple of AC/DC covers. Superb band, they too only had a Gibson explorer into a JCM800 2204 and a Tokai strat to a JMP...their lead guitarist is a real Angus reincarnation, he goes crazy with bends and wails superbly. He's like 17 and will be a truly exceptional guitarist, even now he can really let loose so that hairs on my arms stand up. Too bad they have no real demos or releases yet. Check out this for instance tho...solo at around 2 mins...not the best example but you get a little idea how angus-like he plays:



Anyway, we drank a lot of beer and spirits, and saw half a dozen bands briefly, but none of the others were very remarkable. Then we hit the town and got home around one in the morning; apparently we recorded a song of sorts but I have no recollection of that whatsoever, the last thing I do remember is being in a bar. But we did have a great time!

BTW alcohol counters lie like crazy. I calculated that while my buddy who's a big guy was at around 2 promille at best and was under 0,5 i.e. driving condition by two in the afternoon, me being roughly half his weight would according to the counters result in 3,9 promille intoxication and I would have been sober enough to drive only late at night the next day. That's just bull...I was just as sober as he was in the afternoon, despite I should have had almost two promille still.

[Brian Krashpad]

Alcohol counters?

You lost me. This must be something we don't have in the States. I mean, cops have "breathalyzers," but that's pretty much it.

[poodlesrule]

Spent two days at our beloved Lowell Folk Festival, like every year, and saw an amazing range of music/dance performances, Rahajistani, Irish, Columbian, Hawaian, NC bluegrass, Texas Swing, Quebec folk, Bill Kirchen, and some Zydeco!
The festival has five stages or so, and some are small, allowing for special sessions which are instrument-specific, This year it was guitar, accordion (very cool), fiddle.
BTW, this is the largest, or maybe the second-largest free folk festival in the U.S., and looks like a well-run, first-rate organization.
Seeing Bill Kirchen (telcaster master) play there in 2008 is what got me to pick up the guitar (again)!

[deeaa*]

There's a LOT of alcohol counters online at least in Finnish...calculators where you input how much do you weigh, and the time you start drinking, and then tick off what kind of drinks and how many you consume(d). Excellent tools when you wake up in the morning and have to drive somewhere.

Since alcohol burns in human liver at a very steady rate no matter what one does, it can at least in theory be quite accurately calculated that way. And it does seem reasonable and accurate in most cases...at least if you are of normal size. But I do believe my alcohol burn rates aren't as much lower as a bigger guys rates are, as they claim.

Here's one of them:

http://www.lintukoto.net/testit/alkoholilaskuri/

It _seems_ like it works fine with lower doses. It shows that if I drink a sixpack of beer (european, not US beer) between nine and midnight, I'll be completely sober by the time I'm at work the next day.

But, like for saturday, I drank about 20 'doses' between four and midnight, beers and shots etc. maybe half of those in beer and half in vodka or whiskey or something...and it shows insane readings that simply cannot be right. Or a week back when I spent the evening w/a buddy at the cottage and we drank a bottle of vodka each plus ~half a case of beer between us two...again, the calculators show insane readings.

I don't believe that the weight is as big a factor as the counters make it to be; I probably burn alcohol just as well as a guy 20 pounds heavier, but the calculators claim differently. I'd venture I burn it the same as anybody around 5'11" tall, not like a smaller person weighing the same as me.

I usually go by 14 hour rule when I drink a tad more than just a sixpack or so...14 hours after the last drink I'm quite confident I am in driving condition. I've also tested it at a police station a few times, and seems to be true. But sometimes it's like I need to start driving home from some party right when I wake up, and then it's a great tool to assess when will you be under the prosecution limit.

Because sometimes it's hard to tell. Once at a rock festival we drank only clear moonshine that was damn nearly pure alcohol, and that gave me such a sober feeling state of drunkenness, in the morning I felt quite sober and ready to drive already at nine. Luckily I tested it with the police patrolling there, and I tested at two promille still! I only started feeling hung over late in the afternoon :-)

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks Dee.

PR, any pics of the folkies?

Just realized I hadn't reported.

Friday night was a blast, had Crash Pad's (belated) 15th Anniversary Show. Separate thread w/lots o' pics here:

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.ph...L?goto=newpost

Saturday slept in, uploaded pics from show to facebook, and went to practice at church at 3 p.m. Stayed in Saturday, grilled steaks for myself and son, Kim went to a friend's for dinner and didn't get back til 1 a.m.

Went to the office Sunday morning and unloaded all the amps and had some coffee, some of which I took with me to church. Church went well. A bit different. For pre-service we did a song up in the front, with our singer playing the grand piano mic'd into the PA for his vocal, and I brought a 1x12 combo as additional reinforcement, which we ran a backing grrl singer's vox into. I played 12-string un-mic'd, just hit it hard when necessary. Odd to be up front again. Second song was boring, I may as well not even bothered on it. But for communion we did a cool one that I played throughout with dirt on, and had a solo on, that, I must say, rocked pretty good. After the solo it went into a real quiet verse so I just let the last note ring out and rode the vol pot to fade it out over the first line of the verse. Sounded really cool.

After church was the Vicar Roast. Every year we get a new vicar from the seminary, sort of a student pastor. He preaches some Sundays, and is in charge of the high school and middle school youth. This guy was a really good guy, very down to earth and together.

At seven p.m. I had a practice with side keyboard-rock band Pedagogy. We've convinced the MONSTER bassist from the hippie band (Cinnamon Hill) that fired me to play with us too (he still plays with CHill, as well as a third band), so that was fun. With the Crash Pad show Friday, a church practice Saturday, and church service and Pedagogy practice on Sunday, it was a pretty rocking weekend!

[Brian Krashpad]

Hello-o-o-o-o?!

Had a mellow weekend. Saturday had church band practice. In afternoon went out to my wife's classroom where she'll be teaching first graders after 21 years of teaching adults (state budget cuts destroyed her prior job). Looked great.

Had fun in church Sunday. Futzing around in pre-service rehearsal, I decided to start off a song (the closer-- in trad terms "recessional") with rhythm guitar-- but instead of the "Vox" distortion setting I always use in church (it's a great setting!), I used "Modern Marshall." So this setting, despite being far from, say, modern metal, is WAY more chugga than what folks in this (Lutheran) church are used to.

Well, since I was setting the tempo for 150 people to sing along to, during the actual performance I was concentrating pretty heavily on my playing/timing, rather than gauging "audience" response. After, our bassist said about 50% of the congregation did what we refer to as the "Lutheran headsnap"-- turning and giving the ol' evil (or at least inquisitive) eye back towards the choir loft (where we are stuck playing). We then repeated the song (with our drummer moving to keys) for the postlude and I did even more lead than I had the first go-round. Several batches of people stayed in the pews to listen and actually clapped (how un-Lutheran!) when we finished.

Ha!

Additionally, several people told me they'd loved the music while I was loading out. I bet our Music Director (who in general has nothing to do with us, he's the Organist and Senior Choir Director and Handbell Choir Director) probably had a cow. BFD. I'm honestly so sick of people stuck in the last century, I honestly don't give a flying feck about negative reactions any more. (PS-- I would note that we have 100% traditional service for those people to go to, if they prefer that stuff.)

Sigh.

Now, we await the fallout.

Had a side band (Pedagogy) 3/4 members practice in evening. Connected to a 2x12, my little SC XD could jsut keep up with the volume maxed. Had the bassist showed up, I'd've need to have chained to a second head.

Good times.

And you?

[Robert****]

Went on walks with my daughter and let her have my 2nd dslr camera... She is good with it but it is a bit heavy for a 7 year old. She took some great photos.

Rehearsed with 75% of our band, 4 new tunes. We have a police ball gig on September 17.

I have new tubes in my pro junior and whoa what a good tone it provides now! Wicked.

I also ran a lot. Have a 10 km race on Saturday.

[Tig***]

Almost got into a head-on crash with a cop Sunday morning on my way home from work.

He was flying at 50-60 MPH, code 3 and hit an isolated yet deep puddle of water. He must have hydroplaned on the driver's side. All I see in front of me is a Houston cop car crossing the wide, flat grassy median, grass and dirt shooting up, spinning and crossing directly in front of me, spinning across all 3 lanes and stopping against the right curb. If I was about 4 or 5 seconds ahead, you wouldn't be reading this.

I pull over, out of the way and run over to the cop who is just getting out, stunned. Being a former firefighter/paramedic, I go into calm mode, even though the adrenaline was still making my heart pound. He is alright, but has a really sore upper back from the hard spin. I talk with him to make sure he's alright and to give his some peace of mind, etc. He said he was in route to an assault in progress call. The front wheels are both jammed and twisted into the wheel wells from the broken suspension. Another cop shows up and after making sure the first guy is alright, I head home. First, they thank me and shake my hand. I do miss helping people at this level.

It took an extra hour to go to sleep Sunday as my mind kept replaying the incident while wondering how bad it would have been if we collided.

[Eric***]

Wow, Tig. I'm glad you're all right, and also that you were able to help the guy in the immediate aftermath.

It rained all weekend here, so I mostly sat around and drank beer while watching TV and practicing guitar. It was a good weekend.

[Duffy]

Krash, I can really respect what you are doing in that church service band. That sounds really genuine. It is always best to be your true self, as much so as you can be under any given circumstances. We probably all sell ourselves short in this sense without even knowing it. Glad you put your true self out there intentionally.

What were you talking about with your SCXD and the two by twelve? Did you just unplug the internal speaker from the jack on the back and plug in the speaker cable for the two by twelve? I wonder if I can plug my 16ohm four by twelve into the jack without hurting anything. It says 8ohms but some amps say "minimum 8ohms". Do you know if doing this would hurt the SCXD?

My SCXD is one of my main amps and I definitely don't want to mess it up, burn up the transformer or power supply or anything by doing an impedance mismatch. It seems like plugging the 16ohm four by twelve into the 8 ohm jack would be an impedance mismatch, but I have heard there is some lee way with 8 and 16ohm cabinets.

I probably should just stop thinking about this and get at least a two by twelve 8ohm cabinet or old burnt out two by twelve combo amp and convert it into a dedicated cabinet.

Anyway, our weekend involved leaving Thursday night to take Charity's grand daughter back to South Chicago and we left the house here in our rural laid back town at five thirty in the evening. We drove straight thru, team driving, and arrived in South Chicago at three in the morning. Pulling off the interstate onto the local streets we were met with a liberal dispersion of christmas tree lights emitted from the scattered Chicago police vehicles, all the way to our destination. Amazing how many people were out and about at that wee hour, covering street corners, etc.

We unloaded and Charity went inside to say good bye and talk to her son's x wife for a short time. Then it was follow the GPS back to the interstate via the shortest route, punctuated by plenty of Chicago police vehicles on the prowl.

We then drove straight back home, team driving again. We drove 21 hours with only 2 hours and 45 minutes of stop time during the 1250 mile trip. The car was prepared for the trip and did over thirty miles per gallon. We got home Friday at about two in the afternoon. I fell asleep about seven in the evening and didn't wake up until about seven Saturday morning: I was tired, needless to say. Sunday I was back to normal and Charity had re-oriented way before me.

We miss her grand daughter but we had her for a month and I appreciated the return to complete privacy and increased relaxation. I had actually backed off considerably on my guitar playing because I think the volume bothered her grand daughter. So now I'm back to playing again and I just finished playing my Epiphone Tribute cherry burst thru my Zoom bass B2.1u multipedal into my Fender Rumble 100 bass amp. It's actually fun and great sounding. The multipedal and the coil splitting and volume and tone adjustments yielded a huge array of great tones. This rig sounds a lot better than I had anticipated it would. I should take my '80's Peavey TNT 115 really cool bass combo and dedicate it to mainly guitar, incorporating it into my guitar amp wall in my den/bedroom. That is a really nice amp. I like the Rumble for bass and even like the sympathetic red lights flashing to the sound, emitted from the bottom vents of the amp. Actually I have them switched off right now but I like them, contrary to what I had originally anticipated when I bought the amp on some Forth of July sale or something at GC at a big discount. I also got some other great deals that day, like my Kustom molded plastic cool 100 watt PA with dedicated guitar input - it came with a cool wheeled case that the whole thing goes into something like the configuration of the Fender Passport. I also picked up a couple microphones and stands and cables at a great discount and got one of those XLR to male quarter inch adaptors.

Sunday I played my Squier Deluxe strat metallic pearl white thru my SCXD and this was a great combination and produced some good tones and was fun and relaxing. I was going to go to Sam's club and have some new tires put on my three quarter ton Dodge hemi four door four wheel drive '05 pickup but I had to wait and have it done this morning. I had some Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armour really nice, fairly aggressive tires put on it. They should do the job driving around our two acre lot and handle the snow really well. These tires are super nice, if expensive, and have kevlar in them. Eighty pounds of pressure. It's a heavy duty truck. It feels great to finally have some super great new tires to replace the worn down original tires. It only has forty something thousand miles on it and Charity is the main driver, driving it about two or three miles each way to and from work. I have it rigged up with a cool black canoe rack I built from pressure treated wood and brackets and bolts. I just bought a mint used Grumman canoe - super mint and a '68 seventeen footer with original Grumman motor mount. Great deal on a beautiful aluminum canoe to replace my old Grumman that my son inconveniently left at the river and had stolen for me. This one is chained. The Susquehanna River is one block from our house and it is a beautiful river here, lined with mountains. It has been raining a lot and the mountains and everything is bright green. This is part of the Great Northern Hardwood forest, with remnants of boreal evergreens covering many of the North slopes, harkening back deep in time to the Glacial Age. This exact spot we live at is actually the Glacial Maximus, the point at which the farthest South reaching Continental glacial advance moved in this area. The area is covered with a carpet of angular rocks transported far from the North and deposited here thousands of years ago as the face of the glacier slowly ablated and finally retreated, all the while depositing the trapped rocks from the glacial face amid the rush of water that carved the course of the present day West Branch of the Susquehanna River heading South to form the head of the Chesapeake Bay, one of America's largest esturarys. It is a beautiful river near her for some leisurely canoeing.

The music shop a couple blocks from me was so hot and humid today with a broken A/C system that I had to leave without playing any guitars. I wanted to play a nice NOS black Gretch Duo Jet or something, with a nice B50 Bigsby but I couldn't handle the heat - maybe tomorrow. I think they will sell it at an excellent price because it has been there for years. I was surprised at how heavy this LP-ish style guitar is. The pickups are chrome or nickel covered mini humbucker-ish sized pickups, solid metal covers. I hope it doesn't sound like Hee-Haw.

[Tig***]

Wow, Tig. I'm glad you're all right, and also that you were able to help the guy in the immediate aftermath.

It rained all weekend here, so I mostly sat around and drank beer while watching TV and practicing guitar. It was a good weekend.

You and me both, brother!

Send some of that rain down here.