play guitar in a really heavy band

This was one of my first goals on 43T and I’ve always loved playing loud guitar. Ever since I was a kid when my dad brought back a 1976 Fender Lead II from California (back to Alaska where I grew up). Throw in a used Fender Bassman 100 and I was in guitar heaven. The last few years I formed a duo called The Alaskans (strangely named by Davis, my non-Alaskan drummer). Well, we recorded a series of tunes original tunes a couple months ago for a publishing company out of London. The recording is finished and the tunes will hopefully show up some day in an HBO drama or an instructional video … or a car commercial would be extra sweet.

I played loud for years, then recorded even louder. My ears rang for a couple days. I plan to keep writing tunes on the guitar and recording an album in the future with Davis. This is one of those cases where showing up for rehearsal with no plan paid off in the long run. Eventually we made something happen. Long live heavy guitars.

I’m not sure that “really heavy” will be the end result of my recent guitar playing but I’m tying this goal to it. My friend Michael has a studio and has offered his protools rig for my basement recording—basically I can borrow his gear for two weeks of tracking bass, guitar and drums. Hopefully this will happen in late January. Once that’s complete I think I’ll be able to check this long lasting goal off my list.

Davis (drums) and I invited Jaime over to play bass Tuesday night. It was awesome! We had a blast running through tunes together and shooting the shit. I look forward to another session with these two. Davis & Jamie musically compliment one another as a rhythm section.

I tried to get a photo of Davis & Jaime playing together—no luck. I managed to snap a shot of the bassist as the three of us were hanging on the porch after playing.

I may have found one. A good one. If so, I shall be rocking next week.

everyone’s to busy to kick out the jams. including me.

I originally planned to do this with Joe & Todd. But that didn’t pan out. However, I’ve been writing a series of songs with Davis (on drums). We’ve worked together for years and I just like the way his musical brain works. It’s been glorious stuff and tonight we get together for another session. Hopefully we’ll record 2 or more songs tonight and start to put together 10 songs that we can take into the studio.

I was supposed to do this with Dan and Joe but I guess their fear of the rock power I might unleash prevented it from ever happening. You might think that’s understandable, but my Kay is a one watt tube amp. One watt.

It’s easier than you think. Get in with the right bunch of people and just use your three chords until you learn some more. A good default heavy metal setting is to get yourself a Boss Heavy Metal pedal and an Echo box of some sort. Then any old guitar and amplifier will do.

What matters most is finding your own style and voice. It doesn’t matter what you play, how you play it or how polished you are, just remember that you are there to entertain. This isn’t about you, it’s about giving. The love you get in return for entertaining people is its own reward.

Well, whatever. This’ll do for an invite.

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