It's Creepier In Person

Another thrift-store painting, slightly personalized...

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Victory

I received notice, today, that EMI had retracted their copyright claim against me (see the post, below, for the details).  I suspect that the claim was automatically generated by YouTube's software (they sell that service to record companies and bands), and all it took was for someone to actually listen to my song to see how ridiculous the claim was.

It feels good to not have someone accusing me of plagiarism, now.

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EMI Says I Am Infringing on Their Copyright

They claim that I am infringing on Bryan Ferry's "Stick Together"...

On the basis of this YouTube video of Tony and me jamming on my tune, "Born Loser".

I have disputed it with YouTube.  Tomorrow is the deadline for EMI to respond to my dispute.

What do you think?  Did I "My Sweet Lord" it, on this song?

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Please Support My CD Project on Kickstarter!

Check it out, here. 

Watch the video, read the description of what I hope to accomplish, and please pledge!

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Christmas Picture

We have a White Elephant gift exchange at work, every year, during our Christmas Dinner.  I have a habit of taking modified lithographs of kitsch art from the 1960s.

Here is my "gift" for this year:

I tried to keep the changes subtle, as the original picture was pretty creepy, on its own.  See it here.

Details:

Unfiltered...

I particularly like the knuckle tats...It's hard to see in the photo (I forgot to take these until I had it behind glass, again):  H A T E

Merry Christmas!


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My First 4-String Guitar Build

 Last week, I pulled the pickup and controls out of a junk Memphis brand guitar (likely a Teisco, as it was made in Japan and has some of the tell-tale Teisco details), and installed them into the lid of this Questa-Rey cigar box.  The box held 25 cigars, rather than 50, so it has a fairly thin profile.  That is one reason I decided to use it for this project.

I wanted a purpose-built electric guitar, rather than an acoustic-electric hybrid.  So, even though I knew that the depth of the box would likely decrease the volume of the guitar, unplugged, that was irrelevant.

 I rough-cut the neck from a 1-1/2"x1-1/2" piece of hard maple, which I got over at Rockler.  Luckily, I got two pieces out of the original stick, as I totally screwed the first cut up.  I always use a circular saw for the initial rough shaping, and that is not the ideal tool for the job (to say the least).

 After the initial shaping, I used an industrial knife and a wood rasp to refine the shape of the neck

 Then, a lot of sanding took place.  I use strips of sandpaper backed with duct tape for this work.

 I decided to get a bit fancy, and cut a piece of the pickguard from the Memphis to veneer the headstock.

 I used Black Walnut for the fingerboard.  As with every other step of my guitar building, I use a pretty primitive method of fretting the fingerboard.  I cut slots in the wood with a standard mitre saw from Ace Hardware, then I cut lengths of 1/8" brazing rod and Super Glue them into the slots as frets.

 Here is the fingerboard before I glued on the frets.

Once the frets were glued on, I used my Dremel tool to trim and smooth the ends.  It's faster than filing, but the chances of gouging the fingerboard are high.

 Here is the finished product.  Well, 99% finished, anyway.  I still need to actually mount the bridge, now that I have the intonation set, then attach the ground wire to the bridge screws.  I will also add some strap buttons, because I prefer to play standing up.

 I had two of the skull-button tuners, and two old Kluson Deluxe tuners, so I made do.  The upper string tree is made from the side plate of a bicycle chainlink.

 Since I had the pickup stuck through the lid/soundboard, I had to mount the neck to the back of the box.  I ran a support all the way through to the butt end of the box, and used a spacer to get the neck height right.  The three pieces are glued together, then bolted, as well.  (You can see that I stained the maple a bit darker, to better match the wood of the box.)

 I had to put a base under the bridge in order to get the string height correct.  Rather than brace the top, I installed a "tone post".  In other words, I built up the support beam until the lid rested on solid wood beneath the bridge.  Gibson does this in the ES-335, so I guess it's good enough for me!

Again, not the best thing for acoustic tone and volume, but it doesn't matter on this guitar.  It theoretically cuts down on feedback, and increases sustain, though, on an electric.

 I bent the trapeze tailpiece to wrap around the body of the guitar, so that it would reach the correct distance toward the bridge.  It is bolted through the back of the box and into the support beam.

Here's a little video how it sounds.  I am playing through my Jay Turser rechargeable amp, with the gain on 3, and everything else on 10.  The Volume knob on the guitar is dimed, but the Tone is on 5. (I should have taken my bandanna off, when I got off of the motorcycle, I suppose...)

It's tuned G-D-G-B (open G), from low to high.  I wanted to tune it in open E, but it just doesn't sound very good in that tuning.  I am finding G to be the most pleasant tuning for these small guitars (to my ear, anyway).

It's not perfect, but with the tools I have available I don't strive for perfection.  I have a plan for an upcoming build which might include borrowing a buddy's woodshop (and the buddy's talent).  We'll see if that works out (Tom).


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Another Japanese Guitar - Sekova Hollowbody

While on a business trip, this week, I visited a music store in Grand Junction, which I have frequented for nearly 20 years, now.  I bought my red 1966 Harmony H-72 from from Hart Music, in 1997, and I always stop in to talk to Jan on the way through.

This time, in response to my usual, "Got anything cool and old, since I saw you last?" Jan told me that he didn't have anything remarkable.  Then, I spied this guitar hanging way up high, on the wall.

"What about that?"

"Oh, that?  It's not worth much..."  He then quoted me what I thought was a really low price, so I bought it.

It is a Sekova, one of the less well-known Japanese guitars from the old days.  Apparently built in the factory which also produced Aria guitars, among others, it is outfitted with the standard 1960s Japanese Teisco-style pickups and a very Teisco-like control panel.  These parts were probably actually sourced from Teisco.  The tuners, and the quality of construction (including multi-layered body binding) put it somewhat higher up the scale than most of the Teiscos I have owned, however.

I feel a bit guilty for buying yet another guitar, so I have put this one up on eBay.  If it sells, then I turn a quick profit.  If it doesn't, then I will take that as a sign that I am meant to keep it (for a little while, at least). 

We'll see how it goes.

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