Quick assembly with a melodic tease that won’t make the final version. All the input via lap steel, the Indy Rail tuned to Open E, the new modified Rondo SX LG1 to G Pentatonic.
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The Chinese built SX LG1 lap steel (via Rondo Music) is a cheapo guitar. It’s basically a nicely shaped hunk of green mahogany with a fretboard, and crap tuners, pick-up, electronics, and capped off by a wrap-around bridge. Throw on the strings that come with the guitar, and you have a unit that really isn’t playable out of its case. Oh, the nice case comes with the guitar. This has inspired a wag on the Steel Guitar Forum to describe the Rondo SX LG1 package as, “a case with a guitar included.” The LG1 has a one piece bridge cover also configured to encompass the knobs. So, to change strings you have to pull the knobs off as well as unscrew the cover. But, for $120 you do get that slab of wood and fretboard. The SX LG1 begs to be retrofitted with tuners, a new bridge, and pick-up/electronics. I figured I would do well to manage the bridge and pick-up. The last time I worked on a guitar was probably 30 years ago. I remember it well, because I badly mangled the job of fixing the intonation on the bridge of a National Reso. This job went fairly well. I made a bridge out of aluminum angle. I bought the wrong size but beveled the working edge of the 2 3/4″ piece to be thin enough. I bought string-through ferrules and an EMG $20 blade pick-up from Stew-mac. I could have waited to take advantage of an expert’s drill press, but growing impatient, I drilled the string-through holes myself. I didn’t ruin anything. Then I fashioned a cover for the knobs and electronics out of a $1 piece of craft composite board. Miraculously, had some Mahogany colored stain stored away. Soldering the pick-up was the biggest challenge, mostly due to the well known “three hands” conundrum of soldering, and my rusty soldering chops. I should have resoldered all the electronics because the Chinese job was wretched. I did not; the procedure was aggravating enough as it was. The basic goals were obtained. The modified SX intones fine, the pick-up balance is good and will improve when I slap on the new set of C6 Jagwires, and my testing for breakage hasn’t broken any of the very light electric guitar strings on the guitar. The SX sounds good too, although you can’t tell from the ambient-style tracks I’m recording now. And, needless to say, you couldn’t tell otherwise since I don’t really know how to play lap steel!
AFROBLOO mix [download 160kbs 60mb]
2 Chief Ebenezer Obey - Ijesha 3:12 3 Up, Bustle & Out - Aqua No Ma! 4:55 4 Karim Ziad - Sandiya 4:36 5 The Pyramids - The River Ganges 11:05
The inspirational kernal for this 35m mix is Marvin Sewell’s fine lap steel playing on a band warm-up before singer Cassandra Wilson took the stage at Umbria, Italy earlier this month. Incidentally, Cassandra’s new recording Loverly (buy@Amazon) is excellent. I’ve started a feature called about time you listened on the link list — top right — so I can feature music I trip over and get jazzed by. And, it’s easy to go trippin’ when one wanders the intertubes which make up the greatest record store ever. Deti Picasso. Armenian and Russian. Something beyond a balkan Radiohead… YouTube titles this: “Secret CIA Experiment On Hippies.” But times have changed, so. . . Bob Lefsetz’s take on the record biz’s latest snake oil, 360 Deals, is worth absorbing.
“360 deal,” the new means for dinosaur record labels to glom on to musician’s ancillary profit centers. Except, of course, what they really want to do is glom onto the artist’s primary touring and swag profit centers under the guise of integrating all efforts behind the about to expire CD ‘hard goods.’ So, once again, in exchange for contacted obligations to the artist the label will reach into the artist’s pockets for monies they never before could get hold of. There’s no charitable way to characterize the foxes figuring out a new fangled way to partner with the hens in exchange for the foxes being allowed to, so-to-speak, guard the henhouse doorway. I think the record industry has hollowed itself out enough by now that it’s okay to hold the honchos and their minions accountable for this self-destruction. So, with the ‘360′ it seems like starving foxes are offering the hens to do guard duty. At this late point in the old fashioned record industry’s death spiral, I’d blame the artist and their management for being stupid enough to even consider a ‘360.’ Among the many pithy things about the record business artists have told me over the years, one of my favorites was when one described label marketing as: “Somebody making a lot of money whether they are good at their job or not.” Another favorite is concise: “They sit around and do nothing.”
Incredible the king of the crates, D.J. Weirton, has tracked me down and tomorrow I’ll pitch him some props. He was my right hand man at the Record Den and even outlasted me as he served out his commission right up to the point the ship rolled and sank under the waves. I can’t wait to find out what happened when he resurfaced. It’s been 8 years. He played a very important role in my musical journey. I’ve put together a seeqPOD mix that highlight six of his biggest tips: the downtempo sometimes drum & bass of Lamb; the crooklyn dub and roots of Dr. Israel; Bjork; Lee Perry. However this doesn’t do his game changing contribution or the story of our working together in the last days of the old school record business any justice. I can summarize and suggest that he remade an inveterate jazzer by creating the conditions through which his own diverse good taste could rub off a bit on an old geezer. I especially got jazzed by drum and bass, illbient dub, the Bristol chill, and, much of the turntabilism he’d toss on sound system. The curious thing is that the store was decidedly urban and its customers’ tastes ran mostly from G to R&B. I’m basically a longtime enthusiast of southern soul, whereas Cleveland is a northern soul town. DJ Weirton loved old school hip hop. We both loved Prince. We could get behind Badu and D’Angelo, but we were out of step with the trends even if selling those same trends paid our checks. But we sure had fun turning ears with all the DJ Spooky and Skratch Pickles and Grooverider and Roots Manuva and Meters and Bill Laswell, Ninja Tune crews and many others we’d spin solely for the sake of preserving our insanity while watching what happened on the floor, as-it-were. Heavy props to the rest of the Den crew, Amadeus, RJ Sax.
Congolese pop. more here I’ve known my friend Kate for forty-two years. She comes back to town every now and then to visit her parents and we get together for brief moment. As it has happened, her husband, Rocky Maffit, is a fine professional musician with a long pedigree and very diverse musical interests. She played me a track from his new album, a record close to the end of its journey to completion. It was killer! The sound was gospelish with more than a nod toward the atmospherics of Daniel Lanois and the syncretic Peter Gabriel, and rootsy Ry Cooder. What also jumped out was the great care and intricacy of the assembled track, especially the subtle rhythms woven throughout. Now I just have to be patient! One other thing: Rocky might be termed a globetrotting but regional kind of artist. I’ve tagged his link DIY Creative. This is the tag I use for musicians who have figured out how to make a go of it without yielding to the exploitative old school industry. See my page here: Business Advice for Musicians. The page sums up much of what I’ve learned after 20+ years in the business. Roots Manuva. See good news on my Explorations blog. |
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