I saw a few people whining about this last night. Eddie Trunk had an absolute fit that they didn't mention Eddie at the beginning of the show. I saw complaints about his inclusion in the memoriam section, starting with "EVH deserved more than a 30-second tribute" and getting down to "EVH deserved more than a 7-second tribute".

I thought it was decently done. As I recall, he was the only artist whose section was only his performance - no other names or artists were shown. And having his guitar on stage in spotlight really drove home his absence. I didn't really want to see someone else try to play Eddie's stuff - today would have been all about how much they screwed it up. The one thing I'll say is they could have picked a better clip to use.

The reality is that the Grammys are not there for this kind of music.

I realized last week that yesterday marked five years since this beauty was finished.







It's a great guitar - the best I've ever played, and I have some pretty good ones. I hit on a good combination of woods, and the electronics give me just about all the flexibility I could ask for.

I'd love to do another one. Funny thing - last time I started filling out a spec sheet, I realized I was putting down almost all the same options as I did for this one.

Just ordered this beauty after I saw John’s post about how much he loved his Monoprice guitar. Company says this model is professionally set up before shipping. I’m gonna use it for practice in Jim’s Library. They said it’s gonna ship tomorrow.

Ranks third on the list of most inexpensive guitars I’ve ever bought. First was a patient who walked into the office with a pink Squier Strat practice set (with the amp, strap and tuner). He got me for 60 beans. Second was the blue Squier Strat I got from Guitar Center for $149.

I picked up one of the new 70th Anniversary Fender Custom Shop Broadcasters. If I was any good at posting photos I'd post one here. It's beautiful and it's amazing to play. This is my second custom shop I've picked up this year and the difference between a CS and a standard Fender is like night and day. I'm hooked.

Nice work, Smiff.

39 years today...

When we first came to Maryland in the mid nineties we were working all the time, I started asking the locals for ideas on some interesting guitar music in the Baltimore area. Bill, a bass player whose family owned the crab deck and pizzeria right below our office, told me to go see Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at the Lyric Opera House. I’m now a lifelong fan of Bela.

Another local guitar player suggested I join the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society for the season. With no kids yet I thought four classical guitar concerts a year was a fine idea to investigate our new town. First up was a duo of accomplished brothers from Brazil. I was blown away. We haven’t seen them for over two decades but I check YouTube to see if I can find a snippet that we have not seen before. Watch this the whole way through. They are older but still effortless in their presentation.

This is way too accurate.

I have a TC Electronic G-System - basically a high-quality multi-FX processor. It even has three independent FX loops with their own buttons (and a fourth is available w/a little work). One of the appeals was being able to step on a button to change to a program with different FX, so if I was playing a clean part w/chorus and delay and wanted to switch to just a straight distorted sound, I could do that with one stomp. I'd been working on a song where I was trying to do the main melody and lead part all as one straight take. I have a rotary pedal that is on and off during the melody, and when I go to the solo, it's rotary off, distortion on. So a little tap dancing. After playing around with it (and getting decent, foot-wise), I finally set up two programs in the G-System - one with distortion, one without. So it's one click to get out of the rotary and into distortion. Only took me several months to finally do that. Which made the third and fourth custom programs I've put in the G-System - in about 15 years.

Good news to my fellow guitar maniacs, Steve Vai has set up a Patreon account for $5 a month filled with goodies. Check it out!





https://www.patreon.com/stevevai

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot to do this earlier.

This little baby was traded in at my friend Bob Coffey’s music store and I am strongly considering working up my own trade deal for it. It’s a custom T5z African Ebony Taylor. Beautiful wood for the body and feels great. They let me take it home as an “On Approval” sale. Meaning we work out the details if I want to keep it and it goes back up on the rack if I don’t. It’s late so I probably won’t get a chance to plug it in till tomorrow to put it through it’s paces.



There are pretty straight stock fret markers, no birds or other designs to be found......but if the price is right?!?

So far I love it.

Has anyone seen what a new and or used one goes for? I’m gonna look right now.

If it sounds as good as it looks then it's a keeper.

I have a good friend (also a retired cop) who does gigs with a Taylor T5z and loves it. Not as fancy as that one pictured above. It does seem to be a great guitar for people who gig as it’s acoustic but can get good electric sounds. A very pleasant guitar sound.

I haven't seen any recent pricing on these, but Mike Keneally did some clinics for them way back when and they sounded fantastic. Of course, Mike makes just about anything sound fantastic, but still.

I could only find the full boat price on the Taylor website at $3,199. Bob has $2,995 on the ticket which I know is DEFINITELY NOT the “Dr. Jack” price.

Going into the shop tomorrow to haggle.

(Good thing I just watched “The Life Of Brian” again to brush up on my haggling skills)

Happy Haggling! I hope you get the guitar.

Just don't mention Jehovah.

I've changed my mind about the Tele. I'm planning on getting an American Performer Jazzmaster in the near future. I've never owned a Jazzmaster but the combination of the Strat style tremolo and the removal of the various out of phase switches has me intrigued. I've always liked the Jazzmaster body shape but the bridge/trem always put me off them. So did the inconveniently placed switching system.

Not sure when I'll get it. Maybe in a couple of months or so. Too much else going on right now but it's on my 'to do' list.

I ended up returning this little beauty to my friend Bob’s shop on Friday. After having it for a couple of weeks I found the acoustic sound to be really stellar. But I found two problems when trying to get a good crunchy or outright overdrive sound. And this was on multiple settings from multiple amps. The was very little noticeable difference in the distortion sounds when shifting through all five selector switch positions to pick different pickup configurations. All pretty much the same kind of muddy sound. Of course that could come from user error but since I’m the user in question I’m not into a guitar I have to have a PhD to get the desired tone from.

Also the second you try to get a high gain sound the whole thing feeds back and causes the body to shake. I’ve found the same two problems with my Koa T5 and that’s why I’m looking to trade for something I like better. When I took it back to the shop, my friend Dave behind the counter told me “don’t worry, there’s a fix for that feedback problem”, and he handed me a package from Taylor with sound hole shaped plugs to cover the holes. “Problem solved” he said.

So there is a known problem with the whole T5 line that you have to shove rubber plugs into to solve the problem? No thank you! This made me decide to start hunting for just the right PRS of my dreams. It has kinda put me off Taylor products, at least for now. It feels somewhat like getting some bad shrimp from one of your favorite restaurants.

Sorry to hear that.

I'm super careful about every guitar related purchase. I live in a remote area so everything is done via the internet which has made me virtually paranoid - in more senses than one.

I don't have much chance to try before I buy so I rely on my own instincts and various YouTube demos to figure out what I need to know. I tend to agree with your assessment of the Taylor feedback issue - I wouldn't be thrilled with that, either. Also, why wasn't that issue explained by the sales staff and why weren't you provided with the rubber gadgets initially? I don't blame you for being unhappy.

I feel for you. It's tough to be sure when you're buying something you haven't been able to lay your hands on. I've done it w/several PRS guitars, but even w/how familiar I am with them and how consistent they are, there's still a bit of apprehension. Does the person talking about it hear the same things I hear? Do they mean the same thing I do when we use the same terms.

Then there are things like this. This is the video PRS put out for the new Joe Walsh limited edition.



I kinda get what Joe's describing, and I can hear (or think I can) what he's talking about with the sound. But that sound is not the greatest to me.

Then Ish Guitars put out this video.



In fairness, this is more of a demo than the PRS video is. But especially by playing the regular DC 596, you have a comparison point as to how the sound on the JW is a bit clearer, a bit more refined. And it's not as shrill as the first video. The first video didn't convince me to buy one. The second one might have if they weren't already sold out.