Contrasts And Components

It's been about a month since I last posted.  I went through what I called Music Madness May: Moog's marketing director contacted me and offered to send me all five pedals in their new Minifooger line, for free, in exchange for making new demo videos for each and putting them up on my YouTube channel.  A friend helped me with a film shoot for six demo videos and I recently just uploaded the first one.  Aside from that, I worked on some new material with my friend Jackie who is getting a backing band together for her singer-songwriter thing, went to see one of my top favorite bands, Failure, play on their Tree of Stars reunion tour, watched my friends over at Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar play a kickass Weezer cover show under the moniker My Name Is Jonas Brothers, and got to hang with producer Steve Evetts and Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman at CreativeLive in Seattle while they taught a taught a two-day class on guitar recording.  All of this on top of the usual balance of work and school.

Everything is cool when you're part of a team!...

Yikes!  June is most definitely a period of necessary rest, so here I have some time at home to be back at the blog...  In between bouts of editing and uploading the other Minifooger videos, that is.

Alright, so I left off my last post having chosen the wood and solid color for the body of the guitar.  A heavy maple body for a bright sound and fast attack, matched with Warmoth's seafoam green because I've always wanted a fun surf-inspired color in a Strat.  The last thing, then, is to choose what hardware I will put on it before I start designing the neck.

Aaaaaaaand it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, that in keeping with my metal interests, I should want all of the hardware to be black.  Black Floyd Rose bridge, black strap pegs (I use Dunlop strap locks), black screws, et cetera.  My one exception is that the pickguard should be a three-ply black-white-black because EVERY pickguard should be multi-ply.  It gives extra dimension to the look of the guitar and honestly, the angle of the cut is forgiving on the picking / strumming / windmilling hand.

Here it is...  VOILA!

I present to you...  BIG RIFF!

See how striking the black looks against that seafoam green?  In the past I've always joked to my friends about how I need my guitars to be "lookers", but it's true.  Wherever I perform, I want someone who watched it to walk away remembering something about the experience, which I just poured my heart and soul into for them.  Of course this primarily means the way in which I approach playing my instrument, but the look also matters.  The guitar needs to have character and draw attention to itself, so I can communicate what I need through it.  I see that I'm crossing over into nonsensical territory.  However, just remember: the classical and the romantic are always intertwined.

Somehow I feel that this touches on another point that I want to make.  I love to straddle the lines between rock, punk, and metal.  As soon as I move a little far in one direction, my brain wants to kick in reverse and do the other thing; kind of like the difference between the wave and particle theories of light.  When I was playing with Overcome, I always sort of insisted on being the least metal dude in the band.  When the situation called for a traditional metal look or ethos, I performed better when I approached with more of a punk spirit.  The contrast just fit right for me.  I usually performed with a collared shirt on because I think there's something neat and smart and punk about it.  Where the rest of the metalcore bands we played shows with were trying to look tough with their sleeveless shirts and synchronized moves and LTD Viper guitars, we would spaz out and throw our Jacksons all over the place on stage.  I distinctly remember the times where I would turn on one of my Moogerfooger pedals during a break—the head of every chatty and bored person in the room would snap to attention.

Think of a whole room full people wearing black metal t-shirts, making this face: "What in the blazes is going on?  What is that noise I'm hearing?!  I think I shall faint, or die!"

The same is true in the opposite sense.  I've played music in churches for something like twelve years by this point.  I'm more experienced as a live musician doing praise and worship music than anything else.  But every time I come in to play, I throw in some little lead line, or flip on a pedal in a place where it isn't expected, or drive my pick a little (or a LOT) harder into the strings, baring my teeth a little and letting folks know that there's a metal edge underneath the surface.  I vehemently reject the notion that I should mimic U2's / The Edge's sounds just because I'm a guitarist who is also a Christian.

And so Big Riff is intended to be equally capable as a rock guitar or a metal guitar in appearance, playability, and sound.  It's not common to see actual Strats in metal anymore, but the black hardware here will give it a proper nod.  And the surf rock color is a high-five to my fifteen-year-old noob self.

By the way, the pickup I intend for the bridge position is a Seymour Duncan Distortion humbucker.  I've used it on multiple guitars in years past.  It's punchy and has a great balance of lows, mids, and highs.  Should react well with the Sustainiac.  Duncan makes both a "regular" version (SH-6) and a "trembucker" version (TB-6) that's shaped a little bit differently to fit Floyd-equipped guitars; I will need to order the Distortion trembucker, then.

Since this is my blog, I get to plug my own demo video for the Moog Minifooger line:

But, um, yeah, let's close with a Weezer song because I just can't get enough of it lately: