Anastasia and I playing guitar together

Last December I wrote a post called “Leaving A Legacy” about buying a Stratocaster for my son and speculating what guitar I would buy for our second child. Our second child was born in July and shares a birthday with my father. I ordered her guitar in May, and as I speculated it is a black and white, maple neck Fender Telecaster. I found it an interesting coincidence that the guitar I chose for my daughter just happens to be having it’s 60th Anniversary the same year she was born. I kicked around the idea of getting her the 60th Anniversary Model, but decided to go with the family tradition and stick to the black and white.

We picked up the guitar from Pittsburgh Guitars in September. Carl and the gang were

Anastasia with Carl and the Gang at Pittsburgh Guitars

once again very good sports and posed with Anastasia and her Tele, just like they had a year earlier with Nicholas. Carl even mentioned the kids in his weekly blog, “Carl’ Guitar Corner“. I really cannot say enough good things about Pittsburgh Guitars. They are a shop that really fosters a community environment among it’s patrons, and they really love guitars. I look forward to taking the kids down there when they get a little older to get “mini” Strats for them to start learning to play.

So about the Telecaster. Until September of this year, I had never really played one. After playing my daughter’s guitar, I understand a little more about the legacy that Leo Fender has left for all of us. The 2011 model Tele that I

Anastasia Playing her guitar "August Rush" Style

bought my daughter has not changed much at all in 60 years. It’s design is simplistic and functional, and by today’s standards very unremarkable. To me though, that guitar is quite remarkable. As I played it, I understood what Leo Fender had done. I understood why the Telecaster had remained the same for 60 years. Leo Fender did for the electric guitar and electric bass what Steve Jobs did for the home computer. He took existing ideas and concepts and made them reliable and easy to use. Contrary to popular believe, Leo Fender was not the first to market with an electric guitar or an electric bass, but he was the first to make them commercially successful. He took existing ideas and improved them, made them workable and reliable. The Tele is basically a solid slab of wood with a neck and strings, but somehow the sound that comes out is what is remarkable about the guitar. It sings, bright and clear. Even with single coil pick ups, it still has a punch and bite that was definitely not around in 1951, and is still unique today.

As guitar obsessed as I am I worry that I will turn into the overbearing parent who pushes the guitar on his kids. What I am hoping to do is create an open musical environment in the house where my children will be able to share my love of music. I do my best to play the guitar around my children and and with my children. The picture at the top of this post is not just for show. I love to sit down with one of the kids on my lap and play guitar with them. I pluck the strings and they work the fret board. I wish I would have recorded every time I have done this, becuase the kids have created some sounds that I never thought were possible. Recorded or not, I will always have these pictures and the memories that go with them, because the most important part of all this is just being able to spend time with my children sharing with them my love for music.

Rob Caggiano of Anthrax

In Episode 6 of the Signal To Noise Podcast we sat down with Rob Caggiano of Anthrax and Ted Aguilar of Death Angel to talk about their current Tour.

In 1990 I saw Death Angel play at a little place called “City Limits” it was an old Roller Rink that was used for small shows. It was one of my favorite places to see a band because you could get right up against the stage. It was small, but probably still held 500 people. After that show Death Angel seemed to just disappear. This was in the days before the internet, so I really had no idea where they went. It was great to sit down with Ted and talk about where they have been and how far they have come now. We discuss everything from Ted’s guitars to the guest appearance from Rodrigo y Gabriela on their latest Release “Relentless Retribution”.

1991 I saw Anthrax for the first time ever on what may been the perfect show for the times. The bands were in order: Young Black Teen Agers, Primus, Public Enemy, and Anthrax. It was probably one of the best lineups in a show I had ever seen. I have followed Anthrax since 1986 or 1987 and to this day there is still nothing like the sound of Anthrax. They re-defined the term”heavy” and the set bar in a place where few bands will ever be able to reach. 20 years after that first show I saw Anthrax again. And now I can can say that the show I just saw was probably the best line up for a show I have  ever seen. I had the opportunity to sit down with Anthrax’s lead guitarist, Rob Caggiano, and discuss his role as a producer and how he captured the classic Anthrax sound while still sounding modern.

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My Jean Jacket

I was a teenager during the “Golden Age” of metal in the mid 1980′s. I was introduced to KISS IN 1984, started playing Bass Guitar in 1985, and in 1986 Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer dropped their landmark iconic albums. The 80′s really was a good time to be metal head and almost every metal head at the time wore the uniform… a jean jacket. Now I know that a lot of metal heads also wore leather biker style jackets, but in my neighborhood, jean jackets prevailed.

I got my jean jacket in 1986 and wore it pretty much non-stop until I graduated in 1990. It became my trademark,a part of my identity. I even went as far as to have my senior picture taken with it. I did the tradition picture with a shirt and tie and then I had some pictures taken with my bass guitars and my jean jacket. Crazy I know, but I was a teen in the late 80′s and that was the thing then. I am happy to say that the senior picture I used for the year with my jean jacket seemed to start a trend. Each year after more kids were forgoing the traditional picture and doing things that appealed to them which I thought was great.

So as you can see in the picture above my jacket was dedicated to KISS. It started out with just one patch, and grew. At one point I had an Ozzy patch at the bottom. The Ozzy patch was removed to make room for the four “Faces” patches that you see at the bottom. One of the reasons that this jacket has been so special to me is because my grandmother bought the jacket for me and sewed all the patches on it. She died on New Year’s Eve 1988 and the jacket has served as a great way to remember her.

The main reason I decided to write about my jean jacket was to wonder aloud what the new badge of honor is? I see black t shirts and long hair, but nothing that really stands out. Maybe it is my age and the fact that while I still listen to a lot of metal, I am not as close to it as I was, but I just don’t see those stand out articles. When I was a teen ( walking to school in the snow, uphill, both ways) there were cool spiked gloves and bracelets, cool spiked rings, and they were hard to find. There was only one place in town that sold that kind of stuff ( at least that I could find) and they did not seem to last long. I bought some spikes there and made a guitar strap with them in art class. Now a days you can buy this stuff at every hot topic, but now it just seems homogenized. While we were certainly identifiable, everyone still seemed to acquire their own style, at times it was like a game of one upmanship.

So this is a call to all metal heads to dress distinctly and look as cool as the music you love. And it is also a call to anyone who like to educate me, just in case I am way off base here. Anyway, me, my p-bass, and my jean jacket are going to go rock out. MAKE SOME NOISE!!!

In a recent a post I wrote about my buddy Sean’s Ibanez RG 550 and how it seemed to change him as a guitar player. As I picked up my Washburn Dime 333 tonight, I thought about that statement again. The neck on the Dime has a very distinct feel, you can almost feel a “fold” down the middle of the neck. As I play it, I play better. Better than I ever have. It’s if my hands were just waiting for that guitar to set them free.

And that got me to thinking, guitars are like the wands in Harry Potter, they choose the player. Think about the most iconic players. What would Eddie be like without his home made strat. Can you even picture Ace Frehley with out a Les Paul? I have met a lot of players that will change guitars constantly over the years, searching for the right look or tone, but I think they overlook feel. And I believe that the feel is why those iconic players with their iconic guitars stick to those guitars over the years.

There is a guitar shop in Pittsburgh called “Pittsburgh Guitars” and for years they have sold a t-shirt that on the back in HUGE letters says “Go For The Neck!”. I think that phrase for me sums up the feel of the guitar. A guitar can look absolutely beautiful, but if the neck is junk, the guitar is junk. You can upgrade pretty much every part on a guitar from pick-ups and tuning keys right down to the individual bridge saddles. You can do so many things to a guitar to affect the tone of it, but if the feel is not right it will never quite sound right. Case in point, I have played a lot of basses over the years. Basses made from graphite, basses with active electronics, basses that are made from very exotic woods, but when it comes down to it they cannot touch my 1985 completely stock Fender P-Bass. I can glide over the neck and create whatever bass line my mind desires. In my freshman year of college I was playing bass for the jazz band spitting the bass duties with another Bass Major, and when it was his turn to play, the director stopped the band and asked the other bassist with his very expensive, tricked out bass, if he could make it sound more like mine.

Now some may argue that since I have been playing that bass since I was 13, my attachment to that bass is one that is more familiarity and nostalgia than anything else. And being that a 13 year old really does not know any better, that would be a fair statement. However, while I have been loyal to the Fender P-Bass for many years, I have not had the same experience with guitars. I have owned several guitars over the years, because none of them seemed just right to me. At least not until I played my son’s Strat. That guitar had feel I was looking for. And I hope when he is old enough to play it he feels the same way. And then there is the guitar that led me to write this post. My Washburn Dime 333 in Dimebolt finish.

I took a huge chance on this guitar as I don’t like to purchase a guitar without playing it. The purchase started out as a nostalgia quest. I was looking to capture a little piece of Dimebag’s history. I found the guitar on eBay and was willing to take a chance for the price. As soon as I got it I knew it was a keeper. I tuned it up and plugged it in, went to walk away, and it started feeding back like mad. I hadn’t even strummed it yet. Then I felt the neck, it had the feel. There was a lot of work to be done, but through all the grime and the overly dry fretboard, that feel was still there. The guitar is built for speed and just mean sounding. The neck reminds of a Les Paul combined withe the old “hard v” shaped necks on the old strats. It feels nimble and quick, there is very little drag. It just feels fast. The body shape is taking some getting used to. Sitting down is no problem, but standing up is weird because of the size of the body.

I never thought that I would develop an attachment to the guitar so quickly, but it is now my go to guitar when I sit down to write. Even though it is a metal guitar it does have a lot of tone options, which has also led it to be my main guitar. I guess the moral of the story is to think more about the feel of your guitar and less about the looks. If you find a guitar with the right feel you can always customize it with a paint job, or change the tone with a new set of pickups, and then you will have your dream guitar.