Fuzz Plus

I loaned out my Boss OC2 and Fulltone Ultimate Octave this weekend for a friends recording session, with some pretty cool results. But since the man works exclusively in Ableton anyway I thought I'd bring this free plug to his attention.

And if you like that, check out the other list of goodies, especially the Bi-Phase.

DIY: Apple Loops

Nice little article/tutorial on using Apple's Soundtrack Loop Utility to make your own Apple Loops for GarageBand or Logic.

Will Hoge

This be's blowin' my hair back the past few days. You can stream any and all of his CDs in the player in the bottom right corner. The Man Who Killed Love would be my album of choice - brings your right into a smoky Blues barroom. Very 70s Stones. A twangy rhythm Telecaster drives the bulk of the songs with notable other influences, Springsteen, Petty and George Harrison, and a voice that sometimes conjurs Elvis Costello's warble or Joe Cockers rasp.

If only his tour came by here.

Dylan Obsession

I think it was Nick Hornby who best wrote about Bob Dylan fanatics. That you could own every LP he ever released and gone to see him live more than any other artist and really like his music and not really know the obsession. Not until you follow his tour like a remora and own literally hundreds of bootlegs, do you know Bob Dylan.

What I find particularly amusing about the detailing of every acoustic guitar the man ever played, is the brevity of the electric guitar section. Scroll down. Way down. That, to me, speaks volumes about the nature of obsession.

(Please note Dylan is not playing a D-28 or J-200 in the attached picture.)

UKRAINIA?

I gotta learn to read the bold print. Andrew Vincent is playing the Whalebone this Monday and after being shut out due to sellout a couple months back I thought I'd pick up tix in advance. Smart, yeah? But what is this Ukrainia on the ticket? Huh, must be the event is part of some ethnic community festival, since isn't there the Ukranian Hall just arount the corner?

Yeah, no. Ukrainia! is the main event. A raucous old country assault on the ears via folk tunes transmogrified by Gibson SG and Hi-Watt stack. Beauty.

But where the hell are they gonna put a four peice rock band in the Whalebone?

Slow News Week

Greg MacPherson is rocking the Cafe Dekcuf tonight, with too many bands I've never heard of.

Concerts on NPR

Neko Case and New Pornographers (sans Neko Case) have concerts posted on NPR. Just the thing for a lonely drive to the ass end of nowhere, me thinks. Travel safe.

Lots more here.

Live

The price of Boss's new looper got me rethinking about soft options. Notably Ableton Live. Here's a nice intro/tutorial from O'Reilly.

Loopers Delight

Guitar Player Mag has an article on looping and the new batch of loopers at NAMM this year. BOSS has upped the ante vs. Digitech with its RC50 and the Electro Harmonix 2880 looks interesting too. And each of those new ones has MIDI clock sync (unlike my Jamman, sniffle).

Actually that RC50 looks pretty sweet: XLR with phantom power, sampled drum loops, and that all important MIDI clock sync. Anybody want to buy a Digitech Jamman?

Power Conditioning

A new development in tone suck: FM interference. I'm actually picking up a radio station through my guitar amp. I'm thinking dirty power is to blame.

Having the amp overhauled and especially the grounding checked could be benificial, as would power conditioning. Any peice of wire can act as an antenae picking up all sorts of impurities around 100 MHz, but it shouldn't be too tough to filter out all but the 60Hz sine wave for power. Costs of typical power conditioners belie its simplicity. But this one seems reasonable.

Hosted by Alan Cross

You can actually listen to the Ongoing History of New Music online now. Still no podcast, only streaming audio. But its something. OHNM Archives online, yeah.