Doktor Ross Sewage

European Bluntkrieg 4

2013-02-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

The Bavarian pigs sure had thrown us for a loop. On our way to Tilburg in the Netherlands, they'd made us leave our back line and our Scott behind. What bungling! We showed up for a show I'd booked just four days previous with no back line. Because I only have Skype on my phone and no international plan, I had to wait until we found a McDonald's with free wifi one hour outside of Tilburg to inform the staff at Little Devil of our predicament. Need I have worried? To paraphrase my friend Luuk running the whole thing, "Hey man, you're in the Netherlands. It's all taken care of."

In one hour, give or take, Luuk and friends at the Little Devil had organized an entire back line, including a five piece drum set, cymbals (which we stupidly left behind), two Marshall cabs, a Marshall 2000 TSL, some Line 6 guitar head, and a decent Trace-Elliot bass combo. This show was going to happen.

And a good thing, too. Apparently, we'd picked a great night for a show. It was Carnivale weekend. Essentially, the club packed out with Carnivale revelers in all manner of costumed dress along with all the metal heads who hated Carnivale and wanted to rebel by seeing some metal. I guess our band was somewhere in-between the costume bullshit and the face-pounding metal. It worked out great.

We had very little time to set up, but Luuk and co. had already done most of the work. We got on stage and what a difference a few years make. We played Little Devil in 2009 to little fanfare and even less people. This time was riotous. The crowd brought new meaning to the phrase, "circle pit" as they beat the ever-living crap out of each other while doing a conga line. I saw quite a few old Dutch friends such as the aforementioned Luuk along with Denis from Rompeprop.

Our good friend Dirk, Belgian metal maven and traveler extraordinaire, also showed up. He had some new ink that I wholeheartedly approved of.

Much Schrobbeler and much beer was drunk while Cannabis Corpse slayed as they always did. The other van from Fluffwheels showed up with our back line around 2 AM at a great expense to us. Lucky this show in Tilburg had been arranged as it financially covered the entire shitty day. Net zero, unless you count the fun. We re-loaded our van and headed to Luuk's house for a few hours rest. Well, a couple of us got rest. The others stayed up all night and looked at me savagely when I woke up and snapped, "Van call! Now!" It was 5:55 AM and it was time to go to London.

All the scheduling driver Michael and I had done worked out fine, it seemed. We showed up at the Chunnel border crossing at 9 AM from Tilburg. That gave us one hour to go through passport control. This wasn't long enough. Learn from our mistakes:
1. Show up two hours earlier than needed, minimum
2. You have to fill out landing cards either with magic or pens you bring yourself, so pack a lot of pens or magic
3. Hold on to your paperwork with the sponsor or visas or phone numbers for bookers, even if you're heading into England a second time
4. Try to get in ahead of the three bus loads of polacks

Once we missed our initial train, we got in line to get on the second one. It filled up. We got on the third train and were three hours late for our load-in at London. I was a bit stressed, but I'd forgotten that England is an hour back from mainland. So really, we were two hours late? That's just being standard dick heads in a metal band. No problem!

This was a big show at the Underworld. It was also the only one where we did an interview on this tour and the only one in my life that included a photo shoot in front of a vegan cookie shop. After that, we bummed around the Camden neighborhood a bit, our tour having come full circle back to where we started.

The Underworld show was a blast. There was a multitude of good bands before us. By the time we hit the stage, the saucy brits were in full moshing force and provided the most stage-divers in all of Europe. Scott got licked on the face by one brazen fellow and lost a beat during one of our on-stage gags. I'm sure I saw a few fists hit actual faces.

Cannabis Corpse had an equally good showing, blazing through and pummeling the people with their brand of ripping death metal.

After our sets, we had a good time hanging out with the crowd of people. What else was there to do as some of our good brit buds decided they could do a better job hawking our wares than we could. I guess they sold stuff, but eavesdropping at the merch table was like listening to the dialogue track of Lock, Stock, and Two-Smoking Barrels at double speed.

The Underworld kicked us out right quick to make way for a techno dance party so we partied a bit around Camden. Then it was back to Belushi's pub and hostel where we'd been near a month previous for some much needed rest after the weary driving of the last few days.

The next morning, I woke up and Cannabis Corpse was already gone. They had originally planned to have London as the last show and fly home. The reservations they'd made had a connecting flight from London to Manchester that had a 24 hour layover. Landphil saw an opportunity here and went ahead and booked a show in Leeds during that layover. We didn't know that, and just having been given dates with no locations, booked our flight out of London for the day after the last show. So, we would meet Cannabis next in Manchester, head to Leeds, play the show, and leave in the night / early morning back to Manchester for Cannabis Corpse and then get our asses on a plane in London. Sound confusing? It is. It took us three to four days to get everything sorted correctly.

Leeds was just beginning to get icky and rainy and would end in full snowfall. We played a club within a club. The Library was an entirely inappropriately named venue for a brand of immature music, so it was good that we were playing venue inside named The House of Fun, which was normally for stand-up comedy. And would be tonight, also.

Some of us were a little afraid that this show would dull the awesomeness that was London as a last show of tour. Couldn't have been more wrong. The lads and lassies in Leeds love to get lively much like London. Openers Fetal Juice impressed everyone in the touring party with blasting, well-played grind and funny banter. Our set was interspersed with circle pits and people jumping on stage. They had some problems in Leeds learning how to crowd-walk folks off stage, but I won't hold it against them. I'm sure that 90 lbs. girl was really hard to hold up. Cannabis ripped up a final set. We were all feeling really fucking good about our last night on tour.

Then Sean lost his back pack. This was more than just his personal belongings, worse than losing a passport... this was all our money we'd made on tour. During packing up, he'd brought it in and a minute later it was missing. As Cannabis Corpse later described it, our dejected faces after a fruitless search were heart-wrenching to behold. I figured it must have been an accident that Fetal Juice had probably had a friend accidentally load it. I'd ran downstairs, but it looked like they had skeedadled. The promoter had no phone number for them. That was it, seemingly.

After checking CC cameras, searching every room, and basically giving up, we found a hero. Brent from Cannabis decided to check a back room he was sure there would be no back pack. By luck, he saw the members of Fetal Juice through the window. They were walking back to their car from getting a bit to eat before they headed home. He ran out, they checked the boot of their car, and sure enough, "Oi, tha's na' ours." Brent is our hero! And what did we give him as a reward? Hugs. Lots of hugs. I think he was expecting more... or he would probably have been happier had there been no hugs at all. That shit ain't becomin' a real man.

Recommended: if ever there was an excuse to put your own band patches on shit, owning a non-descript black backpack is a good one. That, or get a pack so horridly ugly, no one could mistake it for their own.

We FINALLY headed to the hostel and were able to stay approximately an hour and a half. It was just enough time for people to lay down and forget to get a shower before boarding the tight quarters of an airplane. At 3 AM we left and drove to Manchester, dropped off a very cold Cannabis Corpse, and then to London Heathrow, to drop off a very confused and sleep deprived us.

For once, there was little incident, everything went smooth, and we were on our way home. Europe was kind to us again and we will be back... just as soon as we get a little rest. Thanks to Cannabis Corpse for getting it together and all the folks we played with, stayed with, and those who set the shit up to make our tour great.

Doktor Ross Sewage

www.doktorsewage.comfilling in at the Creepsylvania Hospital's traveling burn ward

European Bluntkrieg 3

2013-02-08T13:05:00.001-08:00

Our adventure continued as we left Deutschland on a reverse-viking raid into Scandinavia. We we took to the sea like savage warriors of old, bringing death and destruction. Except, our death was only of rubber monsters and our boat was a big ass ferry that had an expensive breakfast menu.

Copenhagen awaited us with just the merest of shakedowns by German police preceding at the border. We lucked out that we only got a warning for two people being up in the loft, a 70€ fine each that they waived. And somebody ate something they forgot they had, and that's all I'm saying about that.

Stengade in Copenhagen is cool club, sponsored in part by the government. Imagine that shit. It's run by a helpful bevy of volunteers and they serve alcohol. It's a dream of a punk club.

The people trickled in as the start of our two band bill was coming. With no opener and the small amount of people, we thought we were going to tank. Couldn't have been wronger. It packed in quickly right before we played and the crowd was savage. Cannabis slayed it as well.

We were all pretty toasty as we entered the hostel. Scott went out and has to swing Queen songs to some people to get a cigarette because he only had Euros, not a god-damned Kroner. And in the morning at breakfast, I once again enjoyed the look of late teen European travelers aghast at the grizzled faces of elder metal men.

We took the ferry back, got rid of the Kroners then, and got on our way to AJz Bahndamm in Welmerskirchen. This is a great squat run by punks and metal heads. I've played here many times and knew we would have a blast, and that we did with a lot of people we had met before showing up to pack the place to the walls. There was some serious fandom going on here.

In the morning we mingled with some of the locals on the small village.

I always forget a strange custom before every tour in Europe regarding shows. It's quite regular here that the opening bands and promoters expect the touring band to provide their back line for all the bands at a show. This is vexing to boot-strap-pulling Americans not unlike the idea of socialized medicine. In Europe, they just see it as a way to move the show along and save space. A fair point, until you consider a drummer having to put all his cymbals on and make adjustments during a short change-over. My best advice to any American band heading out on their own small tour is to know this ahead and either accept it, or make sure a tour booker puts the kabosh on it before you even get on a plane.

Munich was not so great for us. We played Feierwerk which is an enormous live music complex with a bunch of stages. We played a size-able room to a not so size-able audience. People enjoyed it enough to not walk out on us, but that was about it. Cannabis Corpse staged a Super Bowl party via Internet streaming, but most in our camp caught up on some sleep. We met Insanity Alert at this show, a great Austrian thrash band that would play three more shows with us.

The next morning we went on a few morning errands. While walking around, I found our tour poster made movie poster size taped onto a power box randomly in the city. Of course I nabbed the rain-soaked parchment, but I'm a more than a little annoyed the promoter in Munich didn't think to save a few of these for the bands. We traveled through the Alps the next day headed to Innsbruck in Austria.

Insanity Alert had gotten this gig together in their hometown at a real nice little club called PMK. We had a good night with the locals and Insanity Alert had decided they needed to add a lil extra to their live show to join in our fun.

We played a nice club in Calanzano, Italy. The backline situation rose again here, but openers Hyena Rabid took it in stride and delivered a nice set on gear the club had. A well mannered young lass kept yelling "gangbang!" at our Sprinter as we drove away after the show. Don't worry honey, we won't need you for that. We were kicked out of our hotel room promptly the next day and arrived quite early in Milan.

And we waited. And waited. And waited in front of that bar for hours until a bar next door informed us we'd arrived six hours before the bar would open, despite what the sign on the door said. We didn't see much in Milan other than Brent violently shaking the doors every five minutes for a number of hours. Finally the doors did open and we set up.

A local distro started setting up their wares and Cannabis Corpse put the kabosh on it. They were certain a distro the night before had hurt sales. I have mixed feelings on the subject. I understand that a show is probably the best place for a local entrepreneur to set up a little metal shop. It's cool to make underground shit available at a show for your local scene. Unfortunately, that show might have a couple touring bands looking to sell their crap to break even and they don't want attendees wallets emptied by competition. Do distros hurt sales? I don't know, Paul Krugman has yet to give a shit. It's totally possible. My hindsight advice is to make sure a tour is booked with a "no distro" clause if that's an issue.

Anyway, the show at the Blue Rose in Milan was a blast. It totally packed out, people raged, and I got completely hammered with my old friends from Brainwash who I played with on my first ever Euro tour waaaay back in 1997.

Sometime between Milan and Vienna I sobered up. Oi vey, to think I used to do that every night on tour years ago. Who needs memories of where one slept? I certainly was not in the right state of mind to see this fine product at an Italian gas station.

An entire aisle of wine celebrating Hitler. I got yelled at for taking pictures. How offensive of me!

Escape Club in Vienna had a weird stage where all the cabs had to point sideways for us to fit. But the sound guy, I found out later, worked with the Vienna Philharmonic. So it sounded great. We had an awesome show and a good night with our old friend Tomas.

A little note to opening bands... do not decimate a deli tray with your girlfriends in tow before a touring act has even shown up. Yer at home, we're not. We're hungry from riding 10 hours in a van and desire a little comfort. Plz n thx!

We originally had a day off following Vienna, but Phil had wondered about picking up a show. I emailed a friend I made on a Wolves in the Throne Room tour. Within an hour, we had a show in Tilburg, the Netherlands, at the Little Devil. We tried to get an early start for the twelve hour drive, with just a slight scare as Dino never made it back to the hostel... he rolled up just as we were sending out a search party.

We got underway, groggy as hell, and made it halfway before we got pulled over by some Bavarian cops. They took us to a weigh station and told us we were 800 kilos overweight and had to get another car and pay 115€. Fuck! This happened before on tour with Wolves in the Throne Room. This time, though, we were five hours away from the venue. The cops were keeping an eye on us making sure we didn't leave.

A plan was formed. Scott volunteered to stay with the gear while Fluffwheels sent out a van all the way from Prague to pick it up. 4-500€. I spoke with a gas station attendant and this angel said we could load the back line into one of their locked bathrooms. Just in time, too, as a wicked snowstorm blew in. Apparently this happens to a lot of travelers round these parts. Scott would not have to sit outdoors in the harsh elements, something I was voting against. The rest of the band members headed out to Tilburg to possibly play on a borrowed back line or play late when Scott and the other van show up.

Tomorrow we'll re-overload our van because no one else in Europe cares or will fuck with us except asshole bored Bavarian pigs. We need our back line for the big show in London. As for tonight, we're crossing our fingers and squeezing our thumbs.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
filling in at the Creepsylvania Hospital's traveling burn ward

Location:5038EA,Tilburg,The Netherlands

European Bluntkrieg 2

2013-02-01T12:13:00.001-08:00

Those fucking Hall brothers. They were right. The Chunnel was pretty lame. Ya don't even get ta see the train. But the hall we drove in looked pretty cool after we had watched Alien.

Escape from the U.K. 20 minutes later we were on French soil pointed towards Belgium. For me, things get more interesting once the language changes from English. Or American, as you prefer.

The snow was thick and it was cold as balls. We showed up to a club called Trix that I'd played before in 2011. It's a nice complex with multiple stages and it's cleaner than the inside of a bottle of Lysol.

We made sure to change all that. The club was packed with folks who weren't quite ready for our antics, but then exploded with enthusiasm. It was also cool to see such good friends as my old pals Ine, Dirk and Sophie. Battalion were quite good and Cannabis Corpse had a stellar showing. A drink to success!

Onwards we charged to Willemeen in the Netherlands. It was blustery and snowy when we saw the best flyer of the tour.

A very accommodating staff was a bit worried about our "blood," but they shouldn't have worried as we were running so low. It was practically just water we threw at the crowd. I spent the day seeking out such supplies to no avail and also for jewel cases which were still in short supply.

We had a fun show, but the evening was to end preposterously. The bulk of the travel party decided to walk the short distance to the penchant house that was reserved for our lodging. Our driver and Dino took the van, and I waited for the ever-hungry Dan Randall to return to the club. Dan and I walked on and promptly got lost. The other guys made it faster based on directions I have them and yet could not follow myself. Meanwhile, our driver Mikael and Dino had run what they insisted was a yellow light to the police offers that pulled them over demanding 220€. They didn't have it, so the police escorted them to the hostel to get their extorted lucre. Dino insists that he had been kind, but it ended with him yelling, "Whores!" at them. And the tense aftermath was what Dan and I encountered. Oh, and the ghost.

Early the next morning I found these footsteps on our balcony AFTER seeing it before falling asleep, covered by fresh snow. Ookie spooky dooky! And then our poor driver Mikael, continuing his bad luck, broke a window in the penchant house. Time to get the fuck to France.

We'd had a long drive so our sight-seeing in France was minimal. We headed to the club Glazart which was amazing in that it actually had parking... in Paris! Unheard of!

The night was a blast. Crowds went wild from the opening band Genital Grinder right till the end of Cannabis Corpse. We also got some extra special French cooking for us backstage, nice wine, and my dear friend Olivier brought us some much-needed vials of food coloring. I don't care what anyone says, I love the froggies.

Finally we were moving on into Germany, metal central of Europe. We arrived at the venue in Kassel... I use the word venue very loosely, for this was more of a rehearsal space and living room. In fact, that's exactly what it was, in a building full of rehearsal spaces in what I think had been a train yard. This train I saw was built in 1942. I wonder what it was hauling?

Scott got the night off from monster duties due to the space, and the rest of us got the night off from being anywhere near to sober. It was time for some raging with the locals.

We stayed in a lovely flat, unless you were a furry. I warn you, if you are a furry, this next image could be unsettling.

Next up was my second favorite place in the world next to home, Dresden. I was super excited to see all my good friends there, and none more than Conny, our erstwhile regular tour driver and travel partner. Because of our package tour, we couldn't have Conny and her Knark Art Full Metal Service this tour. Schade! But we did play a block from her flat at the great Chemiefabrik bar. The place was packed and the shots flowed. My personal fave is a Chemiefabrik specialty, the Ratten Hirnen, or rat brain. Some cherry schnapps with egg liqueur form a bloody blob brain in a jar. Everyone got loaded and at least one in the tour party unloaded between some parked cars later on.

Before the show started, we'd gotten some new Mesa Double Rectifiers delivered from Fluffwheels to replace our two fried Peavey 6505s. Turns out, we don't like the Mesas... at least not for D-tuned splatterthrash.

Fluffwheels also delivered the jewel cases for our CDs that had been sent late. Time to re-jewel our CDs! Except... where had the rest gone? Sean was sure he'd taken them out of his bag and put them "near" the merch in Kassel. No one in Kassel we reached could find them. I was less than pleased. 100 CDs, all our stock left, was gone.

Berlin is an amazing city... one of the world capitals and not an inch of it not covered in graffiti and dog shit. We played Cassiopeia, which is situated in a huge closed-down train yard that is home now to cafes, theaters, clubs, and skate ramps. A lot of folks came and rocked the fuck out and we got to hang with a lot of old friends. It makes me realize I was spoiled as quite the jet setter for a few years there, crossing the pond so much. I miss the regular visits with all the great people I know and have met!
The next day, there was a bit of a panic when Dino never made it to the hotel. People were starting to call out search parties, but he showed up on time for a bus call to the city center to everyone's relief. He'd borrowed a phone and tried texting Sean, not quite realizing our smart phones are more smart and less phone outside the U.S. We've since made sure he has our driver's phone number, like the rest of us got at the beginning of tour.

As we got in the van, Mikael yells... "Dummies!" Our missing CDs had been thrust behind the bench seats. Sean says, coyly, "I knew I put them some place safe." The day was looking good, so we spent some time in Berlin checking out the sites.

One site in particular was odd, but a treat for two Dunkin Donuts fans! Shit, we don't even have these in California!

Hamburg was cold and wet.

I'd played Hafenklang once before with Ludicra to about 6 people, after Antifa had accused our jewish drummer of having ties to neo-Nazis. This current tour would not suffer that bad luck, and the Hamburgers came out in force for a great night of rollicking. We also got to hang with our bud and Dan's ex-Desolation band mate Willy, a nice bit of Oakland to visit who now lives in Germany.
And now we're in Denmark trying to decide what to charge for merchandise, again, as the currency has changed on us. I come on, you people, just get on the Euro. And forget about Greece, they promise never to do it again.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
filling in at the Creepsylvania Hospital's traveling burn ward

Location:Stengade,Copenhagen,Denmark

European Bluntkrieg 1

2013-01-24T14:59:00.001-08:00

So far, so good, so butt.

I can't lie, having a half empty, non-stop flight to Europe put me in a great mood. Lying across an entire row of seats is the best way to travel... Besides not being in "economy" aka poor fuckers class.

That and a bunch of movies set this nerd well on his way to stop stressin' and start enjoyin'.

We got into London and met up with out driver Michel and Cannabis Corpse. Heathrow is a bit of a mess as an airport, so it took awhile to find everyone. Add to that the stupid cold, and we were fairly miserable for a bit. Especially those of us who forgot to pack gloves in winter, apparently because we are children who need coddling. Grrr...

We eventually got the whole crew together and headed toward unbalmy London-town of Airstrip One. Despite coming from opposite coasts in the continental United States, the members of these two motley crews have had a lot of interaction over the years. From our Scott just finishing an eight week tour with their Brent late last year and all if us with Landphil the spring before, way way back to me and Sean rockin' with Impaled back at Twister's in Richmond, VA on our first national tour in 2000. It was one of Landphil's first death metal shows, so I hear, and Brent reminded me I lit his cigarette of my alighted bass headstock. There have been a myriad of crossings in-between.

We settled in at a pub/hostel in the Camden neighborhood (known for its shit-dickery) of London called Belushki's. Jet-lagged, I went to sleep around 4PM. I woke up around 7PM to find my American compatriots quite sloshed. It was snakebite Tuesdays and the cider was flowing.

Properly intoxicated, we went on a walk-about in this douchiest of neighborhoods. Within minutes, a young lass was offering one in our party an offer to be her "chimney sweep." Dino's head was curiously grabbed by a drunk lad who yelled at him, "Maori!" and could not be assuaged his opinion towards Dino's heritage as a Pacific Islander who stuck his tongue out and attacked people with a shark tooth baseball bat was entirely of his own imagination. The eve continued with such ridiculousness until our retirement to separate rooms with snoring strangers from far away lands.

The next morning was started with a traditional English breakfast of lots of fried brown and yellow shit. Dan and I ventured to a music store because he hadn't had time to acquire instrument cables at home somehow, despite living six blocks from a music store in Santa Cruz. He ended up paying 65+£ for a pair. That's roughly $100 at the going exchange rate. I'm sure next trip he'll make time to get his extraneous gear in the States, where life is cheap and everything else is cheaper.

We ventured forth to the Tolkienesque named town of Newcastle on Tyne, named so because sometime in the twelfth century they got a new castle... on the Tyne. Apt, to be sure.

Trillian's awaited us. And so did our old comrade from Brun, Mr. nee Officer nee Dr. Peter "Pove" Povey.

This lad has journeyed forth across America and Europe with us many times and always proved himself almost barely capable of helping. We love the boy, and we love to abuse him.

Despite our best plans as men, some of the plans of mice came through. CDs birthed in the Czech Republic somehow bypassed our Czech driver and his Czech company and ended up in our hands in the Bay Area, instead. There had been a shipping screw-up at the plant. Three days later, we took those CDs, sans jewel cases, exactly back the way they came to meet up with jewel cases that were to be sent, as way of correcting their mistake, to England. Instead, those cases are now where our driver WAS, at his office in the Czech Republic. Sound stupid? It is. So we are pilfering what empty jewel cases we can find from shops in an age of memory sticks and mp3 players. It's as hard as it seems, coming across shelves of zero inventory.

The show was smashing. People moshed in-between the two poles placed just right to really ruin a pit. Lads were rolling around in our floor detritus to gather more blood on their apparel. Cannabis Corpse also slayed it, churning out tight and refreshing death metal madness.

I for one was stoked just about our shirts. There had been an incident... Namely, I had made a few errors doing color separations of our Splatterthrash shirt design. Well, I corrected those mistakes and couldn't have been more pleased with the results. Glad ta know I'm not a complete fuck up, just partial.

We had a lovely sleep-in at the hostel in Newcastle on Tyne and then it was on to Derby on Zilch. First, though, a cuntinental breakfast of just bread and cereal... not even fruit. These people do know why we call them limeys, right?

The tiny pub, the Hairy Dog, was quite accommodating regarding their stairs in that they had a full back line of guitar and bass cabs ready to go. My back thanks you, kind sirs. We were treated to a really good opening band by the name of Merciless Terror that I quite enjoyed.

We played for the small but enthusiastic crowd and had a great time, losing a lot of the stiffness we felt on the first night of this sojourn. We were also joined by the original true UK Ghoulunatics, Luke and Charlotte. It was a treat to finally play for then and leave them looking like workers at an abattoir.

Hallhammer had a few problems during Cannabis Corpse's set. He lost an out jack on his trigger unit and also broke one of his Ekit trigger hammers. Lucky he had a spare, because that little high tech piece of drum electronica ain't gonna be easy to find at the local guit fiddle shop.

After a short night of rest, we headed out to the Chunnel. I, for one, am excited to ride a giant train into a gigantic man-made tunnel running underneath the English Channel at 150 kilometers an hour. Hallhammer and Landphil maintain it ain't a big deal. Yeah, just a wonder and miracle of modern engineering. No biggee.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
filling in at the Creepsylvania Hospital's traveling burn ward

Location:Hof ter Lo,Antwerp,Belgium

Dead Alive: Ludicra 1998-2011

2013-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

From 1999 to 2011, I was in a band called Ludicra. It was a good run with four amazingly talented people. There were a lot of good times. The ending of the band wasn't one of those good times. The feelings left behind could make one want to forget the whole endeavor. But all good things must come to an end, timely or otherwise... except the memories. Those can live on, and with music, they can live on loudly. This is what I intended.

In this age of information, a picture is worth a thousand lines of code. So what's a song worth? I spent the last few months compiling all the recordings I had packed away. With the help of some websites, some free programs, and some D.I.Y. production work, I completed the total archive of Ludicra's output over it's 13 year existence, downloadable and free to all.

I started a new Ludicra facebook page to replace the one that had been deleted. That was easy enough. It's now populated with every photo I could cull from my digital and analog photo collection. Of more interest here was the archiving of the music. Fortunately, this was legally possible thanks to the wonderful labels we worked with and the music-industry-bucking, non-ass-fucking-without-lube deals they gave us. Also, shit's outta print, so who cares.

Enter bandcamp. There are lots of music sharing sites available. Bandcamp was chosen somewhat at random, partially because it looked easy to use, and I knew it worked with facebook. I was initially confused at how to integrate it into facebook, but once I got the new bandcamp page going, the instructions were painfully easy.

The upload process was easy, the profile was easy, everything about this was easy... except the music.

First, bandcamp requires a lossless .wav, .aif, or .flac file. For the albums, this was simple to acquire. I already had the CDs, so I just used iTunes to create new .wav versions of the CD files. If you don't know how to do this, it's simple. Just go to the iTunes preferences, click on "import settings" and set it to "wav" with custom settings of 44.1 kHz, 16 bit stereo. That's the actual quality of a CD audio track and it's what bandcamp wants.

Once I had encoded all the albums from CD, uploading was a cinch. But I wanted to add some bonus tracks. I had most of the material ready in the form of CDRs with unfinished tracks, but a big ups to my man Justin at Trakworx for going above and beyond by providing me with some of the original files he mastered and mixed when Ludicra was alive.

As these were digital, not physical copies, there was the obvious lack of a booklet. This might not be a big deal to some, but to me it sucks. We put a lot of work into the interior art of every Ludicra release. Hell, I think we did some pretty revolutionary shit as far as packaging goes on a meager budget. Fortuitously, bandcamp allows for extra files to be downloaded with each album. It would have to do. I organized all the old art, including bonus photos, videos, shirt designs, etc., with Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat has a handy function to organize a digital booklet, "combine files." Add tiffs, jpegs, or a bunch of other files and your booklet is put together for you.

Having the albums up was cool, but I wanted to put everything I had up for download. Partially, just because I thought it was cool, but also because I didn't want to be the solitary holder of Ludicra's aural history.

I had some old CDRs of live recordings that I'd been given. I don't know if it was a mark of age or that some had labels glued to them, but those fuckers didn't wanna spin for too long in my disc drive. I had to insert the disc, grab the files one at a time, eject the disc, give it a break, and then start the process over again to keep it from seizing up. Fucking irritating.

Next up... cassette recordings. Yes, kids, there was an age before one could record digitally. For Ludicra, the digital age had come, though it was anything but affordable or easy. Instead, we had a bunch of old cassette recordings before any of us had a laptop we could bring to practice. One tape in particular, live recordings with Ludicra's first bass player Jesika Christ, I had used to practice when I first joined. This tape is 13 years old, but in some ways, was easier to work with than the CDRs I had.

I lack a cassette player at home anymore, or a stereo of any kind (curse my finances). I recorded the cassette onto a digital file at my work where we have quite a spaghetti like stereo system plugged into a computer. I used an old version of Cool Edit Pro, because that's what was available. Some of the recordings had to be time shifted as they'd been recorded on a four-track at slow speed. Had I a cassette player at home, I would have used Audacity, a great free program that can do the same thing.

Audacity has some other important features that were integral to this project, but more on that later.

The cassette recordings were finally digitized. I also had a bunch of digital practice files from over the years. Without what one might call "standards," you can imagine these files all had varying degrees of quality and volume. I'm no pro-audio guy, but all better for the D.I.Y. intent of this blog. Instead, I used what came with my computer: Garageband. It's a simple program based on Logic... a program called Logic, not the philosophy of Spock. If Spock had designed Garageband, this might've been a tad easier.

While overly simple, Garageband can be a fairly powerful editing tool. It's got some decent built in effects. Sure, I wasn't going to be able to master these old recordings with the Analog Tube Master 3000, but I think for the purposes of a defunct, underground band, I did good enough.

I compiled my disparate files into a single Garageband session. Mostly, I used the basic compressor tool along with a 31 band EQ to get my files sounding better and more even. For a few tracks, I doubleD the file and used a bandpass filter to boost and emphasize some lost elements, like vocals. Considering these are mono files from a single mic for the most part, I think they ended up sounding okay. But Garageband, you do lack a few things.

Once the files were complete, I had to output the session as a single stereo .wav file. 10 or more songs as one file does not a nice download make for bandcamp. In order to make separate tracks, I would have to import the CD quality audio file into Audacity. I had to send the whole dillio to iTunes as a lossless .aif, and from there, convert it to a .wav. Why? Because my copy of Audacity was being a bitch.

Audacity opens up .wav files, but apparently, not ones made by Garageband. It made my copy quit. But it happily opened .wav files from iTunes. So, I had yet another step of conversion. Sigh.

From there, I accessed the iTunes library, got the .wav, and opened it in Audacity. While in Audacity, I bumped the recording up a couple decibels, as Garageband outputs the recording a bit shy of maximum volume. Then I labeled the tracks. This isn't hard, but it takes some zooming in and out to find the definitive breaks between songs. Place the cursor where you want the break, and "add label at selection."

Type in the name of the song with a number for easy album ordering. Audacity doesn't create meta-data for audio players, unfortunately, but it will separate a recording into all the tracks you want. Once you have the tracks you want labeled, you export the .wavs as multiple files.

The prompt window's instructions are easy to follow, and bam, you've finally got a session with multiple tracks done. I uploaded these all to bandcamp and now a handful of curious listeners can enjoy the process of a song's evolution over time.

I feel a certain sense of ease knowing this stuff is off my computer and thrown into the ether. There's also a sense of closure to know any Tom, Dick, or Harriet can have and enjoy Ludicra's oeuvre and more, all for free, thanks to bandcamp.

For a final au revoir to the years of Ludicra, I also uploaded every iteration of the Ludicra website I still had saved. Probably not of interest to many (if any), but it's off my computer and just out there. I like that.

Fuck peace... rest in loudness, Ludicra. It was fun.

http://www.ludicra.org
http://ludicraofficial.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ludicraband

Gross Anatomy: High on Fire poster

2012-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Back in August / September, Yob was coming through town. I love Yob. They were playing on my birthday and I wanted to do a poster for them. I talked with the band and they were down. A week before the event, after just starting the inks, it was pointed out to me the promoter already had a poster. Shit. I didn't talk to the promoter. I cancelled my job and enjoyed the show anyway. A month later, my friends at Secret Serpents offered me a spot in their High on Fire tour series. Well, why fucking let that art go to waste? I requested the date for the end of the world, December 21, 2012. This is what came of it.

Like all posters I've worked on, I don't make a cent... unless I sell my own copies. This is the topsy turvy economy of the gig poster world. 35 of these bad boys went down to Santa Ana, gratis, for the band to sell. My copies are on sale on my website now. The process to get from there to here took longer than expected, but I was pleased with the results.

It started with a sketch, as drawings are apt to do. My sketches are like a doctor's prescription, though; practically illegible except to me.

Seriously, what the fuck is that? Well, in my convoluted head, it's a World War II Fallschirmjäger, also known as a German paratrooper. With wings. Specifically seraphim wings, the class of angels in Christian mythos that have six wings. Because, hey, a Nazi angel raining down doom and destruction during the battle of Megiddo; that's wicked sick. It's in keeping with the martial nouveau aesthetic that apparently only I do and, unfortunately, only I like.

I like referencing from propaganda posters, but there wasn't any good images of the Fallshchirmjäger that I liked. Instead, I found this great image of an 1960-70s action figure. Nazi toys... fun for kids from eight to 88!

The pencils started with the Fallschirmjägerangel as the centerpiece with everything else built around that. It probably shows in the final poster, as well, as the Fallschirmjägerangel has the most attention paid to it vis a vis line quality.

Next I moved onto the lettering. Being that this had a biblical quality to it, I wanted bible style type set. I modified some Fabrik style lettering to appear as the monks copying bibles and books by hand might have. It's got of flourish and extra adornments.

Hmm, does that say Yob, or oYB? Could be either. I was willing to bet that the eye would be drawn downwards and put together the name of the band correctly in the brain. Of course, this didn't end up as a Yob poster, so the point is moot. I went on to finish the pencils and started up on the inks... and then halted them when I found out this wasn't going to be a Yob poster.

Fast forward a couple months, and the poster gets started up again, this time for High on Fire. Really, it's ended up more appropriate. High on Fire has a lot more songs about battle and mythical monsters. Not usually Christian monsters, but hey, a myth is a myth to my atheist eyes.

This poster was going to be boring without a background. The sky is pretty boring without some dark clouds. I didn't want to put them on the original drawing, however, because I knew they'd need to be separated in the color process. I also wanted to add anti-aircraft flak explosions. I used some tracing paper and drew clouds with charcoal pencil.

I scanned these in on the computer separately. I also redid the lettering on the computer, as there was no way I would successfully erase all the pencil I'd already laid down for new lettering. When it came to the main band logo, I was looking at the "Y" in Yob and realized upside down it would make a perfect "h." Well, that was my job a little easier. Plus, I still got to keep the same basic idea. Holy shit, even the date text could be salvaged from "September 21, 2012" to "December 21, 2012." Not bad.

I busted out the Wacom tablet and drew it all up in Adobe Illustrator over the scan of the art. I put the cloud and explosion layers through some filters, added some olde time distress, and voila, I got my computer color composite.

Doing the color separations on the computer can be daunting, as I went through no less than three completely different color schemes before I got what I wanted. For the printing process, I overlaid a transparent white layer to make a five color process create at least eight separate hues. I chose some kinda difficult Pantone colors to match, exactly like I hate to mix for clients at Monolith Press. Apparently, I hate myself and want to make things difficult on me.

I did end up darkening the final color because the Photoshop color composites can be a little deceptive. In the end, though, I was happy with the final poster and the colors.

The above photo is a little off, having been taken with a phone before the final layer of ink was even dry. The poster at the beginning of this post is a much more accurate photograph.

I shipped the posters to the show in Santa Ana via FedEx. They went on sale December 21, 2012. I don't know how sales for the band went, maybe bad. People thought there might be no tomorrow, especially after being pummeled all night with such an incredibly heavy line-up of bands. Today, however, we're still here and walls need amazing art. In lieu of amazing art, how about my crappy art? These posters are now on sale through my website, so pick one the fuck up already! I'm fucking broke!

Doktor Sewage shop: http://www.ww2.doktorsewage.com/store.html

Choice Cuts: Building a Lazer-saw

2012-12-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

After taking a beating for the last four or five years, Killbot wasn't looking so hot. Getting smooshed into a trailer night after night didn't help. While on the last tour, we talked about a making a new one. Maestro Sean McGrath took the lead on this one and cobbled together a leaner, more aggressive looking, and tougher version of the costume. When he wants to write a blog detailing how he did that, he's welcome to. In the meantime, I threw in the LEDs and lit the bitch up, and that's what I'm gonna talk about here.

The previous Killbot had lighting done to its head. I detailed that in a previous entry last year. When I finally saw the lazer-saw that Sean had built, my mind started whirling with ideas. Originally, he'd planned to have electroluminescent wire wrapped around it. He tried that for one show, but it wouldn't illuminate very well. I tried working with it, and I've decided I hate EL wire. It's definitely not bright enough for a lit stage and it's a bitch to work with. I wanted to go another route.

My feeling was that if it was a chainsaw, then it should spin like one. Okay, a real lazer-saw probably wouldn't spin. But a real robot isn't made of foam and latex, either. I wanted to make a chaser circuit and wire in a shit ton of LEDs to really make the saw shine.

My best resource through the whole project was a blog on the All About Circuits forum. This guy Bill indexed all his knowledge and a bunch of sample circuits for doing lots of goofy stuff with LEDs. The basic idea for a chaser circuit was to use a 555 timer IC, which sends out timed shots of voltage. This timer would hit a 4017 IC, which sends that voltage down 10 different paths sequentially. Those paths lead to LEDs, which then light up sequentially. Put it in order and they chase each other. And that's about as simply as I can put it. So I made a breadboard of the circuit.

And it worked. The eight LEDs here lit up sequentially and I could change the speed as well. That's great for eight little LEDs, but I needed a lot more than that, and bigger. I measured the saw and decided I needed 64 10mm LEDs, as bright as I could get them. I would power these in groups of eight, so the saw actually has eight groups of eight LEDs chasing each other. The mother lode.

All those LEDs will end up hand wired, leg to leg, to fit on the saw. Well, not exactly leg to leg. In order to power those LEDs to their full luminosity and not destroy every single one of them, I had to wire them series-parallel. So now our eight groups of eight are divided further into two groups of four groups of eight. Furthermore, I was likely to blow the 4017 IC chip with that much power consumption going through it, so I had to add a higher power rated 2803 IC that would be signaled by the 4017 IC to pass current directly from the voltage source to each group. Well, I was getting confused, and I think at a thousand words, the diagram I had to draw up explains it all much better.

Created with DIY Layout Creator

And from a drawing to reality...

Next I had to wire up the actual LEDs. I needed a way to mount them to the saw that existed, so I poked the LED legs through a cut up bike tire. This worked great, but smelled like shit anytime I got the solder to close to the rubber. It took a long time, many bits of wire, and a bunch of swearing, but eventually I had all the LEDs wired up and ready for the saw.

Fucking spaghetti. I used a Hammond enclosure to house the circuity, because I had one lying around and it fit perfectly into one of the nooks and / or crannies Sean had made into the saw. I attached the LED wires into the circuit.

I glued down the bike tire substrate to the latex and foam saw. It fitted nicely.

I have to admit, I was frightened after all that work that it wasn't gonna do what I had hoped it would do. And, you know, I had about 15 minutes left until I was supposed to meet everyone at the jam spot. This project deadline was literally down to the wire. But lo and behold, it worked!!

With the lazer-saw finished, there was still the matter of Killbot's positronic brain. It needed to blink. That's what positronic brains do, I know, because I saw it on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Creepy. Mother. Fucker.

Anyway, instead of modding an oversized blinky LED kit from Radio Shack like I did before, I used a circuit from the All About Circuit forum again and used a single 555 IC chip to the job of a couple transistors. I slapped it into an Altoids tin I had lying around.

It fit nicely into a spot I carved out in the brain area.

I also threaded wire through the eye sockets up to the brain. It's easier to have it all controlled on one switch, methinks, and it's easily all powered from a single 9V battery.

Voila. This bad ass mother fucker is now ready to go forth and kill.

Resurrectionist: Ampeg SVT-810E

2012-12-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in the '90s, everything became disposable and cheap. NAFTA made lives disposable and cheap. Reality shows made art disposable and cheap. Music companies made their gear disposable and cheap. I have not the inclination to make the philosophical leap as to why. What I do have is a good example of this. SLM Music, who owned the Ampeg name in the '90s, put out the worst version of an Ampeg 8x10, the "Classic" 810E cabinet. It has eight 10" speakers and is based on the original winning design from the '70s. They are made so poorly with shit wood, however, they are often left to rot rather than fix. Well, I said fuck that. One of these fell into my hands, crumbling and falling apart. I brought it back to life.

When I dragged this out of the apartment from the folks who bestowed it on me, it was missing the bottom entirely. It had the prerequisite tolex rips of every punk rocker's cab. The baffle board rocked back and forth and could bust your fingers. It was missing a speaker. I rebuilt the bottom, replaced the speaker, and the cab served me well on a few tours. When I sold my Ampeg SVT-2Pro to my bud Brian from Merdoso and formerly of Stormcrow, I offered the cab as part of the deal so long as he covered the expense of a heavy-duty restoration so I could have some fun making the monstrosity punk-proof. And fun I had.

The main problem with this era of 8x10s is the wood. SLM really cheaped the fuck out and started using OSB, "oriented strand board," instead of the traditional and much stronger baltic birch ply. OSB plywood is made from sheets of scrap wood glued together in layers. It's fine if you're putting it inside of a wall, but not so great if you're using it as the side of a heavy box that some numbskull bassist is lifting in and out of a van every night.

The sides of this guy here were totally pitted. It had lost one speaker again, the other was used for another cab. The grill had been mangled so I just threw it away. My initial repair work had gone south half-way through one tour, so it was littered with screws. The original jack plate on the back had long been missing and replaced with a cheap alternative. Ugh... what a sight.

The bottom panel I'd custom built was actually holding up the best. The casters had been salvaged for the Ampeg 1540HE I'd restored before. I'd used 3/4" baltic birch ply, good and sturdy. I lacked a lot of carpentry skills when I did this (still do), but managed to cobble the two panels together with a skill saw, a sander, and some determination. Please, someone buy me a table saw and router.

While these bottom panels worked well with themselves, the wear and tear of the two noodniks who drug this cab around without a bottom had gone too far. The OSB was worn down and barely could hold a screw or glue. I wanted my friend Brian to have a cab that was punk-proof, so I had to reinforce everything. I thought about cutting out pieces of the bottom and replacing them, but went with a different approach. Kind of like when Charlie Brown puts a scarf round his head for a sore tooth, I'd brace the bottom against the sides.

I got some 4x3/4" baltic birch wood and made the brace. In this pic, you can see how worn down the corner of the OSB is. I glued and used finishing nails to attach the brace to the bottom of the cabinet.

I routed the corners of the wood with my Dremel router (I really need a real router). I filled in the gaps with some Evercoat Universal Repair Filler for a consistent surface. This stuff is a two-part mix and really strong. I also used it to fill in lots of dings and scratches along the sides and even the corners up top where I was going to install new corner protectors.

I can't say I did the most amazing job making the surfaces like new, but I did a pretty good one. Tolex would've covered up any imperfections. There was just a few problems with that idea:
1. With the brace on the bottom, this would be a very difficult job to Tolex
2. I don't know how to Tolex anything, and I wasn't gonna start with this
Which is why it is painted with some Zinsser 1-2-3 Primer. I'd planned on using DuraTex Speaker Cabinet Coating paint instead of Tolex. It's made to cover music gear and properly applied, simulates the look of Tolex. I'd read it didn't need primer, but I'd also read some people had problems with it sticking to surfaces that had filler in it instead of just bare wood. Hence, the primer.

The DuraTex is applied with a foam roller that creates the texture. Lots of experimenting can be done here to create different textures with smooth applications by brush followed by the foam roller, extra thick coats, etc. Basically, I'm impressed as shit with this stuff after my first time trying it. It applies easily, cleans up with water, and dries within hours.

The look is super impressive. From a short distance, it really does look like Tolex, minus the fact you can see some of the more major dings and seams in the wood underneath that I failed to hide completely. The wood could have been left bare, for all Brian cared, but it wouldn't be protected against the elements.

The OEM casters this cab had were installed in another project. I really didn't feel like ordering more casters online, waiting, blah blah, and then having them unavailable locally if they needed to get replaced again. Here's the same size 3" caster in a different housing, cheaply purchased from any Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. It has a taller, but thinner base. It rides a little higher than the OEM casters from Ampeg. In this case, that was perfect because of the extra depth of the wood brace I'd added.

I drilled some new holes, threw in the t-nuts on the opposite side, and bolted the new casters on. In hindsight, I might have placed the holes closer in on the cabinet... those outer holes were so close to the inside wall of the cabinet, the t-nuts almost didn't fit.

I used traditional style Fender cabinet corners for the top of the cabinet. I had to get those online. For the bottom brace, I was able to use some 3" corner braces available at most hardware stores. I also later added some 2" corner braces to the back-top of this area, because I thought it would be nice to protect the wood brace from getting bashed by door jams while being pulled into clubs. Instead of wood screws, Ampeg uses #8 1/2" truss head sheet metal screws for this application. They have a much nicer look, I guess. I found matching ones at ACE Hardware, but not Home Depot or OSH. Go figure.

I put new rubber bumpers on the brace, about where they'd been on the original bottom of the cab. Because of the sizing of the brace and the casters, I had to cut the bumpers a bit to make sure the cabinet stayed even with the ground.

At some point, SLM started adding plastic skid rails to their Ampeg 8x10 cabs. I liked this idea a lot, so I wanted to add them to the cab I was restoring. I went to Tap Plastics and had them cut two 3/4x3/4" pieces. I took these home and put a 45° angle on the ends so it would match the back of the cabinet. I drilled holes for #8 screws through. I then expanded these holes halfway so they would fit the whole head of the screw inside the rail. This smooth surface would allow the cab to be drug on and off stages without actually touching the finish on the wood.

The other thing that was added to the 8x10 30 years after it's initial introduction was a kick plate to the bottom. So... why the fuck not add one to this.

I got a cheap sheet of aluminum and rounded the edges a bit. It bent really easy over the side of the cabinet and was fit nicely.

I used the same #8 truss head sheet metal screws here. I didn't even have to drill the metal, I just punched it with a nail. It's a small touch, but should help with scuffing of the finish and the wood. It also looks kinda Mad Max-ish.

For the missing jack plate, I used the same cheap aluminum sheeting and cut it to fit the recessed area. I thought about installing a Neutrik speakON connector. I even found one that works for speakON and standard 1/4" plugs. In the end, I didn't like the way the dual jack would be mounted, so I went with a standard jack. I chose to use a gold-plated plastic jack because I liked the way the black nut looked. Vanity is a bitch.

The back of the cabinet was done and looked great. Now the front came to the fore, as fronts are apt to do.

The two missing speakers were replaced with cheap Jensen MOD 10-50 10" 32Ω speakers. Brian was looking to keep costs down, so we didn't go for the high-end Eminence replacements. The current review is "the cab sounds amazing!" so I guess the MOD speakers worked just fine. As luck would have it, I actually had all the original speaker mounting screws. If you're looking for replacements, though, you need black #8 1" pan head sheet metal screws.

My next issue was the grill. The original frame was so busted, it was unusable. I built a new one from some cheap pine wood.

I spray painted the front and sides with flat black spray paint so it wouldn't show through once covered.

Instead of using expensive grill cloth, I opted for black screen door material. In retrospect, I probably could've spent a little more and gotten the kind of screen door material meant to withstand animal abuse. The stuff I got is pretty thin. I used a staple gun and pulled each side taught and stapled it down with a ton of staples. It's very similar to stretching a canvas, something I did a few times back in my college days. It's a pain in the ass. The lesson here is, be careful with your original grill.

I used this kinda Scotch heavy duty fasteners because it's very similar material to the plastic screw-on grill fasteners Ampeg uses. I didn't feel like ordering those, though, and found these at the local hardware store instead. Sometimes I just eschew the Internet, but if you're so inlined (nerd), you can get OEM style grill fasteners from fliptops.net.

I also added a pull tag to the grill. Have you ever tried to get a grill off and found yourself cursing and ruining the adjoining wood? Well, I just stapled on a little scrap off the end of a seat belt. Now the grill pulls off easy, peasy, nice and squeezy.

Apparently, I forgot to take photos of the final bit, adding a metal grill over the cloth one. I bought some fairly fine mesh aluminum flashing from Home Depot, cut it down to size with my Dewalt angle grinder, and screwed it on. It adds an awesome sheen to the front of the cab for just a few bucks and protects the grill cloth from any errant drum stands poking through it.

All this was done for around $130. That includes the $50 gallon of DuraTex, and I have plenty left over for future projects. Brian is stoked to have a renewed 8x10 cabinet and I'm stoked to have some extra shit outta my garage.

Newer Ampeg 8x10s appear to be made better, but there are a myriad of this cheaper era 8x10 littering punk jam spots all over the country. They sound great, though, and can be brought up to snuff for not much dough. Any idjit would do his self a favor to take a little bit of time, before it completely falls apart, to do a few upgrades and make that shit tour strong.

STD Greeting Cards: You need these!

2012-12-07T15:00:00.003-08:00

My fiancee and I have been mulling about on a project for some time now. Probably, like, a year. Touring and stuff often gets in the way of fun stuff like this. Finally, however, I was able to make some time. It is here I am for the first time displaying our first ever joint artistic effort; STD greeting cards.

I've gone and screen printed four different cards, all featuring just the most adorable little animal I could draw. These are going to be sold as a set of four, bundled up all cute, and just in time for the holidays! What makes these so special, besides my amazing art and a wonderful four color screen printing job? The messages inside... each one has a different message declaring from the sender to the sendee an APOLOGY for whatever SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE you might have given them. You had to know the idea was gonna get sick at some point, right?

I drew these up awhile ago and just recently found time to screen them. Technically, I printed five colors, as I had to do the inside print as well. My fiancee got them scored and folded, and now they're ready to ship. D.I.Y. to the core. And just look at the fantastic designs.

Awww, a cute punk rock pug! Goofy siamese siamese-twin cats! A kitten with a broken arm! A wiener dog dressed as a cowboy AND a horse! This'll all cushion the blow for the bad news you have to deliver...

Oh shit! You've got fucking herpes! That blows... but wook at that wittle crusty pug. Who could stay mad at that face?

This dachshund wants to give you a round of applause... because you got the clap. Better get it treated soon, I hear it's becoming drug resistant.

Oh you jerky cats... that's an awfully mean trick to play on someone! Don't worry though, they look mighty embarrassed about it, and that really cushions the blow of having to go to the doctor to get that shit frozen off your junk.

Oh shit! Ya got the big one! well, fuck it, look at that poor witty kitty cat. He wishes he could play with a ball of yarn; you wish you'd worn a jimmy hat. It's all relative.

If this sounds more like an advertisement than a D.I.Y. blog post, that's cause it is... buy these fucking cards! Just for the cute animals or for the sick joke inside... send it to an ex! Send it to your current partner! Do the right thing and apologize, or do the wrong thing and freak someone out! Put it on your fridge and bum out your roommates! I don't give a shit!

These all come with envelopes in packets of four, wrapped in nice ribbon, all mailed in a sturdy packet for the low, low price of $15, postage paid. Four different original screen printed art cards with four different STD messages inside; that's a lot of funny for fucking cheap.

If you've read this far, you've got a sense of humor... you can buy this limited edition set at our Etsy shop, STD Design. If enough people dig this, then get ready for some more sick-o cute humor. Me and my fiancee have a lot of great ideas to come and not one is beneficial to society at large. GUARANTEED!

That link again... STD Design on Etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/117482286/std-sympathy-card-set-of-4-vol-1
Buy our cards.

Sewer Bæby part 3: GCB-95 Crybaby mods

2012-11-30T09:22:00.000-08:00

In the last installment of this thrilling three part series, I covered the internal changes I made to my Crybaby GCB-95 wah, which became my treasured Sewer Bæby. Being that was one of my first excursions into pedal modifications, I decided to take it all the way to learn a thing or three. I wanted to muck about with the aesthetics to show pride in my work, so I learned at least one way to reskin this cat.

The best way to paint any stomp box is powder coating. That's the process whereby particles of color are electro-magnetically applied to a metal and then cooked on to form a super protective layer of paint. That's the way the pros do it. I'm not a pro. I didn't have the luxury of owning a powder coating system when I did this and I imagine most people never will. Cans of paint it is.

First I had to disassemble the wah. Most of it is easy (so long as you didn't glue in an LED, like I said to hold off doing in the last related post). Unscrew the feet and the bottom pops off. I highly recommend using a socket wrench to carefully remove the bolts holding in the EASILY STRIPPABLE plastic PCB mount jacks. It all seems easy... until you get to separating the base and the treadle. There's an axle pin holding it to a metal tension rod attached to the base. It's got to be hammered out.

The tension rod holding the axle can be removed by loosening the exposed bolts on the inside of the wah chassis. Then the axle can be hammered out using a hammer and a nail set. The trick is to go the right direction.

The axle has splines on one side to grip the wah treadle. The other side is (usually) shaped to help guide it into the holes when the wah is first manufactured. To avoid too much damage on the splines, hammer the opposite side when getting the axle out. When it comes time for reassembly, hammer the smooth side in first so the splines don't have to get drug through the whole assembly.

One thing I never did was remove the rack from the treadle that drives the rack and pinion gear assembly. I couldn't find a replacement for the pin holding it that I was sure to damage. The paint job I was doing was all air dry, though, so I moved on. Ce la vie. Maybe I'll figure it out another time.

The rubber foot pad was next. I just peeled it off and cleaned away the glue residue with a little Goof Off. Mineral spirits or nail polish remover might also work.

With everything taken out of the shell, I removed the paint. The first time I did this, I sanded all the original powder coating off. What a pain in the ass. If you're comfortable with it, I'd recommend using some Jasco paint remover to get the bulk off. It's nasty stuff. You'll need heavy duty gloves and a mask, but it's fast and does the job way cleaner than sand paper. Just be careful of that plastic rack, if it's still attached to the treadle. The Jasco can dissolve it. And then... look at that shine!

Yes, there are two here, because some of these pictures are from subsequent wah modification projects. Bare with me, here. [not a malaprop; pun fully intended]

I built a little spray booth from an old plastic bin. I used wire hangars to hang the parts so I wouldn't have to touch the pieces and I could hang them to dry. The painting process went as follows:
• Rust-Oleum self-etching primer: the self-etching primer bonds better to the exposed metal.
• Rust-Oleum engine enamel paint: I figured that'd be pretty fucking strong compared to most paint. I waited a day and did a second coat.
• Hung out to dry.

Once my parts were dry, I wanted to add some lables... like, WAY too many labels.

I designed these in Illustrator and printed them out on Papilio Laser Printer Water Slide Decal paper. It took a few sheets to get the right setting on my printer and not have the sheets glue themselves to the printer drum head. Once I got it, though, the labels came out fantastic. The lighter colors do get swallowed up a bit, but it still looks rad.

After doing this a few times, I now make the labels' negative space larger and match the entire measurements of the side they are going on. That hides the edges better. The labels are super easy to apply; just cut 'em out, soak in warm water, and the clear label slides off ready to apply on any surface. It's just like those old airplane models that nobody ever made.

Once the labels are dry, I finish up the paint job with a coat of Varathane Polyurethane gloss spray. That protects the labels and gives that extra gloss, manufactured look. It also helps hide the edges of the label a bit more. Additional coats can make it look even shinier and fancier by adding more depth to the surface.

It's relatively easy to reassemble, though getting the axle and tension rod back together can be a bit tricky. Assemble the tension rod loosely, hammer the axle back in through the space, and then tighten the bolts inside the base with a socket wrench. I reattached the rubber pad to the treadle with some Loctite quick-set epoxy. The rest is a snap... just reverse what ya done to take it all apart.

If you're missing some manufacturer specific parts for your wah, like feet, battery cover, Hot Potz, gears, etc., I recommend the fine folks at Antique Electronic Supply. They have all the original Dunlop parts you might need along with a slew of after-market upgrades and add ons. They always give me fast service and seem to have some of the cheaper prices for this generally overpriced shit.

Ghoulection 2012: Transmission Fifteen... end transmission

2012-11-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

It has been an amazing year for us, but ahead is Europe in early 2013 with our "buds" and Tankcrimes label mates, Cannabis Corpse. We ended our 2012 run of shows with a real bang of a weekend. The first show on Friday, November 16th, was with Tankcrimes label mates Vitamin X. The show itself was a Tankcrimes joint. Our own "fifth member" Scott Bryan was currently working with GWAR, so this weekend we drafted Mr. Tankcrimes himself, Scotty Karate. Tankcrimes, Tankcrimes, Tankcrimes!

Some zipper heads might recognize this flyer as having been outside the Metro the same day they were paying twice as much to see the "Misfits all-star cover band featuring Jerry, only." Ah, ce la vie, how to compete with a legend? Well, you pack a smaller room with a bunch of numbskulls who beat the shit out of each other, that's how.

It was a hectic night at the Oakland Metro Opera House as the tigers into horror punk and the tigers into horror thrash met... and got along fine, I guess. The security kept the shows as separated as they could, but there was some bleed. And some blood. For our part, we were demoted to the smaller room at the Metro. The kindly staff, however, knew our needs well. They did an awesome job constructing the first ever back stage in that room. Thanks!

For my part, I was exhausted. The week had been full of work followed by nights of trying to replicate and build new props for our treading of the boards. Some of our finer show pieces had been left behind in New Jersey after playing the death fest there, only to be left unshipped as a direct result of the chaos following Hurricane Sandy. Yup, we're victims, too. But Governor Chris Christie ain't helping to make sure a robot and a monkey make their way to Cali for rigged fight. Nonetheless, the night and I soldiered on.

I missed Fucktard due to not eating all day while I was finishing a lazer chainsaw. Yes, a lazer chainsaw. More about that in a future post! I caught a bit of the band added on late, Brazilian punkers O Inimigo. They played a good set and jumped around a lot.

Next up was Conquest for Death. Though I'm good friends with Robert and Devon, I have to sadly admit I blinked and entirely missed their brief set. By all accounts from my band mates, it was ruling... as I had expected and wanted to see. My tired, sick ass stepped outside to sit a spell while they were setting up. I came back in, and they were done. FUCK! Time to drink with some buds at the Metro.

Before us was Vitamin X, the straight edge band from... Amsterdam? Ya gotta rebel against whatever ya got, I guess. They came on and kicked some major ass. These guys act like complete pros on stage, but lose none of the underground attitude. Circle pits were in excess.

Finally, we were on, and none too soon. I was exhausted, but tried to power through so I hopefully wouldn't embarrass my bandmates. Even so, we were called out for a second encore which I just couldn't do. I breathed heavily in a corner of the back stage and shook my head, "no." One is more than enough, my lovely tigers! We had a really good show, as we always do with all our friends in the town of oaks.

We headed home for the eve, to get an early start in the morning to Camarillo, CA, near Ventura. By early, I mean I drove to everyone's sleeping places in the morning with the van and trailer with no one was ready to go. Bitches! We got a show to do!

I can't lie, I had a bad feeling about this show when we arrived. The place, Rock City Studios, was clean as a whistle. When I spotted a costume Proton Pack left over from Halloween, the owner said I was welcome to use it, but just not to use silly string. Ya gotta be kidding me. We're a lot of things, but clean isn't one of them. Sean held out more hope and spoke with the owner. She INSISTED we do our full show with blood spewing and all. "Just be careful of the mural!" You know, the 40' long mural of the Golden Gate Bridge... in Camarillo.

Our "dressing room"

To say that the show was a hodgepodge of entertainment is an understatement. Apparently, a lot of bands needed shows near L.A. around this time. We all got lumped together. From pop punk, hardcore, funeral doom, to us, it was odd. You could see the difference between bevested thrashers and polo shirt hardcore fans as they kept to opposite sides of the room.

Even up to the last minute, I thought the show was doomed. The crowd had been less than enthusiastic for every band before us. Boy, was I wrong, though. It was madness. Super enjoyable madness.

We had a great time with the tigers of Camarillo and I happily ate my words. The staff only begrudged us slightly for having to clean up, as Scotty had mixed the blood pretty light. Only a little bit got on their mural. It wiped right off. Phew! We left in good graces.

We headed to the liquor store in Camarillo. As we walked up, the owner was closing. Lucky for us, he opened back up and let us shop. Lucky for him, he probably made another hundred or so for the night from a bunch of stupid alcoholics. This night was blessed. We headed to our pal Leon del Muerte's pad in Los Angeles to hang with him and Maximum Fluoride himself, Mike Fisher.

Smoke, you fools!

My precious!! Dan... not the pipe.

It was a lazy morning the next day before we headed to San Diego. I dropped everyone off for breakfast, aka early dinner by the time we got everyone out of Leon's house and went on my way through Hollywood.

The night before, in Camarillo, I'd taken quite a spill over Scotty's leg when he had come out as our robot. I landed squarely on the guitar plug for my Sennheiser ew 172 G3 wireless system and broke it. I headed down Sunset to the musicians ghetto, where Peavey, Sam Ash, Guitar Center, and Mesa Boogie meet to rip us all off. It was at Sam Ash that I found what I'd hoped would be a replacement, a HOSA 1/8" TRS plug to mono 1/4" plug. The one time I didn't bring my fix it kit, wouldn't ya know. Turns out, the actual Sennheiser cord has the tip and sleeve of the 1/8" input wired to ground of the 1/4" input. The cord I got has the tip and ring of the 1/8" input summed to the tip of the 1/4" input. Confused? Doesn't matter... it worked. And it was a lot cheaper than a direct replacement from Sennheiser.

Off to San Diego for the capper of the weekend, the D.R.I. show put on our friend Syd and the Pyrate Punx of San Diego!

I really thought we were going to be late, but nope, we were early! Apparently, Sunday shows in San Diego are lax... I would assume all the avocados eaten down there make everyone easy going. We had enough time to do some serious fucking around as we made our version of a sandwich board walk down the street to drum up some business for the show.

Like this show needed it... the line-up was solid enough, even without headliner D.R.I. Add them to the mix, and you've got a bona fide hit going on! We hung with them back stage a bit and had a good time. It's always weird when you make friends with fellow Bay Area locals while hundreds of miles away from home.

The two openers were good hardcore and then up came Witchaven. We've played with this band a lot this past year and they're always great. Their sound is phenomenal and they play super tight, fast and catchy thrash. Is it a wonder why I enjoy them every time?

We came on and had a great show. Unfortunately for Scotty, the fella who'd said he'd be there to help backstage before the show completely disappeared! He was nowhere to be found! It was fortuitous that we'd been making friends with Harald O. earlier. He was on the side of the stage enjoying our set, when Scotty drafted him to help get dressed for stage. Scotty almost took a dive, but Harald propped him up and helped us immensely. I also drug Harald out onto stage and made him dance with me like he did with Watain during an infamous moment at a previous MDF... but I didn't beat him up like Watain. Beyond that, it was stage dives, dancing, and death galore!

We finished our set and D.R.I. was up. Boy oh boy, they did not disappoint. The crowd went thrashing mad for an hour and a half (!) of Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. They squeaked out two encores and left the crowd filled to the brim with crossover joy.

The weekend was over all too quick. We had a long way to go home, and unfortunately, work the next day. Dan the Spam Randall took off in a plane from San Diego while the rest of us trucked it all night back to the Bay.

And the year is over, too, for our band of hooded menaces. What a wild ride, and the next year promises to be just as exciting... minus that whole Quetzalcoatl, end of the world bullshit. Well, it's either that or hippies leading us to the Age of Aquarius. Frankly, I haven't got much hope for either to be enjoyable.

Torture of Duty: Impaled gets Napalm Wasted

2012-11-20T19:45:00.000-08:00

November 12th was an epic night for metal in Oakland, California. Napalm Death and Municipal Waste bringing us a show of epic proportions.

Along with long-time metal stalwarts and former locals, Exhumed, punk legends and actual locals, Attitude Adjustment, and last and probably least, our own gang in Impaled, you've got a bill worth getting in line for. A big fucking line.

You like Slayer? Me TOO!

That line went around the corner and around the corner again... and this photo was taken AFTER I'd finished a set with Impaled. There was no way for the doormen to keep up with the massive amount of people that showed up. The Oakland Metro Opera House is an enormous venue with a main room, side room, and three bars. All of it was filled to the brim with people ready to thrash... not bad for a Monday!

We showed up at the venue around the time of Municipal Waste's sound check.

It's always good to see these guys. Apparently, Tony and crew had personally asked that we be the local openers for the show. The promoter was sweating we had flaked because we weren't there at 3PM. Gimme a break, m'boy... we're the locals and we have jobs. Our jam spot is less than a mile away and we didn't need no stinking sound check. Still, we got one once the Waste was done and Exhumed had set up.

you can wait, to set up, dick

Sonny Reinhardt from Word Salad and Saviours did our sound and it was phenomenal all the way round. Your a lucky duck to work with him or our buddies Sal and Greg at the Metro. The staff there is awesome, and I'm not just saying that because they give me lots of beer. I'm saying it including the fact they give me lots of beer.

Our set started off to a pretty empty room, thanks to the intense line outside. It thickened up as we went and we had a great time playing. Headbangers were going at it up front. There was a few attempts at a good pit, but alas, most of the crowd was still outdoors. We played... sans costume. That's right. No scrubs, no stasi outfit, no lab coats, no guitar-string deadening blood. And you know what? No one complained. We played metal and talked shit and that was enough. You got a problem with the Doktor wearing his civvies and just enjoying himself? Take it up with the G.O.R.E. Corps.

Attitude Adjustment was up next. They are punchy, tight crossover and totally amped up the crowd. That's one of many fun things about a show with Municipal Waste; one can have equal parts metal, punk, and crossover and everyone still has a good time.

Are you there, God? It's me, Kevin.

Exhumed was ready to slay. I'd run into Mr. Bud Burke before the show. I've seen this kid grow up back in the South Bay playing in his old bands, Detective Cunt and the sadly little-known Pale Existence. He replaced me in Exhumed, sad only because people still ask if I was the guy who puked on them; even though I don't have curly hair and I'm not short. I always thought, however, it was a waste to keep this talented dude on bass when I knew he was such a smoking good guitar player. That situation has happily been rectified.

Look, ma! No vomit!

Needless to say, Exhumed was well received. This crowd knows the gore metallers well and reacted with nothing but a chainsaw-like fury (of course).

Oh, and ill-timed stage dives. Poor Matt Harvey Wallbanger got his head banged a little harder than he was ready for by a too-fervent fan. He knocked the microphone right into Matt's lip and split it real good. Ouch. Me and original Exhumed guitarist Derrel Houdashelt joined up for a game of humonkey in the middle.

Don't worry, chicks dig the scars.

Municipal Waste came out and did what they do best... pretty much everything. I've seen these guys blow up from their days of playing illegal punk venues, but believe it or not, they didn't hone their craft. They didn't have to. They always had it. At times, there were more stage divers on stage than band members.

It was so rabid a crowd I couldn't even get a photo from the front. Membership has its privileges, though, so my pushing-middle-age ass enjoyed the set from the back. It was extra cool for us in Impaled to finally play a show with the Waste; we'd been told the first death metal show Landphil ever attended had Impaled on the bill. Way to make me feel old, ya cock.

These are some of the coolest dudes I know, having spent a good amount of time with them on tour. They also had our back on getting us this fun gig, so to the whole Wasted crew, much thanks.

On a side note, those wonderful tour posters that Municipal Waste had? Yeah, that's right... we printed them at the shop I work at, Monolith Press. PLUG.

As the evening drew to a close, the almighty Napalm Death came to the fore to lay waste to a much appreciative crowd of victims.

Barney bantered in his inimitable (and at times, un-understandable) style, never losing a moment of energy as he moshed about the stage in a pit of his own. The rest of the crew kept it up, grinding the evening, finally, to a halt.

It was a total blast (no pun intended) all night and spirits were high. And why shouldn't they have been? The fucking kids, tigers, and miscreants get WASTED (pun intended) and leave this mess behind for the crew at the Metro to clean up.

Filthy pigs.

Sewer Bæby part 2: GCB-95 Crybaby mods

2012-11-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Sewer Bæby... MY Sewer Bæby. This was one of my first pedal modification projects and it still remains one of the favorite effects I own. What happens when you take a salvaged, humble Dunlop Crybaby GCB-95 Wah and mod it? Falling into the rabbit hole of pedal geekery is one thing. Having a wah custom to your tastes is second. I've already written about how I added true-bypass and a much needed power indicating LED to this little guy. Next, I got into the guts and made it a kick ass bass wah: my fucking BABY.

The wah circuit is quite simple in terms of the quantity of parts. It's a very interesting circuit, though, as it's application wasn't even intended by the inventors. It was supposed to be a mid-boost, but instead acted as a variable band-pass filter that simulated the human voice. If you're interested in the intricacies of it, there's no better article than The Technology of Wah Pedals over at Geofex.com. Alternatively, you can do just as I did: dive in based on a bunch of photos and descriptions of sound to shape up the tone of your wah.

The first wah modification is the easiest. It involves the rack and pinion gear. When you press up and down on the pedal, the rack lifts or lowers and that rotates the pinion gear on the potentiometer. That potentiometer is what adjusts the filter to make the "wah wah" sound. Because of the constraints of the pedal size, the rack can only be so long. It moves the gear about 180°. Your average potentiometer can turn a full 270°. You can reset where the rack starts on the pinion gear, then, and change where the filter stops and starts.

Move aside the plastic cord clamp that holds the rack against the pinion gear. Sometimes it must be unscrewed. Then, move the pot to a new starting place on the rack. If the turn starts at 0° on the pot, you get the highest and loudest frequencies of the wah first. Start it later and it'll sound a bit more even and with less noticeable gain. Start it too late, and you won't hear much of anything. Just be sure the rack doesn't push past the 0° point of the pot's turn, or you could break something.

Side note; if you have to replace that white plastic clamp, it's a common "cord clamp" available in the electrical department of your local hardware store. That grease on the rack and pinion gear is common all-purpose white lithium grease. Most wahs could do a with a refresher of that.

The potentiometer itself is another subject altogether. Inside the cheap Crybaby GCB-95s available by the scores on craigslist, one will usually find a Dunlop manufactured "Hot Potz." They are typically 100k in value, though Dunlop bass wahs have a 20k and their Hendrix wah has a 470k. I found the standard 100k to have the best range, even for bass. You could use any other pot here, but the Hot Potz apparently have a unique taper and are sealed.

Now let's do some soldering. Here are the changes I found useful. R.G. Keen lists plenty of possible component changes in his The Technology of Wah Pedals article. There are other component changes listed on a good website by the name of Stinkfoot.se. I'm fairly certain I've tried them all, and these are the ones that worked for me.

I'll explain the changes left to right and top to bottom:
• The 82k resistor affects the bias of one of the transistors which affects the collector of one of the others. To my ears, it saturated the tone and toned down the highs a tad by taking it up to 100k.
• The 1.5k resistor shapes the curve of the mid-range frequencies. I bumped it up a bit to 2.2k, which increased the mids. As an Ampeg loyalist, ya gotta know I love my mids on bass guitar.
• The 390k resistor affects the gain and amount of bass available. Lowering it increases gain and bass levels. I added a variable resistor by snapping off the clockwise leg of a mini-potentiometer. I played with it a bit to color my tone to taste. Having modded some other wahs, in the future I'd just stick with 220k as my value of choice.

The final upgrade I made was to the all important inductor section of the wah circuit. The contemporary stock inductor needed to be replaced by something with a little more mojo.

As explained in The Technology of Wah Pedals, the original, coveted Fasel inductors from the earliest wah pedals are flawed: another happy mistake by a company working on the cheap. Like a lot of components of music gear, like vacuum tubes, the flaws are also the virtue. Inductors are supposed to have an even core, but the old inductors are somehow uneven and produce harmonics in an asymmetrical fashion. Yeah, I know, gobbledy-gook. I don't quite get it all the way, myself. The point is, it sounds richer. Lucky us, Dunlop is reproducing these Fasel inductors and they are available for relatively cheap on the after-market.

These reproduction inductors come in two flavors: red and yellow. Yellow is supposed to sound more like the original with "singing tones," while the red inductor is supposed to create "harmonic sparkle." Whatever, Mr. Ad Copy. I bought red because I like red.

The original inductor is mounted with four legs. The Fasel reproduction inductor has only two legs. Lucky us, the generic PCB in the Dunlop GCB-95 Crybaby has a lot of holes with which to fit a myriad of different inductors. You just have ta make sure you mount it correctly so the two holes you fit the Fasel inductor into aren't connected. Easy enough just by looking, thoroughly done by checking for continuity with a multi-meter. Mount and solder as shown...

Now, light this bitch up and play! Here it is, compared to the old, stock Crybaby. Dueling wahs!

Pretty sweet, just for adding a few parts to a pedal that goes as low as $40 in the after-market. In a few weeks, I'll post how I gussed up the exterior of the Sewer Bæby to match the improvements made to the insides.

Sewer Bæby part 1: GCB-95 Crybaby mods

2012-11-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Going back, way back, I found a broken Dunlop GCB-95 Crybaby wah pedal in our jam space. I thought, huh, maybe I could use this if I figure out what was wrong with it. It turned out to be a loose battery clip, easily fixed. Than I thought, huh, sounds okay, what would make it sound better? A few internet searches later, I was led down the rabbit hole into the wild and wooly (more like impractical and laborious) world of modifying effects pedals. With a bit more knowledge under the belt, it's time reevaluate what I did and look at what is still one of my favorite pedals on my board, the Sewer Bæby.

It's a little beat up after a some years touring, but the hot rod paint job I gave the Sewer Bæby to distinguish it from yer typical Crybaby still looks alright. Of course none of that matters; it's the inside that counts, right? Tell that to whomever you set on a blind date with Temple Grandin.

The wah is a deceptively simple circuit invented back around 1966. At it's core, it was an attempt to duplicate, on-the-cheap, an expensive mid-range boost system from the popular Vox amplifiers. Using an inductor, a couple transistors, and a potentiometer instead of a switch, the engineers at Thomas Organ inadvertently created something very different and way more cool: a harmonically rich bandpass filter with a movable frequency peak that emulates the tonal qualities of the human voice. Or more simple and onomatopoeically put, the wah-wah.

Thanks to Jimi Hendrix and others, this has become probably the most influential effect in rock music right after distortion. Variations on the wah circuit have been made with different names, but the basic Crybaby is the most ubiquitous. Dunlop eventually bought the name and design for manufacture. They made the pedal cheap enough for every beginning player to own one as soon as they got to "Foxy Lady" in their tablature book.

Some flaws existed in the original design before things like "true-bypass" became chic, and others have been introduced with mass-manufacturing. The first problem I intended to fix was the so-called "tone-suck." This is a real problem, not just mojo, and its cause is a shitty little switch.

A classic wah is activated by a switch in the toe of the pedal. For many years, the only stomp switch available to pedal manufacturers was the cheap-o single-pull double-throw (SPDT). In order to work, the input signal has to be split, decreasing its voltage, so that the output can be connected to either signal at any given time. Fine, except we're talking audio signal here, so decreasing voltage decreases audible quality. In the '60s and '70s, one just suffered this fate when using pedals. Modern Dunlop Wahs "solved" the problem by adding a buffer to the wah circuit. That's cheaper than upgrading the switch. The best option, in my opinion, is to ditch that buffer and add a DPDT switch for true-bypass... or better yet, a 3PDT switch; then we can add a power indicator LED and start marching this classic towards modernity.

Here's a picture of how I did it:

EW!! What a fucking mess is that! Like I said, this was one of my earliest pedal modification projects. Believe it or not, that mess o' shit actually works. If I tried to update that, I'm more likely to break the 3PDT switch than I am to fix something that ain't broke. HOWEVER, if I were to start anew, there's a much more clean way to do this.

First, we can remove the buffer section. It's janky anyway, and we're gonna make sure that a full signal goes where it needs to, no buffer needed. Once that buffer is removed, though, the signal chain to the effect will be broken. To amend that, a new wire has to be added that will connect to the switch. I added it where the emitter leg of the MPSA13 transistor was. This will lead to the stomp switch.

Yer standard GCB-95 Crybaby has no power indicator. By all rights, one should be able to tell when their Crybaby is on, but the din of heavy metal can mislead. While true-bypassing, there's no reason to not add an LED indicator. There's two nice spots to add the wires for LED power: right near the power adapter input. The Crybaby has a power cap right after this section. In theory, your LED will not affect the power of the effect as it lights up or add popping.

The LED has a really nice home near the toe of the treadle. There's a hole already drilled there on the side. I assume it acts as a hook hold for powder coating. It also fits a 3mm LED with an LED holder. I did have to add a touch of glue as the thickness of the treadle doesn't allow the LED holder to snap in securely. The wires thread in right past the pinion gear hole on the top of the base.

The stomp switch wiring I did was shit. Well, not complete shit, it works. There's a better way I've learned since wiring this pedal, though. I'd recommend it over the slop I managed way back. Make sure you add the correct resistor value for your LED; a 1.5K will work for most.

It can get a little confusing. Older Crybabys sometimes have differently colored wires and you'll have to trace their paths. There's also that junction of blue wires. On older wahs, this junction was made on the pot itself. On modern wahs, it's done on the switch. Either way works, so don't fuckin' sweat it.

My Sewer Bæby was vastly improved by adding true-bypass. The indicator LED was a major bonus, as well. In part 2 of this process, I improve the tone and make it sound better for bass; next week, true believers.

P.S. Con muchas gracias, the following links helped this n00b on his path to figure this stuff out way back:
http://stinkfoot.se/archives/tag/crybaby
http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/wahpedl/wahped.htm

Ghoulection 2012: Transmission Fourteen

2012-10-26T08:00:00.001-07:00

We were invited by our friend Shlak to play the New Jersey Death Fest 4 this past weekend. With friends like Shlak, who needs enemas? We met this crazy mother fucker some years back after we'd watched him wrap himself in barbed-wire and staple dollars to his head while bleeding everywhere during a set with his old band, Call the Paramedics. You never could imagine a sweeter, more cordial fellow caked in blood. We flew out for what was sure to be a night of steady blast beats and pinch harmonics. We wouldn't fit in at all.

This was going to be an epic weekend. We would play the fest, stay in New Jersey, and then follow it up with a sweet show at St. Vitus in Brooklyn. It WAS going to be a sweet weekend. Some colossal shit dickery occurred between some members of our band, promoters, and bookers which led to a misunderstanding that wasn't revealed until days before the event. We had to cancel the Brooklyn show. All I can say is, my dick remained free of any shit. As it stood, we had a lot of fun in New Jersey, despite, or maybe because of, the chaos.

We arrived at LaGuardia in New York pretty late. Sean arranged a transport with a lad named John from Philly who was going to the fest anyway. John was great all weekend, shuttling us around and then even performing in our act when we were pinched. See, our Pete Best, aka Scott Bryan, was recently poached by GWAR for a tour. Apparently, Scott's resumé looked good after GWAR had seen him walk around dressed as a drunk robot for two and a half months. John stepped in for us. He could also drive. He could also get drunk.

it's alright if you like saxophone

We headed directly to the fest. The first night was underway. More like underwent. We arrived right before the last band, but what a treat, it was our fiends in Phobia! No, that wasn't a typo. This is Shane the Pain (in the ass) we're talking about. We had a few drinks together, along with Bruce from D.I.S., Mike from Vile, and Danny and Ronny from Malignancy. Then we watched Phobia rip up a set. I hadn't seen them with their latest guitar player, but I approve of her grinding skills. And I should... Shane revealed they were still going off the Phobia tablature I wrote back when I filled in on bass for a tour with them. I thought that set sounded familiar...

We boozed it up as long as we could at Hartley's Bar and Grill. The festival had to be moved due to unrevealed circumstances. I'm sure there was a cover up, ala Benghazi i.e. shit was fucked. Ah well, we would make do. The room was small, but the stage was ample. Only... where would we put robots and monkeys? We had them shipped from home, then to Richmond, and then out here. It would seem a waste... aaaaaand then we were drunk. Back to the hotel with a box of beer and we'll worry about it tomorrow.

We got up the next day for my favorite East Coast treat, Dunkin Donuts. America gets the runs off Double D. I would love if there were Dunkin Donuts all over the West Coast. They are my favorite franchise. This will never happen. Why? Because Bain Capital saddled the company with 1.5 billion dollars of debt while making 600 million dollars. The company that Mitt Romney started used Dunkin Donuts as they use all companies they buy (with government loans). They give their execs bonuses, make the company pay back the government loan that Bain took out, and then sell off their own shares at a profit. No money down. That's why you have to add their magical sweetener to all the coffee you get, because it is laden with the bitter tears of minimum wage employees who work for a company saddled with debt thanks to the greed of the one percent.

Dan, the black coffee man, and Sean, who likes caffeinated ice-cream

We headed to the venue around noon. I set up merchandise next to our friend Jeff Zornow who was peddling his amazing artistic wares. For all the good it did... I made sure our table was set up early in the day while the others went to sleep at Sean's conveniently located in-laws' house. He also went to visit and pick up our monkey and robot. I sat there... and sold nothing. About five hours later, I'd still sold nothing and handed over an empty hand of air to my bandmates so they could watch the merch. If merchandise doesn't sell, is it still merchandise? Or is it just more shit to pay the airline to stow? It's a philosophical question for the ages.

The first band I enjoyed of the day was Sacrificial Blood. They had a very Motörhead groove coupled with death metal vocals. I'm not sure about the vocals... but if they'd actually been singing like Lemmy, I'm not sure this crowd of death metal maniacs would've stood for it. In any case, they shredded. The next band I really enjoyed was Psychosomatic. They are local to our area, hailing from Sacramento. They nailed a perfect blend of blasting death metal with the early speed thrash of Slayer. Very enjoyable and energetic.

The most notable band of the evening had to be Eat the Turnbuckle, featuring the aforementioned Shlak. Imagine a kind of trudging thrash metal mixed with Mick Foley, aka Mankind, and add a dash, nay, a river of blood. Seven folks on stage, including a naked drummer, went at each other with forks to the head, broken bottles to the arms, fluorescent bulbs to the torso, cheese graters to the back, and body drops on doors. CKY ain't got shit on these guys. The entire room smelled of blood. To be honest, it made me kinda sick. And I was less than stoked to know I was going to play on a stage covered in broken glass. The crowd in New Jersey ate it the fuck up.

you can see the scrapes, but the m-fer cleaned up before I could take this

Two fights occurred during the festival, two nice, big fights. One involved a band cut off early and fighting the promoters and one involved a guy doing karate kicks in the crowd and then getting punched. Apparently Mr. Ralph Macchio got upset that someone hit him back. I hate to sound old, actually, fuck it, I don't. What's with the karate kicks and flying elbows to the air? Whatever happened to the pogo? I like a good circle pit, and some bumps and bruises are willfully accepted. But the flying fists of fury confuse me. It's always either the skinniest kid in the room who couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag, or the fattest guy who could seriously hurt aforementioned skinny kid. Thrash metal? Fuck that, get out a berimbau and let's dance some capoeira!

Our set was coming up. We had our big costumes staged out back behind an entrance covered by a banner for the show. It was dark as night, because it was night. The club had to shut off all the lights so as to not disturb the New Jersey suburbanites that lived around them. John was going to be our voodoo priest and Danny from Malignancy was our robot. We'd already nixed the monkey as this was going to be a calamity no matter how hard we tried. To the tune of some melodic heavy metal blaring from a car in the parking lot apparently hoping to attract the police for a fifth time, we showed Danny how to put on the costume. He walked around, we hoped for the best.

Our set was a fast and furious affair following Deceased's excellent performance. We'd had to move gear around to make room for the robot we hoped would appear. We set up amongst broken glass on amps we didn't know. I'd slit the banner down the middle. John came out and did a great performance as the voodoo priest. You would hardly have guessed how drunk he was. Then our set was cut short. I went to the door and told Danny, like some kind of bloody, hooded Scooter, "You're on next!" We launched into the song and out came the saddest looking robot I'd ever seen.

Apparently, Danny's parents never gave him an Erector set for Christmas. He'd managed to put the arms on the wrong hands, but more importantly, he put the torso on upside down. All neck and with an enormous waist band, it looked like a metallic Skeksi constantly trying to pull up his drawers. Oi vey.

Despite our trials and tribulations, I think we sold our schtick to the crowd. The former members of the Cobra Kai Mosh Posse we're overwhelmed with the desire to properly circle pit and even tried to stage dive... with varying degrees of success. I never realized stage diving had a learning curve. It does. And it's ever so adorable.

Following an all too brief set by Gorgasm, the night was over. We packed up and headed back to LaGuardia for a way too early flight. Then Shlak called and informed us Sean had left his guitar behind. So we headed back to the club, and THEN back to LaGuardia. John took off to Philly and we waited while the airport opened up. It was a quick trip, it was a chaotic trip, but it was a fun trip. Trip, here, being the operative word. AKA stumble and fall (and then get up again).

Dead Alive: Emergency Speaker Repair

2012-10-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

With all the emphasis on amplifiers, pedals, cabinets, the humble speaker is oft forgotten. It's the final destination for your signal and it's the only thing you actually hear. What's in your cabinet? If your speakers are crap, who cares that your amp is hand-wired? It'll still sound like crap. For this discussion, what if it's broken? Can you tell? The most common injury to a speaker will not necessarily stop it from working, but it won't work well. When yer speaker cone rips, your tone cannot.

The first time I employed the following fix, I was on the road with my friend Christy. One night, we noticed her guitar sounded terrible. Upon inspection, the sound person had mic'ed a G12T-75 speaker in her cabinet that had a hole in the cone. Three other speakers had been somewhat masking the bad one, but that terrible sound had been coming out all along. We fixed it using an old roadie trick invented back before Guitar Centers were on every corner. Now that Guitar Centers don't even carry guitar speakers, this old roadie trick is handy again.

A speaker is basically an electro-magnetic motor. The cone is attached to a coil that becomes an electro-magnet when your amp sends it a signal. That pushes to and fro against the permanent magnet surrounding it. The actual sound you hear is the cone vibrating and pushing air. That's why decibel, your level of loud, is measurement of air moving. With that understanding, you can understand why a ripped cone is a big problem.

The temporary fix for these woes is simple, exemplified in his picture of Christy's fixed speaker cone.

No, that's not a speaker-fix-it kit from the local speaker repair shop... because that doesn't exist. Don't be a dick head. It's nail polish and toilet paper.

A little warning here. Emphasis is on the word "temporary," as far as a fix goes. This will make your speaker sound better. Once the cone's integrity is compromised, however, it won't work again at optimum levels. It will lose some of its dB efficiency. The speaker should be replaced or even re-coned, if it's valuable enough for that expensive proposition.

And onto the problem I had; a careless roommate of mine placed his golf clubs against a shoddy 8x10 Ampeg "Classic" cabinet sitting in my garage. I ain't got the dough or the desire to replace one of the stock Eminence speakers in this creaking, shambling mess of a crappily made SLM-era late '90s particle board monstrosity. I'm planning on giving this thing away, so I'm just gonna patch the speaker cone.

I start with some common toilet paper. Why toilet paper? Well, if it can withstand the rigors of the my shit after a night of drinking and jalapeño poppers, it can take on any damn amplifier. It's flexible enough to bend with the cone a bit and will absorb the enamel nail polish I will use for coating.

I strip the two-ply paper into one-ply, and then cut it into a good patch shape. Unfortunately, this rip went into the surround, or "suspension" area, and is quite large. This speaker will probably lose a lot of potential volume, but fuck it. I don't care at this point and it's the best example I have of this put up on my blog.

A bit of nail enamel is laid down quickly for the TP to grab onto, and yeah, I got my own nail polish. Wanna make something of it, turkey? When you put the TP down, yer likely to get nail polish all over your finger tips. It's handy to have some nail polish remover around. Yeah, I own that, too. Suck it.

Once the TP is sticking, polish needs to be applied on top and to the sides of it, sealing it to the cone.

Once the patch is complete, repeat the process on the basket side of the speaker.

Re-install the speaker and listen to the slightly less awesomeness of what it used to sound like! Still, it's better than some flappy, crappy cone sound and it'll get you through the rest of your tour. When you have the time, money, and inclination, replace the whole damn speaker.

The same golf clubs that ripped this speaker also dented the dust cap on another one. It's not the most egregious injury to a speaker, but it's an easy fix and so, presented here.

Poor lil' guy is smooshed! Potentially, this does affect the sound as the dust cap will vibrate in an ugly way once it's been wrinkled up. With no way to push the cap back into shape, the only choice is to pull it.

It might be hard to tell in that picture, but that is a vacuum cleaner. Why do they make those things look all space-agey these days anyway? As if it cleans better because it looks like something out of Logan's Run.

BAM! This dust cap is back in perfect shape. Sometimes they end up a tad warped and there's nothing you can do about it. For that, the best recommendation is to not store cabinets with the speakers out and with no grill protecting them because you're a dummy like me.

Resurrectionist: Earpollution Earbuds

2012-10-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

I love old music gear because it was built to last. Modern crap seems so fucking disposable. Why even bother? Sometimes, it's worth a quick bother because I can't be assed to go out to the store and plunk down even $10 when I know I can do something myself. Such was the case with a cheap ass pair of Earpollution Ozone Earbuds.

I got these at a truck stop to wear in the van while on tour. The rubber tips completely block out the inane chatter of my beloved bandmates when I just don't have the patience. They actually sound killer with a boomy bass. I was wearing them at work when the cord got smooshed in a printing press. Only one earphone worked after that. While I was recently packing for a personal trip, I pulled them out and said, "Fuck this shit, I throw nothing away until all other options are gone."

Easier said than done. I traced the broken earbud to the area where it got was obviously damaged. I carefully plied apart the cord with an X-Acto blade. Inside the tiny casing, I found the grounding wire, clearly obvious, and a bunch of little red hairs that had been split. I figured those were insulating the positive signal wire, so I started to unthread them.

I couldn't find anything obvious that I could solder back together. As it turns out, all those tiny little red hairs ARE the signal wires. I took them and placed the tips of both sides against some conductive metal; sure enough, the earbud got a signal again. I'm not sure what these petite, copper m-fers are coated in, but it doesn't conduct. Twisting the wires together and soldering them was a no go.

I twisted the severed halves back into shape and stuck their ends really close together on a piece of electrical tape. I'd already proven to myself the severed tips would conduct signal, so it was just a matter of putting down a small drip of solder to give the electrons a path on which to move.

I laid a tiny bead of solder down quickly with my Weller Digital Soldering Station set on a very low temperature. I sealed up the tape, wrapped it around the cord, and applied some heat shrink to seal the package.

And my Earpollution Ozone Earbuds worked again! Score one for not wasting a perfectly functioning device, no matter how cheaply I could replace it. Let's end the age of waste, let the bass boom, and party rock.

Cry, Killbot, Cry! EHX V256 Vocoder Pedal

2012-10-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

There's nothing impressive about a seven and a half foot tall robot that's mute. That's the issue we were having with Sean's literal diabolus ex machina, the Killbot. Sean had made an impressive robot costume, lit up by yours truly which I covered in a previous post. He's replete with spikes, claw, glowing brain, and a giant pepper-spray cannon. But his titular song called for the robot to do vocals. Being total nonces when it comes to playing along with a click-track and samples, we were stuck with a voiceless leviathan... and then came along the Electro-Harmonix V256 Vocoder Pedal.

Yes, it's a tad thrashed. We play "thrash metal," after all. And when Killbot springs forth from backstage, it is a sight to behold. He towers over us, punches me in the head, sprays the crowd, and it's even better when he's got something to say. The V256, released sometime in 2009, was just what we were looking for to complete this part of our act.

Sean and I had talked about his obsession with vocoders many times over the years. In the early days of Impaled, we often quoted that horrible Beck song, "Two Turntables and Microphone," because we liked the robot voice. It didn't hurt that the robot kinda looked like Tom Servo Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'm pretty sure that's what made Sean conceive of the character Killbot... solely to have a vocoded voice on one of his records and give that Scientologist fuck-tard a run for his money. Sean bought one of these.

For 2003's "Maniaxe," and the 2006 follow-up, "Splatterthrash," this Korg Mircokorg synth and vocoder worked great. Killbot, the character, had a voice and it sounded cool. Then our live show started to expand. The robot antagonist existed in real time. We used the Microkorg live a couple times, but what a pain in the ass. We had to patch it in to the soundboard and then find someone capable of playing the keys and speak into it as we were busy thrashing on stage. Eventually we gave up trying to have the voice and Sean just screamed the parts. Sometime in 2010, I came across the EHX V256 Vocoder online and a solution was found.

Bloodied and beaten after one of our stage shows, this pedal keeps working. It has a bunch of other functions besides vocoding, but fuck 'em, they sound like lame nu-jazz wanna-be talk box shit to me. Nobody needs to hear us sounding like we've been auto-tuned to a guitar playing through this pedal. Hell, no one needs to hear that from ANYONE. It's also got a phantom power switch (never needed it), Midi-input (never used it), transpositions, reflex tune, a whole mess of things I wish weren't there. It has three programmable presets for vocoder and if God were real, it would have six more.

The pedal does add considerable gain to the signal, much to the chagrin of most live sound technicians. As soon as you tell them you're plugging in a pedal to the microphones, they generally freak out, anyway. Don't worry, you god damned old codger... this pedal is actually MADE as a vocal effect, complete with a balanced line through. There's a whole new world out there of effects past when you roadied for Warrant.

I assume the additional gain is to even out the effected signal with the bypassed one. Going through a standard Shure SM58, we always have to tell the house sound guy to turn the gain on the mixer all the way down before we plug in. It also has a high gain switch you can employ, but I can't imagine why. Maybe if you were singing through a low gain Shure SM7 or something, but who would do that live? After the switch snapped, I removed it from the circuit board and that leaves the pedal permanently on lo-gain: just fine for us.

It has a pitch shifter, but before you think we're gonna start covering tunes off of "Reek of Putrefaction," it's not good for that. It's more of a synthesizer tuner, along with the pitch and tone knobs, to get a good vocoder drone. The way a vocoder works is to simplify the human voice by passing it through a narrow band of frequencies, filter those waves into electronic commands, then playback the commands like some kind of player-piano reel into a synthesizer (basically). It was originally used to encrypt and lower the bandwidth of transmitted speech as early as during World War 2. Now it voices the robot in a shock-rock band. How far we've come...

With three programmable presets, we're able to cycle through up to four tones (including the non-preset knob layout) in the V256. We matched the key pretty closely to the original Microkorg recordings using just the knobs and it sounds a little something like this... take it away, Killbot.

The Microkorg comes out ahead as a vocoder and we'll continue to use it for recording. The EHX V256 Vocoder is a bad ass in its own right, however, as a compact stomp box for live use. With a price point almost half that of the Microkorg, the V256 is more affordable for poor musicians to fuck around with for home recording, but also sounds good enough for any professional studio. It won't run on batteries, but it does accept standard barrel-style 9V adapters such as the Visual Sounds 1-Spot, so long as it gets at least 200mA.

Electro-Harmonix really innovated with this pedal; the first ever vocoder stomp box, as far as I know. Kudos for applying so much R&D to an effect that has so little broad appeal, but is so infinitely awesome.

Merde! Marshall Cabinet Casters

2012-09-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

I would like to congratulate Marshall Amps on their big anniversary, defining the sound and look of rock for 50 fucking years. Yup, they've been rolling along for awhile now. That is, until their really shitty casters broke and then them shits weren't rolling nowhere. One sentence we will never hear another company say is, "Those Marshall casters are so well designed, we should copy them!"

Alas, the Marshall 1960A and B are such standard and well made guitar cabinets in every other way, the minor defaults with the casters must be forgiven and dealt with. The shitty plastic sockets strip out, the poorly mounted bolts come undone, and the riveted-in wheels bust. Loading in and out of venues every night doesn't help their longevity, either. At an unreasonable $20 a pop each for genuine Marshall replacement casters, what else can be done?

The obvious solution is to rip out the old ones and bolt on some new, fixed casters. I don't like this solution because it causes so many problems with making a full stack. You can't take the wheels off. They must either fit into the bottom cab's caster cups (if you're cool enough to own a proper Marshall bottom cab) or go sideways... making one look like a rank amateur.

identities made indistinct to insulate the innocents' ignorance

A decent and cheap solution is to replace the caster assembly with pop-out swivel casters. These are standard on Ernie Ball and Ampeg cabinets. They can be installed with some easy modification to a Marshall cab. Done correctly, the pop-out swivel casters can fit into caster cups or (duh) pop out for full stackage mayhem.

In the case I took on for our guitar player Sean, we had one broken wheel and three others that looked ready to bust, along with loose bolts that made it difficult to unscrew the casters. Luckily, his caster sockets were in good shape, so I took on the challenge of refurbishing and improving the original casters.

We were on tour when this wheel busted apart. Because the wheels on Marshall casters are riveted on, we couldn't just replace it. On my work bench, however, I was able to bust off those rivets quick-like with my DeWalt angle grinder. You're not a man unless you have an angle grinder to grind the fuck out of shit.

I took on the loose bolts first. I tried epoxy, but it didn't hold onto the bolt through the drop test. The drop test is conducted by dropping the caster onto the ground bolt first, watching the bolt pop loose, then hurling the caster even harder on the ground because you had to wait 24 fucking hours for the epoxy to cure and find out it didn't work.

My second attempt went much better. I got a Bernzomatic propane torch, flux, and acid-core solder to weld that bitchy little bolt to the caster. I'm sure an arc weld would've been even stronger, but I ain't gots the time nor the dinero to pick up that hobby right now. This non-electrical solder was cheaper and easier. Don't know how to do it? It's easy. Watch my video with the inappropriately dramatic music I wrote awhile ago, conveniently available now on my personal Bandcamp site, http://doktorsewage.bandcamp.com. (shameless self-plug)

To make it extra secure, I added an e-clip to the top of each bolt. The bolts on the Marshall casters are metric, M10-1.50 to be exact. Standard measure e-clips were the only thing available at the local Home Dipshit. I found the 3/8" e-clips fit nicely. This time, the caster passed the drop test.

The extreme heat from the soldering did a good job burning away all the grease from the ball bearings in the caster. I lubed them up again with some all purpose white lithium grease.

I picked up some cheap, $3 casters from Home Dipshit to part-out. The wheels are actually bolted on with a nut, so they come off easily. The only nasty bit is the bolt doesn't have a slotted head; it hooks onto a corner cut in the caster leg. I needed to use this bolt because it has an axle for the wheel and ya just can't buy 'em like that.

I had to use my Dremel multi-tool to reshape the hole for the bolt on the original Marshall caster.

The new wheel was bolted on, fit perfect, and is now easily replaceable. I put it back on the cabinet, making sure to secure it snugly in the caster socket. If it's not snug, you risk a bad bump ripping the caster bolt out of the socket and stripping the really, really shitty plastic threads.

Why plastic caster sockets? Because someone dumb was given a job in management at Marshall. I have ideas on how to fix those stripped out threads, but that post will have to wait until Sean's cabinet takes a nasty bump. For now, this Marshall cabinet is ready to roll, be it to the practice room, the gig, or to the pool so I can drop in and grind some rails.

Operating Theater: Peavey Century 200H

2012-09-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

I almost feel guilty for writing about this, as the fix was so damn easy. Actually, that says a lot of good things about the manufacturer of this amp, Peavey. Behold, the Peavey Century (which was produced about twenty years shy of the turn of...)

I had a Peavey XR 400B PA head that I used to call "the amp that will not die." I used it as a back up bass head before I had a proper bass amp to rely on. It was about the same era as this Century, used the same solid state power amp section, and could get kicked down a flight of stairs and still work. Sure, it never sounded that great, but it was unbreakable. This Century broke when my friend Mark, after seeing a documentary on Keith Moon, decided he was in the Who and sent it tumbling. So, WTF?

Despite some real winners like the 5150, series 400 Bass, and the XXX, Peavey has the reputation of making budget gear for the starving artist. I say this without pause, because the manual for the Century states it was engineered as "a simple, economic, but effective 'utility' amplifier." It would have stayed thusly, even through my friend Mark's punk rawking and röhling, had it not been missing a simple strain relief on the cord.

When the amp went down, the power cord got pulled, and the neutral wire broke off the end of the fuse holder. That was the only damage and it was completely user error. Not bad for a 23 year old amplifier.

Now, I hate this phrase so oft used to describe music gear: "it's built like a tank." Do you know why tanks have to have a mechanic on them at all times? Because they break down. A lot. Sure, they're tough, but do they last? Hardly. So, for this Peavey Century, I posit the new phrase: it's built like a fruitcake.

I was a little worried about the scorch mark on the power transformer. A fuse's main purpose is to protect from a fire, not to protect an amplifier's guts. Without a fuse and power from one of the leads hitting ground, however, there could've been potential damage in the circuit. Why fucking worry, though, it's a Peavey! It's built like a fruitcake!

I installed the new strain relief on the cord (Philmore part number 65-1050) and matched the fuse holder at my local, kinda friendly electronics shop, Al Lasher's. The back of the Century looked much better now without dangling, 120V death-dealing power cords sprouting from it. It fired up just fine and was working greaaaaaa... within technical specification

Nominally, this is a 100W bass or keyboard head, as stated by the literature. Just enough power for loud, live music. The literature also states that this utilitarian head, "with the inclusion of [their] unique 'Saturation™' effect is also a truly exceptional 100 watt guitar amplifier." It's supposed to emulate the harmonics of a tube amp, but it looked like nothing more than a common diode-clipping distortion circuit with a gain boost on the dual-gang potentiometer.

Mark likes the Century as a beater, punk rock bass amp, pumping up the saturation knob to the hilt. I put it to the test as a guitar amp.

"Exceptional" is not the word I would have used for the Peavey Century as a guitar amplifier. "Almost adequate" is as kind as I can be (kinda like my guitar playing). The cleans sounded kind of hollow. That saturation knob did have some kinda nice stonery tone to it, but nothing for metal. It certainly didn't punk me into thinking I was playing a tube amp. I did like the mids control and boost, but it wasn't a deal maker.

These era Peavey's go for super cheap on the after market, much as they did on the before market in their salad days. If ya find a steal, it's okay for a beater and back-up. The fucker will not die. It's Peavey, after all, and it's built like a fruitcake!

Further reading:
Peavey Century Manual (via Peavey.com)
Harmony Central Reviews

Oh, Snap! Sennehiser MZS-421 shockmount

2012-09-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

In my Low End Theory 1 article, I expressed my overwhelming satisfaction with the Sennheiser MD-421 microphone for mic'ing bass guitar. In my Low End Theory 2 article, I explained the custom mounting of my sweet MD-421 using a Bass Hangar from basshanger.com, a common microphone gooseneck, and the Sennheiser MZS-421 shockmount. In all their wisdom, Sennheiser did not make the MD-421 fit in a standard mic clip. But at least they did make this mount that would isolate the microphone from nasty bass vibrations. It is perfect for my "on the cab" mic set up.

That is, until one of the rubber bands broke while I was on tour. Then a second rubber band broke. The remaining bands held the mount together until the end of tour, but the shock absorption was nil. Luckily, one of the broken bands was stuck in the divots of the mount. With that and the help of some photos, I was able to trace its original path and re-thread replacements.

Well, rubber band is a bit of a misnomer. I replaced the broken bands on the side with #17 O-rings from the Home Depot plumbing department. They were a perfect match. A slightly larger O-ring might be necessary to replace the middle band.

During the repair process, I drew up this handy guide to the MZS-421 shockmount so anyone can easily fix their own.

Such a large segment of the population is just itching to shock mount their MD-421 microphones for mounting on a bass cabinet... I'm sure this will help millions.

Gross Anatomy: Melvins Lite Poster

2012-09-07T11:44:00.002-07:00

Freak Puke is the debut album from Melvins Lite, a more recent power trio incarnation of the Melvins. It features old stalwarts King Buzzo and Dale Crover joining with legendary bassist Trevor Dunn. They're as "Lite" as a joke about 9/11; it's every bit as heavy as any version of the Melvins. They are touring to promote Freak Puke, but this time, the tour is an event of Guinness sized magnitude. 51 shows in 51 days, every state in the union plus Washington D.C. This will be a record. I was pleased as punch to be included in the tour poster series from Secret Serpents. Yesterday, they played the second gig in Seattle, Washington. I commemorated the event with this piece of Sewage-style snarkiness.

I was a bit apprehensive at first, being handed the tour poster duties for Seattle. Being that this was such a geographically consequential tour, I wanted to do something to reflect the area they were playing. I couldn't abide by putting the Space Needle in the art, but I couldn't think of anything more unequivocally recognizable about the Emerald City. I set about looking for inspiration.

I like to think of my poster art as "Martial Nouveau," though that's kind of a lofty demarkation for my typical chicken scratch. More apropos is, "shit made by a guy who liked G.I. Joe too much as a kid, and is vaguely familiar with the work of Alphonse Mucha." The main point is, I look at a lot of war propaganda and art nouveau posters. I came across this old gem, and knew I had what one thing summarized Seattle for me better than anything else: coffee.

It being a Melvins poster, I thought this was a perfect jumping off point to inject some sarcasm. I doubted it would be recognizable as a direct parody once I was done. I'm fine with that. I'd rather have the viewer have to dig deep into the cultural psyche than have some instantly recognizable kitsch. I got cracking on pencils.

For the logo and lettering, I ripped off, ahem, used the old French Metro signs for "inspiration."

I've done a lot with masks in my poster work, so I debated for awhile what to cover up this guy's grin with. The Guy Fawkes mask that has been adopted by the Occupy movement and the hacker collective Anonymous seemed appropriately grinning. I also liked that it reminded me of the anarchism gone wrong (some might say right, I would say right-wing) that leveled the tolerance of liberal protest during Seattle's famed WTO riots in the nineties. Fuck it, throw on a fascist uniform with the Washington State flag. Let's see how left meets right so easily when either is brought to extremes.

The main focus, however, is the coffee mug. Seattle was the birthplace to one of the top ten most recognizable corporations of our time, Starbucks. This show was taking place about a block away from the very first one at the Pike Place Market. I had to use that, even thought it was flipping a bit of the bird at the very folks I hoped would buy the poster.

After some research, it turns out the Starbucks logo is a mermaid. What's with the two tails? Well, it turns out it's from an medieval etching that explains why the mermaid, as a siren, could be enticing to a sailor. How do you fuck a half-fish? Well, giver her two tails and a pussy in-between. This dirty little mermaid slut is on every cup of mocha frappe grande sugary bullshit you've ever had the displeasure to drink.

Time for "inks!"

Is this cheating? I debate myself on that. Instead of going with the traditional brush and ink, I decided to finish this piece on the computer. It was partially a stylistic choice, wondering if I would have more success with my pieces by employing some modern tech. It was also a choice of time, because holy fuck balls, I'd been thinking too much instead of doing.

The text and stylistic decorations were done as vector art in Adobe Illustrator for a more precise look. I then took that it into Photoshop to finish the character drawing which I wanted to have a more natural feel. I always use my Wacom Intuos 4 tablet for drawing on the computer.

When I was done with the "inking," I colored in my piece in the layers palette. I decided to add some "distress" marks to the poster. I used a texture image I nabbed from the Interwebs, bumped the contrast up, and used it as an eraser template on the art. More style, or more cheating so you can't see when I actually fuck up the printing? You be the judge.

Once I have the piece done, I take all the colors and make a new spot color channel for each. This will become the black, light proof print that will be outputted on the films we use to burn screens.

Late at night after doing my day job at Monolith Press, I get cracking on my own work. We do some real quality art prints at Monolith, so it was almost a bummer to look at my amateurish hack work. Ah well, I'd signed on already and needed to get this poster done for the Melvins. Mix some paint and drink some liquid courage. Then print.

The new-ish Saturn we recently acquired at our shop works like a dream. It's a smooth auto press with cracker jack targeting and registration.

The poster was complete and shipped off with time to spare to meet up with the Melvins in Seattle. It's simpler than some of the posters I've done in the past, but I think it befits the artwork. I'm happy to have been a part of the series and, yup, I took some joy in making a dig at the expense of our left coast neighbors to the north.

Fuck Starbucks. All corporate bullshit aside, they just make a crap cup of joe.

Now that the show has passed, I my copies of these posters up for sale in the Sewage Store. Go check it out, along with the other posters I've done. Pick up a couple if yer so inclined. And you should be inclined. Rationing sucks, indulge in my fartwork!

Sewage Store

Torture of Duty: Impaled at Slaughter by the Water 3

2012-08-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

I played music on an aircraft carrier. How many people can say that? Okay, probably a bunch of enlisted men from the music corps., maybe some kids from a chorale group or something... but I play in a death metal band. And I played in the same halls that were once bombed and sent off bombers to war. There's something in the left over bits of me that played with G.I. Joes as a kid that is really excited by that. No, we didn't play on the U.S.S. Flagg, but even cooler, we played on the Bay Area's own piece of naval memorabilia, the U.S.S. Hornet.

Yes, this stalwart steel lady battled in WW2, served in Korea and Vietnam, and famously recovered the astronauts of Apollo 11 from the first moon landing. And we were about to completely denigrate that proud naval history by swilling beer and playing heavy metal in her hull. That's what it is to be an American.

The organizers of Slaughter by the Water thought for their third festival they should do something novel; that is, make the name irrelevant by holding the fest ON the water. It was an interesting choice, at least enough to entice Impaled to agree to play and see what the shit show would be like. We had also used the U.S.S. Hornet before, as a back drop for Sean's solo in the video of our song "G.O.R.E."

We were scheduled to play around 7 PM. Our load-in time was 10 AM. What the fuck? Well, in order to avoid the impossible task of carrying our gear up the gang plank, we had to be early to make use of the crane and the cherry picker to get stuff inside the massive ship. Most of the back line went in the cargo holder, our stuff was less ceremoniously lifted on the cherry picker.

There was lots of support staff about and lots of veterans volunteering at the Hornet helping. I can only imagine these guys dealing with a bunch of slacking musicians, remembering how they ate dirt to shit freedom... for this: a bunch of gear made to fight the system, overshadowed by gear made to fight and defend the system that makes the former possible.

All I can say about this is... hardly.

Slaughter by the Water officially started around noon. There was a stage outdoors that was free to all, though I think the families walking by going to the U.S.S. Hornet were a little less than impressed. Well, they could go and enjoy one of the multitude of food stands that normally wouldn't have been there and eat some funnel cake to shut up their stinkin' pie holes.

The power for the outdoor stage was from bicycles. Are you kidding me? No, Ross, I'm not. It was a clever set up, but not so clever as to recognize the inherent laziness of metal heads. You needed about 10-15 people on these bikes pushing transformers to get up enough power for a couple amps. This might've worked great at Outside Lands or at Burning Man, with some dude and his Fender Twin. Throw up an SVT or a Triple Rec and you're running into problems: the fifty or so times bands had to restart their songs. Whatever, I did my part... for about five minutes.

A good number of bands played outside. There was enough metal to attract the Jesus freaks. Really? Don't you have some gay military funeral to protest vainly? Somehow, I don't think coming to a performance by slackers is going to win or lose you anything... except maybe an afternoon of your time. It's fairly obvious that we'll never give a rat's ass about your son of man, save for His excellent hair.

I alternated between watching and exploring the vast aircraft carrier. I work within a stone's throw of the thing, but I'd never gone inside. The U.S.S. Hornet is a great museum, carrying vintage helicopters and jets within its hold, test equipment for the Apollo missions, freedom to roam many of the corridors lined with information, and even a ghost tour. I wouldn't buy into those things personally, until I'm standing right by a test Apollo capsule and I'm told to hush up because Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, has just passed. Eerie. Godspeed, American hero.

At least we still have Buzz Aldrin. That mutha fucka will punch a man in the face for claiming the Apollo missions were faked. Such is the fate deserved by any ignorant disparager of the incredible work, talent and bravery involved in America's moon landing. The same goes for people who believe humans couldn't have built the pyramids without help from aliens. Seriously, folks... ancient people were BORED. What else to do but stack some boulders to the sky when you don't have great shit around to watch like America's Got Talent or NCIS: CSI: SVU.

Around five, the most important moment of the day arrived: the families were kicked out and the bar opened. The bar was positioned on the airplane elevator that would lift jets from the hull up to the flight deck. You wouldn't think it would have any problems, until later in the evening when it was evacuated temporarily because it was sinking a bit. Sure, it can lift an F-J2 Fury Jet, but don't expect it to hold the massive girth of metal beer bellies en masse.

Severed Fifth opened the inside stage. It was a bit worrisome, being that the sound was being amplified within a gigantic tin tub. That said, it sounded better than I expected. They were followed with excellent sets by Fog of War, Witchaven, and Abysmal Dawn. The crowd was digging all of it, but I'm pretty sure the friendly guys in red shirts were none too stoked. I comforted myself knowing that this event was probably helping pay for the physical preservation of a naval relic, if not sullying a few veterans' memories on the way.

We played next and it was chaos, go figure. Things were running late and we had to cut two songs. Nevertheless, we had a great time on stage and the crowd seemed to be as friendly to their father's death metal band as always. It was almost like Impaled hadn't completely slacked off for the last four or five years.

We were followed by Absu, who turned in an excellent set of original American black metal. These guys always destroy. That is, until they were unceremoniously unplugged. I guess things were running later than I thought. Well, a five minute bag pipe intro is bound to cut into your set time a wee bit.

The piecemeal back line hadn't included a bass head, so I'd lent my Ampeg V-4B to Absu and left it up there for Autopsy. I'm proud to say it sounded bad as fuck for one of my favorite death metal bands of all time. Autopsy slayed it, sounding as sick as ever. By now, things were on time and Autopsy got a full set that pleased all the tigers.

Next up was Philm. That's when we left to go drink some beers in the parking lot. I don't know what "novo punk" is and by God I don't care.

Lastly, Exodus took to the stage. Expecting anything less than a stellar performance from these guys is foolhardy. The came out and ruled. The sound in the tin can was actually exceptionally good for them. Other than a few crass remarks about Neil Armstrong later followed by a string of wretched jokes to fill in some guitar fixing time, I thoroughly enjoyed their set. But boy, oh boy, was I ready to go home after 16 hours of being on that fucking boat.

I thought Slaughter by the Water was a real success, despite the many, many hiccups it had. I'd like to see it continue on the U.S.S. Hornet. With some more experience at the same location, I could see things running smoother with the set times. Maybe they can figure out how to power a second stage with gerbils instead of metal heads. I also appreciated the special booths outside dedicated to Native American health and studies. It was weird to see such a thing next to a grand symbol of American imperialism, but a nice gesture nonetheless.

Besides, where else can you see an F-14A Tomcat like this while hearing pounding guitars... other than while watching Top Gun. R.I.P. Tony Scott, you shoulda waited a week. Your ego was writing checks your body couldn't cash.

That's RIGHT, Ross... man. I'm dangerous.

Ghoulection 2012: Transmission Thirteen

2012-08-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

After the whirlwind of events in the past year, how fitting we should wrap up such a significant portion of our lives in a whirlwind event of a weekend. GWAR-B-Q 2012. We'd spent the better part of almost three months this past year with GWAR. Who woulda thought this little, technically unsigned, management-less project would ever go so far? With just a little heart and a lot of latex, we'd found ourselves amidst brethren we never knew we had. Richmond, VA, is rapidly becoming a second home. And a welcome one at that.

We took a red eye flight on Thursday night. I was schnockered, fitfully downing beer and shots of Maker's Mark because our flight was delayed. The crew at Jet Blue did us fine, charging us next to nothing for all our guitars and such. The robot and the monkey had headed cheaply a few weeks earlier via Amtrak: much cheaper than posting them. We couldn't disappoint our godfather's in GWAR with half a show, not after all we'd been through.

GWAR had been inviting us to GWAR-B-Q for some time. Something I've learned is that when GWAR says something is going to happen that seems non-sensical, like going on a second tour, playing GWAR-B-Q, it's not fantasy: it fucking happens. That kind of veracity and stalwartness are rare these days.

We were picked up from the airport by our friend, merch guy for the last tour, and co-prop master Jim Stramel. He's the multi-talented Director behind the hit tattoo-murder move, "Degenerates Ink." and an absolute pushover when it comes to letting us trash his abode in Richmond. Ya gotta love a sucker like that. We crashed, hungover, I mean, jet lagged as shit. It was the day before GWAR-B-Q, so the local dive, Strange Matter, had a BEFORE-B-Q show hosted by Mr. Dave Brockie. Some of us scraped our asses off Jim's couch and made our way there.

We showed up late, but managed to see our friends George and Kent play in their band Savage Attack. Stripped down Pantera and Slayer worship, the boys let out with a... savage attack. One of my favorite moments was when the vocalist said, "We're not gonna drop names like Dave Brockie," except ya just did.

Dethrace from New York were one of the more bizarre things I've ever seen, a kaiju inspired... something... band. I guess death metal? Kind of. Drum machines, down tuned guitar, but gimme a break. All eyes were on the pentagram-domed front thing. With stuffed shorts. Dancing. They passed out comic books before the show, explaining their origin and what not, but does it matter? It made about as much sense as any Godzilla movie I've ever seen. That was the best picture I could get, because despite having such outlandish costumes, they preferred it covered in fog.

Then we had blessed sleep. We had to be at the fest at Hadad's dirty grungy '70s style water resort fucking early.

I'm not sure what Sean is pointing at. I've never heard of 'em. That's my story, and I'm kind of sticking to it.

The first band of note was The Burial, Jameson aka Beefcake the Mighty's pop-punk band. They put on a good performance early in the day and were really the first guys to get the ball rolling. I was really excited to see GWAR spew-tech, our heavy metal maniac, and good friend Germ get on stage and play some damn guit-fiddle. It was weird seeing him on stage and NOT getting beat up by a robot, but he nailed it.

There was some weird noiseness with Mutawawa, but more exciting for me was Antietam 1862. They brought forth the Norwegian style black metal but with an American southern bent. Not in they music, per se, but Antietam is a reference to the bloodiest single battle in American history. More Americans dead than even at Normandy. It was nice to see the corpse paint, wizards, and Norsk shit put aside for a mo'.

At some point around this time, GWAR was doing a meet and greet with the fans. Drummer Jizmak da Gusha apparently, as recounted to me by Beefcake the Mighty, pissed into a water bottle and told anyone who'd swill some that they'd get free beer all day. Three people partook. I'm SO SAD I missed this, said with all due sarcasm. Seriously, GWAR fans... they are another breed. Half.

The fest really picked up as the sun came out. The tigers were having a blast in the water park, disgusting as the water was.

This was a man made lake. The water looked fairly nasty, especially if you count these two fools were jumping in. Our boy Scott and Steve of Whorechurch make quite the strapping pair.

Scott, the lucky bastard, was staying behind in VA to do some work with GWAR for their upcoming tour. At least SOMEBODY in our group got something out of all of this.

We had our set time, and it was a blast. There was a late start, with some confusion as to why there were no guitar heads on stage. Luckily, we were saved by Antietam 1862. We still had to cut a song to keep our set on time. Unfortunately, no one had told Scott, and I had to yell at him while playing to get his next costume on as he sat comfortably smoking a cigarette. He thought I needed a towel. Please, that's why God invented sleeves.

We got a lot of grief previously for ripping up a baby on stage (spoiler: it was a toy doll). This time, we smashed a box of kittens (spoiler: some fake fur and blood bags). GWAR has really helped us a lot to become the complete crowd mocking, repugnant assholes that we were meant to be.

Sadly, I missed our friends in Occultist who we'd toured with as we cleaned up our mess. The next band I got to see was our friends from Portland, Murderess. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them all day.

When they started playing clad in bikinis and booty shorts,, it was clear that the crowd didn't wanna take them seriously. As the first notes started chugging, and that PDX crust-death-punk started blowing eardrums, however, it was a different story. Murderess charged forth and literally had tigers hanging from the rafters air-moshing. They rule. Murderess, I mean. The dudes in the rafters were complete retards.

I had a bit of damper in the day when our new shirts arrived. It's the old Splatterthrash design, but I had personally redone the separations myself for a new company. And they didn't look good. Dino smirked at the travesty. I was a bit hurt and disappointed in myself. I was planning a blog post on how to do shirt separations, but alas, I have to go back to the drawing board. We must accept our failures and trudge onwards, otherwise we never get better. Or, just fucking give up. Washed out and crap. These suck, Ross.

After the Casualties and Valiant Thorr, the crowd wanted one thing... GWAR.

The chant was rising forth like bubbling spew from the tip of a cuttlefish. We'd seen a lot of shows touring with GWAR, but this one was special, especially for a dyed-in-the-wool old bohab like myself. The festivities were started off by the main man himself, Mr. Sleazy P. Martini. The nowadays rare appearance of GWAR's manager is a sure sign that a carnival of chaos is headed your way.

The hits didn't end with Slaughterama, either... it went double old school with the appearance of Sexicutioner doing his own signature song. I haven't seen this guy join his fellow scumdogs on stage since the nineties, for fuck's sake.

It was an amazing performance from GWAR, as always, but with a little more. I'm glad GWAR has evolved to the more tightly honed metal machine they are these days. A little bit of the TSR playing little kid in me, though, misses the old chaos: WAY too many people on stage flopping about like a bunch of half-retarded LARPers.

As with all GWAR shows, the paramedics were helping out a tiger at the end of the show, trying to figure out which blood was real and which was fake. I myself, was exhausted. Sun baked and still jet lagged, we headed out from Hadad's, a lot of hugs to our benefactors and brethren in GWAR. This was it! The real end! Until the next time...

Some of our camp headed out to the after show back at Strange Matter to see the amazing Ratface from Pittsburgh. I'm sad I missed it, but dammit all, I was tired. I stayed in with our boy Jim and watched some movies while eating garbage and cursing our 6AM flight home.

It was a crazy weekend and the most excellent wrap up for a year with GWAR. We saw the first and last show of this tour cycle. We shared the best of times, we shared the worst of times. These boys were always in my heart as a fan, and now they're in my heart as friends... or fiends. I can't decide which.

photo by Glenn Cocoa

Much love... right to the balls.

Class or Ass: Tel-Ray Morley VOL volume pedal

2012-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is by far the biggest pedal you'll ever find that does so little. The Morley VOL volume pedal is a gigantic chrome monstrosity, powered directly by AC and it does one thing: turn you down. Looking at an original from the '70s, gleaming and polished, it's definitely a beauty, but is it worth it?

The first thing ya gotta ask yerself, do you need a volume pedal? Guitars and basses usually have a knob that does the same thing right there next to your hand. You should try using it! There are those, however, who might use a volume pedal for swells and, uh... that's pretty much it. Presuming you need a volume pedal, it's best to take a closer look before you make room on your pedal board for this one-trick pony that's the size of a pony.

There isn't much to the inside of a Morley VOL pedal. Most of those big electronic components in the picture below go towards powering that teeny tiny 387 mini-bulb for the power-on indicator light. Don't forget, though, that the power involved is no joke; that's 110 volts going into that transformer. Don't cross the streams!

All that fuss over just a little bulb. That bulb, however, is half of what makes a Morley tick. The other half is the LDR, or light-dependent resistor. What the hell is that? It's a little sensor that offers variable resistance depending on how much light is or isn't being shone on it. Maybe it's easier to think of it like a knob that you turn by shining a light on it.

The Lubow brothers, the founders of Morley and Tel Ray, made a box for all their pedals similar to the original wah. Then they ditched the gear and pinion set up in favor of the LDR. A simple curtain of tolex is fastened to the foot treadle and it covers and uncovers the LDR as the foot is rocked back and forth. In the Morley VOL, the LDR has full resistance and blocks the signal when it is covered. When it's uncovered and the power light is shining brightly on it, the LDR is open and the instrument signal goes through.

In the Morley instruction manual, they tout this set up as superior because it doesn't require a potentiometer which can become scratchy. True, it just requires a big chrome box the size of your head. And despite the quality with which it works and was built, I am always stunned they used masking tape to hold it together.

As long as the volume pedal's 387 mini-bulb isn't busted, these pedals do keep chugging, even 30 years along (Modern Morley pedals use much longer lasting LEDs for the lamp). The volume sweep is natural sounding and smooth. By all means, these were great pedals for their times, when people didn't mind a 60 Hertz hum in a ground loop caused by a fucking 110 volt AC transformer inside of a largely passive pedal. Or they didn't mind an input and output set up on one side of a pedal. They didn't mind having a thick AC cord going to the wall. They didn't mind having to turn their effects on with a big switch. They didn't mind having a gigantic pedal in front of them to trip over.

Ass. As much as I love me some old timey Morley effects, the VOL is simply ass. It's too big for what little it does and there are better options available these days. Check out some modern Morley pedals or my review of a much smaller DOD volume pedal.

Considering that these go for around $45 on eBay these days, however, they can actually be had cheaper than a newer volume pedal. A Morley VOL is worth about 15% what it was originally sold for. That's after adjusting for inflation from a 1977 price guide. It's not a bad deal if you wanna show off some '70s nostalgia while pissing off your bandmates with your gigant-o pedal collection. And then it's class.

Ass. And class.