KNOW WHERE I CAN GET SOME GOOD GEAR ‘ROUND HERE?

Orphans Of Blacktooth's Spite?

 

He doesn’t know why. All he knows is that he needs more of it. Badly. From Gay Paris HQ, Old Blacktooth talks openly of his never-ending quest for the ultimate tone, those that got away and the trail of broken, unloved refuse left in his wake.

This weeks starting line-up

Electro Harmonix POG2, MXR Zakk Wylde Overdrive, BOSS DD5 Delay and Hughes and Kettner Red Box

Rookies

Electro Harmonix POG2, Dyna Comp Compressor, Hughes and Kettner Red Box Three

On the bench:

MXR Dyna Comp Compressor, Hagstrom Viking Deluxe (white), Fender Fuzzwah, Marshal DSL 2000, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe + Extension Cabinet.

You’re off the team, asshole

Electro Harmonix POG, Gretsch Duo Jet, Gretsch Malcolm Young

In the mail:

Tonebone Switchbone

Eyeing off:

Fender Jim Adkins Signature Telecaster

Let’s preface this by saying: just plug your guitar into an amp and it’ll sound good. This kind of fucking around is a silly business for compulsive morons like myself and a lot of effort for small returns. It’s nerdy and mostly pointless, so read on with caution.

Most people are secretive about this stuff but really, who cares? Sound tricks are fun to talk about. And hey, it beats sitting on the couch and spanking it to Big Brother or collecting model trains or whatever it is healthy people do. I don’t collect gear; I constantly swap it. At some point in my life I had enough money to buy a pair of guitars and an amp and ever since then I’ve been circulating that same cash around switching out different junk. So I’m not a Richie Rich or Steve Vai – I just like how stuff sounds (you can buy me a Bad Cat or neon green cape though if you want to). Maybe one day I’ll get settle down with what I’m playing, but where’s the fun in that? There’s nothing like discovering a new way to melt your own face off or to disappoint, annoy or excite your band mates. Anyways, this brings us to Episode One of my contribution to this blog, a look at screwing around with gear in rehearsal, in the studio and on the road.

THIS WEEK’S STARTING LINE UP

This week I’m trying to keep it practical (as opposed to the two rig wank-a-thon I’m usually carting around). We’re heading to Adelaide to play with Coerce, one hell of a band featuring old pals of ours from that sweet flat city. We’ll be borrowing their awesome amps when we land, so I’m currently fussing about trying to get a piece of carpet for a makeshift Velcro pedalboard for the run. My Fuzzwah is too heavy for the plane (as is the regular board), so I’ll have to play my two “wah” parts in Surgeon and Skyship as best I can (look for lots of feedback and pointing). This is the first time I’ll be taking my new POG2 out for a run and my god is it a life changing little box.

Because you can make presets for it I currently have five settings on the go:

MORELLO-IAN OCTAVE BONANZA – Simple heavy octave below, touch of

octave above – subtle but thick. This is for the big grindy bits at the end of Behold! The Pale Surgeon and the default setting I’ll head to for most single note riff outs.

WANNA SEE MY ORGAN – This has a touch of two octaves above, as well as the detune function for beefing up chords. This is my main setting for the choruses of Deadrie Fell’s Dog Park Blues.

SHRILL BURGERS – Octave above and two octaves above combined subtly for a nice solo boost. I’m looking to kick this off in the “solos” in My First Wife She Was a Fox Queen.

GARBAGETRUCK FULL OF RATBALLS – One octave below plus two octaves below plus attack and LP filter to the max. I’m gonna kick this in for the final parts of Skyship…if they let me. It’s one of those things where you can take over your entire band with, which is not necessarily a good idea.

AN ORGAN SO SMALL YOU CAN’T QUITE SEE IT – A hint of everything this pedal can do…but only a hint. This is where I’m gonna cover up my sloppy playing in clean parts by adding a touch of The Addams Family to it all. Probably won’t fly at rehearsal though.

In Adelaide, I’m gonna try out this Hughes and Kettner Red Box Mk111 I bought on eBay this week. It’s a speaker emulator/DI – basically takes the fear out of letting the work experience kid mike up your shit. It has a setting where you can choose either 4×12 cab or a combo and goes between your head and a box (you just need two speaker leads) and the direct signal can then be put through the P.A. Preliminary fuck arounds suggest it’s a good option but this will be an interesting test. Anyways, I’ll be back soon to elaborate on how it all went down and talk shit about the new stuff I have on order. Til then, I pray nobody pours beer in my f-holes (damn Melbournites).

　

　

　

　

　

　

Gay Paris, The Sex Off.

Well, as usual, we’ve been up all night… drinking and yelling and this time it has grown serious. Who’s beard do you find sexier, good folk?

Is it Ol’ Blacktooth Marks and his corporate cocaine dealer, neat and nice growth?

WH with the sex offender disguise beard?

Slim Pickens and the starved bushranger face forest?

Or is it young Smokin’ D and the brazenly bald chin?

Let us know before it comes down to knives again.

ODB – Better Than You

For Your Face

Yo Face

 Much Love

WH

You know what’s good?

Chai Tea.

If you don’t agree, you’re wrong and chai is probably better than you.

Discuss:

Sydney Morning Herald Vs Slim Pickens

Alleged Hipster

http://www.smh.com.au/national/from-thriftshop-counter-to-counterculture-a-mob-of-individuals-stand-out-20100409-ryua.html

So, apparently the beards we sport make us hipsters… what about just compeltely fucking derelict or lazy? What about scholars of old? I’ve been through this before though.

For the sake of evolution, can’t we let people have their own gosh damn opinions? No.

Label everything and everyone that isn’t shopping at the ‘it’ place and then say that where they shop is ‘it’ for the counter culture.

You know why we shop at op shops? Because we put about 80% of our income into paying rent and being in a band. The rest of it goes on buying imported smut and cheap booze. Sure, there are assholes that look poor to be cool… but some people are just in between down and out.

I don’t know if Slim will be exposed to any of this, as he usually spends all his time outside of work and band stuff working on his mid range jumpshot and spin moves in the paint, but really, if he does find out, he’ll be sick. And to think that he’d be worried that he won’t find any lyrical vitriol for his other band (www.myspace.com/surprisewasp).

Hipster? Sydney Morning Herald, you got the wrong guy, Slim hates ‘pretentious phones,’ doesn’t regularly access the internet or give a flying sodomy move what the latest music is. He likes Wu-Tang, James Brown and Opeth last I checked and it has been that way for years.

Please feel free to suck it in the future.

Much Love

WH (possible hipster).

My First Wife – Sayomi Shimizu

Fox Queen? Pom Pom?

Ok, so now I need to tell y’all about my first wife and yes, she was indeed a fox queen, kitsune’, whatever you want to make of it.

She was also a crossdressing samurai and studied not only the martial arts of ninjitsu, judo, kendo and karate, but also the darker arts of the wu-jen… not to mention her time spent as hangyoku of the hot springs near Atami.

Our graphic design slave once suggested that Sayomi enjoyed ‘boosh doofs,’ this is not so, Gina Belle.

Sayomi Shimizu does not do doofs. Sayomi listens to the sound of trees falling in the woods when she is not even there to hear it and drops gangsta haiku over the samples of Masamune swords cutting up Mongols, the swish, chop, thud creates an excellent back beat.

Sayomi has been know by many names and titles throughout her long and strange life, the most commonly used of which was Pom Pom in both 18th Century Paris/Gevaudan and 19th century North Africa, where she spent a time working in the secret white slave trade.

Most recently, Sayomi has left a fifty year career as a gun for hire to become a recording artist. She says that she is glad to be working as an entertainer again.

I hope that this clears things up.

Much Love

WH

Katoomba! We Cometh (Again).

Mountain Lovin' Mother Lickin'!

Handsome Devils Keep The Wolf At Bay

Hot Diggity

The Black Tooth Spritz – A Doom Cocktail

Well, Blacktooth may have the name and Smokin’ D may be the culinary genius, but I have the black teeth and terrible history of black out boozing and minor criminal charges that ensure that I never touch this stuff again – but really, go on, try this at home.

The Black Tooth Spritz

Makes enough to ruin your life for a few days and the hangover will be monumental and maybe your loved ones will stop speaking to you after you ambush them with a guitar string garrote and a bag of under ripe oranges when they come home from working hard all day.

Ingredients

1 lime, sliced thin with a butcher knife

1 lemon thinly sliced with a ginsu knife, whalebone hilt bound in geisha hair

Fresh sprigs of Atropa Belladona, Monkshood and Hemlock (be careful how much of this you use or you’ll end up with some kind of archaic flying oil and the townsfolk with tar and feather you before hurling you into the  river like an unwanted puppy).

4 litres of the cheapest red wine you can find, if it comes from a cask, so much the better.

2 litres of Coke Zero, or if you really don’t want your teeth, use real Coca Cola andd bring on the holes and terror and the squealing children every time you grin.

Some kind of dark liquor – rum makes it really terrible though. I would suggest one 750ml bottle into the mix.

Method

Mix this in a bucket and let it sit overnight in a well, most likely some kind of Barrow Spirits will find the brew and drink a little, but as they are dead and their mouths are already stained, they have little to worry about.

By this point, the shit is nearly unpalatable and your opoid receptors should be warning you to flee the fucking city, let alone take another whiff or YWHW forbid, a swig of this vile concoction.

Enjoy

if you follow these instructions and then drink this, you will die

 

If you try this at home, you will die.