Drummer from Agnostic Front is auditioning for my pop band. I think pop cover bands is where us old metal guys go to die lol

The resonance is a good thing. I've played a lot of basses (including some supposedly nice ones) that just don't have it, and a few that really, really do. Guess which ones sound better? And since the neck isn't tech suck, I'd say you have a winner. Anything else is changeable or fixable by semi-trained hands.

No, it's where you go to live forever.

Also: . You should put "featuring [so-and-so] of Agnostic Front" on promotional material. That should really win over the appropriate crowd.

Capital idea

Thus begins the epiclong drive home.

How long of a drive is it, in actual distance?

Something like 2,150 miles. We usually complete it in a little more than 40 hours of straight driving with some stops for food. But I think we may hit a hotel for a 6-8 hours this time around.

Kinda hard to believe I am headed home, I should have been there another 2 weeks. But we are bad motherfucks, I guess. Finished all the alloted work way ahead of the projected "Best Case Scenario", and not by way of miscalculation. We just kinda fucked shit up, in the good way.

Sweet buckets of barbequed Christ, Alaska is goddamn large. Canadia, too. Alaska, I think, we can make smaller; perhaps we should.

Oh yeah, the shit is big. And Fairbanks is pretty much smack dab in the middle of it. I think it could do with shrinking, though just erasing the undesirable bits with nuclear explosives may be a finer idea. Anchorage can stay and the parts inhabited by polar bears, as well. The rest could do with some exploding.

I've been playing a lot of straightforward hard rock and metal lead guitar weedly-weedly stuff the past hour or so. It's not a skill I have a ton of use for, but I'd like to at least keep it maintained, or- gasp!- get better at it. It translates to better control over the instrument, to me, and greater "I can play whatever I feel like". And I'm not real fluid with the straight pentatonic stuff; never have been. And I avoid the high E string like it's soaked in HIV.

I can't play pentatonic for shit either. I'm more diminished/harmonic minor/natural minor. Sometimes a little Lydian or Phrygian or that fucking Spanish gypsy scale, whatever that's called.

Same here. I'm fond of Locrian myself as well. Which gives some of my solos an odd feel. Or I wind up using an odd hybrid of harmonic minor and the blues scale- basically adding a flat fifth in there. I do use plain old minor pentatonic licks every once in a while- because they do sound badass- but I'm really not all that proficient with them. And some things with certain fingerings make me sound like I really can't play the guitar very well at all. It's hilariously bad, and I have to go back and rip some three-notes-per-string harmonic minor or modal stuff or sweep some arpeggios to remind myself I actually have some chops.

It's what I get for growing up on the metals, I suppose; some stuff I just never bothered to practice. On the plus side, it does keep me from falling into the very common trap of being "that guy" who can only solo in E or A minor pentatonic. But it does leave a big hole in my playing, at least as far as normal-sounding guitaring is concerned.

I insist on using my pinky, too, and adhere strictly to one finger = one fret length fingerings for everything unless I'm making stretches that demand otherwise. Which is probably good technique, but it leads to my using my weakest finger an awful lot in pentatonic box runs, or playing parts of things on the E and B strings with my middle and pinky, which is a little awkward, because I won't shift down one fret when I get to the G like a less refined but arguably smarter player, who would probably play the whole thing with index and ring fingers would.

I tend to combine natural and harmonic minor a lot. Basically, throw the raised seventh in and trill it and the root for a bit. Maybe throw in like a 5th-#7th-5th thing in here and there.


I only use my pinky when I have to though. Because of that, it's so weak I can't even vibrato with it.

Box shapes for me (say A minor) are index ring index ring index ring index ring index pinky index pinky.

Like a sensible person. Milk the index and ring fingers for all they're worth.

And I usually cheat on the pinky vibrato by adding in another finger on a fret below it, or barring that (depending on what I'm playing) have another finger anchored on another string. Force of habit. Also, leverage.

I usually go a string down and just use my index.

Weirdly enough, my vibrato is different on every finger. My index is really fast and Angus Young-esque, my middle is kind of in between but naturally very wide, and my ring finger actually follows the tempo.

That's unusual- or, at least, I think it's unusual. Mine is firmly in the wide/slow camp, unless I'm vibrato-ing a chord, where, by necessity, it's not so wide.

I think the buyer of my Epiphone has dinged the guitar and is trying to get some money out of me It was in a hard case (which he claims is undamaged), packed tight with newspapers and yet it appears to have a nice chip on one of the corners which was certainly not there when I posted it out. I hope he doesn't take this up with ebay/paypal as I'll probably end up getting screwed despite having clear pics of the affected area before I poasted it out.

Back in the lower 48 and OHMYFUCKITFEELSSOGOOD

Cong-rats.

You should have a mic in a day or two.

Fuck yes, I will! Plus a ribbo that may already be there (I'll be home in about an hour) and a babytubemap real soon. Oh boy, I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this...! I hope to get proper good at this shit, lots to learn.. Especially from the mixing/mastering end of things.