Monthly Archive for March, 2006

Wah, wah.

Published
by
Justin
on Tuesday March 14, 2006
in General
. 6 Comments

I think the thing I miss most about living in Boston (or any major city) is not being required to drive everywhere. The T can suck sometimes (and I am told that it sucks even more now, since I left) but it gets you anywhere you need to go.

I hate driving everywhere. I would at least like the option of not having to do it on occasion.

What I miss most about public transportation is falling asleep with my headphones on while I am on the way to school. You just can’t do that behind the wheel of a car.

String Talk

Published
by
Justin
on Friday March 10, 2006
in Music
. 0 Comments

I don’t consider myself a fussy musician. I can dial in my tone on just about any amp, I’ve been playing the same two basses for years now and I’m not one of those tone obsessed maniacs who sells gear every time he turns around. Yet, for some reason, I can never seem to find the strings that I use, and I don’t think what I play is really all that unusual.

I play DR Strings whenever possible. They are on the expensive side, but they really sound incredible. I am shocked at how fast this company has come along and moved into the mainstream. However, only half the stores in the area carry them and, even then they will have, at the most, three different kinds of DR strings if I am lucky. Most often, three that I don’t want.

Usually, if I store doesn’t have DR (or if my wallet can’t afford a set of DR’s) I will play D’Addario. D’Addario makes great strings, but they don’t seem to last as long for me as the DR’s. Also, just generally speaking, DR Strings have a ton more balls and sound much, much better.

Like many bass players I know, I prefer nickel-plated strings because I hate the hissy screetchiness of stainless steel. Nickel also feels better and doesn’t eat my frets up as bad. Now, if you’re shopping for D’Addario, finding nickel strings is almost never a problem because most halfway decent stores seem to carry the full range of D’Addario XL’s, but for some reason if a store even carries DR Strings in the first place, all they have is stainless steel. Furthermore if they carry DR and keep the nickel models in stock (Sunbeams or Nickel Lo-Riders) they never seem to have the gauges I use… which, once again, I don’t feel are all that strange.

I use .45 .65. .85. .105 and a .130 on the B string which is “Middle gauge” set for most string companies, though, I think that this gauge is becoming closer to being regarded as “heavy” now for fingerstyle players as it seems that more and more players are dropping down to .40-.100 and lighter. It is my opinion that, if you drop below .40, you’re a sissy. I don’t care if Stanley Clarke did it or not. You’re a sissy. There’s no excuse for that.

Around here in Hampton Roads, VA there is one store that carries “my strings”, and I refuse to shop there anymore.. for personal reasons, so I got on the web and bought some “DR Nickel Lo-Riders” from juststrings.com. I normally use Sunbeams but I thought I’d give the Lo-riders a shot. The prices on juststrings are little below average and the shipping wasn’t too bad. I’d imagine if you bought a few sets at a time it wouldn’t be a big deal at all to pay the shipping. The convenience of knowing I can get exactly what I want in a couple of days is worth it to me, anyway.

Odds and Ends

Published
by
Justin
on Wednesday March 8, 2006
in General
. 4 Comments

I’ve been a bad blogger lately. The trip to Nashville followed by getting sick in the midst of finishing up my second five week term at ECPI left me with little time for blogging. In fact, I should be doing work for my final presentation in Computer Applications right now.

Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed, a band I play with, “The Jay Rakes Band,” will be opening up for King’s X on April 7th, so that’s pretty cool. Jay, Tripp and I don’t agree on much of anything but we all like King’s X so we’re excited about that.

I’ve been a really crappy musician lately as well. Can’t seem to make myself practice. I’m just so bored with bass sometimes. It’s fun to play with people, but getting the thing out of it’s case while it is at home has become quite a chore. I don’t know what my problem is, but I am afraid that once I get out of ECPI and start working more that it will always be like this and I won’t want to play music at all. I hope it doesn’t work out that way. It was never my intention to become a “weekend warrior.” I think I need another band project.

My friend, Brett Miller, sent me a CD of tunes he wants me to write and record bass lines for. That should keep me on my toes. Brett is a metal guy, and I haven’t played metal in awhile. He’s not your typical metal guy, though. Brett is simultaneously one of the oddest and most intelligent people I know, in addition to being a great guitarist and composer. I think we spent more time talking about alien abductions in college than music, but thats probably for the better. I tend to think of Brett simply as a good friend who happens to play an instrument, which has become the way I see the majority of my musician friends. We don’t have a professional relationship necessarily, we don’t talk only about music, but we have that common thread and, even if we don’t talk about it, we know it is ultimately what keeps us connected.