Busy Week

This past week was a bit hectic, for me. I was inundated with samples, at work, which all needed to be tested "yesterday".  I had a meeting of the Emergency Response Team, for our building, and then I had to prepare for, then help conduct, the monthly certification session for WAQTC. Then, of course, I had to do the follow-up work for that as well. (All of this in a four-day work week, due to Veteran's Day.)

In the meantime, on the home front;  Steve returned from Tennessee and we got together on both Thursday and Saturday, to do some recording. The Thursday session was pretty unproductive (partly due to us not playing, for a while ... partly due to the fact that I had gotten up at 3:45 in order to get to work at 5:00 so that I could do the final prep for WAQTC, and I was just wiped out by the time I got home.

Friday night, I ran down to Herman's Hideaway, and talked to the booking guys about our next show. Being out of circulation for 6 weeks, we had sort of fallen off of their radar. We may, or may not, have a show on the 11th of December. I should know, tomorrow.

Saturday was a busy week, all on its own. I went down to Kaladi for coffee, then over to pick up a used guitar case, from a buddy of mine, for my old Phoenix/Electra guitar.

Not bad for $20.00...

The guitar was made in 1984, in the Japanese Matsumoko factory, and I bought it in a Memphis pawn shop in 1987, for $99.00. It didn't come with a case, at that price, and I never had one for it (other than a gig bag), until now. Interestingly, this is the heaviest guitar that I own. The body is solid maple, and that gives it a very nice tone, and a lot of sustain. But, it makes my shoulder and back sore to play it for more than about 20 minutes at a time, standing up.

After I got home with the case, Steve texted me and asked if I wanted to do some recording at 3:00, before we were to go see Robert Harrison and the Outsiders, at the Bluebird Theater, at 8:00. Of course, I did.

I took advantage of the time before Steve showed up to put some new wheels on the fat bike. After last week's fiasco of an attempted ride, I had decided to just bite the bullet and get some new wheels with the correct spacing, quick release axles, sealed bearings,  and a freehub for modern cogsets. There is a company selling complete wheelsets, on eBay, for the same price that a 170mm rear hub costs, so I ordered a pair. They arrived on Wednesday, but I could find neither the time nor the energy to deal with them until Saturday.

Beauty shot

I pulled the wheels out of the box and was somewhat surprised to see that the rims were double-walled. At this price, I really expected single-wall rims.

 I installed a new 8-speed 11-32 cogset that I had lying about, and swapped the brake rotor and rubber over the new rear wheel...

...then I swapped out the rotor and rubber on the front wheel.

I like the black rims, a lot. I had been contemplating painting the original rims black, as a matter of fact. 

Now, the bike is ready to roll.

Once Steve arrived, we started playing. The session was much more successful than Thursday's had been. We ended up getting a couple of songs in the can, including "I Got The Blues", which we have probably attempted 30 times. For some reason, I could just never get the tone and the energy flowing at the same time, until Saturday.

The funny thing is, the take that is going onto the CD is one that we played at the tail-end of another take. We finished the first try, and I decided to just keep playing. We ended up just jamming on the song, for fun, with no pressure to try and make it "perfect". So, of course, it came out awesome. I am very proud of how it sounds, because it really captures the "live" feel that we are going for.

The rest of the evening was spent at the Bluebird. Adam, Adam, and John played their hearts out, and it was a really tight set.

The view from the balcony, via crappy iPhone photo...

The Bluebird is one of those places where I would really like to play, myself. I was happy for these guys to get the opportunity.

So, the week played out, and I realized, this morning, that I had never gotten a chance to post anything since last weekend. Hence, the big, long, post. Hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

x