the phone book (tampa 813)
It was either this past week or the week before that I was working on something in my place and I heard a loud THWAP! outside, and then heard a vehicle driving off. So I go outside and in front of my front door...
...are a pair of phone books in a bag. One for business, the other for residential. The mailman dumps them on the ground because they are obviously too large to fit in the mailbox.
Small side note: The mailbox for the house I grew up in in rural Connecticut had the mailbox directly on a rural route, so the maildude couldn't put the phone book on the ground. Instead he crammed it into the mailbox. This was before the post office wised up and started putting the book in a bag (to protect it from the rain) and then hanging it off the mailbox flag. Yes, they really did that and probably still do to this day.
There's been talk for a while that the printed phone book will cease to exist, yet it still gets printed, year after year. And nobody really knows why the phone book still gets printed. Some say it's for the benefit of people that don't have internet connectivity and refuse to use 4-1-1 directory assistance, but I don't buy that. The phone company loves producing the phone book that nobody uses for the simple reason they make a ton of money from advertising revenue. To them it's a very safe, very easy cash cow and has been for decades.
Is the phone book actually useful? Actually, it is. I decided to thumb through it to see if there was any information the book could provide that I'd actually want to know. I mean, I get the stupid thing every year for free, so I might as well take a look before I toss it. As it turns out, it does have some stuff in it that's worth keeping the book for.
The most important info in the book is in the first 20 pages. A list of every single area code in the US is there, as are all international calling codes. A full time zone map is in there. The evacuation routes for Florida (in case of natural disaster from hurricane) are listed. All government offices are listed. Emergency shelter locations for my particular area are listed.
Were you to try and get all this info online, it would take a while. Probably a few hours (especially for the government office numbers and locations). But in the book it's all there right up front. And I mean literally in the front of the book.
So... I guess I'll keep the book. Either that or I'll just tear out the first 25 or so pages and toss the rest.
There will come a point where if you want a phone book that's ink on paper, you'll have to make your own.
The importance of getting while the getting is good
Recently I bought two guitars, the Fender Modern Player Stratocaster HSS and the Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90. Both guitars were selling for discounted prices when I bought them, and as of now they've both gone back up in price.
With the Fender, I bought that at a 6.25% discount over what it would ordinarily sell for. Not a lot, but it was money saved. Fender typically does not deep-discount their models, so you have to take what you can get.
With the Epiphone, that was a biggie as it was selling for almost 31% less than what it ordinarily sells for. For a new model that is insanely rare. And as it turns out it was a weekend-only sale at the time I bought it. The day I went to pick it up, the Guitar Center store I went to had just received them that morning. They had 6, with one 2 in the color I wanted, and I bought one of those 2. When I returned to the store a week or so later, 5 of the 6 were gone and the price had gone back up.
I got really lucky with the Epi, and there's no question about that.
With the Epi, those guitars flew off the racks. In fact, many of them were probably sold even before the store got a chance to take them out of the boxes they arrived in. The guitar was not listed as a weekend sale, but I'm sure the moment the first day's sales figures came in, the decision was made to make it only a 2-day thing so the stores could make more money.
With the Fender, that didn't sell as quickly (mainly because the price was a bit high to begin with even when discounted), so the discounted price stuck around until the end of 2012, and went back up when 2013 rolled around.
Concentrating on the Epi again, I knew the guitar would sell really fast just based on the discounted price of $89 alone, so I made the decision to go for it since it was actually in stock in the color I wanted at the GC I go to. With the Fender, I knew I had time, so I thought about that one more before I went for it. In both situations I got the discount I wanted.
The way to find cool deep-discount guitars like this is not some guarded secret. What you have to do is look at new listings often - online. What guitar companies typically do when releasing a new or updated model is to first offer it at a discount to see how many people buy it to gauge consumer interest in the instrument. If it's good, the price goes back up quickly. If not, the discounted price sticks around for a little while.
Online is pretty much the only way to do this - unless you're looking for used gear. With used, you have to go to the store because those axes are the last thing to be put as searchable guitars online since the store considers them a low priority (new stock is always preferable to move over used).
I don't have magic powers in my ability to find deep-discounted guitars. I just check the listings often.
Is low action on a guitar always the best way to set one up?
A common belief that every guitar should have the action (which in general terms means the string height) set as low as you can get it without fret buzz.
Well, that belief is wrong. The action of a guitar should be set up according to player preference first and always.
I personally set the action of my guitars to be what I call "medium-high", meaning not low but not high either. And I do this for the reason that if I don't, my fingers will run over other strings when I do bends.
This is a little difficult to explain, but I'll try my best. I apologize in advance if you get confused. Like I said, this is tough to explain.
Let's say I have my index finger on the 1 string, 12th fret, and I want to bend the string UP from an E to an F# (or Gb). In other words, a two-fret bend.
With the 1 string 12th fret being held, the way I prefer my action is that the unheld 2 string should be resting half-way between the top and bottom of my finger.
Why do I do this? Because on the 1 string I never bend down but always UP. And if the 2 string is set too low, my finger literally runs over that string when I try to bend up the 1.
I do UP bends on the 1, 2 and 3 strings often, so that means when I'm holding the 1 down, the 2 has to be resting in middle-of-finger position. When holding the 2, the 3 has to be middle-of-finger position, and for the 3 the 4 has to be middle-of-finger position. Being I do NOT do up bends on the 5 and 6, those strings can be set lower for my playing style.
This type of string action isn't what you would call "high" but rather "medium-high", as I call it. However it's definitely not low.
If you were wondering how I'm able to get sinfully sweet bends and vibratos on my strings, a lot of that has to do with the fact I do not have my strings set low.
On a final note, this is not to say you shouldn't set your strings low. Set up your action in a way that feels most comfortable for your style. I don't set my action low because then I can't do the bends I like.
Rich's favorite guitar brand logos
The logo on a guitar's headstock (or pegboard in Fender vernacular) matters to me; these are a few of my favorites and I'll explain why I like them.
1969 Fender Stratocaster "transition" logo that includes "with synchronized tremolo"
This CBS-era Fender logo is without a doubt my absolute favorite out of all Fender logos. In fact, it's my favorite logo period. And yes, it is the same one you see on the Yngwie Malmsteen Strat. I really like the large swooping italicized "STRATOCASTER" and the "WITH SYNCHRONIZED TREMOLO" underneath it. For whatever reason it totally works. It's a "busy" design, to be sure, but it's freakin' awesome.
You can still get the "swoopy" logo today, but the tough part is getting the "WITH SYNCHRONIZED TREMOLO" underneath it. Only the Malmsteen Strat has the complete '69 logo treatment.
1990s-era ESP logo
ESP has bounced around with a bunch of logos, but this is the best one. Very squared-off, very in-your-face, very bold; it totally works. And I love the fact the middle part of the "E" looks like a speaker cone.
And wow, do you have to pay a lot to get this logo on a guitar these days. The ESP "M" series guitars have that old-school logo, and you're going to pay well over a grand to start just to get it.
Jackson Guitars logo
As far as I'm aware, Jackson has always used the same logo and rarely uses anything else. And fortunately there's a wide selection of Jackson axes from cheap to expensive and everywhere in between, so you can get a guitar with a cool Jackson logo to fit any budget.
I'm very happy Jackson did not do that "premium only" crapola with their branding, because it allows anyone to look cool with one of their guitars.
Epiphone "e" logo
The Epiphone logo itself isn't that interesting, but the "e" logo is. You can see it in the above image on the truss rod cover.
There are only two guitar brands in the world that can be recognized by a single stylized letter. The first is the Fender "F", and the other the Epiphone "e".
I'm actually surprised Gibson doesn't use more of Epiphone's "e" because it can be recognized instantly the moment you see it, and it is distinctive.
The "e" is used mostly on higher-end Epiphone models like the Sheraton where the logo can be seen on the pick guard and the tailpiece.
Were it up to me, every single Epiphone electric should have the "e" on the truss rod cover. The logo isn't tacky, and a small "e" on the cover would be a nice touch.
1990s-era Washburn logo
There was a time when Washburn was considered a major player in the electric guitar market. The Nuno Bettencourt model above is, of course, what put Washburn electrics on the map in the rock world.
The way Washburn did the logo for the Nuno model (which is still sold today) works very well. It's a nice combo of vintage+modern and does look best when applied as black-on-natural.
The magic sound of the P90 pickup
The song Hideaway by Freddie King is part of what inspired me to get the Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90 guitar...
...because the P90 has great tone.
The P90 works for basically every type of music except metal. Ordinarily I'd say you can make any electric "sound metal", but not when it comes to the P90; that pickup is best suited for blues, jazz, country, classic hard rock and pretty much everything else short of metal crunching.
Again, this is why I say I think it's mandatory for guitar players to own multiple guitars with different pickups and pickup configurations. I don't ever plan on performing metal songs with the Paul I bought, but instead concentrate on classic rock and blues tones, which I know the P90 is good for.
Do you need a Les Paul for that classic P90 sound? No. What you need is the P90 itself no matter what guitar it is. The pickups could be in a Stratocaster body and they would basically sound the same. So if you happen to be in situation where you really like the P90 but can't get the Epi Les Paul like I did, find yourself another guitar that can have that pickup installed, or if it's a Strat body just get a pick guard that has the proper cutouts for it.