Things I've learned by not listening to heavy metal anymore
For the longest time, I listened to nothing but a diet of metal. Those days are gone.
As a middle aged man, my tastes in music have changed quite a bit since my teens and 20s.
The main difference between a 20s and 40s guitar player is that the 20s guy is trying to be "cool" while the 40s guy isn't. And even if the 20s guy says "I'm not trying to be cool", that in itself is an attempt to be cool. If you don't understand what that means, you're probably in your 20s.
One of the most embarrassing things is seeing a guitar guy in his 40s that's still trying to be a metalhead. It just doesn't work. I've seen them scattered around. There are only 3 types. The first type is the big fat guy who is bald on top and has this nasty looking unwashed silver rat tail of hair hanging from the back of his head. The second is the gangly dude who is way too skinny, walks weird and is a former or current junkie of some kind, be it through drugs, alcohol or both. He has a full head of hair, but it looks like he combed it with a cheese grater. The third is a variation of the second where he dyes his hair jet black and slicks it to the point where it looks like plastic.
Metalhead chicks who get old are even worse. All those tattoos she got in her teens and 20s are now all stretched out and faded, she gained 100 to 200 pounds and has some nasty bingo wings that flap like a tattered flag, flabby cottage cheese breasts, a butt that looks like a worn out sofa cushion and has a big ol' gunt going on, a.k.a. FUPA. You can Google those if you want to know what they are. Be warned, it's not pretty. Don't say I didn't warn you.
When I was at NAMM 2015, I picked up a couple promotional shirts. One of them I didn't want but took anyway, and the second was one that I genuinely thought was a cool shirt. It's a black tee that has this wild graphic on it, and I was sure that I'd enjoy it.
I get home, put on the shirt and then go look in the mirror. What I saw in the reflection was a man wearing a shirt he has no business wearing. I saw a guy with some serious redneck NASCAR crapola going on.
Obviously, I've never worn the shirt in public. And I never will.
I won't say which guitar company made the shirt I thought looked good, but here's another shirt that looks similar to it. If you are over 40, or heck, even if you're over 30 and you think that shirt looks good, think again. It doesn't. Proper men don't wears shirts like that but rather shirts like this so one doesn't look like a complete idiot.
Side note: Not all tees are bad. It's the graphic ones that are dopey. The worst of the worst is the three wolf moon shirt. That shirt is so bad that it became an internet meme, and that's the only reason it's still for sale. It's now considered a joke shirt.
As a guitar player...
The deal with being a metalhead guitar player is there's this unwritten rule that you must listen to only metal, play only metal and do not deviate from that. Ever.
Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds.
Once I realized how stupid it was, that's when I started becoming a much better guitar player. I started listening to all sorts of different music, trying different styles, different scales, different everything, different guitars... it was a whole new world opened up to me.
Were I a metal player, I never would have bought a Jazzmaster and never discovered surf rock, rockabilly or any other number of styles I've listened to and taken inspiration from.
Do I still listen to metal? Rarely. Whenever I do, I literally get a headache from it after only a few minutes and I'm not kidding. I'll listen to a metal song or two just for a quick nostalgia fix, then go back to listening to stuff that doesn't sound like a cacophony of cats in heat.
Cheap import guitar of the week #1 - LED light-up acrylic Stratocaster
I've decided to start a new feature. Cheap import guitar of the week. This is the first one. I don't know if I'll be doing this every week (it depends what's out there), but I'll do my best to make this a weekly thing.
There are a lot of guitars out there that are import-only that never see the inside of a guitar store. These guitars are wacky, weird, and most importantly, cheap.
For my first cheap import of the week feature, I'm showing something flashy, that being an acrylic Strat with LED lights all over it including directly inside the fretboard.
Now if you've been following my blog posts for a while, you know I have no love for an acrylic-bodied guitar for basically one reason. Weight. Unless the guitar is chambered (which this one isn't), it will weigh a lot, so it's required to wear a well-padded strap if you take this thing to a gig.
However, this is a very cheap light-me-up that's sure to grab attention. For example, if you're playing a gig with this, you will get noticed more because this thing lights up, and that's the whole point of owning it. Cheap gimmick? Yes, but who cares? If you're trying to get noticed, you use whatever you can to be seen, and this guitar will certainly get you noticed.
Also, it's pretty much guaranteed you will be the only guy or girl anywhere with a light-up Strat that covers both the body and the fretboard markers.
Travel guitars are stupid
There are some guitar designs that are just plain stupid. The travel guitar is one of them.
Even though it doesn't cost all that much, a Traveler Guitar it's still too expensive for what it is.
The Traveler is simply a dumb guitar design. It looks ugly. Playable it may be, and yes it is an acoustic-electric so it can be plugged in, but why would anyone buy one when you could get a Yamaha GL1 for a third of the price of the Traveler.
The above is a Yamaha GL1 6-string ukulele/guitalele. Very small, very easy to play, very lightweight, and even in small size, it looks like a proper guitar.
If I were taking a travel guitar along with me, I'd take the Yamaha over the Traveler any day. As far as travel guitars go, this one is just so much better and you get so much more for the money.
Do fat guys get any respect as guitar players?
Short answer: Yes. But let's find out why.
Johnny Hiland is a monster guitar player, and I'm not talking about his size. The guy is an absolute wizard on the 6-string.
Listen to the album All Fired Up. Good album. I suggest getting it.
Now I admit, when you see Johnny play, the first thing you notice is that he's a big guy and dwarfs any guitar he straps on. He makes full adult-size guitars look like toys when set against his large frame. He'd probably even make an ES-335 look small. But after that, you quickly stop staring at the man and start staring at the guitar instead, because the guy is that good.
What I've noticed over the years concerning fat guys (or fat girls for that matter) is that those who play and play well do get respect as musicians. Why? Because at the end of the day it's about the music and not about the appearance. If the music is good, fatness doesn't matter.
Am I a fat guy? No. But there are plenty of guitar players out there who are big people. If you're a fat guy, don't let that stop you from playing guitar.
The advice I'd give to fat players is the same I'd give to skinny players. Don't suck. :) Keep playing, keep practicing, get good and enjoy the instrument.
How to save on the air conditioning bill in Florida
I've decided to get the jump on cutting down the electric bill for A/C use this year.
Right now the weather where I live in Tampa Bay Florida is pleasant, but summer is coming, and with it the heat. That means I'll have to turn on the A/C and my electric bill will go up for the next several months.
Note that I said turn on the A/C and not turn up. From about mid-November to late April, the A/C stays off. And I mean completely off. When I kick it back on, on first start-up I'm usually treated to a slight musty smell for the first few minutes since the unit has been sitting there unused for months, but it quickly goes away once the cold starts coming through.
Last year, I wished I had a twin window fan in my bedroom. This year I bought one. the Bionaire BW2300. I've not received it yet but it will arrive in the mail in about a week. However, that's not the only thing I bought. More on that in a moment.
Is the BW2300 cheapest window fan? No. But it is the lowest priced concerning what it's capable of doing.
What this particular fan does that's special is the following:
- Blades spin in either direction, meaning it can act as an intake (brings air in from the outside) or exhaust (blows air to the outside.)
- Exchange mode option. One blade is the intake, the other the exhaust. This is a big deal in Florida when the fan is running at night, because it brings the cool night air in and blows the hot air out.
- Has 3 speeds instead of just 1 or 2.
- Has a thermostat that can be set to come on at a specified temperature and shut off at another.
- Has an LCD display with dimmer button.
- Has a remote control.
The remote is actually not needed, but it's nice it comes with one. Other than that, the stuff this fan can do is exactly what's needed so I can turn down my A/C even lower than last year so it doesn't have to run as often. In fact, there's a good chance it will pay for itself in under 6 months.
But then there's that old saying, "It's not the heat; it's the humidity."
True? Yes. Florida is loaded with humidity. While it never reaches 100F here and tops out at around 96F, the humidity more than anything else is what makes hot weather miserable.
So I bought a dirt simple dehumidifier, a Eva-Dry E-333. It was a choice between this one and the E-500 model. The difference between the two is that one handles 333 cubic feet and the other 500 cubic feet. I went with the smaller one specifically because I don't want it to work too well.
The way the E-333 and E-500 work is you charge it up, then just let it sit. If the unit is dry, the crystals are blue in that little window thing you see in the photo. If they turn pink, it then needs a recharge.
I do not know how well or not well one of these works just yet, but I do know my bedroom is small, and if the room is too dry, that would be uncomfortable. All I need is a slight decrease in humidity. Nothing drastic.
The E-333 may or may not work for me. If it doesn't, Plan B will be to use it in my car instead where I absolutely know it will work, then get a bigger dehumidifier with a small water collector. That one handles up to 1,100 cubic feet and is as large as I would go for my small bedroom. It requires power to operate, but that's what is needed when you start using the larger stuff.
What savings do I expect?
For summer 2014 I actually did well with my electric bill, and was able to shave almost 20% of the bill. Yes, really. It's amazing how much you save just by adjusting the A/C a few degrees and running fans.
I'm going to try to shave off 30% this year, which means I'm aiming for another 10%. I think that's reasonable. While I don't expect a huge difference by use of a twin window fan and the use of a small dehumidifier, it may be enough to reach my 10% goal.
Also, bear in mind I'm doing this for just my small bedroom and not my entire place.
For daytime use, I should be able to turn down (but not off) the A/C a few degrees and still be comfortable.
For nighttime use, there's cooler air outside I can bring inside while sending hot air outside from use of the twin window fan in exchange mode. That means during the night I might be able to actually turn off the A/C completely and still sleep comfortably. Maybe. That's an unknown at this point.
I'll be happy to receive the fan and dehumidifier to see how they work. Both of them have received really good reviews so they should work fine.