Merry Christmas!

Hoping you and yours have a Merry Christmas and a Better 2015! 

Sansamp Leeds

Just took delivery of a Sansamp Leeds amp simulator pedal yesterday. Sound thick and crunchy. Going to run this on one line with the Sansamp Blonde on another line for an interesting heavy stereo sound. 

Snow Day

First snow of the season. Yesterday was rain rain rain. Woke up around 1:30AM to take a piss and looked out the window to see snow everywhere. Strange thing about the Northwest, these patterns roll in and out, sometimes daily. Snow in the morning all gone with rain that night. 

Editing Epiphany

While watching several extremely well edited documentaries over Thanksgiving, I had major inspiration on editing styles for my new film Rats & Gassers. Now I'm not going to copy what they did exactly, but watching how they handled static boring footage made me reevaluate what I was planning for my own documentary. In short I had an "Editing Epiphany." 

Happy Thanksgiving!

...and if the Aliens abduct you- may they be festive and joyous! 

Rats & Gassers Graphics

Revamping the intro graphics for Rats & Gassers. This kind of detail work takes a lot of time.

Election 2014

So the GOP took the Senate yesterday. Meh and ladeeda and so more of the same. The best news from yesterdays election was San Francisco passing a $15 minimum wage like we have in Seattle. These are the real battlefronts. The fat cats on both sides will never figure it out. We the people need more money! 

Hard Disc Recovery

So I have recovered most all files from my last Hard Drive crash and have actually been moving into new editing territory the last week. Finally.

Mark Anderson's Hot Rod

These (unedited) pics were from yesterdays shoot and interview for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride with Mark Anderson and his amazing period correct Hot Rod. Mark is a wealth of information on both Hot Rod History and building them the Old School way. I had interviewed Mark years ago for Go-Kustom TV with his '33 Plymouth Pick-Up. 

1957 Ford Gasser Wagon

Had a great interview last night with Kurt & Bob about this 1957 Ford Gasser Wagon. Kurt built jot and Bob owns/races it regularly.Nice guys and a great addition to Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. I originally met Bob out at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, WA in the pits after watching him make dozens of passes in the big black Ford. This wagon is big and fast! 

Ello?

Finally got around to setting up my Ello account. Is this Evolutionary Social Media or just another social site that becomes a waste of artistic time? They definitely created that "exclusive thang" by being invite only- but who will actually get rejected by Ello? Appearance or reality? Currently I'm at https://ello.co/gokustom

Catastrophic Hard Drive Failure #2

So this is the second 2TB external drive I've had go out in the last year. Both were working drives for my new film Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. After the last big crash, I saved the bulk of my files to BluRay BD-Rs using Toast. So now the reconstruction begins. I have decided to buy cheaper USB 3.0 drives to store the files on, then shelve afterwards. The Firewire 800 drives are more expensive and having them connected all the time reduces drive life. I will keep one Firewire drive connected as a working space and then use the USB drives to archive/backup my work. 

Boss Compression Sustainer CS-3

Man...just got a Boss Compression Sustainer yesterday via Sweewater and UPS and was messing around with it today. One of those pedals that is hard to explain, but possibly addictive. On certain settings your bass/guitar notes really bite. Thats part of the attack setting and gives you that country twang picking sound when run on a clean or mildly overdriven channel. Really digging this one 

New Studio Rug

Got a new rug for the new studio. Only $12 at Value Village! The studio is slowly coming together. I need to sound proof one wall and get another area rug for my percussion area. Slowly...

Danelectro Spring King

In my search for a decent "Spring Reverb"guitar sound- I decided to buy a Danelectroo Spring King stomp box, this based on all the YouTube demos of the pedal I could find and the fact that the unit has real springs inside the case. Just got it and will let you know what I think a little later.

Freaks Amor

Got a cool package in the mail from longtime friend Melanie Taunton. This is an album that I did played on (trombone, synth and bass) back in 1983 by San Bernardino Avant Garde band Freaks Amor. Mel had the old Vinyl E.P. and put it onto a CD with cover art! 

New Studio Percussion Area

Got the percussion area set up in my new garage studio. I still need to wire up the mics to the new Mackie ProFX12 board, but that won't take long.  I dig the new space.

Crawl Or Die

Got a copy of the new film Crawl Or Die which just came out on DVD. The star of the movie, Nicole Alonso, was also the lead vocalist on "Shut Down" a song that I wrote and used during the drag racing scene of my film Rat Rod Rockers! I have been following Nicole, Co-Star David P. Baker and Director Oklahoma Ward's posts about this film for months. Oh so appetizing!!! 

Rat Bastards Car Club Infestation 2014

Great day out at the Kenmore Lanes Bowling Alley for the Annual Rat Bastards Car Club Infestation. This was the first year at the Lanes in Kenmore, WA., which is a better location than the previous XXX Root Beer in Issaquah, WA. More parking and bowling! Over 120 cars of various build styles were present and people seemed upbeat and out to enjoy the day. Sometimes when a Car Show changes venues, it is for the worse, in this case it definitely was for the better. We will be there next year.

Worst Case Scenario Compilation

Just got the completed cover art from the amazing Shawn Dickinson for our new Garage Rock/Surf Compilation entitled Worst Case Scenario. This should be out on Go-Kustom Rekords later this year- right now we are waiting for some bands to return their agreements, final tracks, etc. then we press the discs. Maybe we should do T-Shirts with this design?

Dr. Rob's & The Street Freak Kruzrs Car & Bike Show

Sunny day in Snohomish for the Dr. Rob's & The Street Freak Kruzrs Car & Bike Show. We had our Go-Kustom Vendor booth selling the DVDs and CDs and hanging with friends. We haven't done many shows this year because I have been editing the TV Show and Rats & Gassers documentary. Still this was a fun show- hope they do it again next year. Bands, Hot Dogs, Vendors and lots of cars and bikes to ogle.