My go-to guitar. It had fret buzz on two strings (?A and D) up around 10-12th frets. It was otherwise very nicely set-up and stable.
I took it to Danny Shoemaker at Straight Frets. He put it on his bench and we looked at it together for 10 or 15 minutes. He thought the neck had either twisted or swollen a little unevenly over time (I can't remember his exact theory). Long story short: I decided to just get it PLEK'd, and left it with him to PLEK and put on a new nut (the machine can also cut the nut with perfect precision as it levels the frets).
Before I left it with him, he let me look at the machine and showed me how it works. Once you lock a guitar in place, the machine will measure out everything very precisely and print out an incredibly detailed before-and-after schematic of how "off" the frets are, how much metal is going to be shaved to get to the ideal configuration... like down to the tiniest amount of metal along every single fret. Then you can pull the guitar down and tweak the truss rod (and maybe also tweak the bridge). Then lock it back into the machine and let it measure everything again. I think the idea is to get it set up by hand as perfectly as possible so as to shave off the least amount of metal.
I picked it up a week or so later, and he confessed that his theory for why I had a little buzz in one spot wasn't exactly correct. It made me respect him more that he would readily say that.
I've got to say, if it was world's best luthier vs a really good luthier and a PLEK... I'd take the PLEK all day long. They're incredible machines.
Y'all have seen it more than once on this thread... it's a 91 Custom Shop. It looks a little red in this photo... it's actually orange. It also got relic'ed the old fashioned way - by playing the shit out of it for 30 years.
I grew up in Houston area and remember him well.
He was a fantastic broadcaster. He clearly had a good understanding for the game, affection for the coaches and players (and appreciation for their often-overlooked home towns), and he added just the right amount of enthusiasm to his calls. He came across as folksy but still dignified.
It's sad to think how UT television broadcasts have fallen from the gravitas of Ron Franklin to the over-excited gibberish of no-talent Lowell Galindo.
Yeah, I misremembered. The news articles in 2019 said Biden told staff he’d be a 1-term guy. But he never said that publicly. And has since said he’d run again.
Interesting discussion.
Has Biden publicly stated that he’s running? He said he wouldn’t- and I don’t remember seeing where he’s changed course.
Republicans have done a **much** better job of identifying the last few likely Democratic presidential nominees - especially Hillary - and spent half a decade putting out daily hit jobs, conspiracy theories, and subversive rumors. I’m convinced that Hillary was simultaneously one of the most qualified candidates (though unlikeable) of the last 100 years, and also the only (D) who could have lost to the most profoundly unqualified major-party candidate of our time.
They’re already shelling Harris (EXPENSIVE COOKWARE! Communist!). She’s seemingly got NO ONE in her corner right now. I don’t think she could beat any of the Trumpkin loons.
Last point: I’ll bet Trump runs if he thinks he’s captured enough swing state legislators with his loyalists. He definitely doesn’t need the popular vote. He may not need an electoral majority either.
I think it looks bleak for the Dems.
I just watched that. It made me think of the scene from "Popstar: Never stop never stopping" where Samberg realizes he's surrounded by people who are afraid to tell him when one of his ideas is horrible.
I don't know if they all sound better as a rule, but I definitely think they *can.* My first real guitar was an Alvarez Yairi that I got used in the 80's... I paid $250 (read: "lawn mowing money"). I think the dimensions are identical to a Martin dreadnaught. I played the shit out of it when I was a teenager - in my obsessive phase of sleeping with guitar next to the bed and reaching for it when I woke up. When I got older and got a little money, the Alvarez got relegated to the closet for a decade while I bought "better" guitars.
I had kind of the same experience when I restrung it and listened to it head-to-head against my newer guitars (including that Pelham blue J-45 I mentioned above). I was kind of shocked at how it sounded every bit as good as the acoustics I had paid about ten times as much for.
I don't know if it "opened up" with time (i.e the top got more resonant) or if it was always better than I realized.
The old cross-division format in the Big 12 -- home/home and then skip two years -- there was a period of almost a decade where that worked out really well for K State. They didn't have to play *any* of the four best Texas teams of the modern era - 04, 05, 08, and 09. If memory serves, the Vince Young juggernaut went two years with only one conference loss (12-0 in Dallas to OU), and the very salty Colt McCoy teams also went two years with a singular (but devastating) loss in Lubbock.
K State didn't play any of those teams, but they did play two much more average Texas teams in 06 and 07 and a couple of shitshows in 10 and 11.
Watching the K-State fans celebrate in their goofy purple overalls, with their ridiculous powercat videos and their high school cheers... reminds me how fucking painful it can be to lose to a shitty glorified high school on the prairie.
I don't know if that's the LSU fans' reaction though. If those hillbillies moved to Louisiana, they'd all be tutors.
I just rewound DVR to see if this announcer was really saying that Nebraska and K State were in the same conference... yes, he said that.
Obviously someone in the booth got his attention and got him to correct himself.
Sat down to audition some of these records in this thread, and I got one band into the first post... Royal Blood. Inadvertently started to listen to their last record first... very garage rock, with decent songs, but they seemed to go to the same palette of sounds/production tricks over and over again. Then I listened to Typhoon, which uses a lot of dance-club drum sounds against fuzz guitars... an odd pairing but an original sound. Also better songs than the prior record. I dig it. Thanks for the recommendation.
Just to add:
Despite what I just wrote, I still root for Tech in most every game they’re not playing Texas.
There’s a scene in Blues Brothers where they’re talking about an old booking agent who got the band a bunch of big gigs and showcases, and they name several of those venues. Then, as if tallying the score, Jake adds, “I got him laid. He owes me.”
I’ve only been to Lubbock once. It was the weekend of a UT game in the 90’s. I had a great time. So if we’re talking Tech, I owe them.
Good analogy.
The further away he is, the more you can just be entertained by his trolling.
To some extent, he’s poison to his conference as well. There was a period where Leach had Tech fans 100% convinced that the refs were conspiring against them… even though during that exact time period - Tech was called for fewer penalties every year… despite throwing it 65 times a game while magically going years without committing holding vs future NFL defensive ends (Kindle, Orakpo).
I have several Tech friends who still tell me every year before the game how they’re sure the refs will fix it for Texas “like always.” It defies logic (and it defies the box score year after year), and I don’t think that started with Dykes or Tuberville or Kliffy or anyone else.