Jump to content

Paul Wesley

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    1984
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Paul Wesley

  1. I think I became aware of Audley because I knew some guys who were working with the Dixie Chicks while he was playing with them (and maybe on the Courtyard Hounds too?). And they raved about him, which made me go back and listen to his other work.
  2. Wow. That's awful. Cringeworthy and profoundly wrong.
  3. I just watched that '98 live video, and before I had even scrolled down to see the next few comments, my impression of the show was that Audley is criminally underused. There may or may not be guys who are a better fit for that band-- I'm not convinced there are -- but I don't think it would have mattered when there are already too many guys on the floor who need the ball in their hands (it's a strained metaphor, but you get it). I hired Audley to play on something a couple years ago, and I spent a few days with him. I can't rave enough about him as a musician, as a masterful guitarist, and as a kind and thoughtful person (an opinion shared by pretty much everyone who works with him).
  4. All true, but the yokels talking about tyranny and freedom and control and "I woke up in a free country..." --- fucking zero of them could explain on the very simplest level how *any* vaccine works, much less how cellular biology and messenger RNA works.
  5. Wow. I really dig this song. Odd time signatures aren't usually my thing... but this one works for me. Bravo. Only thing I'm not liking is the sound of the acoustic (or maybe that's a clean electric?) -- it's kind of thin and buzzy, and it feels like it overwhelms the other rhythm electric (which sounds great). Very cool tune. Also, I cannot tell you how much I identify with "ridiculously ambitious work that may never get finished." If I were to describe the last 3 years of my own creative efforts, that phrase would pretty much sum it up. Here's to finishing.
  6. This gets discussed every year or so, and the usual names come up (Erlewine, Lauren at Strait, etc). One of those usual suspects is Tom Oatley. He works out of the garage behind his house in South Austin. Does pro-level work for a fair price. Here's an article from the Gibson website (so, of course they're going to talk about Les Paul and Gibson guitars): http://es.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/Gibson-Preps-For-SXSW-with-Guitar-Tech-Tom-Oatley.aspx Tom has a facebook page with contact info. If I needed pickups swapped out or minor-level set-ups, I'd use Tom. If I needed a bigger job (refret) or I had a guitar with major playability issues (buzzing strings, minor warping), I'd go to Danny Shoemaker - who also works out of his house in South Austin - simply because as far as I know, he has the only Plek machine in Austin: https://straightfrets.com/pricing-and-services/plek-machine/
  7. "Fretless" also works.
  8. Wesley's Law: As a bass player gets more bald and/or overweight, the chance he will wear a fedora approaches 100%.
  9. A haggard, convicted felon who - during the height of his fame - was caught on tape dropping N-bombs... telling Fox News' audience about how policing should work.
  10. Sounds like a singer.
  11. That band I mentioned was the "what might have been" band for me. The drummer was super talented... he plays in a band that still routinely sells out at pretty big venues (House of Blues, etc.) all over the country. Our lead guitar player was a young wizard with great tone and feel. I could sing, write, and play guitar and a little keys. Trouble was, we couldn't reliably fill the bass player's spot. The guy who was playing bass when I showed up was a few years older than us, and had a new wife and a career as an engineer, and he was sort of "over it" as far as grinding out the commitment needed to be a serious band. So he nicely told us we should find another bass player. In the 90's, there was no internet, and you had to find a bass player by hanging messages at music stores and advertising in the local alternative paper. So we auditioned 4 different players in consecutive weeks, and my drummer friend and I still marvel at the parade of incompetence that followed. One bassist was under the impression that "band practice" meant that everyone was gonna get obliterated on weed and alcohol. He showed up with a bottle of whiskey, drank the entire thing over an hour or so, and could hardly stand up by the end of the evening, much less play. I'm sure he's dead now. Another kid was just out of high school, told us he was just kind of an intermediate level player. But seemed like a nice kid (we were only a few years older) and told us about his influences, which seemed to demonstrate good musical sensibilities. So he shows up, sits down.... and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that he couldn't fucking play **at all.** Had no idea which was the A string, had no idea what "keys" meant... nothing. I think back about the disconnect between being so utterly clueless and yet having enough self confidence to answer an ad and then show up to audition for a band. He's probably a congressman now. I think it would make a really great premise for a 6-episode Netflix or HBO comedy.... a bunch of 20-somethings in the 90's trying to fill an empty chair in their band. At one point, the three of us begged the old bass player to just come back for a single night so we could at least run through 15 or 20 songs with a credible low end. Eventually, with no bass player, 3 busy schedules, and a couple of personal tragedies (divorce, shocking death in a family), it all just fizzled away.
  12. This made me smile. One of my later garage bands - I was in my 20's - was with a bunch of guys who I first met when one of them invited me to sit in and just sort of jam and play guitar at their rehearsal. Until the evening was over, I had no idea how much antipathy there was among the other guys toward the singer. So when I was leaving and loading out my gear, the drummer followed me to my car and asked me if I could sing. I told him yes, and he wanted to make sure I could be there for the next week's rehearsal. So that week, the drummer called the singer and told him that everybody was super busy, they all had a lot of commitments, etc., and so the band was breaking up. Except they didn't break up, they just had a new singer (me). Anyway, that became a running joke. "We quit" was a code for "We're replacing you." That was a couple decades ago. The drummer and I still keep in touch even though we live in different cities. Every year or so, one of us will leave the other a voicemail that says, "Man, I'm really sorry, but we're just super busy and we're not gonna practice for a few weeks..."
  13. Of course Cornyn is incapable of recognizing satire. He is both tone deaf and really fucking stupid. People would notice more, except that the other senator from his state is one of the most widely disliked people in DC. edit: yeah, I know it's the Cotton thread, and Cotton might have been a more contentious asshole at this hearing, but Cornyn was dumber.
  14. Do elections being under foreign attack count as a real-world threat to freedom?
  15. Yeah, there are a lot of jobs where de-escalation is an essential tool to have in your emotional tool belt, and law enforcement is #1 on that list. The tension and anxiety of that otherwise-routine traffic stop was 100% created by the police, and 0% by the lieutenant sitting inside his vehicle with his hands out the driver's window. If a cop is going to point his weapon, give conflicting commands, scream with a shaky, adrenaline-affected voice... and he's doing all this simply because a car pulled to a well-lit area at night, then he is 100% unfit for that profession. ... and I'd also point out that all that unnecessary escalation happened *before* it was compounded by the cowardly sarcastic comments intended to belittle the subject ("I know how to obey an order," etc.), the pepper spray(!!), and the totally unnecessary take-down after the lieutenant got out of his car.
  16. Page won four league MVP awards?
  17. Yeah, I was being generous. I think they'd have killed him.
  18. I mean, two overly excited, trigger-happy yokels screaming like lunatics with fingers on the trigger? If he *had* reached for the seatbelt, there's a fair chance those two would have killed him and played the "reaching for a weapon" and "feared for my life" cards.
  19. This is what I picture when Scooter gives Les Paul advice:
  20. Wow. Four 4x12 cabinets? Is your buddy Ritchie Blackmore?
  21. You obviously know a lot more about the details than I do. I'm just surprised and annoyed by the LAZY journalism that can't write a fucking GAME SUMMARY six games into 2021 without three or four references to a four-years-ago scandal that involved a lot of teams, and had nothing to do with more than half the roster.
  22. I don't follow this thread too much, and I'm sure it's been discussed to death, but I'm surprised at the 2021 coverage of "boo the Astros." I mean, we seemed to move right on past all the roided-up A's and Yankee teams that won titles. Barry Bonds and all his * records. The ridiculously uneven $$$$$$ playing field for two or three decades, where clubs with the biggest payrolls are de facto all-star teams from siphoning up the best free agents year after year. And not once in the coverage of a pennant game do the announcers say, "Here we are once again where the big spenders are in an LCS!" And yet all the sports writers can't even do a fucking 2021 REGULAR SEASON GAME RECAP article without indignantly dwelling on the unfairness 4-year old sign stealing caper from a club that has turned over probably more than half the roster since then? And the Astros are the 2021 poster children of cheating? GTFO. Might have to go buy an Astros cap... because fuck that.
×
×
  • Create New...