CHIESTER

I
may not have seen Alice in Chains today, but that doesn’t mean you
can’t have a good time on your birthday. My girlfriend brought me to
Guitar Center in Hollywood. They have new stuff displayed out front,
like Eddie Van Halen’s guitars (the rest didn’t matter to me LOL).

Expect
the usual at Guitar Center (fellow musicians, you know what I mean):
guitarists attempting to play signature riffs. I am fortunate to be a
good rhythm guitar player so I don’t embarass myself LOL. There was
this kid that kept playing Crazy Train so out of time that I wanted to
shut him up. So I grabbed this BC Rich Bich (cuz I never tried one) and
blasted Black Sabbath, War Pigs and Iron Man through a Marshall!!! The
only problem was the Bich wasn’t tuned right, so when I play the power
chords of Iron Man after the behind-the-nut bend at the intro, it went
out of tune.

So I proceeded to see what else they have and
much to my surprise, I saw the Charvel Limited Edition Eddie Van Halen
guitars. I wasn’t about to play it cuz I’m not that skilled at leads, I
might get my ass kicked if I tried LOL. They didn’t have the red one.

I
was pissed that the Mesa/Boogie store across closes early. I guess my
gf was trying to tell me to go there first while we were walking
towards Guitar Center. I didn’t know that that store carried ESP
guitars other than Sam Ash. I could’ve gotten a replacement for my
toggle knob there.

Then there was this used gear/vintage store.
We were there 2 minutes before they closed. They have a lot of obscure
guitars, a lot of vintage Fender amps and guitars (a Fender Bass IV,
that’s a rare sight for yours truly). One interesting item was an
original Digitech Whammy that was selling for $850. Yes you read that
right.

Then we went to the Koreatown Galleria.  Great foodcourt!!!

Finally
my birthday present for myself arrived! My new Washburn X25FRWA came
today! The finish wasn’t bad like I expected, the pic didn’t do it any
justice. I may have to sand the gloss on it, I like the matted finishes
of a walnut color similar to what Schecter has on their guitars. There
were inconsistencies, like the awkward screws beside the toggle switch,
not to mention the slot for 5-way switch wasn’t cleaned up very well.
Other than that, I thought the licensed Floyd Rose on it was pretty
good. It went out of tune not just because they were .9s but they
weren’t stretched well. The rest of the stuff came as well: the EVH
D-Tuna and the DiMarzio Tone Zone. All I need is the DiMarzio Air Zone
to arrive.

Thank you all for the phone calls, text messages and the myspace messages/comments on my birthday!

I realized all this time that I don’t have any guitars that’s tuned down to Eb.

Since, much to my dismay, we tuned to regular E, I’ve lost my voice guitar-wise.

When
I was asked to join HERA, I saw that as an opportunity to get my shit
together again. I miss that band. I’ve learned a LOT being there for a
short period of time.

As my birthday approaches, I figured I
should do myself a favor. Too bad we didn’t get the Alice in Chains
tickets cuz that would’ve been sweet, but there are things beyond your
control. So I channeled that in another way.

I decided to buy
another guitar. Not just another guitar. Yeah, it’s a Washburn. But
this will be my first one with a Floyd Rose system (licensed LOL). This
WILL be tuned to Eb.

This will be a guitar project.

I had bought an EVH D-Tuna, and two DiMarzio pickups and I will have my trusty guitar tech Paul to have it set-up.

The
EVH D-Tuna is an accessory to a Floyd Rose to enable the guitarist to
switch an E to a D in a snap. Instead of buying another Floyded guitar,
I decided to have that installed. The two pickups from DiMarzio I
ordered were Air Zone and the Tone Zone. The Air Zone was designed for
a bridge, but I heard that would sound sweet as a neck pickup with the
Tone Zone in the bridge.

The only gripe I have is that it’s a
gloss walnut finish. From the pic it looks more like a chestnut. Maybe
the pic doesn’t do it justice. I was planning on sanding it down (like
Nuno Bettencourt’s) or research on how to remove the gloss lacquer and
retain the finish. It looked cool on the Schecter, I don’t see any
reason why it won’t on this one. If everything else fails… there’s
stickers that will do.

If anybody has any ideas, can you help me?

This will be my Alice in Chains guitar.  Or my Slayer guitar.  I can’t wait till it arrives!

Hello Everyone!

I’m so sorry that I haven’t written anything at all… yeah it’s been a while.

I am just busy with work and recording with The Velvet Ash.

Right now I can’t say how many we’ll record, but it’ll be a lot, it could be an album’s worth of songs. Personally, I’d rather do a short ep. At least recording all of the songs gives us a lot of options, not to mention a lot of time to review current material.

I am gonna be busy laying down guitar tracks on all of those songs.

I will keep you all posted as soon as something’s finished.

CJ-c4o5