00:26Well, I can tell you that all these miles are mine.
00:29This is a 1960.
00:32I bought it in San Francisco in about 91, I think.
00:39And it was clean.
00:42It was already 31 years old, right?
00:48But it had really not been played all that much, I guess.
00:51Somebody had it at home or something, it wasn't a road guitar.
00:55So, I was never a Tele fan, and in those days I was playing a guitar that Fender made for
01:02me, the Robin Ford Fender Ultra Esprit, which was their version of a semi-hollow, which it
01:11wasn't, but it had sound cavities in it.
01:13And the woods were very bright, and somehow I was comfortable with that guitar.
01:17It sort of worked.
01:19I was a part of the choice of woods and design and everything, and I had had this inclination
01:27to go towards solid body instruments instead of 335, which I'd been using, really, up until
01:34that point.
01:35And Fender approached me about making something, so we did.
01:39And I used that guitar a ton, that's the Talk To Your Daughter album.
01:42And I used one guitar exclusively, you know, there for a few years.
01:47Just that guitar, the Ultra Esprit.
01:49And then I walked into a music store in San Francisco when we were on the road to buy
01:54some guitar strings.
01:55I looked to my left, and this guitar was sitting there, and I just, just drawn to it.
02:01And I think, largely, Mike Bloomfield was my first guitar hero, and he was playing one
02:09of these.
02:10His was a 63, but it looked exactly the same, you know.
02:15And I think I thought, that's the guitar Mike Bloomfield played.
02:18I need to at least check it out, you know.
02:20Something like that must have been going through my head.
02:23I walked over, started playing it, and I just, I gotta take it, I gotta buy it.
02:29So, I did.
02:31And the first album that it appeared on was the Mystic Mile album.
02:38The first Blue Line record started up as on a Telecaster, but that was an early, it was
02:46a 50s with a maple neck.
02:49So it's a little brighter and thinner.
02:52But, I don't know man, this guitar has just been my best friend ever since I got it.
02:56It's been the most used instrument that I've played.
02:59It's got a hot treble pickup, and that is a huge part of why I like this guitar.
03:06This pickup actually has been rewound.
03:10I was really unhappy about that, but someone was taking the pickup out and they broke one
03:16of the wires.
03:17I'm like, oh man.
03:19But it was rewound by Lindy Fralin, and it's been good to me.
03:22I've liked it, it's not quite as loud as the original one, but that's okay.
03:28And, you know, kind of a smaller slim neck, but I, and I remember it as being bigger.
03:35And I think just all the years of playing it and re-frets and everything, you know, it
03:40thinned out a bit.
03:42I wish I could, had a photograph or something.
03:45I wish I could make that comparison to see if it used to be bigger, which is, I remember
03:51it that way.
03:53So, anyway, it's been the most important guitar I've owned ever since about 1991.
04:02How many re-frets have you had done on it?
04:05I don't know.
04:08I was fooling around for a while, you know, trying bigger frets.
04:12Yes.
04:12And I even put 6,100s on here, 6,000s, maybe?
04:16Mm-hmm.
04:17I mean, I was really going for it.
04:19The Blue Line was the band, and, you know, we were really playing a lot of blues, you
04:23know?
04:24It hadn't, I hadn't really gotten into writing more songs.
04:31It was really kind of blues, super blues-directed, you know?
04:36So, yeah, I was, you know, I tuned down a half-step, and I had 60, 6,000s?
04:42Is that possible?
04:43I might have.
04:46But it just got to be ridiculous, you know?
04:48And tuning it down made it unusable for other things, you know?
04:52I hated tuning it up and down.
04:55So, I just, you know, straight ahead, you know, standard tuning, and, you know, 61, 60, 61 50s?
05:06Is that what they are?
05:07Yeah, 61 50s, I think.
05:16You know, that woody, that hollow woody sound.
05:28Part of the way I get that sound is by playing back here, just so people know, it's not
05:34necessarily going to happen here.
05:52And it's kind of akin, I don't know if you're familiar, I have an Epiphone.
05:56Yes.
05:57Riviera.
05:58Yeah.
05:59That is a 65, I've been told.
06:03And the rhythm pickup is pretty much all I ever use on that guitar.
06:10That's what that guitar is to me.
06:12And this is a similar sound to me.
06:15Kind of the mini humbuckers on a hollow, semi-hollow instrument.
06:19I love that tone, man.
06:25It's round, you know?
06:26It's like a, like that.
06:29And this treble pickup, as I mentioned, it's, it's, it's, it's not sounding quite right through
06:36this amp.
06:37All due respect to that amp, but.
06:41May I?
06:43Ooh.
06:43Okay.
06:49That's not the way people think of a Telecaster sounding, I don't think.
06:52Right?
06:53It really sounds much more humbucking.
07:13I mean, you can do that on this guitar, you know?
07:16And it's got this lovely, um, mid pickup thing.
07:40That's how, double stops.
07:49It's, it's funky, you know?
07:51It's, it's just a great rhythm guitar sound, you know?
07:55So, uh, yeah.
07:57That's, that's what this guitar can do, you know?
08:00Um, unlike any other instrument I own.
08:02Um, I'm using right now the Jam Boost, which has been very helpful, uh, just to get my sound
08:11up.
08:17Without going to overdrive.
08:31Loud lead, you know, without being overdriven, which I use, I, I, I prefer generally, you
08:40know?
08:40This vibrato, it's, it's the electric blue two chorus and vibrato from Mad Professor.
08:47Those guys are good.
08:49I've got at least three Bad Professors on, on the pedal board here.
08:55So, um, it's, you know.
09:07I started fooling with things like this because my newest record began as a tribute to Jeff
09:13Beck, and I had never really, uh, explored that side of the guitar.
09:20And after Jeff passed, I had, I had become a fan much later in life, you know?
09:25I didn't really hear him play live for the first time.
09:28It was like 2008, something like that.
09:32And I'm like, how have I not been paying attention to this guy, you know?
09:38And, um, became a huge fan and, and actually played some festivals with him, which was great.
09:44And, uh, he passes away, you know, out of the blue like that.
09:48Uh, I was kind of looking for inspiration and, you know, wanting to do something different,
09:56uh, ready to record again, maybe, you know, which I hadn't done in a little while.
10:02And, uh, I thought a tribute to Jeff Beck would be perfect.
10:07It brings me to a different kind of sound, a different, I bought a Stratocaster, you know?
10:12Started working with vibrato, started working with different pedals, much more so.
10:17And that's where Dan, you know, really came to help me out here with this.
10:23And, um, it's been a wonderful trip for me, a little journey, you know, uh, working more
10:27with pedals and, and playing the Strat, which I'll be playing tonight, you know, on the show.
10:32I'm just most comfortable on this Telecaster.
10:35So, uh, this, um, was sort of, uh, we do a tribute to him and, uh, we do Behind the
10:44Veil.
10:51You know, that kind of thing.
10:53Uh, and this really does that for me in a good way.
10:57That kind of a sound.
10:58The Pog, for me...
11:05Is, um, you know, it's an octave up and an octave down and an octave, and a, and a, and
11:11your sound in the middle, flat or dry.
11:17And when I turn that thing on, I, I feel like I, it allows me to play in a bebop
11:22way more.
11:24I'm not, I don't, you might have noticed, I didn't start playing blues, right?
11:29It's more of a...
11:35You know, kind of bebop thing.
11:40Ha!
11:42Ha!
11:44Ha!
12:07It just lets me play like that, you know, that's why I dig it.
12:11The ring modulator, man, I'm still trying to figure out.
12:19It was also, you know, Jeff used the ring modulator quite a bit, I understand, you know.
12:32So, I'm still working on it.
12:36I'm kind of using it as an alternate vibrato at this point.
12:43It's a different sound.
12:45This was loud a moment ago, so I'm gonna...
12:49This is the, uh, Overdrive Boost by Throwback.
13:03So there's that boost, but it's both an Overdrive and a boost, so I get some distortion, and I
13:10also can get a cleaner, punchy, it's, it's really got a lot of girth to it.
13:16You know, that one right there.
13:19And then here is the, uh, symbol, also from Mad Professor once again, for my usual Overdrive.
13:31See, it still says Zen here.
13:33I had the Zen Drive pedal on here, and I used the Zen Drive for many, many years.
13:38And, um, I just got to where I needed to hear something different, you know.
13:42Once again, I was going through this little journey, you know, with
13:45the Jeff Beck influence, and writing in a different way, and I just needed a different sound.
13:51So, uh, I found this.
14:14Um, so last, but not least, is the, uh, no, there's two.
14:19Silver Spring Reverb, also from Mad Professor, and it's the best, you know, foot pedal reverb
14:27that I have found to date.
14:29Uh, it can get a little, uh, sizzly on the top, a little distorted on the top,
14:36which makes it, uh, hard to record with.
14:50But to me, it sounds very natural.
14:53I'm going to lengthen it a little bit here.
15:12I'm going to lengthen it a little bit here.
15:26So, uh, I think we're hearing mostly the reverb from the Silver Spring there.
15:33The timeline, um, Stryman timeline delay has, you know, a lot of stuff in it, including reverb.
15:40So, it might be a little influenced by that, but it doesn't have to be to sound good, you know.
15:47So, the timeline.
15:51This is just a short, uh, delay that I have set here.
15:59And this also, for a pedal board, this is absolutely the best pedal board delay,
16:04once again, that I've found.
16:05And I, I'm not an expert, but...
16:11Can you hear that delay?
16:12The short delay?
16:13Yeah?
16:16And I use it just to, just to widen the note a little bit, you know.
16:22It's, it's, it's of course cool to have the effect,
16:26but for me, the reason I like the effect is because it just makes the note a little bigger,
16:30you know, a little more happens there.
16:33Um, this is just a, a longer delay, and we're not really hearing much of it here.
17:00I think most of us are looking for, you know, studio quality, you know.
17:05And, uh, this is, is the best, uh, that I've found.
17:09I used to use the, um, TC Electronics rack, the first one.
17:14Do you remember the number?
17:15It had a number, I think.
17:17But that thing was wonderful, man.
17:19But after a while, just carrying a rack around all the time became
17:22really kind of, uh, more trouble than it was worth.
17:27So, uh, also here, I love this effect.
17:31It's the Marigold setting that was in it.
17:34Uh, I've adjusted it a little bit.
17:41For that slightly chorus-y, reverb-y.
17:48And it has notes above, right?
17:50I think there's a fifth above.
18:00It's not, it's in there, but not as much as I'd like to hear right now.
18:07It's amazing how just a fifth above, a fifth above, a fifth above works.
18:12It's probably the harmonic series or something, right?
18:26So the, uh, the wah-wah pedal is from Exotic Effects.
18:30It says Red LTD here.
18:33Uh, I chose it largely because it was, um, small enough to fit my pedal board.
18:39And, uh, it's, it, it, I'm sure it can be set better than I have it.
18:45I, there's a lot of darkness and I have to stay up on the top a lot.
18:49But I think these things are adjustable and I just haven't gotten around to it yet, you know?
18:58Sorry.
19:26So there's that.
19:29Pretty straight ahead.
19:31And then I, I've always been, you know, very happy with the, uh,
19:35TC Electronics Poly tune.
19:38No problem with that, man.
19:40No problem with that, man.
19:42No problem with that, man.
19:49No problem with that, man.
19:58No problem with that, man.
19:59No problem with that, man.
19:59No problem with that, man.
19:59No problem with that, man.
20:00No problem with that, man.
20:00No problem with that, man.
20:01No problem with that, man.
20:01No problem with that, man.
20:02No problem with that, man.
20:03No problem with that, man.
20:06No problem with that, man.
20:08Amen.
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