Jan 27th playlist:

*CHILDISH TRIBUTE*
Billy Childish : Strange Hero of Hunger (poem)
Mighty Caesars : Loathsome n Wild
Headcoats : I'm Hurtin
Chatham Singers : Man with the Gallows Eyes
Milkshakes : Please dont tell my Baby
Buff Medways : Archice from 59
Headcoatees : Davi Crockett (feat. Holly Golightly)
Buffets : You Piss Me Off
Pop Rivets : Fun in the UK
Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians of the British Empire : Snack Crack
Mudhoney : She's Just 15

The Solution : Had You Told It Like It Was
Valient Thorr : Heatseeker
Fortune Tellers : Aint Gonna Cheat On Me Again
Busy Signals : Look The Other Way
Fleshtones : First Date
Wrong Turn : Speedball
Neu : Hero
CPC Gangbangs : Coke Blues
Soledad Brothers : Prodical Stones Blues
Reverend Organdrum : Shot in the Dark

never read any of this books, but here's a more reasonable danse macabre: http://cgi.ebay.com/PAUL-ROLAND-Danse-Macabre-rock-pop-vinyl-LP_W0QQitemZ250185465963QQihZ015QQcategoryZ306QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQtrksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem i buy from craig moerer all the time!

Thanks for that. I was looking on Amazon at his albums and saw the price of 'Danse Macabre' - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Danse-Macabre-Paul-Roland/dp/B000024DCR/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1202729898&sr=1-9 £50?? :-0 I see that Paul Roland is also an author. Any idea what his books are like?

judging by the tracklists, this would be a much better 'best of' than waxworks (no 'burnt orchids', 'puppet master', 'captain blood' or 'in the opium den', wtf!!!): http://www.amazon.com/Gaslight-Tales-Paul-Roland/dp/B00012M5RS/ref=...

danse macabre is the one with "gabrielle". great record and as good a place to start as any.

Are there any fans of Paul Roland on here?

I first heard of Paul Roland via the Bam-Caruso compilation
'Headsounds ...' with the track 'Gabrielle'. After that I picked up a 2 CD set of his called 'Waxworks'. Disc 1 is a best of compilation while disc 2 features radio session from 1988-1992 and includes a great acoustic cover of 'Strychnine'.

Anyway, I was thinking of getting an album or two of Paul Roland and was wondering which is the best one to start off with?

Mines a 64 Rocket, the heavy strings are a bit much, especially on the neck pickup, 10's are just right, nice clean crunch through a fender twin, although 11's sound OK but a bit more distortion though. I guess it depends what sound you want...

Yea I got to say i I don't think i'll use any 11's on my harmony either.

Thee Shame Club posted these in Psychotic Reactions. http://www.broadwaymusicco.com/harmony26.htm http://harmony.demont.net/ I'm trying to get an H15 from a friend of mine. It's the Jaguar-type guitar.

What kind of Harmony? My buddy picked up a 65 Rocket that's got flats on it... they're pretty heavy strings - would guess they were 12's. They sound freaking great though those old pickups.. no problem getting distortion on it... hard to get a good clean tone though ;)

I dont think the heavy gauge strings will work on the harmony, I tried 12's then 11's but settled for 10's as they had the best balanced sound, but ever guitar is different. fenders do suit heavy strings as that is what they were designed for, especially the jaguar which will sound crap with anything less than 11's. My vox has 11's but would probably sound better with 12's but its a killer trying to get blues bends on 12's, hard work. To get those vintage tones try high gauge vintage re-issue type strings as mentioned above, that should do it, never use less than 10. I used a set of 9's on my hofner galaxie to calm it down a bit as the pickups are so hot it growled too much, but as i'm used to 11's & 12's I just broke em all (3 in one gig), playing and bending way to hard : )

Sounds like I need to try some higher gauges. That's gonna be quite a difference if I get my Harmony with the thick neck. I use Ernie Ball. I'm gonna try find where I read that about the strings and distortion. Thanks for the help guys!

Hmmm - When did wound strings make their way into the market..? I know lots of the surf guys used Flat Wound Jazz style strings... Dick Dale was playing on 16 gauge flats... I play out with 2 guitars.. a Strat with 13 gauge D'addario Chrome jazz flats playing over EMG 81's, and a SG with 11 gauge D'addario nickel wound playing over 490 Alnico magnet humbuckers. I play the flats four our surfier / darker sounds are great for tremolo picking - and all of our rock punk garage stuff through the SG.

Jamie,
Go for pure nickel strings. I like Ernie ball "Rock and roll" pure nickels. Currently I use 10 gauage strings but think i'm gonna step up to the plate a put on some 11's for the Tele. Back in the day they used heavy gauge strings like 11's. Trust me those 11's are gonna make difference in your tone. There were no 9 or 10's until ernie ball thought of various gauges, thats at least what Mr. Detemple told me.

I use Rotosound Trubass black nylon strings on my PGW Phantom bass. They make the bass sound like a double bass.

I seem to recall reading something once about the strings in the 50's and 60's. I think it said that they were made of something that made it harder to get distortion. I wonder if that made a difference in the sound of Link Wray or The Kinks for example. What kind kind of strings do you use?

I know a guy named Kevin here in Seattle who builds his own designs on pedals. His brand is Softscience and they are highly sough after, one of a kinda or limited edition pedals.

Soldering takes time and practice. I had to learn to maintain my studio. I hate it, but I am glad I have the skill when I need it. My first projects all sucked and were blobby peices of shit, but I got better. It really is pretty simple if you just "Ape" things. Give yourself time to practice on "unsalvagable broken electronics" and see you can make things work again. That is how I learned.

Good Luck!

Check it out! http://www.buildyourownclone.com/

Fun with electronix.. I had some friends that took experimental electronics classes in art school and I've been trying to get them to crack me out a pedal... They would rather build robots... I've considered trying to follow some schematics myself, but I don't have confidence in my soldering precision... There's a boutique shop in brooklyn called Death By Audio (http://www.deathbyaudio.net/) and I hear they make some pretty crazy shit... They even have a custom section on their page. Would love to check their Fuzz War pedal. Anyone try that?

P-90s and a Rat pedal are a magical combination. I have P-90s in my '65 SG Special and with flat wounds I can get that guitar to sound either twangy for country, or get that cool Robby Krieger Doors sound (neck pick-up with tone rolled back a bit and the Rat about halfway on the Distortion and Tone), also that full Eric Clapton "Woman Tone" of early Cream (not that I care for that much) and finally that Ramones/Pistols punk sound when needed. The Country guys all roll their eyes when they see me break out the "Devil Horned Heavy Metal Guitar" (as they are all attached to their Tele's and Les Pauls) but the SG is a very versitile guitar and about half the weight of a Paul. The SG Special had P-90s and was the choice of guitarists like Pete Townshend until about 1972 (when he found them harder to aquire and switched to a Les Paul) I like it because it has a bit more wood around the pick up that a standard issue SG with Humbuckers in it. I toyed with putting in Alnico mini-humbuckers (from a Firebird V) but decided I like what I have so far.

The other pedal I like is a (not so) cheapo Ross Distortion Pedal. I got mine for $5 at a garage sale (my second one) and later saw one at a local music store for $100 or so. I just laughed and laughed about that. That store will never sell it for that price (even in total mint condition) they weren't that good. I could build a knock off with some circuit board and some over-the counter Ratshack electronics.

Go figure. There is another solution, Build your own dang pedals! There are plenty of schmatices out there to borrow from. Anyone thought about that?

Yet another vote for a vintage ProCo Rat. There_was_a smaller "Rat 2" there for a while that seems to work OK w/ solid-state amps~ you'd only see one used, now. A Sonic Youth fave, esp. w/ Jaguar + Jazzmaster guitars.

Danelectro's obscure Bacon 'n Eggs Mini Amp/ Distortion produces only one tone, but it's killer esp. linked to a P-90 pickup. When it's not doing that, it acts as a 1W battery amp w/ built-in speaker. Mine survived a trip to Burning Man~ still OK.

...if that's how they get their jollies. But, whatever. It's not like you can't just revert back to a previous version.

I don't care. If someone wants to do it, fine. But it's not high on my priority list or anything.

The guys pissed off about the forums being shut down would have a field day.

Go for it. Since I own this site, I'm not allowed to add a page on Wikipedia about it. Someone else will have to do it...

Who here's any good at wikipedia? If someone gets one started, I'm sure we can all contribute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Music_websites garagepunk.com needs to be here.