Re-Animated

We played our first show in several months last Friday. It went very much better than I thought it would. The set flowed as smooth as shit on glass. Almost too smoothly in fact. Mike had little time to actually talk to the crowd. We were so pumped that we needed little recoupe time. Jesus it was fun. Erasmus jumped in to the pit and got his eye bashed in. You can see the results on our myspace page. I forgot to wrap my knuckle and ended up shredding the skin off my finger. That said, I think I’m actually getting pretty good at rocking out and still playing a coherent guitar line.

My Randall cab pulled through beautifully. Though, I wish that I had a better head.

Why is it in Montana all these people feel compelled to be poor rockers? I mean, I work full time now and I bust my balls every day at my job. I try to spend as little of my money as possible so I can buy better gear. Hmmm… It’s no worries. It’s just that I’ve know lots of musicians who pride themselves on working dead end jobs for little or no money and then playing the cheapest gear they can find and congratulating themselves on “living the life.” Me? I like to “live the life” too, since I eat, breathe, sleep, and copulate music. I look at Musician’s Friend more than I look at porn. My wife even encouraged me to buy some porn to break my guitar gear addiction.

Anyway, back to the show. The crowd rocked out. We rocked out. There was much rocking. Shawn and Greg wore their gas masks. The effect was premo! We’ll get some pics posted later this week (hopefully) and maybe even a video.

New Gear

I’ve been trying out my BBE Sonic Max/Compresser. It sounds good when playing by myself, but damn! As soon as the rest of the band chimes in, it goes nuts! In a bad way. It shows me my input and through no fault of the equipment, it can’t handle the extreme volumes we play. Normally, my guitar can only get the gauge to push to the -15 mark, but when the band chimes in, it hits red and stays red. I turn up the noisegate to 30 db, but it still can’t shut down the signal. That means that my guitar is picking up WAY too much signal.

There’s little I can do about it. I think I’ll still keep the unit. It will prolly come in handy for live shows, but when you play in a living room with two drummers, a bassist, and vocs, there’s little you can do to muffle the sound enough.

Gear

Obviously, I haven’t been writing much. Blah, so what? Maybe I’ve found a new outlet? Not so frustrated now, are we? Now that practices are back in session.

Anyhoo, we found a new singer. Our DJ got a keyboard and was making some funky sounds the other day. I finally got my debts paid off so I can buy better gear. Plus I’m working full time now. Also we couldn’t afford for wife to go to school so she’s working, too.

It’s nice to finally have some extra money and buy some gear.

The first thing I bought was a new amp. Nothing special: a Carvin solid state 2×12. Decent sound, but those speaker buzz when I push the volume past 7. I can’t say I blame them. That’s an awful lot of sound for such little speakers.

Then I was trying to buy some rack gear: a sonic maximizer/compressor (to regulate and enhance the sound), a power conditioner (to clean up the AC supply), and a rack case to hold the racks.

Now here’s where my story gets long.

About a year ago, I bought some gear from Musicians Friend (MF). Included was a Peavey Powered speaker. This is a 270 Watt PA system that would allow me to generate more sound for my (then) singing w/o having to shout so much.

I bought it under the clearance section. The ad said that it came with full warranty. In fact, MF’s used Peavey ads still say they come with full warranty. MF has a fairly generous return policy. You can return most anything for any reason withing the first 45 days.

Well, go figure, my Peavey amp broke down on day 47. No problem, I figure, I’ve got a warranty. Not only that, but I bought the EXTRA protection MF offers at the check out. I called MF, figuring I would talk to Customer Service (CS) and they could help me figure out how to activate my warranty. I did this because the amp came with no paper work, cards, etc. I was directed to Peavey, who took the serial number from the amp, and asked if I was “_______” (some name I don’t remember). No, I wasn’t. Well, it turns out the douchebag who owned the amp before me (since it was used) activated the warranty, but when the amp lemoned him, he returned rather than go through Peavey.

Thus, I was informed that Peavey DOES NOT warranty used equipment.

I’ll try to give you the montage version, but I called MF, Peavey, and the third rate insurance company (who informed me that the extra insurance was void since they only EXTEND the original manufacter’s warranty, I was null and void, MF should have never offered me their coverage, and that my coverage was thereby nullified (btw: purchasing equipment w/ Visa, MC, and American Express gives you that same coverage that MF offers at checkout. I know because I checked) multiple times over the next month. Finally I bullied my way to talk to a manager and demanded my money back due to fraud. He sent me a return slip right away and I mailed the amp back the same day.

Long story short, MF has the WORST Customer service I have ever encountered.

This time around, I didn’t want to deal with MF. I found a website call music123.com. Though the website looked strangely familiar to MF’s site, nothing on the site indicated they were affiliated. I bought the rack gear and the rack from there.

First, I got the power condition. It ONE piece of packing paper which did nothing to prevent it from rattling around. I plugged it in and it still worked. So no problems there. Then I got the rack. But it wasn’t a rack for rack gear, but a drum rack. I didn’t even open up the box. I got on the phone and called up music123. The dude I talked to said I would get a return label in the next two hours.

The next day I check my email. When I saw no return label, I emailed music123.com. The return msg said that my msg was received and that it would take up 24 hours to get a response. On Monday, w/ still no response or return label, I called up again. Talked to someone who actually sounded like he didn’t toke for a living, who said that the previous guy forgot to add the “.com” to my email address.

This morning, I got the return tag. Sure enough, it’s being mailed back to Musician’s Friend. The label came directly from UPS, so I doubt that they fucked that one up. More than likely my gut instinct was confirmed: I got MF’d again.