As I write, it’s about 9am here, and I couldn’t be gladder to be here on the couch. Whole last week was an absolute bloodbath – I think that’s the right term for it. 9 straight days of performances, so busy that I couldn’t even stop in to say hi to you guys!
Needless to say, that by Friday night, I was in bed with a fever, couldn’t move, and was absolutely miserable all around. That was terrifying, since I still had 6 performances between Saturday and Sunday, the first of which being the Six Corners BBQ fest show.
After MUCH negotiating with my protesting skin, we loaded up to the Northwest Arts Connection tent, and Auggie promptly broke his kick drum pedal, which explains the beginning of this video:
A couple times during the set, my vision started going fuzzy, and it was a bit of a struggle, but we had a TON of people out dancing, and overall it was a great show, by all accounts. And it was a welcome change of pace from the twenty-some-odd hours I spent during the week rocking out with 200-ish screaming kids with this band:
All told, I crammed 16ish performances into 9 days. I’m not all recovered yet, but my chores ain’t gonna do themselves, and my work ethic is riding high so I gotta take advantage of that while I have the chance.
So we’ve been talking about it forEVAR. Trying to get the capital together to do the big pig roast at Meatstravaganza has been a goal that was finally met this past year by Best in Show award winners Steve and Sheryl Grimes.
Too rad, really.
Not sure how many people made it out this year, but it was a major success. Me and Nikki hosted, and after a lot of people got done needing a buncha stuff from me, I got to dancing n singing – as is my custom.
All in all, I’m just thinkin bout the day, and playing with the photo blog template thingy my nerdy girl made… It’s a free download. Here’s a link 😉
So this week was a bit of a wash – HOWEVER, I DID book a slot at the NAC tent for BBQ Fest with Tin Lolita – so that’s a good thing, right? ALSO, I’m waiting on a call back from Ribfest – I booked a wedding ceremony for that weekend already, so we’ll see how that goes. exciting!
In the meantime, we had the 11th annual Meatmorial Day Meatstravaganza! Big fun, tons of food, friends and drinkin! Best moment:
Otherwise, I been working on getting myself back in gear for hitting the gym on the regular and doing LOTS of these:
So stay tuned – I’ll have em videos up in no time. Getting the graphical elements together and picking up my new bottle of energy supplements to get my gumption up! See you soon, you guys!
Here’s some behind the scenes footage of Matt preparing for his surprise birthday/engagement party for his now-fiancee, Michelle. I always enjoy recording with Matt, and Im glad to have him and Michelle in my life 🙂 Congrats, you guys!
I get asked a lot about the chord fingerings I use, and how to grab them quicker. I’ve been planning on sharing that information, and the time is about right for that, but I’m going in with some assumptions.
About once a week I’m going to start posting a new episode of Get a Grip: The Chord Voicing Show. I’ll be skipping the straight cowboy chords (C, A, G, E, D) and some of the beginner’s fingerings like Am, Dm, A7, Em, and stuff like that. If you don’t know those, check this link out. The easy, basic open voicings for these chords can be found here:
Assumption number two is that you know the names of all your frets. That information can be acquired from Desi Serna. At least grab episode 2 of his podcast: Learn the Notes on the Guitar Fretboard.
Once you’ve been primed with that information, we’ll be ready for the big job – being able to play through chord charts without needing a chord dictionary.
Barre chords are for scrubs. Here’s Why.
Barre chords are the enemy of the beginning guitarist, and only barely efficient in most scenarios. I play more than 200 gigs a year, and I almost NEVER use them. They make my thumb tired. If I’m playing with a full band, the notes get lost in the mix – I might as well be playing power chords. They stomp all over your bass player, and God forbid you’re playing with a keyboardist. Geez, the damn things are useless. But somehow, every beginning guitar player thinks that they hold the key to opening up the flat keys and more complex play. False. They get in the way of you being able to learn songs, write, and perform. Beginners got weak first fingers, and barring all six strings makes them cry. Their pinkies are weak too, but we can worry about that later. Either way, stop wasting your time, and start learning how to play guitar. We’ll start next week.
So I’m always teasing Nikki about how serious she takes everything… Maybe I’m being an ass about it, but I don’t mean to be, sometimes things are just funny to me. Everybody’s got their quirks.
Anyhow, we were out with the kids for breakfast one morning. Addi was coloring, and Nikki was holding her iPhone aloft and trying to get a good pic – as is her custom. She looked super dramatic and focused, so I snapped one of her – as is mine. Took it home and while she busied herself with some design work, I cranked a few of my own out. Hope you like em!
So about once a year, I get asked about what kind of strings I use. It’s usually because somebody wants to get me a Christmas/birthday present, doesn’t know about my toy collection, and also is unaware that I love getting a bunch white socks – as boring as possible, so I don’t have to spend much time matching them.
Anyway, this usually gives me pause, because I have a really hard time remembering what I use on my acoustic guitars – the ones I use the most, but restring the least. So I figured I would write about it today so next winter I can just google “what kind of strings does Dale Tippett Jr use?” and get a faster answer.
Here’s the rundown:
On my six-string electric guitars (my primary is a fixed-bridge Schecter Hellraiser), I use ten-gauge D’addario strings. Playing on a six, I lean on clean or slightly pushed tones. Ten-gauge strings don’t go as sharp when I hit em hard, as is my custom. I use a lot of my acoustic technique on clean/pushed electric guitar music, which means a lot of percussive picking and hard pick strokes. On lighter strings, that causes the notes to go sharp, and that’s a boo all day long.
On my seven string Schecter Hellraiser, I use nine-gauge D’addarios. Nines can bend wildly, which allows for a couple different things. There’s a lot of give, so bending is super easy, and a little vibrato goes a longer way. The action on my seven-string Hellraiser is set REALLY low, so with the strings light and the action low, I can play for hours without much fatigue. On top of all that, Something Beautiful tunes a half-step low (Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Bb,Eb), so the strings are even looser than they would be in standard. All these factors make shredding about a million times easier. My technique on that guitar is much more gentle – I let the gain from the amplifier do most of the work, and playing more percussive parts with a lot of incidental string sounds is generally undesirable in a high gain situation.
I always need this video:
I have two Schecter seven-string Avengers, that I write on, but rarely play live anymore. They’re fixed bridge (the seven string Hellraiser has a Floyd Rose on it) so I treat them with a lot less care, and a ton more aggression. Since I hit them so hard, I use ten-gauge strings on them. That keeps them from going sharp, and I can just go to town. It’s a bit of a challenge to play very fast on these two, but sometimes that’s enough to give me a new idea for a solo.
My main acoustic guitar is a zebrawood (what?) Ibanez that my gorgeous Nerdy Girl got me for Valentine’s Day. I was restringing it this morning and that’s what prompted this post. I put a set of EXP11’s on it. That’s D’addario 80/20 bronze, twelve-gauge. what’s that all mean? I don’t really know, but they sound good as hell. Most new strings do, but more on that later. That guitar has the usual Ibanez fast-action, pretty low, so I’m ridiculously happy with it. The electronics amplify beautifully, so I don’t get in awkward micing situations and it’s plenty clear for small rooms. Real balanced output, too, so nothing weird comes from my percussive right-hand technique. So good, and also real good for soloing.
A few years ago, Auggie from 5 Minus X, Hubbard Union and Tin Lolita got me a Fender Twelve-String Acoustic. I tend to go lighter with that one, eleven-gauge – to prevent fatigue on account of the big grip of strings. Technique is more gentle on a twelve, with focus on arpeggios. I even prefer a lighter pick on that. Not sure why though.
So why all D’addario? Durability and cost are really the main driving factors for me. I play more than 200 gigs every year, and that wears my strings down quite a bit. If you’re not gigging very much, you should be changing your strings 3 or so times a year, but with that many shows, my strings go dead faster, and that makes playing a lot less fun. Breakage happens, but mostly on my six-string electric, because I play it so hard. Overall, I have fourteen guitars (I think) and getting super fancy coated strings can get pretty expensive. D’addario’s last long enough and don’t break so often that it complicates gigs.
Whenever I hear my dad’s old ash tray move on a table I get nostalgic. It’s got a specific pitch to it that I could pick out of a lineup. I don’t really have too many memories about it per se, but it’s kinda like the jingle of a familiar keychain – which my dad also has. I’ve been really lucky to have my dad pushing me to be more productive, complaining at me when I don’t return his calls or texts, and be one of the best cheerleaders I have. Without him, I’d probably be bumbling around, knocking my head into things more often than I already do…
Who do you have in your life that’s pushing you to be better than you are?
Sometimes we don’t realize it, you know. Sometimes it feels like it’s just somebody pointing out our inadequacies – especially if they’re giving advice or input on something you’re already upset about, or disappointed with. We can get defensive or nitty, letting our insecurities prevent us from hearing someone out. We end up saying things like “don’t tell me what to do”, or “this isn’t easy, you know!”, and it’s almost never necessary – if you’re talking to the right people, at least.
Other times we are justified, when not only our methods and strategies are picked at, but even our goals are attacked. We end up yelling the same stuff in the ensuing arguments, but I think in this case, it’s really the self-appointed counsellor who needs to take a step back and shut up.
But how do we tell the difference when we’re probably all worked up by the time somebody says something that just wrecked your mood?
Way I see it, the onus is on us, the ones who feel attacked. You may think that it’s the responsibility of other people to try and be gentle with your feelings, but seriously, people can’t read your mind. Besides, if you fly off the handle when you feel attacked without checking the situation all the way out, you’ll just get into way more shouting matches than nature intended.
So next time you feel attacked, step back, check if the person at least thinks they’re trying to help you with your actual goals, and act accordingly.
Friday night  we hit up Ye Olde Towne Inn in Mount Prospect to close out a killer lineup featuring Solarsphere and Once the Sun. Something Beautiful was in rare form, thanks to the fact that Once the Sun was using a backing track setup that let us fire up our own orchestra, so big thanks to them!
Once the Sun saves the day!
Long night though. We were closing – which we of course found out after loading – but to be fair, I called it. Jim digs us, so we close out YOTI pretty often. Texted Jim while I was on the way but he was out on the road with Jungle Rot, of course!
woot, etc!
Now closing out the night after two blue motherfuckers (the second courtesy of Tommy from Armored Assault) Was no small task, but hearing the string parts and extra bits come out of the house speakers really made it a good night for me. Playing A Voice in the Shadows and Crimson and Violet back to back like the old days was a real good trip, we only did songs that had backing tracks – nothing loose. I got stuck a bar late in Daughter of God, but for less than half a phrase, so I’m not too mad at it. It was Tommy’s fault anyway!
Songs About Angels
BIG props to Chris for not only coming to the show and paying the cover, but helping us kill our pizza AND move our equipment!
Six years ago I took the post of Music Director at Irving Park Baptist Church. Lots of musicians have come in and helped me out from time to time, Jon and Auggie from Five Minus X, Steve Nixon from FreeJazzLessons.com and more recently, my buddy Alex has been doing some Sundays with me. But in all the time I’ve been at Irving Park, these three ladies – Nora, Vicky and Louise – have been part of my core support structure. I spend time with them almost every Tuesday night before Something Beautiful‘s scheduled rehearsals, and they teach me songs that they want me to teach them – I know that’s a little backwards sounding, but it’s a two way street.
Lots of people think church music has to be boring – and don’t get me wrong, it can be – but not if you make the right decisions along the way. Some regular pop, rock and even metal music can get pretty boring sometimes. Maybe I’m talking about Opeth, maybe I’m not. But either way, whenever I engage in a new piece of music, or a new kind of music, I try to figure out what it’s trying to say, how it wants to be felt, and how can I tap into that energy. Sometimes it means I have to reinterpret the song entirely, sometimes it’s super easy and we’re jamming in no time, but either way – choosing to learn music that you don’t have a vested interest in is one of the best ways to really learn your instrument. More on that later, but for now, I just hope you like our song. On Facebook, if you would, of course…
