Today was an interesting day. This week’s been an interesting week… Miles driven in rain. A whole lot of’em. Moist miles made merrier by my mighty miscreant musical mates!
Also – some great news about rob’s Open Mics and Focus Music, as well as an incredible local show with Mosno Al-Moseeki and Acacia Sears. Good news-wise, we’ve added music to the Cult, but sad news-wise – my guitar doth gently weep. We were playing a show early Saturday and after three sets of folking out for a fun grouping of people that involved an inordinate amount of joyous children, I felt my low-E string go. I tried to play on through it and then looked down and realized that it wasn’t just the string that had come loose, but the entire bridge of my guitar had popped free of the body.
But it’s not all consonance and clouds… ilyAIMY was approved by Pandora this week, so somewhere betwixt all that ails the world and Hope, ilyAIMY’s gettin’ a channel in the box! I’m hoping we’ll end up linked to Underfoot and Skinny Puppy! The former because it’d make sense and the latter because it’d freak people out. Also, Heather got an honourable mention for her new tune “That One Time” received an Honourable Mention from American Songwriter – so there was indeed good news this week! Plus I’m getting a little recognition and support from Focus Music for my open mics, I’ve got a sponsorship thing set up with them, and that’s cool.
God damn it. This guitar was SUPPOSED to be indestructible, and right around the 6 or 7 year mark I’m having neck issues, string break issues, I just got it re-fretted – and now this. It’s probably a relatively simple fix, but – fuck. So – for those of you who don’t remember the tale, I bought my Composite Acoustics moments before the company went out of business. Absolutely stupid on my part. Knowing this, at the very least I should’ve gotten a massive pricebreak because I wouldn’t REALLY be receiving that lifetime warranty. Like – looking back at it now, I’m kind of pissed about that. A bit later CA’s leftovers were purchased by Peavey, who moved the whole operation from Louisiana to Alabama and started up shop with a new set of specs – specs that by all account at first were kind of dodgy but since then have evolved into what DOES appear to be a superior guitar. And others have lamented about movement in their neck (I haven’t heard of anyone else having their bridge pop off) but damn, looking back at it I was just stupid. I plan to continue to Love this guitar, but it really throws a wrench in my Love of small business. If it’s not big enough to stick around, it’s not big enough to guarantee anything.
Well, anyway – since Peavey updated the spec on the instrument, of course they’re not honouring the warranty of pre-Peavey instruments – and really, why would they? Though – frankly they should’ve renamed the company if they weren’t going to fill CA’s shoes.
I dunno. I’m grumpy. It looks like Steve Carmody (“my” luthier back at HMT) is up to the task – and he’s done most all the other work to the guitar barring the pickup installs (c’est moi) – but damn, I’ve NEVER had a bridge come off. That’s like a “cheap guitar” problem or a “didn’t humidify” problem or a general “I don’t take care of my guitar” problem. It makes me feel amateurish and stupid.
Whatever. Tomorrow’s a new day.