News

Man, wish I'd taken some "before" pictures. Jean has sent along work-in-progress pictures of my (former) old, trashed Ovation.

Wonder if he'd sell it back? :-)

And for the first time in 10 years, an update to the Ovation saga.

No, the guitar hasn't magically healed itself. No, I never ever heard back from anyone at Kaman. No, I still have no intention of buying another Ovation.

But a guy named Jean Godbout decided he wanted to take a stab at repairing the thing (for his own edification). I told him it was his for the taking, if he'd cover shipping.

He sent me the check, then a few hurricanes hit Melbourne, and he waited patiently while I was a bit busy with all that.

But last week I finally sent him the damn guitar. Be interesting to see what he can do with it... but his previous work is pretty encouraging.

And yeah, I realize the gist of Jean's page is far from "hey look at the neat stuff I built." I'm just pointing out that he's built some nice guitars.

Update: Jean sent a link to pics of an OM-style guitar he built here. The Ovation's in good hands.

Man Without Ties (great Paul Westerberg fan site) posted MP3s of a solo show (May 15, 2004 in Louisville). Great stuff.

I added it to Webjay for ease of playing, and stuck "Alex Chilton" up top out of complete self-indulgence...

Looking for a case for a case. More specifically, looking to get an Anvil-type case to hold my grandfather's 1930's tenor guitar, in its (no longer all that sturdy) case. So a solid case, foam-lined to fit and protect the guitar in its original case.

Anyone have experience with one manufacturer or another? This doesn't necessarily have to be flight-certified, just want the aging instrument and case to be well-protected and supported.

Let me know. Thanks.

Al Stevens was a programmer/columnist/author for many years -- and his C column was my favorite part of DDJ most months.

Now that he's retired, Al's back to playing music full time. And now that we've moved to Melbourne, I'm just gonna have to go catch him playing in Cocoa Beach.

Anyway, Al's guidelines for jazz sit-ins apply equally well to all sorts of open mikes and jams, just substitute "rock" for "jazz", "Oops, I Did It Again" for "Love Potion Number Nine", etc. To the point, and funny.

#10: If you are not trained in music theory, don't scat. If you are trained in music theory, don't scat very often.