Playing around with augmentations and inversions is always fun. You can get a lot of interesting sounds that way, and if you like a lot of distortion some inversions sounds positively huge.
Went with my Dad to "Killer Vintage" in St. Louis to pick up his 1957 Fender Musicmaster and 1958 Supro 1650T that he had them go over. Holy crap, what a cool shop! The guitar is cool as hell, but weird to play; 3/4 size feels cramped. The Supro Amp sounds awesome! I think he'll have a lot of fun with that. Planning to gig with it tomorrow night. I'll have to get some pics tomorrow.
That is a great shop! I grew up in STL and try to stop by when I'm there. Last time I was at Killer Vintage I bought a Reason Bambino 8w tube amp combo, which is amazing! Handmade, point to point wiring, and a cool "stack" mode than runs the clean and the overdrive channels in series and gives it a completely different sound. Another good spot in STL is Eddie's Guitars on Manchester Rd. down in Maplewood. I bought my Collings from those guys the day before I bought the Bambino at Killer!
Those Reason amps are amazing. My Dad is considering one. Killer has a nice Yairi acoustic that I'm really tempted to buy before I fly home
That Bambino is the loudest 8w amp I've ever heard, and most of the time I keep in switched to 2w, which is plenty loud in my townhome. The guy who started the company and designs their amps is a local engineer who's also a great guitar player. I'm not sure if he still works there, but Brian Henneman, guitar player, songwriter, and singer for the great alt.country/redneck rock band "The Bottle Rockets" used to be at Killer part-time as a guitar tech. Brian is pretty terrific rhythm player. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pN4L5WjCPvw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I used to play in a band with John Horton, the guy playing lead on the Explorer (I was a drummer then). I really like Brian Henneman's songwriting; I've learned a lot of his songs, probably more than anyone elses.
Going back to the scale talk.. I started studying guitar scales because I thought I could become some guitar genius. I already have years of music theory under my belt and thought I could throw it down on guitar. A couple months ago, I realized that (almost) every riff/solo is just a pentatonic with the root on your index on the low e. Seriously.. now, why didn't anyone tell me this before?
No, although I know all of those guys. My brother-in-law was their bass player, and still plays with some of those guys. John (and I) played in a blues/rock band that my Dad had for awhile. I don't even remember what we called ourselves at that time; mostly played Washington MO/Union/New Haven area.
You can get fancy and use "blues" scales, which are basically minor pentatonics with the 3rd and 7th sharped. You can also play those from the three possition which is the 7th fret A string ...just to change it up lol
You guys seen this? Pretty amazing or at least it is to me, a non guitar player (and owner of two guitars ) <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w1Z-V2xey-Q" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>
My brother is a bass player in STL that plays in a couple of bands. The Hula Poppers, and 710, a Grateful Dead cover band that has been around for at least twenty years.
I'm a huge fan of properly executed delay. That was pretty cool. I like all this STL talk. I was playing (drums) in pretty much every club in/around STL (except The Pageant, although I still want to) from 03-06. It's vastly different today; far fewer clubs than there used to be.
Here's another original with my 2003 Gibson J-45 RW. (ebony fretboard/ebony bridge) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3a-v3uvI9k