Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Tri-City Medical Center Carlsbad Marathon


Fresh Start Surgical Gifts asked us to play at the kick-off event for the big Tri-City Medical Center Carlsbad Marathon this weekend!

So - first we made some NEW POSTERS.

The Sophia San Francisco 
Hippie Music Festival Poster:

The Megan Classical Strings Poster:

And the Max & Curly Max 
Sunshine Folk Festival Poster:

We're selling them for $5 each (cheap!) 
All proceeds go to Fresh Start Surgical Gifts!

The infamous Sheraton Carlsbad, right next to Legoland -


They arrive, and man are they THIRSTY!


The sign-in table is getting busy.


Max tunes up -


Sophia starts singing -


Megan is hooked up to our VOX Valvotronic amp, and it sounds GREAT.


A pause in the singing -

The only song we filmed -


Also represented was the Biggs Chapter of the North San Diego County Harley Owners Group! Their motto: "Crashing Sucks."


And finally, if you've been paying attention - whose boots are these?


And whose boots are these?



And whose boots are these?



Thanks again Amanda!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Coming: Fresh Start's Tri-City Marathon

Coming on Friday, January 20th, 6:00-7:30pm:

VARSITY STRINGS
will be playing at the kickoff of the 
Tri-City Medical Center Carlsbad Marathon
Sheraton Carlsbad Resort & Spa
(Next to Legoland)
Sunset Ballroom
5480 Grand Pacific Drive
Carlsbad, CA 92008
RSVP to Kelly@inmotionevents.com
760 692 2900


Map:


See you there! Thanks Amanda!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

1960's Psychedelic Posters

Love these posters!!!!






...AND LOOK AT THIS ONE!!!! It's a poster for Mitt's dad 
George Romney running for the 1968 Republican nomination! 
He didn't get it because he OPPOSED the Vietnam war! 
We want Romney in '68!






Let's give a nod to these guys too:





Love "Steet"?





Friday, January 6, 2012

Hotrodding My Gibson SG, Part 2

Andy at Andy's Guitar Shop here in San Diego said I could go one of two paths to hotrod my Gibson SG.

Path 1: Better LOOKS
- or -
Path 2: Better SOUND

I went with BETTER SOUND! So here's the result - I started with the Gibson SG Special Worn Cherry Finish model, which is a great playing guitar and doesn't have those potentially annoying edge bindings on the neck.

Then Andy added a few things:


Body close-up:


Seth Lover Model Seymour Duncan PAF-style new issue matched split pickups with all chrome steel frame brackets. Andy carefully cut new spaces in the pickguard to hold these. He also added a white top to the pickguard (just under the fingerboard, see?) that I can etch the name of the guitar across, when I finally think of a name.

The pickups are split, which people often don't know you can do with Seth Lovers. You can push/pull the knobs to get a single pickup, double, or a combination of both. I find that mixing a single on the bridge pickup, double on the neck, and vary the tones on both makes for a great classic jazz sound, better than most 'jazz' guitars get...

"Designed jointly by Seymour and humbucker inventor, the late Seth Lover. Just like the original 1955 P.A.F.s, they utilize a nickel silver cover and long-legged nickel silver bottom plate, plain enamel wire, Alnico 2 bar, wooden spacer, and black paper tape. To be completely true to the original design and tone, the pickup is not wax potted. The tone is vintage P.A.F. The unpotted cover gives a slightly honky microphonic quality."


Next - the American made hardbody-style Bigsby B5 Vibrato Tailpiece:


A floating roller bridge to handle the Bigsby yanking. Didn't even know this existed until Andy told me about it. Works great by the way, absolutely recommended:


And new tall chrome steel knobs, easy to grap and pull to switch from single coil to double on the Seth Lover pickups:


And finally a new Fender Blues Junior all-tube amp to play it through. This is the Tweed model of the Blues Junior, equipped with a 12" retro-Jenson speaker. Sounds great, really classic and clean. This is sort of an update to their original 15 watt Fender Tweed Deluxe amp that was sold 1955-1960.


Love these tubes!



Want to hear it? LETS GO!  - - - - -


Thank you Andy!