the logistics around finding ways to create some supersexy swingin' sounds of my own

that was a lot longer between updates than expected, but i have good news - the room is finished and i've largely taken it over. i've been trying to find some friends to come down and jam but have been completely unsuccessful in convincing anybody. well, the truth is that there are at most three people on the planet that would admit to being a friend of mine, and none of them seriously want to play music. one of them is a skateboarder kid that i've known since the third grade and just listens to trendy hip-hop. we don't have much in common except that we went to a small school and have just kind of clung together as a consequence of it. there's some concept of trust there, at least, and sometimes that can be mutually reassuring. the other is a bmx kid that's into punk rock (sort of - i question his authenticity), but he has the attention span of a gnat and just could not make it through anything. i'm only really friends with him because of the assigned seating at school and, ironically, because i'm old friends with the other kid. they have a lot more in common with each other and get along better with each other. i'm kind of more of a conduit. i don't begrudge them - good for them. i'm happy i helped them find each other. it's more that i don't really know why i stick around with them, except that there's safety in some numbers. the other option is to turn myself into a sitting duck for bullies. again: at least there's some concept of trust with these two. but, they're the kind of teenagers that want to play outside on their boards/bikes or stay in and play video games. there's just no interest in any kind of art. i did ask the bmx kid already to try out the drums, and he just kind of laughed at me, as though he was obviously incapable. he said he didn't want me to yell at him for sucking. to be honest, i think he's right to react that way!

that's not to say that they don't respect my craft on some level. you have to remember that, while i'm only 15, i've been playing guitar for a long time, already. i can pick up just about anything in the style i like, which is broadly categorized as alternative/grunge. i'm truly pretty impressive for my age. but, for them, that's more intimidating than reassuring, especially considering that they can't put it into context. further, i don't have a reputation for patience. so, they can tell ahead of time what this is going to be like - i'm going to yell at them for not being able to keep up, and they're going to get frustrated and give up. then, i'm going to pout. again: they're right. that's exactly what would happen...

the third kid is a little more promising. he's a big marilyn manson fan and seems to legitimately want to start a punk band. i don't really like marilyn manson, but i am a really big nine inch nails fan and i like punk, too, so surely we can find some common ground. the problem is that he's kind of flaky. he wants to play bass, but he's more concerned about the image involved in getting a "goth guitar" than he is in getting something that sounds good. he's also stood me up a few times, already. so, i don't know if i can really rely on him. he seems like the type that would get bored and give up really easily if it doesn't immediately work out. i don't think he really wants to just jam...

i'm kind of thinking that it might be a better idea to just start recording on my own. i mean, none of these kids can play anything. at all. i can probably play drums better than the bmx kid, anyways. i'm sure i can play bass better than the goth kid - that's not even a serious question. i have this room here, and i'm in it quite a bit. why am i waiting for other people? why don't i just record the parts myself? if trent reznor and billy corgan can do it, why can't i?

speaking of the room, perhaps i should describe it. i wish i had a camera, but i wouldn't know how to get it on the internet, anyways. dad says you need a 'scanner', but i don't know what that is.

i've had a subscription to guitar world for a few years, now. it was a christmas present. well, she offered me national geographic - and i do legitimately like to read up on science - but i requested the guitar world because i thought i'd get more out of it. so, i had about fifty magazines to cut & paste into a collage to spread across the wall, which is now full of alternative rock icons.

in one corner of the room, there's a table with a luxman receiver connected to a tascam four-track that was borrowed from my dad's friend, larry. the tascam connects to a mixdown tape deck through the luxman. larry also left an acoustic guitar and an mxr phaser down here. he said he doesn't play van halen any more and the phaser is cheesy, otherwise. personally, i can't tell the difference between his phaser and the flanger in my multi-effects unit but i'm told there's an engineering difference in the effects.

as for my guitar setup, i really have everything i need to record in a small space. i'm on my second guitar, now, which is an entry level ibanez with a locking bridge. i moved up a little while back from your standard piece of shit hondo. the ibanez has a three-way selector switch and a very clean signal, which are things that i like, but there's also a knot in the neck that was lacquered over at the store and has become somewhat of a splinter hazard. there's some fret wear, too. believe it or not, sometimes the problems with the guitar make me miss my old hondo! but, the important thing is that it sounds good through the signal path, which is into a zoom 1010 multieffects unit and out into a cheri practice amplifier. the amp came with my first guitar, whereas i purchased the multieffects unit in 1995 with combined christmas money.

there is an electric bass on the table behind the recording devices. there are no speakers in the room, but there is a pair of sennheiser 440-II headphones. dad said they're awesome headphones and i should 'baby' them so they last. there are two microphones in this room, connected to sponges to deaden the sound. and, there is for real a drum kit in the other corner of the room along with a selection of sticks and a pair of brushes. the space in between is very cramped - we could fit at most two adults in here, and at most four kids. nor is there any ventilation (as it was designed to be sound proof), so it gets very hot with the equipment, very fast. i'll admit that i've overheated and had to leave the room a couple of times...

so, i've been down here all night playing guitar for most of the month. sometimes i'm practicing other people's music, and sometimes i'm playing my own. while i haven't started to do any recording yet, because i want to wait to find people to play with, i've been mapping out a number of songs using a combination of tablature and notation on some left over loose leaf from last year. i have a lot of music already written, some of it going back to 1994. i even have some notes that i wrote back in 1994. it's all carefully organized in a binder, waiting to be actualized.

but, am i ever going to find anybody to jam with? what if i don't? i'm really seriously considering just starting to record by myself. then, maybe, i can teach the parts to other people, after. do you think that's a good idea?

i also picked up the new white zombie record, which is a remix record. i'm not a really big white zombie fan, but i do enjoy their other records and i reasoned that experimental remixes of white zombie songs would have to be really amazing to hear. so, i was hoping it would be a little more abstract, like those crazy nine inch nails remix records that i really like. on first listen, i found it to be too techno for me but it's grown on me a little and i think that it's really flat out demented qualities may prove it to be somewhat of a keeper, in the long run. what do you think?