The Blues Ballad Everyone Plays Wrong Without Realizing It

[00:00:00]Good morning YouTube people.

[00:00:10]Magical chords, folks. So, I'm playing uh first of all, this is one of the remaining uh Gristle ST guitars uh here. I can I can always get more uh of my signature Reverends uh which is a delightful sounding instrument. But I plugged it into this little amp here, which is a amp made locally by a buddy of mine named Dave Rob. He's a company called Bluefire. Locally being in the Milwaukee area, home of the F Pinky Tuscadero, Jeffrey Dmer. No, we'll skip the Dmer part. Okay, that is weird. Anyway, this amp it's kind of being highlighted by that red light. Dylan got some fancy new lights in room as you notice. I I don't have the little orbs of delight on behind me, so we don't think we're being visited by some kind of celestial presence, although of course we are. Um, but anyways, this amp I ordered, I think it's over 20 years ago. There was only two of these ants ever made. Uh, I called it the harmonic pummeler 3000.

[00:01:21]It's actually an orange toollex. Uh, but it has four 10s and it's kind of like a double deluxe. It's got four 6V6 tubes.

[00:01:30]It does have a gain and a master so you can dial in a little bit of grid. It's got a high power, low power. Um, and but it's got harmonic vibrto on board and it was done with uh two tubes. And the reason why I say that is when we did the coaul amp um no relation, I think I've told that story before. Uh we did that amp called the Greg and uh it had harmonic vibr on it as well, but due to u the fact that it had all these other gain stages on it and whatnot, they were only able to dedicate one tube towards the harmonic vibr circuit. And the original brown era, brown tox era fenders that had vibr on board, um the circuit was done with two tubes. So this is done with the original two tube circuit and it's just super lush. The one of the amp sounds good, but it's not quite as vivid as this one.

[00:02:39]Almost sounds univying.

[00:03:07]Oh, it sounds about going good. I had it in the repair shop because it had been sitting here atrophying in the room lounge for quite some time and when I turned it on it sounded good and all a sudden I s I smelled something burning.

[00:03:18]So I took it back to Dave and he fixed it up and it's just kind of a fun amp.

[00:03:23]Does weigh a ton though on it. We only made two. We I I came out with the amp with with Dave and originally we were going to try to sell them. Um and it was right at a period of time where I just started doing the Wildwood thing. I wasn't doing much Fender stuff and uh I was just kind of toying around having a little fun with some local builders. Uh we came up with this amp and I sat in with Joe Bonamas and I brought this amp and he really liked it. He goes, "Boy, I'd like to get one of those." So we actually got him one and it was kind of funny because we sent him the amp. Of course, he was very um um appreciative.

[00:03:56]But then a period of time later, he was uh doing one of his he used to do these things where he'd rent out like a uh little convention room uh in some hotel out by where he lives. We lived out in California. Still got a place out there.

[00:04:09]Like I'm getting rid of a bunch of stuff. And there was the there was the amp up on a table and I was like, "Oh, okay. I guess that's going which I totally understand. It's not like you know, you know how we are. we we get stuff even if we're gifted stuff and we'll like it for a period of time and then it's sitting for a while and um you know it depends on you know obviously if someone lends you something you're not going to sell it because you know that's criminal activity but if you are given something um it's yours so you can do with it as you please and you want to be tasteful about the way that you liquidate it and so on and so forth but the bottom line is is that uh because there seems to be some some uh discrepancies with some musicians who feel like they can't, you know, and of course usually those musicians got a lot of money. I would never sell something I was given. It's like interesting take. Um I I just try to be very tasteful about it. So anyway, because Joe did give me an amp. Um uh I think it's say okay to say that was a Jim Kelly amp because I love Jim Kelly amps back in the day. we talked about on my we both had long-standing love for Jim Kelly amps and but the one I had back in the day was called called an FACS foot foot activated channel switching and it was basically a double deluxe and it had a attenuator built especially for it which had just different kind of an end on the attenuator that stuck uh into the back of the amp. So you could run one channel kind of your clean deluxe and then the second channel would be you could overdrive it uh just by turning up the volume and then turn down the attenuator and I believe that was also like a 60 watt amp had one speaker had a an E120 uh JBL in it and it was a glorious amp and I love that amp and I it was my main amp when I was a kid when I got out of college who's buddy of mine uh Ron Garrett. Ron if you're watching greetings. Uh Ron came up from Texas.

[00:06:07]He's about 10 years older than me and he'd play with all these Texas guitar players. He was a great, you know, he's a great singer, bass player, guitar player. Um very soulful cat. And of course, I was enamored with all things Texas, you know, and here's comes this blues, rock, country singing son of a And he proceeds to tell me about all of his guitar playing buddies down in Texas and what they were using. And he said, "One of my guitar players," he goes, "Plays at Jim Kellyanne, and if you ever see one, just buy it."

[00:06:34]And so I did. I was in a music store in um I was at Uncle Bob's Music which was one of the greatest music stores of all time. It was run by this family and it was just cool. You went in their stuff piled everywhere and they were always wheeling and dealing very fair cats, you know what I mean? They very there to service musicians when uh it was a time when you know uh music was actually live performance of music was was a vocation and u and they just treated musicians great. It was a great place to hang.

[00:07:05]Anyways, I went in there one day. Uh this is their old location for those of you who care over on um Capitol Drive.

[00:07:11]And I walked in and I saw this Jim Kelly amp with the cover on it and it just said Jim Kelly. And I looked down. I saw it. I was like, Jim Kelly? Holy That's that amp that Ron was telling me about. And um I said to Bob Junior, I said, "What's what's going on with this Jim Kelly?" Ah, some guy's liquidating a bunch of stuff from his studio and 400 bucks. So, for some reason at the time I had $400, which was crazy because uh that was in the time when $400 was a king ransom and I wasn't making diddly do. So, I ended up buying the amp and it was it was glorious. And the way that it overd when you would goose that amp, it just sounded so great. This is back in the day where I wouldn't use any pedals.

[00:07:51]You know, I said I'm not using any pedals.

[00:07:54]I did have two pedals that I would occasionally bring out. a chorus pedal, which I'd set up to be kind of a Leslie thing, and then maybe a delay, but usually left a delay at home because I didn't like the way that it uh distorted things in front of the amp. And of course, effects loop was not something I was going to deal with. So, I just went straight into that amp for years. And then at one point, I blew the amp up and uh after it was repaired, it never sounded the same. So, I ended up uh uh trading it to my buddy Carl for something. and it ended up in I believe in in the arsenal of Jesse Johnson from the time I ended up with one of his guitars. So it was kind of a it was kind of weird. Anyway, um back to my story.

[00:08:34]So when we got to building this amp, it was kind of with that mindset of man, what if I did kind of an amp that would do the Jim Kelly thingish with with four sixv6s, had some nice reverb and then had that harmonic vibr. So that's what we did, the harmonic pummeler 3000. Anyways, back to my story about the Jim Kelly this amp and Joe Bamasa. So anyways, Joe and I were talking about uh Jim Kelly amps and they had just reissued them and he goes, "I'm going to send you a little something."

[00:09:02]So sure in the mail showed up a Jim Kelly uh single 12 amp, but it wasn't the one with the uh the attenuator on.

[00:09:11]It sounded glorious.

[00:09:14]Uh and I did use it for a while. It weighed a ton.

[00:09:19]Um, and it was beautiful, too. It was this wood cabinet. It was It was really a beautiful thing. The one I had back in the day was kind of a a beige tolex. I'm turn this dog on. This dog on thing keeps making noise over here. It's driving me crazy. Anyway, so um I'm going to turn this mail program off so we don't hear quit. Um, I ended up getting rid of the app. Uh, but I told I told Joe, I I texted him. like, "Hey, would would you mind terribly if I if I uh got rid of this amp? I I I don't know what I was going I think that's when I may have liquidated a bunch of stuff to get the the the 53 Telecaster." That's kind of when it it makes sense to liquidate a bunch of stuff that you have. It's like you really want to get this other thing that's kind of unoptanium and then you liquidate the the stuff that you have in your arsenal to to get that. He said, "Of course, no problem." As we all do.

[00:10:13]We're like, "Yeah, I totally get it because we know what the affliction is like.

[00:10:18]Anyway, so back to this that nice sound. I love doing this little shuffle tune of mine.

[00:10:56]Hey, hey, hey.

[00:11:15]Oh, right. I just when I have this kind of sound, I could just kind of sit around all day long and just just play whatever comes to mind. You know what I mean?

[00:11:33]Like maybe the The little circle thing. I think that's what Robie can do.

[00:11:47]The circle with the pick.

[00:12:44]Natal.

[00:13:34]right? I like that little thing. You go and go up 12 frets from where you're fingering down here and just kind of use the palm the heel of your palm to strum or you're strumming and you get this harmonic.

[00:13:50]There we go. That's the one. It works better if you have a little gain on.

[00:13:55]Anyways, you get the idea. Uh, couple little things I was doing over there like, you know, when Ste when you hear Steen Ray play Riviera Paradise.

[00:14:02]This is one of those songs that has some changes in it and if you're not if you're not uh hip to different harmony stuff, uh, it can cause some interesting scenarios and and Stevie Ray, bless him, there was a couple scenarios in there where he's doing the little cuz he's having a hard time playing the changes.

[00:14:19]I'm not saying he's having a hard time.

[00:14:21]It's just there's a couple weird spots in there where if you're not sure what's going on, it can get a little awkward and most people listen to that um you know who who are not aware like, "Oh yeah, that sounds great." Which it does sound great. I'm not saying it does it, but anyone who's deconstructed the song or who's played the song realizes there's a couple of those changes in there where it's like sticking to blues and pentatonic land doesn't quite do it.

[00:14:43]Um but yet it did. You know what I'm saying? If you want to get more in depth with it, you can. I guess that's what I'm saying. So for instance uh you know you know obviously the E minor to the G major 7 to the A13 you can all be in like E minor pentatonic land go to you know uh a mixelyian there which is the same thing as E dorian and then we go to here to this F major 7 to G13. You can kind of do like a uh you can either think G mixelyian the whole time or you can just mentally think of uh F lyian. Same thing.

[00:15:43]Now we go to E flat here. We can think E flat.

[00:15:46]uh Lydian when it goes to this F sharp, this is where it gets weird because you can do like a a E harmonic minor and then when it goes to this B7 sharp N or flat N, you can think uh I can think of Fyian dominant or I can think of it as C C melodic minor. Same thing. Um, I know this sounds weird, but for those who know what I'm talking about, that's right. Oh, sorry.

[00:16:28]And so, you know, you don't have to.

[00:16:30]Here's one of the things. Just because you can play over the changes doesn't mean you should all the time. You keep it musical, but you keep the knowledge of the fact that you can hit a couple of those juicy notes uh that you can bring to the four whenever you want. And uh it's good clean fun, right? Does that make sense?

[00:16:47]I hope it does, folks. And then again, these are my observations. These are just, you know, obviously from years of experience and being uh you know, uh pummeled accordingly by the forces of evil or forces of light. When you're playing music, it's a dog on delight.

[00:17:04]Anyways, this little rascal here is here. This is actually going out. This one is sold. I got to do a little video for the gentleman after this. And uh we did a little special thing with our our workshop uh on Saturday on Sunday, sorry. Uh we did a little special thing um and sold a couple of packages which included a a one-on-one lesson with me which I don't do often. So that's why it was kind of a special deal. Buy the guitar, get a lesson, I sign it, I do the video, yada yada yada. So um this is going out. We do have one guitar left in the arsenal.

[00:17:36]I think Dylan might put a uh a link to it if you're so bold. And it's kind of interesting because we're we're kind of in a interesting phase with this whole YouTube thing for those who are, you know, going, "Oh, you're you're doing a lot more YouTube stuff lately." And then other people coming and never realizing who I am or what I'm doing like, "Hey, I kind of like this." Or the opposite. You hate me. Whatever. Um what's interesting about it is is that uh for years, like during co I was doing I was doing four live streams a week. I they were underwritten by Wildwood and or fishermen and I would do performances and so on and so forth. Uh I would occasionally do little lessony things during COVID and posted a YouTube channel. Growth was at a snail's pace because I had no idea of you know how the algorithm works. Of course, it was different then or whatever the case may be. And you know we got we got a decent amount of subscribers. I think we got up to uh like you know 30,000 or so and then it just stopped. It just, you know, it was like a trickle and, you know, we kept on pumping out the content and it was, you know, it was good stuff. I mean, the the live streams, you know, are a delight for a lot of people. And now we um uh if I'm not around or if we can't do a live stream, my buddy Matty K will replay it. Uh he'll put on a replay and so on and so forth. But it's still a nice community where people talk in the chat about this, that, and the next thing. They inter inter uh interface with us and so on and so forth when we're doing it live. that is um but never really took off. And then what was funny is that if we would take of this hour-long performance, if we would take like one snippet of it, you know, do a thumbnail, say something, whatever, that video might blow up, but the actual stream that it came from might only get a couple thousand views or whatever the case may be, right? Some of the live streams would get more depending like right after I did the Rick Biato interview, the first live stream we did afterward had like, you know, tens of thousands of views. Other than that, uh, it had been like at a snail's pace. So then I just started doing these extemporaneous things where I play a little bit and talk a little bit and they're unscripted. I might have a little thing in my mind of what I want to talk about, but even here, you know, I turn them the camera on and I go in a million different directions and uh what you know. Anyway, so and then afterwards, what I do is I send them to my son Dylan. Dylan, of course, drummer in my band and okay, but he's really up on uh digital marketing and um not in a gross way, but he's just, you know, we him and I are both touched a little bit with the uh I'm going to say we're spectrumy or as he likes to say, we got a touch of the tism. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm not bringing light to it, but uh so we're able to hyperfocus on certain things much to the detriment of a lot of other stuff. Don't ask us to do X, Y, and Z.

[00:20:20]probably not gonna happen. But the stuff we're really good at, we're really good at any touch of the tism. That's a new song.

[00:20:31]I got a touch of the tism.

[00:20:35]Behold the prism.

[00:20:38]I'm able to do lots of things. Well, actually a few things really well. But other things I just suck cuz I can't concentrate on stuff I don't care about.

[00:20:49]Touch of the tism. Wow. Anytime you can get a whisper whisper thing in a song, folks, that burns. Okay. Especially like a whisper uh a whisper echo. You know, you say something touch of the tism. Touch of the tism. What? It's rock and roll history right there. Anyway, so what Dylan does after I get he gets the video is he takes it and he put takes out the the uh the transcription. He waits for the transcription and then he uses his tools to figure out, okay, well, there's here are three potential uh things that the algorithm might like based on what I said. And then he'll do a little fight during the uh algorithm fight. He'll put the video out with one particular thumbnail and title and then see how it does and then he'll switch it and then he'll switch it again and whatever one gets the best uh feedback or uh um uh momentum on the algorithm he'll keep in. And sometime, you know, this would always bug me too when I would see people's YouTube videos. I'm like, listen to that. What's that what's that title? That title is totally, you know, clickbayish. And I'm like, ah, it's just gross. But here's the thing. If I just posted this video with like a cool little thumbnail that said random fun on a harmonic pummeler 3000, no one would give a They it would like the algorithm would go.

[00:22:20]But if it's all of a sudden Joe Bamasa gave away his or whatever it's going to come up with, right? All of a sudden the video takes off and people come in.

[00:22:29]Yeah, we make a little bit of money from uh the views. Thank God cuz after years of I mean the people always say, "Do you pay those guys to do those live streams?" Yes, I do. So that means for years I've been paying for this content that has made me absolutely no money other than the fact that it's an effort of goodwill. Obviously it gets, you know, it's visibility and all that kind of stuff, but I was literally making no money from from YouTube. So I'm paying a guy to help mix it. I'm playing a guy to help in the chat box chat room. I'm playing the guys in the band. I mean, not like, "Oh, look at me." I'm just saying finally at long last posting these videos where I go out to my room here and do something for 20 minutes or a half hour I'm actually being able to realize some cash is a beautiful thing.

[00:23:12]So as a result of that or as a because of the fact that these are being titled in the way that they are uh that's why things are happening. So in case any of you are wondering did Greg come up with that? It's like no. Uh the forces of algorithmia have come up with these things and Dylan uh the budding uh not budding. He's a he's a bonafide wizard at this And I was saying that with Rick Bat was the same thing he told me. I remember when he take came out with a video. It's like a video he came out with went live while I was there and it's like it's not taking off the way they should. We got to change the thumbnail. We got to change this. So, it's it's a you got to always be working this stuff to get get the algorithm to care, to get your subscribers to care, to have it thrown out into places where people who might be interested in that content will see it. So, anyways, that's all I have to say about all that stuff. So, folks, have a good remainder of your day.

[00:24:03]Remember, harmonic pummeler 3000. Uh, you know, I think Dave would probably make one. You can probably make whatever you want, but uh I think we'll u we'll include uh some information about Dave Rochre in the information below.

[00:24:16]Uh, and we hope you're all doing good.

[00:24:18]I' I've actually one of the things I have to do today is I have to go through my Brett Papa course. He just texted me right before I turned the camera on saying, "Hey, the Dropbox has your stuff in it. Please review." So, I'm going to review the course. Check it out. And um, uh, we're going to get that sucker out.

[00:24:34]It's going to be glorious. It's going to be long. It's going to be like 10 hours long. Uh filled with performances, filled on with, you know, me going over these tunes of mine, showing you what to do. Uh other segments where I'm showing just various different lessons stuff.

[00:24:49]There's interview segments with Brett and me where he's like, "Hey, what are you doing there again?" And so, it's just got a metric ton of information on it. So, it's going to be glorious. But I'll keep you apprised in the space of that activity. All right, folks. Thanks for tuning in. Take it easy.