guitar amps and burritos
I'm starting tonight just a touch after 9 pm, which should allow me to dump the contents of my brain well before midnight, unlike last night!
Something I realized last night as I was writing - something I remembered, actually...writing is helps me process. When I'm writing, I can turn something around in my mind, examine it, and make connections in a way that I can't do otherwise. And when I don't write, I forget that this is true.
I occasionally wake up with a particular word repeating itself in my mind. Yesterday the word was "festoon". More often than not, the word I wake up with (that sounds kinda strange) is something that I only know the vague definition of. Festoon, I'm guessing, means something like "decorate" or "decorated"... I haven't bothered to look it up yet, needless to say. But why the Sam Hill was my subconscious kicking this word up? I haven't the foggiest idea. If you believe in fate and/or a higher power, you might believe that the word was brought to my attention because it was something I needed to know at a particular time and place. But so far I've had no occasion to dust the word off and throw it into a sentence, and I haven't been invited to any parties where I might conceivably use it in a manner not completely out of context. Take that, Owen Meany!
Back to today. Nicky and I went to Panchero's for lunch for the first time. Panchero's, for those of you who may not know, is a chain restaurant specializing in large burritos made fresh to order. It's kinda like a Mexican Subway (i.e., Subway the restaurant, not subway the public transportation system!) The place bears a resemblance to Chipotle Grill (one of my favorite fast food restaurants), but - in my opinion - suffers by comparison. First of all, it's all about the rice, people! Chipotle uses a delicious cilantro-lime rice in all their burritos. Pancheros uses...I don't know what. It reminded me of Spanish rice. Their brochure *advertised* cilantro-lime, but I'm here to tell you that it resembled nothing of the sort! Second, Pancheros doesn't wrap their burritos in foil for handy and efficient plate-to-mouth delivery. I had juice running down my hand - not a pretty sight! And finally, Panchero's lacks the spicy corn salsa you can get at Chipotle. So, in a nutshell, the place just isn't as funky, or tasty. I'm making a Herculean effort not to make some snide comment here about Dubuque. And by making said comment, I have hereby failed. I should appreciate the fact that we now have something in town that caters to the "big burrito" craze. But as scary as this sounds, I think I'd rather go to Taco Bell!
On another, non-food related note, tonight I went to Rondinelli's to pick up a speaker cable for school. Tomorrow is the first day of new student orientation, and it is, for all practical purposes, the first real day of school. The students will be moving in and I will be running around like a madman, setting up equipment and making sure everything's working. In any case, while I was at the store tonight, I noticed a small Fender guitar amp that had a used sticker on it. It's a Blues Junior tube amp, which is exactly what I was drooling over a couple years ago when I bought my Ibanez jazz guitar.
For those of you who are not guitar geeks, there are basically two kinds of amplifiers: tube and solid-state. Tube amps are, as far as I know, the original technology for amplifiers (think of your grandparents' stereo or TV), and are a big deal for musicians looking for a "warm" tone. Solid-state, on the other hand, seek to reproduce various tones (including the "classic" tube tone) via circuit-boards. Which is better? Depends on what you're looking for, I suppose. I love bright, clean notes - at least when I'm playing. And so when Denny offered to let me take the Blues Junior home for a night to try it out, he didn't need to offer twice.
Keep in mind that I haven't even played my guitar in about 18 months! I was getting burned out on lessons, and had lost my drive to play somewhere along the line. So when I took out my guitars tonight (I own one acoustic and one electric), I was surprised to find that my acoustic was almost completely in tune - incredible - and the electric needed only minor adjustment. I set the amps up side by side and plugged into both. The differences were not dramatic at first. My original amp, a Crate, sounds heavier on bass. When playing scales, the notes on the Blues Junior ring out clearer. The Crate does have a more mellow tone, but that doesn't bother me like I thought it would. It's strange, but the Fender actually sounds louder, even though it's only 15 watts, compared with the Crate's 30 (both have a 12" speaker).
So after farting around with the amps for a good hour, I've decided to buy the Blues Junior and sell the Crate. While I do think it sounds a little better, I also have to admit that I'm a sucker for the idea of a genuine tube amp, and actually seeing the tubes inside gives me a thrill! The amp also has a vintage look and feel which complements the Ibanez (my electric guitar) perfectly. It's superficial, I know, but if there's one thing that's true about me, it's that I'm big on design. Now I just have to find someone to sell my old amp to!
Will this spur in me a renewed interest in playing and practicing? Hard to say. But I DO know that my fingers feel raw!
Something I realized last night as I was writing - something I remembered, actually...writing is helps me process. When I'm writing, I can turn something around in my mind, examine it, and make connections in a way that I can't do otherwise. And when I don't write, I forget that this is true.
I occasionally wake up with a particular word repeating itself in my mind. Yesterday the word was "festoon". More often than not, the word I wake up with (that sounds kinda strange) is something that I only know the vague definition of. Festoon, I'm guessing, means something like "decorate" or "decorated"... I haven't bothered to look it up yet, needless to say. But why the Sam Hill was my subconscious kicking this word up? I haven't the foggiest idea. If you believe in fate and/or a higher power, you might believe that the word was brought to my attention because it was something I needed to know at a particular time and place. But so far I've had no occasion to dust the word off and throw it into a sentence, and I haven't been invited to any parties where I might conceivably use it in a manner not completely out of context. Take that, Owen Meany!
Back to today. Nicky and I went to Panchero's for lunch for the first time. Panchero's, for those of you who may not know, is a chain restaurant specializing in large burritos made fresh to order. It's kinda like a Mexican Subway (i.e., Subway the restaurant, not subway the public transportation system!) The place bears a resemblance to Chipotle Grill (one of my favorite fast food restaurants), but - in my opinion - suffers by comparison. First of all, it's all about the rice, people! Chipotle uses a delicious cilantro-lime rice in all their burritos. Pancheros uses...I don't know what. It reminded me of Spanish rice. Their brochure *advertised* cilantro-lime, but I'm here to tell you that it resembled nothing of the sort! Second, Pancheros doesn't wrap their burritos in foil for handy and efficient plate-to-mouth delivery. I had juice running down my hand - not a pretty sight! And finally, Panchero's lacks the spicy corn salsa you can get at Chipotle. So, in a nutshell, the place just isn't as funky, or tasty. I'm making a Herculean effort not to make some snide comment here about Dubuque. And by making said comment, I have hereby failed. I should appreciate the fact that we now have something in town that caters to the "big burrito" craze. But as scary as this sounds, I think I'd rather go to Taco Bell!
On another, non-food related note, tonight I went to Rondinelli's to pick up a speaker cable for school. Tomorrow is the first day of new student orientation, and it is, for all practical purposes, the first real day of school. The students will be moving in and I will be running around like a madman, setting up equipment and making sure everything's working. In any case, while I was at the store tonight, I noticed a small Fender guitar amp that had a used sticker on it. It's a Blues Junior tube amp, which is exactly what I was drooling over a couple years ago when I bought my Ibanez jazz guitar.
For those of you who are not guitar geeks, there are basically two kinds of amplifiers: tube and solid-state. Tube amps are, as far as I know, the original technology for amplifiers (think of your grandparents' stereo or TV), and are a big deal for musicians looking for a "warm" tone. Solid-state, on the other hand, seek to reproduce various tones (including the "classic" tube tone) via circuit-boards. Which is better? Depends on what you're looking for, I suppose. I love bright, clean notes - at least when I'm playing. And so when Denny offered to let me take the Blues Junior home for a night to try it out, he didn't need to offer twice.
Keep in mind that I haven't even played my guitar in about 18 months! I was getting burned out on lessons, and had lost my drive to play somewhere along the line. So when I took out my guitars tonight (I own one acoustic and one electric), I was surprised to find that my acoustic was almost completely in tune - incredible - and the electric needed only minor adjustment. I set the amps up side by side and plugged into both. The differences were not dramatic at first. My original amp, a Crate, sounds heavier on bass. When playing scales, the notes on the Blues Junior ring out clearer. The Crate does have a more mellow tone, but that doesn't bother me like I thought it would. It's strange, but the Fender actually sounds louder, even though it's only 15 watts, compared with the Crate's 30 (both have a 12" speaker).
So after farting around with the amps for a good hour, I've decided to buy the Blues Junior and sell the Crate. While I do think it sounds a little better, I also have to admit that I'm a sucker for the idea of a genuine tube amp, and actually seeing the tubes inside gives me a thrill! The amp also has a vintage look and feel which complements the Ibanez (my electric guitar) perfectly. It's superficial, I know, but if there's one thing that's true about me, it's that I'm big on design. Now I just have to find someone to sell my old amp to!
Will this spur in me a renewed interest in playing and practicing? Hard to say. But I DO know that my fingers feel raw!
posted by Mike Willis @ 9:02 PM
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