I saved someone’s hand today..

Today, Valerie, my lovely fiancee landed on Schiphol airport and I picked her up. After missing 2 trains because we were too distracted by each other we finally caught a train to Utrecht. From there we hopped on the train to Soest, my hometown. When we just sat down in the train, and put our bag on the seats in front of us, a man just jumped on the train, BUT, his hand got stuck between the doors!
I only found out when a woman outside starting screaming that someone’s hand was stuck between the doors. I jumped up and felt all the adrenaline my body could produce in one second rush through my veins. I ran to the door and tried to pull the doors apart, but they were too strong, and then I punched the little glass window above the door, behind which was the emergency button to open that door. The door opened it’s jaws and the man was free. I walked back to my seat, and noticed that my hand was bleeding and that I had cut in 3 places.  Luckily, Valerie brought baby-wipes (not what you might think!) and I wrapped my finger in them. But then, the train couldn’t leave, because the door was apparently broken. Then the conductor fixed it and we were on our way, 10 minutes later.
What a heck of a day to start the holidays. But Im so glad Val is here.  And my brother is getting married tomorrow! Party!

Too much guitargear!

I want to be cool today and just post something about all the guitargear I have. It is too much, but still not enough! There’s always room for more, there are always more sounds to find, etcetcetcetc. Here’s my list of stuff, and also a description of what I’d like to add or change.

Guitars:

Gibson SG Worn Ebony Black. This is a guitar I bought last summer in the States. It’s a limited edition (I think), and i’ve never seen another guitarist with it. It’s worn black and has a white pickguard. It has 3 pickups. 2 490R pickups and a 490T pickup in the bridge. The last one is the one I use most. It’s very aggresive, and loud. But, I’m not completely satisfied with the pickups. I think this little monster could rock so much more. Therefore I’m thinking of putting in a Gibson Dirty Fingers Humbucker in the bridge, a Gibson P94 (P-90 in humbucker-shape) in the neck, and either a 500T in the middle or just kee the 490R there. Oh, and I just found out that this guitar has been discontinued by Gibson, hehe, it IS limited!

Squier Telecaster Custom II. This is one sweet guitar. Especially once I’m finished fixing it up. It’s a remake by Squier of the Fender Telecaster Custom from 1972. This one came with Duncan Designed p-90′s. They were nice, but not nice enough. So, I built in 2 Gibson P-100′s. That was the best thing I could ever do for this guitar. It’s nearly perfect now. I’m totally in love with the Neck P-100.  I want to replace the Squier neck by a lefthanded Fender Stratocaster neck, to add some spice and originality, and so that it’ll have better tuning machine heads as well, because the ones I have now aren’t very special.

Fender Telecaster Nashville Deluxe. This guitar was perfect when I bought it. It didnt need any modification, and it will never need any modification. The pickups (Tex Mex) are really good and rock so hard, but also have a gorgeous clean sound. I´m never going to change anything about this guitar. I want to keep this one for the rest of my life.

Amp:

Fender Blues Deluxe 40 Watt (Tubes). This is a great amp. I’m a big fan of the clean channel. I never use the drive-channel. All my effects go over the clean channel. I just love the fact that I can do everything with this amp. If I really wanted, I could play metal with this amp. But, I don’t. I still play really loud stuff, and it works fine. It’s also great live, and it has always been very reliable. If I would ever have enough money to buy a different amp, or another amp I’d go for the Hiwatt Hi-gain 100 watt , the Fender DeVille 60 watt, or the VOX AC-50, although I hear that VOX amps aren’t very reliable on stage. Bummer. But, for now I’m keeping my Fender, and I’m going to play many more shows with it.

Effect Pedals:

Boss SD-1 Superoverdrive. This is the first and the only overdrive I’ve ever had. To be honest, I’ve never tried the Tubescreamer, and Im not sure if I’d love it more than my SD1. But, for now, the SD1 just does everything I want it too. It sounds so perfect over my Fender Blues Deluxe.

Boss DS2 Turbo Distortion. It’s a good distortion and it’s loud. But, not my favorite. I think that if I get the chance I’ll get a Fulltone Distortion Pro, and that one is amazing, and expensive.

Boss DD-20 Delay. This is my newest toy. It’s a 23-second delay by boss. It has a lot of cool delay sounds, and nothing is overdone. It’s a very easy-to-use delaypedal, and very reliable. I’m so happy that I can bank 4 different delays in this baby and then on stage press one button and have them ready. Great!

Boss TU2. Stage tuner. Very good.

Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster.  This is a pedal I use when I play high-end riffs. It’s intended for solo’s, and also for Single Coils to sound like Humbuckers. It’s an awesome pedal and I love the sound of it. It can boost a signal with up to 25 dB’s.

Accessories:

Ebow. Such a fantastic little thing. Every guitarplayer needs one of these.

Dunlop Slide. I still have to figure out how to use it properly, but I think this thing can create some awesome sounds.

That’s all.

Martijn

10 best guitar sounds ever, in my opinion

These are my favorite 10 guitar sounds, in no particular order.

Jeff Buckley’s Fender Telecaster in Hallelujah.

Teppei Teranishi’s (Thrice) Epiphone Elitist Casino in Come All You Weary.

Mark Engles (Dredg) Gibson SG Standard in Jamais Vu.

Dave Keunings (The Killers) Fender Stratocaster (or Gibson Explorer) on All The Pretty Faces.

Jason Wade’s (Lifehouse) guitar (SG/LP/Hollowbody) on Everything.

Greg Hill’s (MuteMath) MusicMan (I think) on Typical.

Jónsi Birgisson’s (Sigur Ros) Gibson Les Paul on Glosoli. (Especially the last part)

The Edge’s Fender Stratocaster on Where The Streets Have No Name.

Stephen Carpenter’s (Deftones) ESP on Minerva. (Especially the intro)

Dave Keuning’s Fender Starcaster on When You Were Young.

Check them out!

4,942,566

This blog is the 4,942,566th blog on WordPress and I’m so proud of my own unique number! This is probably the 9,654,657,487th blog in the world, but I could be wrong.

Hey, check out this video of friends of mine of an Underoath cover. I like Underoath, but these guys are really talented too. They’re friends that I’ve never met, but I know that when we meet we’ll all be good friends. (Our bands are friends on myspace, and we’re going to play a show together in the future, or a few shows. ) Anyway:

Today I had a sandwich at my favorite lunchcafe here in Amersfoort, Lazy Louis Jazz Cafe, and the sandwiched was called the ‘Wall Street Crash’. I don’t remember exactly what was on it, but I do recall the taste of chicken, bacon, quacamole and mayonaise. It was good though. I chose it mostly for its name. Next time I will write down all the ingredients for you, and then we can find out together if there is some hidden symbolism in this sandwich. Maybe this sandwich will tell us why this world is in such financial trouble.

Oh yeah, before I forget, something else: I went out with my brother yesterday to eat some spare ribs at this cool place, and I ordered a very special beer there, La Chouffe, quite strong, but very tasty, spicy and Belgian. If you have the chance to drink this one, please do so. One more comment though; This is one of those beers that you should just have one of. You’re warned.

peace,

Martijn