The John Mayer Starter Kit; Ridiculous Performance Photos
Last weekend, I drove to Chicago to attend a meeting of the Heritage (Guitar) Owners' Club and to play a little music. But while I was there, I was stupid lucky enough to stop by Chicago Music Exchange. Let the record show that I have visited CME four times and I have yet to walk out empty-handed. The last time I went I bought a freaking Fano Psonicsphear. There's almost no limit to the kind of money you could spend in that building if you had a mind to do it. It would be easily possible to drop a half million bucks and not even fill a minivan with your purchases.
I spent about ninety minutes in the store with CMW* and the funny thing is that until the very last minute it looked like I was going to get out with only a fakebook and a couple T-shirts in my bag. I was literally walking through the door on the way out when I looked down and saw a Two-Rock Gain Master 35 combo in the Clearance section. I dragged it over to the salesman.
"Will this amp make me sound like John Mayer?" I demanded. He evaluated my pupil movement for insanity and then decided on the safest answer.
"It definitely has the Two-Rock clean sound," he offered in response, "minus reverb, which isn't part of this circuit."
"Not to worry," I said, "I have the best reverb pedal ever." And I do: the Kasha reverb pedal that was made to go with the Evil Robots. "So I'll take the amp."
"Would you, um, like to try it out first?"
"Nope, I've seen Where The Light Is and I'm convinced." But that night in the hotel I plugged it in and played it for an hour. Just what I wanted. Couldn't be happier. It sounds exactly like the clean tone from the TRY! record. The lead tone isn't terribly Mayer-esque, but supposedly that's because JM uses an Ibanez TS9 for the leads.
The amp is pictured above with my Fender American Deluxe Strat. I tried about six Strats from my collection before settling on this one as the closest match. The obvious question is this: Why don't I have a Mayer signature Strat? Well, I'm waiting on the day, so to speak, when I find a Cypress Mica Limited that isn't vulture priced. The current Mayer Strat is Olympic White and although it's very nice I think I'd rather have the Cypress. Of course, I'd really like to have an all-rosewood one:
but Fender isn't inclined to make any more at a price below five figures. Truth be told, my American Deluxe is a better guitar anyway --- noiseless pickups, S-1 fourth-position quacking, the brilliant two-post vibrato, locking tuners. All the goodies, plus chrome logo on the headstock and Olympic Pearl in place of Olympic White. I was lucky enough to find it at a music store that was going out of business near my house and I paid $999 against the $1599 minimum retail of a Mayer or the $1699 the Deluxe would normally cost. It's one of my favorite guitars and in combination with the Two-Rock it's just exactly what I want.
"My dear," I sing, "we're slow dancing in a burning room."
Where were we? Oh yes, the Chicago thing. I played bass most of the night and didn't have too much pain from standing. I'm ready to go back to work in earnest and come Monday I'll be a full-time employee yet again. Yay. Can't wait. I only played guitar on one song this past Saturday night --- the rest of the time I was playing my Brombergs, as seen here:
That's the five-string blue fade. You can see I'm wearing my new Prodesign 4637 glasses in clear matte. So far, the most succinct and accurate verdict I've heard on them is "I'm not entirely convinced."
And the koa Elite, which I played most of the night. A good time was had by all. I even had a drink for the first time since the accident (no prizes for guessing that it was a double of Ketel One Citroen) and my spleen didn't explode. Yup, it's all quiet on the Midwestern front.
So, what does the future hold? In no particular order:
a return to the day job
a trackday at Putnam
my son's fifth birthday party at a dedicated Lego facility of some type
a trackday in California, location and date TBD
CMW's final surgery and triumphant return to New Mexico
a seat in a Lemons 535i a month from now
the return of my Neon to NASA competition
some changes at TTAC
maybe a Kindle book, probably just a collection of things I've already written plus, to quote the Itchy&Scratchy Movie Trailer, 30% new content!
Here's hoping the rest of the year will be less painful than the first few months have been!
* Not to be confused with C. McL**, the heroine of the above-linked story from last year, who has disappeared from my radar screen since my car crash. I'm not sure what she's up to and I'm not inclined to bother her if she doesn't want to be bothered, so here's hoping she is A-OK.
** Also not to be confused with CMR***, also known as D. McH, also known colloquially as "The Stapler", who has also disappeared from my radar screen since my car crash. Turns out that nearly killing one woman in a car crash has the same effect as cutting the hands off one thief in the town square, w.r.t. discouraging the others.
*** Also not to be confused with CML-G, possibly just CML now, who has, I understand, found peace. Wouldn't that be nice, to find peace?