Yes, I am a Tornado Chaser

Let’s all start a band! Rock and Roll! The first thing you are going to need is a name…that way you know what kind of band you are going to be. Something that will stick in people’s heads like Vomit Party Suit, Cat Attack, or Big German Nurse…for the purposes of this blog, Rad Beard Barstow will work just fine.

Next, you are going to need some musical equipment. Now, I own a lot of musical equipment, and have played a lot more, but I don’t presume to know what is going to work best for everyone. However, I am good at recommendations. It just so happens that I have a list of my five favorite pieces of musical equipment right here. Enjoy.

1. 1982 Peavey T-40 Bass Guitar – I bought this thing online for about $200, and I can safely say it was the best $200 I have ever spent. This thing is like the Cadillac of bases…and by Cadillac I mean amazingly bad-ass product made by an otherwise overrated company known for churning out crappy instruments. Wait…did that make any sense? Oh well, this thing is the mother of all rock bases.

2. Custom Made Sonitis – Morgan of Words and Brainfoot made me one of these…things. It’s not really an instrument so much as a device for making every utterance that comes out of your mouth sound like a squealing trough of digital pigs on fire. It looks like some sort of half-assed Geiger-counter and every time I pick it up I get afraid that I might break it, but lordy, does this thing sound evil.

3. 1974 Electro Harmonix Phase Shifter – This is the only piece of musical equipment in my collection that was handed down. My uncle gave this effects pedal to me after I graduated college, and it’s the only thing he has ever given away. Sonically, it makes guitars (or vocals or anything else) sound bubbly. When I say bubbly, I’m talking about the range of gurgle from slow-churning warp to the muffled screams of a drowning ox. Think of the guitar solo on the live version of “Heart Shaped Box” or what a singing fish tank might sound like.

4. Fernandez Decade Guitar (Humbucker Style) – I actually own two of these. I sort of think of this as the best kept secret in the guitar world. Oh no…now the cat is out of the bag. These things look and sound like a Fender Jazz Master, but they cost about 1/10 of the price. Also, I hear Lee Ranaldo insisted on using one of these for about three years (right around Experimental Jet Set.) Count it.

5. Custom Made Bass Cabinet – I bought an old Peavey 2X15 bass cabinet from Alex of Back Harlow Road (which I still have to pay for…don’t remind him) that was completely wasted. Troy #2 from Short Hair and I tore the sucker apart and completely re-built it with some boss Eminence speakers and about 35 stuffed Dale Earnhardt wolf-racer dolls worth of poly-fill. If you want your bass to sound like 100 pounds of sludge pumped through the bottom half of a horse (and what bass player doesn’t want that?) then you could do no better than 6 cu. ft. of wood stuffed with 2 burly 15” speakers…unless you plan on actually playing a sewage pump.

I guess that’s about it. Never mind all that nonsense about learning to play an instrument…it’s not important at this time. Get three or four people together and make as big a racket as you can for as long as you can. When you’ve got about 20 minutes of sound, bring it on down to Holland. We would love to have you. Rad Beard Barstow!


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