Chad Weaver gets the show back on the road despite losing nearly everything in the floods
If anyone saw the pictures I sent in place of last month's column, you know why I wasn't able to write. National media didn't talk about the flooding as much as our local news showed it but I've got to (thankfully) say I've never seen anything like that before. On Saturday May 1st, the streets began to fill up with water. As you may have read about in this month's cover story, one of those streets was Cowan Street, the location of Soundcheck rehearsal hall/gear storage and rental. It's located in downtown Nashville and housed storage lockers for more names in the music business than I have space to write in this column. Since the end of Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night Tour, we had placed all of our road gear there but were due to load out of on May 3rd. Unfortunately, it was about 36 hours too late. When I woke up on the morning of May 2nd, Cowan Street was completely flooded and Soundcheck had about 3 1/2 feet of water inside the building.
After breathing a sigh of relief that Brad's Trainwreck and all of his old Voxs were at home, I immediately started thinking of what I had on the floor of the locker, what was stacked high and wondering how I was going to pull off a brand new tour rehearsal that was set to begin the following morning. I called Brad and told him that I was going to assume a total loss until proven otherwise because we didn't have the time frame to wait and see. The first shows of the tour were in three weeks.
It took us several days to find an alternate location for the rehearsals to begin since the original one was also flooded. By the end of the first week we were in a new building and were headed over to Soundcheck to pull our waterlogged gear out. Everyone had to wear rubber boots, rubber gloves and we were all advised to wear surgical masks so as not to breathe in the moldy air inside the building. This water had about anything imaginable in it. Sewage, gasoline, diesel fuel... you name it. The advice was much appreciated. I can honestly say that's a smell I'll never forget.
We loaded our flooded gear up, took it to the new rehearsal hall, and dumped the truck in the parking lot. My guitar vault rolled down the ramp of the truck with water gushing out of the bottom. When the front of the case came off you could see how all of Brad's guitars had floated and eventually sank in the water. The muddy line on the side of the case showed that the water level was just above the neck joints on all of the guitars. They all had strings popped off of them. Some of the finishes were bubbling up and the hardware had already started rusting. The worst loss of that particular case was Brad's '52 tele that was used in the "Alcohol" video. I wound up spraying that guitar down with bleach water and rinsing it with a water hose. I can't begin to describe what an unnatural act it is to have to do that to an instrument, but if I didn't, the bacteria the wood had absorbed would rot it from the inside out. I took it apart to let the drying out phase start, but two days later it had cracked from the rear strap pin up to the neck pickup. All of the Crook Custom guitars were lost, as was the last prototype Gibson had sent for Brad's signature model.
My effects rack looked as though it had been left completely uncovered at the bottom of the Cumberland river. All of my amps and speaker cabinets were soaked and both of my work boxes were destroyed. I lost roughly 30 raw speakers, 12 speaker cabinets, 23 amplifiers, 12 guitars, and the respective road cases. After I had sifted through what could be salvaged, my total "saved" list was this: 3 guitars, 1 amp, 1 tool box, and 1 Pelican case that housed my midi pedals that controlled Brad's effect rack. Every other piece of Brad's personal road gear was gone. At this point I had the large pieces such as the effects rack, cabinets, amps and guitars all on order. Next was the small items, like tubes. 12AX7 and EL84 vacuum tubes can be cleaned by dunking them in bleach water and rising them off. Tubes with large plastic bases on them are much harder to save after water has gotten down in there. After several attempts at cleaning 6V6 tubes, I wound up tossing them all and reordering. It's amazing how many little items in your work boxes that you forget about until you need them. I'll spend another six months replacing all that was lost there.
All of our audio was spared. Sound Image thankfully didn't have any water inside their warehouse. Our lighting was inside the original rehearsal room as the water was coming into the building. The guys fork lifted the truss and lighting cases onto the stage so they were safe. Video and our set carpenters didn't fair as well. They had chest-deep water inside of their warehouses. Most of our video wall and the set were submerged as well.
About six or seven days before we were to play the first show of the tour we started running through the set. I've got Brad using a couple of amps and a few stomp boxes just to get through the rehearsals. The morning before we loaded out of that room the last of my gear came in. Exactly two weeks to the day of pulling flooded gear out of that locker, we played our first full production show of the tour exactly like we wanted to do it. Brad walked toward the microphone at the top of that show and I honestly thought he was going to cry. It meant so much to him that we were able to be show ready and not just able to play a gig.
A huge THANK YOU to Bill Crook, Charlie McVay, Peter Florence, Chris Klein, Brian Nipps, Tony Dudzik, Tommy Rosamond, Mike Zaite, David Friedman, Rick Skillman, Ryan Smith, Tony Bruno, Kelly Vaughn, Tyler Ham, Luke Ziegler, Riley Vasquez, Armi Iglesias, Gregg Hopkins, Matt Ali, Brian Wampler, Robert Keeley, Tim Godwin, Bruno Pirecki, Derek Brooks, Adam Hudson, Mark and Leslie Morell, and Michael Doran. Without the people listed here I'd have never made my deadlines and this tour couldn't have gotten off to such a great start. Thank you all for your time, your efforts and your friendships. I am indebted to you all.
“Low Bass Blues” is based around a popular sliding blues lick at the third fret.
“Low Bass Blues” is based around a popular sliding blues lick at the third fret. Slide into the fourth fret of the third string with your middle finger
and follow that up with your index finger on the third fret of the second string:
There are so many ways you can use this lick. Here’s one way that uses triplets and slides back down to open position on the last beat, which is
another common addition to this lick:
Download Example Audio
In “Low Bass Blues,” we’ll slide into this lick and leave our fingers on the fourth and third frets throughout the first one-and-a-half measures. To
get that first measure to work, you’ll have to lift your index finger off of the second string on beat 3, and then put it back at the start of measure
2, where you’ll need to play the third fret. The open third string on the “&” of beat 2 in measure 2 gives you time to move your hand down to
open position to grab the notes on the second fret. Then, you can bring your hand back up as you play the open strings in measure 3, letting it
float above the frets until it’s time to play those notes at the end of the measure.
Over the A7 chord, we’re playing the exact same licks, with one exception—that second-fret C# note on beat 3 of measure 5. To grab this note,
you’ll need to quickly slide your index finger down from the third fret and then bring it back up to play the note on the third fret in the next measure.
This is a bit tricky to play, but if you slow it down, you should be able to get the hang of it. Feel free to slide both your index and middle
fingers down a fret, so that you don’t have to stretch too much.
Notice how the bass line walks into a few of the chord changes. In measure 8, move up to the A string on beat 3, and move through the open
string and first fret to reach the second-fret B note at the beginning of the next measure. In measure 10, you walk back through the first fret on
beat 4 to reach the A bass note in the next measure.
The rest of the song doesn’t throw too many tricks at you, except for the turnaround in measure 11. A turnaround is a figure used at the end of
a progression to either wrap things up or lead things back to another repeat of the progression. Here, we’re using a common trick that takes our
two-note shape and slides it down one fret at a time until we reach the open position, at which point we finish with an E7 chord.
Download Example Audio
This lesson comes from:
Total Acoustic Guitar
Do thicker strings make you a better player? Let's find out!
Stevie Ray Vaughan's influence on gear and gearheads has been gigantic. Back in the '80s, it seemed as if he almost single-handedly resurrected the Stratocaster, helping boost vintage Strats into a mythic realm. And who else did more to bring the worship of vintage Fender amps to a whole new level?
In one of his earliest major interviews, around 1983, Stevie Ray Vaughan let out a bit of personal information that has had an effect on gear and gearheads to this day. Talking about his now well-known '59 Strat—even then completely trashed—he told the interviewer what string gauges he was using: .013 to .052. The interviewer was surprised and asked him to repeat it. Yep, 13s. I remember reading that interview as a teenager and my jaw dropping.
No one used strings that thick. But now that Stevie Ray did, it started to creep into the consciousness. Thus became the mantra, myth, truth, cliché—whatever you want to call it—in strings: heavier is better. Surely, heavy strings produce better tone. And, surely, only a great player will be able to handle the thicks. So, it follows that if I play heavy strings I am great. The debate goes on. You hear it all the time. "Anybody tried 12s?"
Some myths are meant to be explored, so let's look at some of the great players and the gauge strings they used. Starting with Stevie Ray, we find that, according to most available published information, he did indeed play some of the heaviest gauges available, most consistently 13s. He even went thicker, an astounding .018-.072 at one point. However, on the brown '63 Strat known as Lenny, SRV switched to lighter strings to get a lighter tone. Some nights when his fingers were thrashed he'd go down as light as 11s—back into mere mortal territory. It was rumored that he went to lighter strings later in his life, but I haven't been able to substantiate this.
Swing to another god of guitar, James Marshall Hendrix, undisputed King of Gigantic Tone. One might assume that from gigantic strings come gigantic tone, but check this little tidbit from the absolute must-have book Jimi Hendrix: Musician by Keith Shadwick: "Hendrix described the setup on his Strat around 1967 as 'Fender light-gauge strings, using a regular E-string for the B and sometimes a tenor A-string for a [high] E to get my kind of sound on the Stratocaster. [I] put the strings on with a slightly higher [action] so they can ring longer.' This particular string-swapping routine was a popular modification at the time. It resulted in a set of stings as light as possible, aiding not only the string bending but also finger vibrato. On a later guitar, his black Strat, the surviving strings indicate he preferred 'light' gauges, .009" to .038"."
Now go back to the roots. Early on in rock history, flatwounds were all there were. It wasn't until 1959 when Ernie Ball put together his first sets that you could get some medium or light-gauge strings. Here's another mind- blower: until guys like Ernie Ball came around, aspiring string-benders like Chuck Berry found a secret weapon—banjo strings. Yes, that ultimate rock tone that Chuck Berry got on songs like "Johnny B. Goode," "School Days," and "Sweet Little 16" was derived from 8-gauge or lower banjo strings.
Some more:
- Jimmy Page: well-known user of 8-gauge strings.
- Danny Gatton: played 10s with a wound G, also played 9s.
- Jeff Beck: "On my early stuff, I was playing the thinnest strings you could get, .008s," Beck told Fender.com. "And then the Jimi man came along and told me, 'You can't play with those rubber bands. Get those off there.' So my string gauges have been creeping up ever since. Now I've got .011, .013, .017, .028, .038, and .049. I'm trying to get heavier on the top end."
- Billy Gibbons: hipped to light-gauge 8s or 9s by B.B. King. King's take on it is that it takes a lot less stress and strain to play the light stuff. Gibbons' custom set from Dunlop has a 7-gauge high E!
- Brian Setzer: 10s straight out of the box.
- Peter Frampton: 8s back in the Comes Alive days.
- Carlos Santana: 9s
- Allan Holdsworth: 11s
- Eddie Van Halen: well-known for using 9-gauge.
- James Hetfield: .009-.042
As you can see, a lot of the great players of our time have used some pretty everyday-player gauges. This is not to say that heavy strings don't produce a different tone. The point is that the gauge of your strings is not the gauge of your greatness.
Back in the '80s when I read that SRV interview, I immediately went out and got a set of 13s put on my yellow '79 hardtail Strat. The guy at the store looked at me oddly, wondering what I was up to. What I was up to was sticking my nose where it didn't belong. What I failed to remember was that Stevie Ray was a pro playing at a pro level. He played gigs every night for years to get to the point where he needed 13s. Needed, not wanted. Because of the style he had developed and the level he was playing at, SRV had to have those strings to get through the gig. Other strings would break under the strain and not produce the tonal heights he was looking for. Me? I was just a kid playing in my bedroom. When I got the Strat home with the 13s on it, I plugged it into my Peavey Classic 2x12 and tried—really tried— to play "Love Struck Baby." Didn't happen. I could barely chord with those monsters, let alone bend. Lesson learned.
[Updated 7/29/21]