The Lexington Lab Band

We interrupt your pedal board series for a musical post .... back to the pedal boards later. I've been wanting to do a review of these guys for a while and I've been piecing it together for a while now. Its time ...

Every now and then you run across a cover band that's just got that little something special about them. The Lexington Lab Band is definitely one of those bands. I'm really into a good cover band too, who's not?. Sure, there's a cover bands on every street corner club in every city of America. A lot of them are pretty good too. Some are really good. And some of them shine like a diamond at everything they touch and the Lexington Lab Band is one of those bands. Part of it, quite possibly is that they are playing the sound track to my life. They cover all my favorite old songs and do them as good as the original bands that wrote them in the first place. I'd have to say they are my favorite Youtube cover band of all time, hands down. Every single person that participates in their videos are world class musicians and singers. The following videos are best viewed in HD on the youtube page and a good set of headphones are almost a must to get the full benefits.

One of the singers they have featured is no stranger to American Idol fans. Lauren Mink is not only a beautiful voice but very easy on the eyes too. She's been a contestant on American Idol twice now and went a pretty good way into the contest before being eliminated. Personally I'd almost hate to see her win that show and be tied to a crappy contract for a year or two. She's better than that, and deserves a lot better. What little attention I used to pay to that show I noticed that the best never won anyway. That's just my opinion, but its an opinion based on over 40 years of musical experience. Lauren Mink is above that American Idol level of stardom. I can't believe some big record producer hasn't signed her to a good contract by now.

The Lab Band is full of these world class musicians too. Its not just Lauren Mink. They have guest artists perform on all their video productions. And its not just the artists and musicians that are top notch. The videography and editing department has mad skills abound. The equipment they use is all top notch too. I don't know a lot about who's behind the scenes to this great act, but the Lab Band has obviously been picking from the cream of the crop. I have discovered a lot of great artists by keeping up with the LLB. Many of them have a pretty good thing of their own going on.

JD Simo is one such artist I have discovered since discovering the Lab Band. The band did a tribute to Johnny Cash a while back, one that Mr, Cash himself would no doubt give his stamp of approval on. JD Simo really burned it up on those songs and I had to know more about him. Turns out JD played a stint in The Don Kelly Band. The Don Kelly Band is a legendary band based out of the Nashville Tennessee downtown bar circuit. If you're ever in Nashville and want to see a great act, The Don Kelly band is one you sure want to put at the top of your list. They perform regularly at Roberts Western World on Broadway in Nashville Tennessee.  For a sample of JD's playing with the Don Kelly Band click here.

I came to know of The Lexington Lab Band through the Youtube community. Basically what I would more specifically call "the guitar community" on Youtube. There are a lot of good guitar teachers out there on youtube but some of them have a little easier time than others getting across to the larger watching/learning community. Dale Adams is one of those teachers I have been watching for several years. As a more intermediate player his videos basically cut the crap and get down to the bones. I can usually watch one of Dales videos and have the song nailed down pretty good after just one time through. Most all of his instructional videos are of songs I grew up on and in some cases already knew how to play. This guy knows what he's doing and he's good at teaching it. Not everyone who plays can teach. It takes something I'm afraid I don't have. But thankfully there are people like Dale out there who have the gift of teaching. And he teaches kids with learning disabilities for a day job. I actually wondered what he did for a living before the Lexington Lab Band website was established and read the bios.

The Regular's in the Lexington Lab Band are:

Dales Adams ~ Guitars

Derrick Breaux ~ Bass, Vocals, Guitars, Keys

Mike Vandermark ~ Vocals, Guitars, Keys, Bass, Drums

Rob Pottorf ~ Keys, Vocals, Guitars

Ryan McQuerry ~ Drums

Neil Gregory ~ Video Director

You can read their complete bios on the Lexington Lab Band website.

You can also watch all their videos there on site as well as Dales “tonedr” Youtube Channel.

More on Pedals and Pedal Boards

I recently made myself another pedal board. The first one I made would only hold three Boss type regular sized stomp boxes. I never intended to have a pedal board at all, but after I bought my Boss TU-3 Pedal Tuner, well, I suddenly had a pedal. There had been a specific pedal I'd had my eye on for a while but couldn't bring myself to get it. After all, its a signature pedal, and I've got a thing about that,  in fact I could probably write a small book on. But I won't go into that here. The end result is that, I WILL use a signature pedal. Maybe not just any signature pedal, but I will use at least this one.  I got a Wampler Paisley Drive after trying it out a little while and it was pretty much what I thought it might just be. Its a clean boost with a good distortion circuit. Don't get me wrong, its no thrash metal pedal. This thing is more for playing clean guitar sounds. You can put some distortion with it too. It's just right for most of the kinds of music I play. The more Country,Texas Country, Red Dirt leaning stuff is great for the Paisley Drive. Its the perfect pedal for that genre of music. Its great for Blues too, although I feel there are a few out there specifically made for blues that might get the job done a little better. But that's just another personal preference type of thing in my book.

Well hummmm, there's 2 pedals I have now all the sudden. The Paisley Drive made a little bit of noise, though not anywhere near as much as other drive pedals. So I eventually talked myself into a Boss NS-2 Noise Reduction.  And trust me, if you want to run a pedal board, a Boss NS-2 is the way to go. Then, if you must, you can plug in all those old 60's and 70's pedals that were all notorious for noise. Especially when you were using single coil pickups and there happened to be florescent lights overhead.  I have a set of Fender N3 Noisless Pickups in my Telecaster and they still get a little hum out of  fluorescent bulbs when I'm not running my pedal board. They advertise as being without the 60 cycle hum  but they do make a tiny bit of noise. So I know that Boss NS-2 Noise Reduction is still doing its job and then some. For 99 dollars plus tax its a must have pedal on any pedal board.

I started pricing pedal boards at all the big name dealers and for what they were, I just couldn't see the value in the money they were charging. They are basically stamping these things out on high speed presses. And then spot welding and or bolting them together, painting, or powder coating. Some of them attach 4 rubber feet on them. Some boards come with velcro, some come with the board only velcro'd. And most of them come with a cheap case that the zipper lasts about 2 or 3 gigs before the threading starts ripping out.

I had some nice white pine lumber laying around just waiting on something to be built out of it. So naturally one night I was out in my shop looking at the lumber and thinking about guitars etc ,, and said "why not build a pedal board out of this wood"?  I could either "throw one together" that would be about as good as anything else out on the market OR I could even come up with some really cool designs and other things that would make them stand out from the rest.

In my next post I'm going to show you how I built my own pedal boards. I've got a camera reader card to find between now and then but I'll get it done somehow. I'll show you start to finish pictures of how started and how I have already done a little bit R&D on it. I'm also drawing up blueprints and instructions for these in case there arises a need for them again.

So stay tuned .... I've been pretty sick for the past several days and I'm still not up to speed just yet.

~Its All About The Music~

Pedal Boards and More...

I've been looking at pedal boards for quite some time now. What the market is offering is either way over priced and or cheap crap. I'm not going to mention brand names here. I really don't like trashing other people's business' because that can come back to haunt you one of these days. Karma really is a bitch, and I'm convinced after 50 plus years of living that its got to be true. If you pay attention to things and keep your thoughts in your subconscious mind as much as possible you'll notice that any bad deeds you do to another human being (or animals) comes back right at you. Sometimes even tenfold it seems. It might take a little time, even a long time in some cases, but it will pay you back. That just seems to me to be how the laws of nature work out. Be kind to everyone and chances are they will return the kindness. Be a dick to someone and you might just get a black eye or even worse. People's lives have been totally ruined over something they did to someone. Its just not a cool thing to do. Not to sound all religious on you but I strongly agree with that bible quote, loosely paraphrased ... "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you". Unless you're just a sucker for punishment, 

Back a little over a year ago I was in very bad financial shape. I'm still not doing good by any means, but I'm usually able to pay the bills on time. Sometimes there's even a little left for food. I've come to the conclusion that I really need to find something I can do to make some kind of a modest extra income. Even twenty dollars here and there would be better than my current situation. 

Well, I couldn't afford a fancy pedal board at the time, so I started thinking of a cheap way to build one for myself. I wanted an affordable way to make one and possibly even sell a few at an affordable price after I get good enough at doing it. My first board was 14 inches long and held 3 common size pedals, like Boss Pedals for instance. The way I went about it, I wanted to make it as short and light as possible and small enough to fit my gear bag, which happens to be a Winchester pistol shooter case I found on the clearance isle of Wal-Mart I found one day for 10 or 12 bucks. It wasn't made to be a music gear bag but it turns out it make a damn good gear bag overall. And its a well made bag as well. I think they go for about 40 bucks when they're not on clearance but still worth it in my opinion. I'm pretty sure Winchester isn't going to give the go ahead to just anyone, and it had to be a good quality product before they allowed their trademark on it.

Just so happens that case fit my pedal board inside of it perfectly,  with plenty of room for other gear like patch cables, strings. picks, wall warts, and adapters. It was also perfect size for my Audix cab grabber mic holder. I highly recommend those too. Someone did their homework when they designed those cab grabbers. No more bulky mic stand to have to pack around just to mic your amp when you're out . You can get them at Guitar Center by clicking the link here, 

Tonight I just finished up making an 18 inch long board. I could do a few more thing to make it look more professional (and I will) but its for me to use and I don't care if there's a few minor flaws in it. I'm making practice runs at them and getting the learning curve down, There is cost involved in making these things but I think they will stack up to a lot of what's on the market, which is pretty much a thin piece of metal with velcro stuck to it if you're lucky. A 36 inch long by 1" wide strip of industrial velcro is going to cost you upwards of 8 dollars. The piece of metal these corporations are stamping the popular pedal boards out at at no telling how many units per day are pretty cheap to build. A few spot welds and some paint and velcro and its out the door. Truth be known they charge 79 - 100 dollars for something that may have cost them 10-20 dollars to make. I know, and I'm including overhead and employees and machinery to keep the wheels of corporate capitalism greased. But were does that leave us poor folk amateurs who can't afford to drop over a hundred dollars om a cheap pedal board?  Don't get me wrong, there are nice ones out there, but you're going to pay good money for one when you find it.

The bottom line is that I needed something durable and affordable for us poor folks. I had a lot of 1"x 6"  white pine lumber laying around so I decided to use it for something. I think it took me more time to come up with sketch than it did actually sawing the boards on a table saw and power miter saw. Once I knew what I wanted it was all a matter of cutting the pieces out and putting them together. I decided to go with Sedona Red wood stain by Minwax. Man, that is some pretty stain if you like reds. I've used that pedal board at countless gigs and its just as good now as when I started with it. Its nothing fancy by any means. I didn't try to hide what few screws I used on it. I used some 1/4" plywood for the bottom cover and it turned out nice for a throw together board. I used a One Spot AC adapter with a 5 piece jumper (the site shows a 7 jumper cable). My five jumper works for me with one left over in case I want to plug in my Dunlop classic 2 tone sunburst Wah pedal. Fortunately I haven't had a bit of trouble with my One Spot and the price sure beats those power modules they sell for well over a hundred dollars, some are closer to 200 dollars. They also have a newer model out that's pricier but not as much as those "bricks" being sold on the market.

This time around I decided to paint it flat black. After hitting it with some fine sandpaper I touched up the spots where any paint sanded off  with another coat of flat black. When that was good and dry I lightly went over it with a brown Scotchbrite  pad made by by 3M. I got it smoothed out pretty well and hit it with a coat of satin finish clear coat, also made by Minwax. I bought a 36" roll of industrial strength  velcro made by Velcro USA INC. in Manchester, New Hampshire. You can check them out at Velcro.com and check out all of their products. The self stick adhesive on this stuff is plenty strong and easily does the job. They also make some nice cable ties I like to use for all my cables. I think you can get a 6 pack of those at Wal-Mart for around 3 or 4 dollars. Each one is different colored too so you can use them to organize different types of cables.

Since I've dug through numerous pictures, trying to find one of my first pedal board, I've decided that pictures will have to wait until another time. When I get a chance to take some decent quality photos of them and post them here. If you have access to a table saw and a miter saw you can make these all day long yourself. For those that are not too good with woodworking I could build one for you and paint or stain it in any color you'd like. I just picked up some Ebony wood stain and I'm going to give it a try as well. I plan on making at least a few more of these to let some friends borrow for a while. Maybe they'll get me some orders for some custom pedal boards. I'm a pretty honest guy when it comes to doing business with folks, so truth be known I'll be lucky to break even on them. Minimum wage wouldn't be so bad. Its something I can tinker with when I'm feeling up to it. My back is pretty messed up with Harrington Rods and I'm in chronic pain most of the time. But every now and then I get a good day and I'm able to accomplish a little something. I take a LOT of breaks when I'm messing around doing wood work. I just can't deal with standing in one place very long and bending forward is a real buzz kill too. It sucks when your doctor tells you to avoid bending, squatting, and lifting more than ten pounds at all cost, ever again. I see why he told me that too. I really pay dearly when I overdue things. Its something I'm still working on training myself at after 6 years and counting.

What can I say though? I've always been an ambitious type of guy. I worked hard all my life doing various jobs that aren't easy on your back, much less the whole body. I always enjoyed working though. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to machinist work. I did that for about 25 years plus. Carpenters don't like me much as a saw man either. I tend to cut the boards to whatever length they tell me. And I mean within 1/64" or closer. I found out quickly that carpenters don't deal with tolerances like we do in the machine shop/tool and die making where we go by hundreds of thousandths of an inch. The last carpenter I worked for finally figured me out and started telling me measurements and saying "short" or "long" when he did it. From there on out we had a system and did pretty good accurate work for people. I was just getting it down good when a pretty big machine shop called and offered me a job. I tested for the job and beat over 75 other applicants for it. They called me back on my last day of carpenter work job (on my way to work) and wanted me there the following Monday morning. My carpenter boss was happy for me that I had finally found a good paying job with benefits. He was so happy for me, he told us all to knock off at noon and call it a day. He couldn't afford to pay very well and was doing work for his mother, the real estate agent, and everything had to be cheap. She wanted us to take shortcuts which I didn't like, My last day there was Friday July 24th 2009. I never made it to the new machine shop job on Monday. I wrecked my Harley that Friday night and woke up from a coma about a month later in August. That whole thing changed my life drastically and 6 years later I'm still trying to get over it. For anyone who's never heard of Harrington Rods take a look at the picture below. Its not my actual x-ray but its pretty close to what I have, One of my vertebrates had to be taken out in tiny pieces.  It turned out pretty crooked, but at least I can still walk. No running or ladder climbing though. If I try to run I instantly fall face first into the ground. And if I try to climb a ladder, even a 3 step ladder I loose my balance. Its one of the common after effects of having that surgery. I've also got "trigger finger" in both of my middle fingers. They lock closed when I'm  asleep mostly and I have to pry them open when I wake up. There's lots of other health problems going on with me, but those are the major ones. My neck still hurts sometimes from being broken and my right shoulder blade too, but the hospital either couldn't or wouldn't do anything to fix that. I didn't have health insurance at the time and my motorcycle policy was eaten up and then some with just the air life flight. 

Anyway, I'm getting way off topic here now so I guess its time to recheck my spelling and punctuation as best I can and call it a night...... I've got a really hot project in the works right now too, but so far its been nothing but figuring cost for materials. I want to make a good product with good quality parts/hardware as cheap as I can and pass on the savings to people who might want to give one a spin. I won't go into details right now except to say it has something to do with guitars. Stay tuned and I'll fill you all in when the time is right.

Until then, may everyone have a great day/week/month/and life ..... Life is too short to sweat the small stuff we can't control anyway. If I can deal with a back like that, you can too. With lots of good pain pills of course lol.  Anyway .....Peace out brothers and sisters, and be nice to each other. 

  ~ Its All About The Music ~ .........


Oh, one last thing. I'd like to share a video of one helluva young and up and coming blues lady. Not only can she sing like an angel, she can sure play blues guitar, and she's got some of the nicest looking legs a man could ever hope to see. Seriously, check her out and buy her albums if you like her. She works very hard at what she does, and it shows. This little lady deserves fame and fortune a lot more than some of the crap I see selling records out there these days. This particular video has Paul Nelson sitting in on guitar. He's played for some pretty famous acts over the years and has solo work done as well. Check 'em out doing this Rolling Stones cover of Sympathy For The Devil. Paul Nelson really shines bright on this video. He worked with Johnny Winter a lot during his career and shows no signs of slowing down. Click here for his Paul Nelson's site.

Also, if you're a big time blues fan such as me, check out Blues Broad's Youtube channel for a lot more high quality videos . Subscribe to her channel so you never miss a great blues act when they come to her turf. She's got it down when it comes to HD videos and editing skills ....You won't be sorry you checked her channel out.......... Peace!

My Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III

The latest amplifier added to my stable is a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III. I've always been a Fender man when it comes to amplifiers. I currently own five of them, but only two are tube amps. I've always preferred the sound of a tube amp over a solid state, but there are some pretty awesome sounding solid state amps out there. My Fender Frontman 25R is my go-to practice amp, and I really dig the sound that little thing puts out. It sounds like a big amplifier when you're not looking, and I've even used it for a few gigs. Power doesn't matter so much when you mic your amp anyway, but you do need a little stage volume. It appears that Guitar Center no longer sells that particular amp, but you can still get one on Amazon.com. I paid $99.99 for mine and got the red colored model. Its a 1x10" - 25 watt combo amp with reverb. Well worth a hundred bucks if you're looking for a good practice amp. You can check out some reviews on it at Ultimate-Guitar.com.

The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III is the latest generation of Fender Hot Rods and I must say, they got this one right! Not that there's anything wrong with the others, I just love everything about this amp. Its a 40 watt combo amp with a "12” Celestion® G12P-80 speaker. It has Three channels (normal, drive, more drive). Internal variable bias control, Effects loop, bright switch and Fender spring reverb,  And it comes with a Fitted cover and two-button footswitch." 

Personally, I like to use the clean channel and let my guitar volume knob and pedals take care of boost and distortion. I'm not much of a pedal guy but I do have some that I feel are necessary. In fact that's probably going to be the subject of my next blog post. Sit back and take a listen to this short video for just a little taste of what these Hot Rods are capable of.

~Its All About The Music~ 

New Fender Telecaster

This isn't really new news for me, but it is for this blog. Since I've been gone from blogging and out playing gigs, I've added a new guitar to my stable, and by far, its the best playing guitar I have ever purchased. Its the first real top of the line guitar I've ever bought too. My other guitars were all medium price range, enough to get the job done, guitars. This time I got a Fender American Deluxe Telecaster in Aged Cherry Sunburst. It has the new Fender N3 Noiseless Tele pickups as well as the S1 switch on the volume knob.

I don't know how much can be said about Fender's Telecaster Model that hasn't already been said. For me, its the best playing guitar I've ever had. I like the noiseless pickups too. I've always stayed away from single coil pickups in the past because they have been notoriously known for the buzz they can create. Especially if you're anywhere near a fluorescent lamp. But not these babies, no way, no buzz. 

I had been wanting a Telecaster for quite a long time, but I wanted an American made Telecaster if I was going to ever get one. Its a fairly serious investment so I wanted to go big and get something that holds its value. I got mine from Guitar Center and couldn't be happier about the service those guys give you there. Everyone that I've ever met there have always been very helpful in answering any questions I've had. And if they don't know the answer to your question, someone in the store will. And that's because they have specialist's employed in every department of the store. 

They also offer Pro Coverage on their products, which can be a very good thing to have in case you have a mishap. It might seem a little pricey when you're thinking it over, but when it comes to something you're going to drop some serious cash on its something well worth considering. 

I got a new amplifier at the same time I purchased my guitar, but I'll save that for a new blog post.
Stay tuned .......

Making A Comeback

Its been a long time since I've even touched this blog and I think I'm going to change that starting today. I've come to realize that writing is pretty good therapy for me. Music has always played a role in my life for as long as I can remember. So why not get back on the blogging platform and do some writing. I'm going to share my own product reviews (among other things), so stay tuned.

Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known by his stage name B.B. King
Rest In Peace Mr. King .....

Songwriting 101 Or Something Like that

Hey peeps, long time no see I know. But I've been pretty busy lately trying to learn a few things. And I am. I'm to the point now that I can lay down some basic guitar tracks and then double them as I've always tended to do back in my tape machine days. I'm starting to get the hang of things in Garageband and the more you play around with it the more you learn, like anything else. I've also got Ableton Lite but haven't messed with it much. Garageband has built in drummers, and they used several studio drummers to put down drum tracks. Its unbelievable what you can do with it and I'm sure I don't even know anywhere close to half of it yet. So yeah, you basically pick out a drummer, I think there's 7 or maybe even 12 drummers on mine, and pick what kit you want him to play on. There's a ton of different drum kits on there. Set the timing to 4/4 or whatever and how many beats per minute and bam!! You can adjust the beats per minute along with a lot of other things "on the fly".

I have been neglecting my recording though for the past 5 weeks with a songwriters class at Berklee via Coursera, where you can take free college courses on tons of things! Seriously for someone like myself, who didn't go to college and took the trade route instead am able to take some of those college classes online and best of all, for Free. I'm actually just taking a break between lectures as I type, letting the next one buffer and load. To say I've been a little busy is an understatement. We played a gig a few weeks ago at a country clubhouse birthday party. It was our newest bass players first gig with us and he did pretty good considering the massive pressure lol. I have to say, the dude kinda won me over that night just because he played solid and the few bad notes didn't stick out like a sore thumb, which WAS something our last bass player didn't mind doing. He played it loud and proud. Which kinda sucks for the rest of the band because those loud and proud bad notes can really throw you all off kilter as a functioning unit.

I'm not even sure we have much of a band right now. Our singer doesn't seem to be into it lately. He never wants to practice anymore or even really do gigs. I think the only reason we played the last one was because it was family of his that was putting on the party. He's got a lot on his plate though in real life. New house, new daddy, fireman, and taking a college class in hopes of becoming a Game Warden. We hate to see it happening but its sure looking like he's about done with the band thing. I sure can't say I blame him, I was in the same type of spot when I was young and I chose a day job over being in a band. Even a part time band. Anyone who's in a band and is married can relate to how hard it is to just deal with that AND be able to keep up with what it takes to be in a serious working band. I'm not sure what's going on right now ...

All I know is that I'm going to keep plugging along and learning this songwriting craft as best I can and trying to write some songs while the band is on hold or whatever. I play guitar and write pretty much every day right now and that suits me just fine right now.

Gotta get to class folks ... later