Music, opinions, and portfolio of Mark Eagleton, musician and web developer in Northern CA.
I’ve written before about my love/hate relationship with my K&K Bass Master Rockabilly Plus. In short, the sound is phenomenal, but the execution is awful. After suffering with its flaws for the past 15 years, I finally decided I’d had enough and modded it.
When we last left our hero, we had a broken neck joint and a splintered heel cap. I’m happy to report the surgery was successful and the patient has fully recovered. Ah, but friends, there is even more to this adventure.
I dropped my bass the other night. It was in its heavily-padded bag, but it took a pretty solid hit to the back of the scroll on the cement. The glue line at neck joint is cracked, and the heal cap is splintered a bit, but it still holds tension. I can’t move the neck even when the string tension off, so I don’t think it’s super bad, but I plan to have it checked out before I play it again.
My pandemic staycation project: a Rick-Tone Trem-O-Drive for my Champ, Airline, and Rickenbacker single-ended amps.
I lost and old friend this week. We hadn’t been very close for quite a while—the last time I even spoke to him was a few years ago now. He was a pretty important person in my life for a good decade or so, though. Since funerals and celebrations of life aren’t really an option during a pandemic, I sort of feel the need to say a few nice things about a guy who frustrated, hurt, and offended, but also loved a lot of people. And a lot of people loved him back. To me, he was a compassionate and genuine friend.
Two years ago today, I got word that my office was moving to another city about 20 kilometers away, and that I would have to saddle up for a big kid commute. Well, two months ago, that day finally came. This is how it’s going.
In the mid 90s, my band used to share the bill with this Sacto band quite a bit. They were great guys, and one of my favorite local bands at the time.
I have been sufficiently scared and socially pressured into being a militant face mask influencer. The problem is that all of the pressure is on to make your own masks, and all the how-to videos I have watch have decimated my confidence.
I’ve been watching (and tipping!) a bunch of my favorite artists live stream on Instagram over the past few weeks. Some are better at it than others. Here are some tips to make the experience more pleasant for your viewers, and make it easier for them to tip you.
Alright, now that the Grammy Awards have all been passed out, let’s have a little reprieve, shall we? Each of the 15 albums in this list made a deep impression on me this year. Why 15? Because there were 15 of them. Here they are in alphabetical order.
My buddy Ivan uses this combo-ified 1963 Band-Master as his backup. It suffered from a phantom crackle that would only appear after being warmed up for an hour or two. It had been in and out of another shop for over a year, and the problem was never successfully addressed.
This data is taken from my last.fm account, and mostly reflects my private listening at work. This may more accurately reflect my personal preferences, though, as it is what I chose to listen to without being influenced by other people. My taste in metal seems to be getting more extreme.
Somewhere around a decade ago, the Bottom Dwellers’ PA head took a flaming shit. It started smoking. It was out of warranty, and rather than deal with repairs and not having a PA for a while, we replaced it with a Mackie PPM1008. Ever since then, the Carvin PA has functioned as my amp stand.
There is a small chain of music venues in Sacramento I frequent that has implemented ID scanning kiosks at their front doors. At first, I was a bit put off by this, but after doing a bit of research into the platform, I think I might be okay with it. You might not be, though. Here is what you should know.
I’ve seen a lot of live music this year, and I have had the chance to check out a lot of different venues in a lot of different towns. Some do it quite a bit better than others. Here are some easy ways music promoters can provide a much better experience for their patrons.
The illusive phantom crackle that plagued this early 60s Fender Bandmaster for years has finally been purged.
The Sacramento Valley is going through a bit of a live music boom as of late. This is a good thing. A healthy music scene has a lot of diversity and a lot of live music to choose from. The downside is that many venues are booked through the end of the year, and many of the gigs that do come up don’t pay very well. What is a fair price to pay for live music, anyway? Allow me to offer a musician’s perspective.
Well, I recently got myself joined up with another bluegrass band. I’m not really one to go joining bands all willy nilly. I have a good track record of sticking around in bands for a long time, so it’s important to me that everyone is easy-going, but takes professionalism as seriously as I do. And of course they need to be, you know, good. The folks in Red Dog Ash check those boxes for me.
About three or four years ago, I found myself falling down a rabbit hole of tube amp repair videos. It started innocently enough with the humble idea of building a custom foot-switchable preamp/mixer for my double bass. That lead to me building a few guitar stomp boxes. Before I knew it, I was watching hours and hours of tube amp repair videos every week.
Tomorrow night, my wife and I are going to our first show at the HopMonk Tavern in Novato. The day before the show we received the following email from the talent buyer:
I play double bass for a few bands. Here is where I’ll be next:
w/ Geoffrey Miller at Sutter Creek Provisions Sutter Creek, CA • Cover: $10 • 18 and Over • 7:00 pm More info
w/ Red Dog Ash at Highwater Brewing Co. Lodi, CA • Cover: FREE • 18 and Over • 7:00 pm More info
w/ Geoffrey Miller at Plough and Stars San Francisco, CA • Cover: TBD • 21 and Over • 8:00 pm
w/ Red Dog Ash at Highwater Brewing Co. Lodi, CA • Cover: FREE • All Ages • 7:00 pm More info
w/ Geoffrey Miller at SacYard Sacramento, CA • Cover: FREE • All Ages • 5:00 pm
w/ Geoffrey Miller at Placerville Public House Placerville, CA • Cover: TBD • All Ages • 8:00 pm
w/ Bottom Dwellers at Taber Ranch Capay, CA • Cover: TBD • All Ages • 1:00 pm