The New Commute
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.
Blog
This is where I tell you what I really think. This website doesn’t support comments by design, that is what your blog is for!
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Masks Are Hard
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.
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Insta-Busking Tips
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.
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Best Albums of 2019
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.
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Phantom Crackle
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.
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Top Music of 2019
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.
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Smoking Carvin RX800 Powered Mixer
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.
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Nightclub ID Scanners and Your Privacy
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.
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Music Promoters Should Do Better
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.
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The Illusive Phantom Crackle
The illusive phantom crackle that plagued this early 60s Fender Bandmaster for years has finally been purged.
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How Much Should Your Band Charge?
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.
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I Joined Another Band
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.
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Sliver-Face Champ
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.
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Venue Owners, Promoters and Talent Buyers, You Should All Be Doing This
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:
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The Implications of Spotify Artist Blocking
A forthcoming feature will allow Spotify users to block certain artists from playing in their libraries. This is a great solution for empowering subscribers to limit who monitizes from the music they stream, but what are the broader implications to others who benifit from the royalties of abusive artists?
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AI SPAM Message
I received this email at work via our company contact form. It made it through the Google ReCaptcha. It reads sort of like an SCP, and I found it pretty entertaining, so I thought I would post it here.
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Best Albums of 2018
I know I’m a little late to the game with my album picks this year, but 2018 was just so rich with amazing new music that I couldn’t just poop this out all willy nilly. Unlike other folks with their best album lists, I believe in waiting a few weeks after the new year to let all the late releases settle in with me. And it’s a good thing I did, as a few late December releases made my list!
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Top Music of 2018
As with last year, this largely reflects my music listening at work. These lists tend to be more metal-heavy as this is where I do most of my headphone listening.
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Dinner Music
I’m a segmented sleeper, and am usually up between 2 and 5 a.m. on any given morning. I sometimes pass the time by giving sympathy and advice to sufferers on the /r/misophonia subreddit. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend of teenagers complaining about their parents hassling them about wearing headphones at the dinner table. As a father of teenagers, a headphone enthusiast, a music lover, and a Misophonia sufferer, I feel I am uniquely qualified to advise in these situations when asked.
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Instagram Without Ads
I was an early adopter of Instagram—well before the Facebook acquisition. For some unknown reason, I have never seen an ad or sponsored post in my feed. Until recently.