Little Feat were and continue to be a versatile band, bringing together variations of blues, R&B, country, and rock & roll. The band members were remarkably gifted technically and their polished performances fit in with the cool sounds coming out of southern California during the ’70s. However, Little Feat had a bizarre sensibility, as evidenced by George’s idiosyncratic songwriting, which helped the band develop a cult following among critics and musicians. Though the band earned some success on album-oriented radio, the group was derailed after George’s death in 1979. Little Feat re-formed in the late ’80s, and they were playing as well as ever, continuing the strange sensibility that made them cult favorites. Their albums and tours were wildly successful and continued to draw the crowds of people that made them a cult band.

Lowell George played with Frank Zappa and The Mothers for a while. Zappa fired him, said he had to much talent to play in a band, that he should lead his own band. And George also played a Fender Stratocaster. As does Paul Barrere to this day.

Little Feat performed regularly in Washington DC, in the ’70’s, where I was borned in the ’50’s. I saw them live several times before I met my future wife, and we saw them many more times, live, of course. We have seen little Feat perform at the Carefree Theater in West Palm Beach, Fl. a few years ago. They filled the house and then brought it down, like going back to the ’70’s again. The bulk of the crowd were baby boomers, although it was nice to see younger folks who were hip and wanted to see an icon band play. We were not disappointed,

I had the privilege of being at George Washington University at Lisner Auditorium, where they recorded “Waiting for Columbus”, one of the first live albums made. Realistically, I don’t have the vocabulary to say something witty or fancy about them. All I can say is that we had more fun at Little Feat concerts than we should have had, and they always kept the crowd involved. I remember at one concert, somebody threw something on the stage, and Lowell George said. “that’s certainly better than a beer bottle”! Wonder what it was?

We don’t have any degrees in beebop at Guitar Players Center, but we know that Lowell George and Little Feat did. I know there are a bunch of Little Feat fanatics out there, anyone have a story about them or a concert experience? Please Comment and Share It.

Heavy wear on a Stratocaster neck

Even when you click on the picture and enlarge it, the actual depth of wear is hard to determine. Many times one can really improve the finish and feeling of this type of wear by using Micro Mesh sanding abrasives. Note: Micro-Mesh was developed for polishing jet windshields to maintain their optical clarity. Imagine how your instrument will look! Great for repairing scratches and over-spray. Use them for polishing frets, too.

Micro Mesh comes in grits that range from: 1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000 and 12000-grit. Start with the coarsest grit, 1500, and carefully sand the worn area until it is relatively smooth. Remember to masking tape off the areas you don’t want to affect. Graduate to the next grit paper and so on up to the 8000 grit. Be careful and patient, don’t take off much, we are just making each grit produce a smoother finish, use each grit, don’t bypass any grits on your way up to 12000. By the time you get to the 8000 grit paper, the area of concern should be smooth.

Once the area feels acceptable to you, your next step depends on what you want as a finished product. Assuming you will not put any new finish on the neck, it is simply a matter of polishing with the 8000 grit paper until it is super smooth, the 8000 grit barely removes any wood so don’t worry about sanding a divot into the neck. For all practical purposes the 12000 grit is like a fine wax with cleaner in it. The 12000 grit will burnish the surfaces where the refinished area meets the finish itself. From there it will blend the two areas together and actually bring it to a shine. All you need is elbow grease and patience.

Believe it or not, 12000 grit is like mild cleaner wax, you can actually take a small abrasion out of the finish and polish the area to a shine with Micro Mesh papers. Using warm soapy water is a great lubricant for a fine finish, this method is advised for final sanding/burnishing. The paper will last longer too.

Guitar Players Center buys most of our tools and repair products from Stew-Mac. However, I think Micro-Mesh is available through auto body shop supply stores, it is popular with quality car re-finishers and wood crafters.

Enjoy and Share.

It gets better, Les Paul, and his wife, Mary Ford, were regular visitors at the Steve’s Dads house. Les and Mary taught Steve his first chords when he was five years old. Steve still uses some of the techniques they taught him at that time. The Miller family moved to Dallas, Texas in 1950. Steve’s dad continued recording various styles of music. Great musicians of the time continued to appear at the Miller house, including legendary blues man T-Bone Walker.

Given Steve’s talent as a composer and musician, the songs he composed are all great, and the ones he performed by other composers have his fingerprints all over them. You won’t be disappointed. Wikipedia has a full biography of Stevie Miller, if you want more details on his life and band.

It brings back cool memories, Guitar Players Center is happy to share with you our favorite You Tube Steve Miller Videos. Relax, enjoy and listen to some Steve Miller this Sunday morning. Music Videos are good:

Click to enlarge the picture

Heavy wear on a Stratocaster neck

A friend of a good friend of mine, Ovidiu of Guitar Flame contacted me recently about how one might go about fixing the wear on this 1971 Fender Guitar Stratocaster neck. This is an example of extreme wear, it reminds me a bit of “Lenny”, Stevie Ray Vaughn’s guitar. It has a similar amount of wear. Basically, one can fix this wear and preserve the value of the guitar. In many cases repairing the neck of a vintage guitar is a wise avenue to take in an effort to maintain the guitars value.

Another choice is to replace the neck. I would suggest reading the article “Want To Choose The Best Fender Stratocaster Guitar Neck?” Changing necks provides you with several options. It may be more cost effective to buy a well made neck from Stewart-MacDonald or Warmoth Direct guitar parts company. You also have the ability to choose a different type of neck. This give you options on neck contour, width, wood type, headstock and fret size. The best selection I have seen is from Warmoth Guitar Direct, the site is full of excellent neck information, more to the point every available or custom neck you have dreamed about is available at Warmoth.

One technique that has been used successfully is get the damaged surface clean by using a 600 grit wet or dry sandpaper to put some tooth (grip) on it. You will need some slow drying, viscous super glue. Stewart MacDonald has it. It can’t be the fast dry thin stuff. Then you need to find a small piece of wood that is the same as what your neck is made of. Turn the wood into shavings then to a dust.
Ok, you need to prop the guitar up so the damage is facing up. Mix some wood dust with the viscous super glue, then carefully and slowly drop it into the damaged area. I buy little teensy turkey baster looking devices that are very small from Stew Mac to apply my concoction. It will flow and flatten out smooth by itself. Let it dry over night and then see if it is flat and full in each ding. Repeat if necessary. I warn you and beg you to practice on a piece of scrap, don’t trash a neat old neck. Once you have it to where you want, go ahead and use the 600 grit to level out and smooth the filler, then graduate to 1000 grit and then smooth with 2000 grit. I use micro mesh paper from Stew Mac that goes to 12000 grit, which basically burnishes the finish into a shine. Based on the wood dust color and clarity of the glue, in most cases it is undetectable.

An other very popular technique I’m familiar with is as such: Depending on the wood type your neck is made out of would determine the filler type. A paste wood filler is preferred on open pored woods such as rosewood, mahogany, ash and walnut. Generally speaking a filler is not needed for closed grain or on tone-woods such as alder, maple, spruce and cedar.

Using some powdered colors mixed with the filler can make the repair almost undetectable. Your mix of filler and color should be viscous like a heavy cream. Make sure you tape off any areas you do not want to disturb first with some masking tape. Then apply/ paint the filler on with a small artists touch up brush. Take enough time to smooth it out, you can even smooth it with very clean fingers. Do this before the filler becomes hazy.

Once it is filled and sanded, it is a good idea to let it sit for a few days to let the filler shrink, then re-sand the area smooth for some finish. I use micro mesh sand papers that range in grit from 4000 grit to 12000 grit. 12000 grit is a final touch that burnishes the finish to a shine. However, I only use the 4000 grip micro mesh before finish is applied if necessary. If no finish is necessary, then I just micro-mesh the area gradually until I have finished it off with 12000 grit micro-mesh. It may be available at your local auto body supply.

Applying finish is a whole new vibe. That is a complete post in itself. This type of repair is not for the average DIYer, it is a very delicate procedure that is successfully performed by experienced guitar repair and set-up shops. In other words, practice and experience are the keys to success. If you must do it yourself, go buy a cheap pieces of scrap and practice first. That is how I learn something new before I try it on a guitar.

Now that Guitar Players Center has exposed some successful wood repair techniques, it is probably fair to say that any tools or supplies you may need can be purchased through Stewart Macdonald.

I need to mention that you should never choose a guitar repair shop by price only. Make sure you are dealing with a quality guitar repair shop, call the BBB and see if they have any unanswered complaints. A good repair beats a low price any day.

Hopefully this will help out. If you have more questions, please ask me. If anyone has more techniques to share, please do so. You can subscribe to our blog for free and have our posts delivered to your door. Please feel free to comment or Share It with other guitar players. Enjoy

Click the picture to enlarge

That is the beginning line of one of jimi Hendrix’s songs off Jimi’s ‘Blues’ album. I don’t recall the song, maybe “Jellybean Blues”. Unquestionably the best compilation of blues ever assembled. Jimi probably had the blues for a different reason than myself.

Here is my story. I was washing the dishes two weeks ago today on the 17th of September. Yes, I do dishes, floors and laundry. Ha. Ha. Anyway I stabbed my right (picking) thumb between the nail and the nail bed with a fork. Ouch, it hurt. It got sore, but looked normal for a couple of days. It started hurting like a toothache by Friday. It throbbed all the time and I couldn’t sleep for 4 nights. Finally I went to the doctor on Monday the 21st of September for help.

The doc gave me four giant shots of penicillin in my butt and some other stuff, and some antibiotics to take. She told me to hold on to the chair (the one bolted to the floor) while she squeezed the puss out of it, man can I take a lot of pain. I left my finger grip imprints on the chair! By then it did not even resemble a thumb. I was worried big time. I could not play the guitar or do much of anything with one thumb.

That is enough gross stuff. Here is the bright side of this. The first thing is that after being a transmission rebuilder for 30 plus years, bleeding and getting cut is part of the vibe, so I’m no stranger to an infection periodically. About three years ago I poked the same thumb with a guitar string and it got infected. It turned out very cool. My excellent and versatile electric guitar teacher taught me how to tap for the 6-8 weeks it took my thumb to heal. I never missed a lesson and found that tapping is a great exercise to learn, and better understand your scales. I keep up to date on tapping, but that is not my vibe really. The other cool thing is that I have been playing with my fingers only in a classical style. As you may know by now I was originally classically trained.

My point is that versatility as a guitar player is a major benefit if you have a similar injury to mine. I started to strum again about 5 or 6 days ago, I love to play Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan much more that a concerto in c minor. I don’t quite have Eddie Van Halen’s chops either, but these alternative methods are serving their purpose right now. I am greatful to Richard Mac for teaching me other methods of play. I have no idea why he did. We are the best of friends anyway, and we will be brothers forever. I love the guy to death. Check Richard’s MySpace site out, he may be the greatest player ever you have not heard of. I no joke either.

Tho old thumb is getting better now, although it is still gross to look at and somewhat sore. I expect to be able to use a pick soon again. Guitar Players Center does not recommend damaging your thumb on purpose, but we wholeheartedly recommend learning some alternative picking and playing styles. It’s a cool vibe even if you are not hurt.

The 1980s rap act, along with Metallica and the Stooges are among the nine nominees for next year’s hall of fame class, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced last Monday.

The other nominees are guitarist Jeff Beck, singer Wanda Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, War, Bobby Womack, and disco and R&B group Chic, the only nominee back from last year’s ballot.

Left off the ballot were Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bon Jovi, though both had been eligible for the first time. To be nominated an act must have released its first single or album 25 years prior.

The five top-rated nominees will be announced in January and inducted April 4, 2009, in Cleveland.

The ceremony is typically held in New York but will be returning to Cleveland after an absence of more than 10 years. Tickets will be made available to the public for the first time.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five opened the door for rap at the Rock Hall as the first hip-hop act inducted in 2007. Now, Run-DMC, nominated in the first year of its eligibility, has the chance to follow on the strength of rock/rap blends such as the 1986 cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and classics like “It’s Tricky” and “My Adidas.”

Metallica jumped on the heavy metal wave of the 80s and 25 years later is still selling out arenas. This month the group released Death Magnetic, which marks a return to its early speed metal days.

The Stooges with Iggy Pop, recently given props in the film Juno, get another shot after last appearing on the ballot two years ago.

More than 500 musicians, industry professionals and journalists vote on the inductions.

Personally, I have a problem with leaving out Stevie Ray Vaughan. Anytime the subject of picking inductees to the Hall of Fame is talked about, no matter what Hall of Fame, including The NFL football Hall of Fame or The NBA Hall of Fame, it is full of politics and poor choices by people who make the decisions.

This applies to competitions, shows and events that require judges of some sort. Especially if the people who vote are volunteers, meaning unpaid. I don’t care what the guidelines are and how clearly defined they may be in terms of making the correct choices, it is simply impossible to make the correct choices if the choosers are not paid. Paid professionals should make the choices based on set criteria.

I have mellowed a little bit as I grow older. Harley Davidson’s are one of my passions. Lots of folks told me many times that they felt I actually enjoyed building them more than riding them. A statement that is probably more accurate now than ever.

For over 20 years my wife and myself would attend Bike Week at Daytona Beach Florida in March. FYI, we have not been in 5 or 6 years now, and my reasons for that are another story. My ego was very competitive and somewhat swollen back then. Every year from 1985 to about 1990ish I would enter one of my ‘bad rides’ in ‘The Rats Hole Chopper Show”. Widely known at that time, and may well still be the biggest and most prestigous bike show in the world.

To shorten this up, the folks who judged your bikes were actually the top three winners from last years show. It took about 5 years to figure out, but these volunteer, unpaid, non professional judges were extremely biased to the type of bikes they liked. Meaning, if last years winner had a red chopper, than you had no chance of winning if your bike was not red. Needless to say I quit showing my bikes once that was figured out. In retrospect, I always came away with a trophy of some sort.

To get into any hall of fame requires some horn blowing. People also need to go to bat for you. Especially if you are not alive. I can see it in the pro football Hall of Fame. Players who deserve to get in, don’t. A lot of it is politics and personally blowing your horn to draw attention to yourself.

Now I see it in The rock and Roll Hall of fame. Obviously SRV can’t blow his own horn. Having a fair idea of who Stevie Ray was, at least the person, he would never tout his virtues. Stevie Ray was a special kind and gentle soul. He had a special humility about himself and was a total gentleman. He probably did more for many other careers than his own. Modesty was his nature.

What an outrage to Stevie Ray Vaughan and his loyal followers. Ray reinvented the blues as we know it. He was also one of the greatest, talented players ever. It blows my mind and disappoints me that he was overlooked. Do we really need a cheering section to get the people who deserve to be in The Hall of Fame? Make if fair, hire qualified judges who judge by the book, not by their personal likes and dislikes.

That is our feeling at Guitar Players Center, and we will stick to it. Got anything to add? Or don’t you agree with us? Let me know. Enjoy.

Washington Redskins

With no disrespect intended to anyone, I wanted to congratulate The Washington Redskins for defeating The Dallas Cowboys in Dallas Yesterday. The Cowboys are recognized as the best, most talented team in the NFL.

This was not a fluke victory, the ‘Skins” out played the Cowboys and out coached them too. A clean cut quality victory.

I don’t know what it means for the future, but yesterday The Redskins were the best team in the NFL.

How about those Redskins?

I’ll enjoy the moment, next week brings another important contest. The Eagles, another team most consider to be better than the Redskins. That is why they play the game.

Got a problem with The Skins? I’ll talk about it!! Anytime. Thanks and enjoy.

PS. My passion for The Skins comes from my mothers passion for The skins. She has owned season tickets since they came from Boston to D.C, in 1937. I have attended hundreds of live games from when I was about 8 years old, now I live in Florida, but I still go up to see a game or two a year, with my Mom. It is my special day and bond with my Mom. She must have sprinkled passion dust on me when I was born!

I noticed this article from MusicRadar.com this morning, PRS launches new guitars and amp range and wanted to share it. I enjoyed playing the PRS guitar very much, I hope to resist buying one for a long time. My friend Allan showed me a PRS guitar with a Stratocaster neck on the internet. Now that is unfair. Musicians, guitar players mostly, have an incurable desire for more guitars and equipment. It seems unavoidable. It is probably not a good idea to play any PRS guitar. Why? It may be bad for your wallet and your relationship. That is a warning.

Thanks and Enjoy

Here is what I do know about The amazing Quinn Sullivan, he is a 10 year guitar prodigy and singer from the New Bedford area. Quinn began taking guitar lessons at age 3. He plays many kinds of music, from rock and roll to blues. He says that he also wants to learn piano. Quinn was recently a guest on the Ellen Degeneres show and was featured in Time Magazine for kids.

Find out more about Quinn Sullivan on his MySpace site

A video beats a bunch of words. Check these out, listen to how Quinn pours out his soul, and leave you breathless.

This young man is an anomaly, Guitar Players Center wants you to weigh in on Quinn, what do you think? Please Share this with other guitar players by Stumbling It. Enjoy.