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CATEGORIES ::
> Blah! > Movies, Music, Guitars & Comics > Fiction
BLOOD, SWEAT N' TEARS ::
> Y2k > Ciplak
ONLINE PRESENCE ::
> MySpace > Flickr
FRIENDS' BLOGS ::
> Albert > Az > Cynthia > Debbie > Eddy > Effigy > Izuwan > Jordan > Kevin > Pete Teo > Rina > Shelley
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I'm down. No denying it. I'm down. Down down down down, as Blink 182 would say back in the day. And why is that? Simple: CIPLAK IS POSTPONED TO OCTOBER. Can't tell you good folks why, yet. But believe me, if it doesn't get shown, you'll be the first to know why. Now excuse me whilst I clean the strands of shit off of my fan. I've been bloody busy, that's where I've been. Busy busy busy as a busy beaver building twenty four beaver dams and has just been told he has to work 17 extra shifts as there's a huge flood coming their way. Very busy indeed. Since we last communicated, right after I discovered 'Ciplak' was postponed to October I 'lost' two thousand ringgit. In cold. Hard. Cash. Somehow it dissapeared out of my wallet but the rest of the money in my wallet was left unscathed. My girlfriend thinks it was the maid. Saiful thinks it was a toyol. I personal feel it was life beating me down to the ground before lifting me up, offering me a candy and discovering I've actually been offered a turd wrapped in a Werther's original wrapper. That was a bad day indeed. Then it was launch business, sorting out the Y2k launch which took a tremendous amount of work and an insane amount of fucked-up-ness along the way, leading to not much sleep at all for all those concerned. But we pulled it off, and it was fucking fun. It was the first time my parents would see me play in both my bands, the press were there and right after the set I had never felt more like a rock star in my entire life as people swarmed asking for us to sign their copies of the album. This probably won't happen again so I'm enjoying it as much as I can. Now we've got all the other crap to sort out as well as other jobs in the pipeline and my left arm is in a complete shambles. In truth, it's turned into a jellyfish: week and floppy and any attempt to lift it up causes severe pain. And I'm left handed. Great. This led to me falling asleep at 8am, even though I went to bed at three. So what did I do, lying awake in bed in the dark? Well, I switched my light on, took out a piece of paper and started to design a guitar I'm planning to build. And before you ask, no. My mind rarely switches off and allows me to relax. Such is life. Pics of the Y2k launch can be found by CLICKING HERE, which will take you to the FYI Entertainment blog (yes, it has a blog too). Thanks to Albert for the pics. ...is back on track. November 26th is the new release date. Phew. CIPLAK has been accepted in the Boulder Asian Film Festival in Colorado, USA. Excuse me whilst I do my Lil' Jon impression: YEEEAAAHHHH!!! It's the first film festival CIPLAK has been accepted so far. My balls feel very big indeed. Unfortunately, it's showing on September 9th, which is the same day that Triple 6 Poser is performing for the Road to Sounstage at the Curve, and the days before and after that are also gig dates for Y2k. Bugger me sideways. Ah, well. It's showing, that's what's important. Hopefully I'll be able to add one of those little crest things to the poster. CLICK HERE for the Boulder Asian Film Festival website. Festival runs from the 9th to 11th of September. ...life just keeps getting packed up by the minute, doesn't it? At this moment, I'm still sorting out what needs to be sorted out for Ciplak (the FINAS issue never dies), sorting out administrative stuff, beautification, and other things at FYI that no-one really thinks about when imagining the 'glamour' of running your own company, taking on one of those editing jobs where you cut down a raunchy international music video for local airing, trying to sort out other jobs for FYI Films, producing tracks for other artists, sorting out the tour (which starts this weekend!) and other such silliness. On top of all that, I now want to take up a new hobby: guitar-building. It's strange - I always need something... 'new' to learn from or be inspired by. Always. It's a strange addiction that I can't curb. Turning to music isn't much of an option. The last great album I bought (and by great album, I mean one of those discs where listening to the whole album from beginning to end is more satisfying than listening to a couple of hte singles) was Green Day's 'American Idiot', and the last one before that was the Darkness' debut. Nothing has tickled my fancy since, leading me to back-track to great oldies like Nazareth (and no, 'Love Hurts' is not the only single these guys put out. In fact, I reckon it's their weakest when put against 'Hair of the Dog' or 'Black Betty'). Turning to movies isn't much of an option either. The majority of movies I've been watching are big-ass blockbusters, which are fun, but don't exactly inspire me to greatness (although last night I watched 'Brick' which was fucking cool, even though it kinda starts off dodgy). The last inspiring movie I saw was 'Hustle & Flow', and that was a while back. Sound engineering? Theory's pretty much learnt. Anything new I can learn is only gonna come from experience, and that's gonna take me the rest of my life so it's pretty much a given. The thrill of searching for articles and information and books on the subject is pretty much dead. Books? Comics? No such luck. I can only think of two comics I want to pick up: the new 'Fables' (which I heard was one of the interim issues) and the Garth Ennis run on Ghost Rider. I still find it strange yet highly ammusing that Marvel hired Mr. Ennis. Reading his 'Punisher' had me in stitches. So it's time for a new hobby. And it looks like that hobby is guitar-making/building/whatever. That zest, that craving for information and knowledge is back. Unfortunately, it's also probably one of the toughest hobbies I could have chosen. For starters, it involves woodwork. I was never good at woodwork. I don't have the patience for woodwork. Creative Design Technology was the one thing I got a 'C' in during my GCSE's, simply because I couldn't make anything I designed. I could design like a motherfucker, with blueprints, insane yet logical schematics, etc. But give me a saw and a block of wood and I can't even cut a straight line. Shit, I can't hammer a nail straight! Thankfully, (a) I'm not making an acoustic guitar and (b) I've got Alel of X-Cited Screamers helping me out. The electronics, on the other hand, I don't mind. Always loved electronics. Always loved physics in general. The only problem during my education was that I was cursed with the dullest physics teachers in existence. Seriously. A long time ago I wanted to be a scientist, for God's sake (probably because of Back to the Future, the A-Team and Macguyver) and all these teachers pretty much made me destroy that dream with a large troll hammer. Maths comes into play when it comes to designing a guitar, too: calculating tension, fret distance, pickup output, etc. Not too worried about the math. Another thing that's involved with guitar work that I was never good at is painting. I can't paint for nuts. I can draw, I know that, but when it comes to painting the fucker I'm dead in the water. I know I'm not exactly painting the Mona Lisa on the plank of wood that will be my guitar, but even then. I don't trust myself with paint. So why, God, WHY am I picking this, of all things, as my new hobby? Three reasons: 1. I'm lefty. Thus, I am left with only standard model guitars as a choice. To have those other, more interesting guitars will cost me a bomb (example - left handed Fender '72 Tele-thinline: 800 pounds, 200 pounds more expensive than its right handed brother). 2. I'm curious. It's my damn instrument, I should know how it works, godammit. 3. Why not? I'm gonna be starting up a new category soon, showing a pictoral progress, of sorts. Which will probably make me lose some of my audience. Ah well. Those of you who've been listening to mainstream radio here in Malaysia have probably heard Jason Lo's latest single, the one where the chorus is the same as the chant for old newspapers from the tanoys of vans that will buy your stacks of NST's for a couple of cents. Those of you who've ever owned or at least listened to the Ben's Bitches album 'National Disservice' have probably heard their song 'Hang Hero' (which is also on the 'Ciplak' soundtrack) which featured the same old newspaper chant - at least two years ago. Ben brought this up in a forum on-line, and it looks like Mr. Lo (as he's known in this country) seeked out Ben's number and gave him a call. I haven't asked Ben about this but I received an e-mail from Ben of his reply on the forums. And all I have to say is this: Ben may not be likeable a 100% of the time. But he stays true to himself, to his beliefs and is much more confident and sure of himself and his music than most Malaysian musicians out there, and for that I have the utmost respect for the dude. He'll never sell out and the response he gave over the phone call was reserved and polite enough (well, as polite as Ben can be) but without losing an ounce of integrity. Say what you will about Ben, his Bitches or his music. But behind the potty mouth lyrics and insane stage antics is an intelligent musician and the dude's more than alright in my book. Read Ben's response by CLICKING HERE. Catch Y2k live on tour together with Stonebay, Triple 6 Poser, Soutury and Wrong Gang! Melaka Aug 27 @ Vinyl Club Penang Sep 3 @ Church Street Cafe Hartamas, KL Sep 8 @ Jam Asia Other Y2k Performances in KL for August/September: Jam Asia Sep 1 The Curve Sep 10 Sports Planet Shah Alam Sep 16 Click HERE to download large flyer. Details HERE (maps n' things). The history Ladies and gentlemen, behold my 'bantal busuk' guitar: my left handed Encore stratocaster. It's one of my first guitars and was my staple guitar during my Khaimano days. Even when I bought a Samick flying V, I sold it off after a while and went back to the Strat. Why? It's comfortable. Before this strat I had a really nice Les Paul copy, even - gold plated hardware, beautiful sounding humbuckers, nice action, the works - and I sold it to buy this. Why? The comfort. Besides, back in those days I was a punk guitarist more than anything and wanted something I'd feel comfortable playing, sound be damned (since then I've grown up and understood that there's more to a guitar than a nice shape). I didn't give it the name 'bantal busuk'. Gigi, one of the top guitar maintenance guys around, did. I sent it over to him to fix it up, but after thinking about it, if I'm going to start trying this new hobby of mine, I might as well try it with whatever parts I already have. At the very least, I've got a body to play with, which means I won't have to do much woodwork. (For those who don't speak Malay, 'bantal busuk' literally means 'smelly pillow'. It's a term for those pillows that toddlers bring about wherever they go, drooling all over it and never letting you wash it. Remember that comic strip 'Peanuts'? That kid with the towel? Same concept.) As you can see from the pic, there's a ton of stickers on it, each one with a story of its own... 1. Gaffer tape - Technically not a sticker, but the strap button kept popping out so, instead of filling the hole with a toothpick and rescrewing the strap button I hammered a nail in, tied a piece of rope to it and tied the other end to the strap of my Jaguar sports bag, then gaffered it all up. The modifications Alas, that's all gonna go. For the body, I'm ripping off all the stickers, sanding the paint off and refinishing it. I'm also gonna cut off the top horn and sand it down for a strat/tele hybrid kinda shape. Once I have some money I'll probably also change the neck to a maple 70's strat neck (big-ass headstock). For now, I'm probably gonna clean up the rosewood neck, smoothen the frets, sand off some of the lacquer on the neck and cut the head to a more tele-kinda shape. I'll probably change the nut too. Why don't I just buy a neck straight? 'Cos the neck I have in mind costs about 320 singaporean dollars. Hardware-wise, I'm gonna change the tuning heads first and foremost to either original Fender tuning heads or a set of Gotoh's. Since it's tough to find a left-handed strat bridge I'm going to keep the bridge ut polish it up first, then change the saddles, possibly to original Fender saddles, depending on whether or not they'll all fit. Finally, the electronics: I'll be sticking a humbucker on the bridge, followed by two (or three) single coils. I originally wanted them all wired in series with a volume pot for each, so I sent an e-mail to the Seymour Duncan website asking advice as to how to go about it. They said it's not possible: I either put them in series with on/off switches and a master volume or wire them in parallel with separate volumes for each. Tough choice, but I'll think off something. (I also originally wanted to stick in a P-90 but can't figure out how to attach it to the pickguard). In order to see what my guitar might look like, I did a few versions in photoshop: Pictured here in racecar orange with speed lines and a '69 Strat headstock. On this pic I've also cut the bottom horn but I'm not too sure about that. And here in candy apple red with four pickups and the bottom horn intact. So, what do we start with...? Pt.1: Gutting the fucker Before anything, I've got to take the guitar apart. It's in pretty bad shape, but when I opened it up I then realized just how bad the assembly is for Encore guitars. The good news, though, is that because of the cheap design, they didn't bother to retain as much wood as possible by cutting the exact shape of the pickups into the wood, so I have a nice big cavity to put in, well, as many damn pickups as I want. Oooh, the choices... The neck was worse, though. The neck pocket was painted very thickly and the screws weren't even aligned properly. I seriously wonder how this guitar stayed together, especially after the years of abuse I've put it through. I mean, seriously: look at those holes. It's on the fucking edge! This is scaring the shit out of me! Most of the hardware and electronics were rusted, so I probably have a lot to replace. Shiite... Pt.2: Sand-ah the flwoahr Mr. Miyagi is full of shit. Seriously, he's a nutter. His so-called method of sanding would take fucking forever. At least on a guitar. After watching the whole of 'Old School' and six or seven episodes of 'My Name Is Earl', I got this far: This was in my Taman Tun house. Surrounding the guitar are (a) a pack of cigarettes for stress relief, (b) sandpaper in grits of 100, 240 and 320, (c) a magic marker that I've been using to wrap the sandpaper around to make the sanding easier, (d) a bottle of water for dehydration, (e) an old sock to wipe the body and (f) a carpet to sit on. Some of the other guys have seen it and reckon I should stop sanding and leave it as is for that 'relic' feel. I'm actually thinking of making the sanding and finishing an on-going process and start on the wiring and the neck. That way I can still use the guitar whilst working on it. And now that I can see the wood, I'm even tempted to leave it with just a wood finish: sand all the paint down and add a thin coat of lacquer. Might look quite sweet. Next up, I brought the body to FYI and nicked an electric saw from the construction workers at my house to cut off the horn: The saw's teeth were quite wide. Saiful helped out but we accidentally chipped a bit. Lots more sanding to do, by the looks of it. I need an electric sander so badly. And that's it for now. Next up: wiring! Man Method's idea of an invite. Disturbing? I think so. |
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(N.B. This is the third time I'm writing this post. The first two times my post got lost. This may explain why this post may turn out incredibly long, as I've already gotten some way through with this little project)
For starters, the pickup cavities weren't even sanded down. Bits of wood stuck out everywhere. There was still wood-dust in the damn body! And the screws were, well, screwy. One of the screws at the back of the guitar where the springs attach popped out on the other side, pretty damn close to the pickups! Aargh!
