Monday 24 September 2012 - The Start of Deadly Week

First up - thanks to Darwin for a great week ... and for being a tough act to follow.

Remind Me Again ... Who is this Aussie Guy?
Hi all. I generally go by the name Robbie. This will be my third stint as LR with a couple of open mics for good measure. Rather than take up valuable space, for more information check my last Lunch Report.

I’m approaching 56yo and have played guitar since I was a child having been taught by my father. I played in bands continuously from my mid teens except for a period from 2010 through earlier this year. For all that time I've been semi pro in that I've always been in working bands but I've never made my living solely from music. Over the years I've probably covered most genres form rock to metal to country to punk to indie to ....

A reminder .. I don't do pics or talk much of my gear, and I'm very sensitive about preserving anonymity for the reasons I mentioned in last years LR. The commitment I made to my wife is kinda limiting when it comes to lunch reports and general forum discussions but I'll see what I can come up with.

Lunch
Nothing exciting - roast beef sandwich eaten as usual at the desk while I worked through.

G&L Topic - Prototypes to Production
We've all seen the prototypes that have been shown on the G&L website with the new body woods (pine, spalted alder, monkey pod, black and white limba), new finishes, roasted necks, tone pros bridges, alnico pickups in ASAT Classics, etc. Some of these items have already made it to production and the fate of others is yet to be seen.

Q1. Which of the prototype features are you happiest to see or would most like to see make it to the option list? Which would you be most happy to see consigned to the "well it was worth a try" bin?

Q2. The alnico ASAT classic - a good move or not? Will it reinforce the opinions of the uninformed that see G&L as just another Fender wannabee? Would Leo cringe given his early reluctance to take G&L into reproducing teles and strats.

The First Rose of Spring
Following from Darwin’s theme last week, it was a beautiful spring weekend here and our first rose has arrived ...



Non G&L and a theme for the week - Music from First peoples

Through my work in rural and remote health over more than two decades I have developed something of an empathy for issues faced by Australia's first peoples. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the T-shirt wearing placard carrying activists, but I am a strong advocate for relating to health and wellbeing. Despite Australia's economic status and an overall high standard of living, if you are an indigenous Australian your children are 4 times more likely to die in their first year, as an adult you are four times more likely to suffer diabeties and eight times more likely to experience renal failure, and your life expectancy is more than 10 years shorter than your non indigenous countrymen. The sad thing is that these statistics are not uncommon for first peoples in many settled lands.

This week is Deadly Week with the 2012 Deadly Awards being presented tomorrow night, recognising the achievements of Aboriginal people in music, the arts and other community endeavors. I have a great admiration of many Aboriginal musicians and their music which so often ticks the boxes for me. It usually has something to say, embodies personal experience and comes from the heart. So each day I'll share clips from a couple of indigenous musicians -

hopefully you will point me to similar artists from your part of the world.

And if you haven't explored music from your first peoples I'd highly recommend you seek it out.

Over the week I’ll post singer songwriters, the pioneering Aboriginal bands, native language music and then some contemporary mainstream artists. But I’d have to start the week with a couple of tracks from the late Jimmy Little who was probably the first indigenous singer to achieve mainstream success. Jimmy started in the early '50s, was named a National Living Treasure in 2004 and passed away earlier this year.

Jimmy Little Yorta Yorta Man
[youtube]PbKAtG7GE5w[/youtube]

Jimmy Little on Rockwiz
[youtube]3aXQYzFXiGA[/youtube]

Tomorrow I’ll post a couple of my favorite Aboriginal singer songwriters.

Cheers, Robbie

I like where you're going with the Indig music theme Robbie, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up from the US, Canada and wherever else. If we get to friday and you haven't posted who I have in mind I'll put one of his videos up.

Nice rose! We had a whole bunch of different seedlings sprout over the weekend , we're hoping for a good crop of a variety of different tomatoes this year

Prototype stuff - I really like the look of the roasted maple, I think it'd look even better with a satin finish on it. I'm all for the tone-pros bridge too. I never thought I'd say that but I love the thing on my Korina Jr.

Prototype for the bin - I'll keep with the rose theme here - "The Roses" ASAT Classic. Looks like a bogan chick's tattoo.

Thanks for posting those videos! I as a floridian Ive never heard of Jimmy Little but truly love his songs! He kind of reminds me of our
own Johnny Cash ,God rest his soul' not in style but in dedication for the songs he sings! plus, nice pic of the rose.
As far as G&L, I hope to get one of those roasted maple necks one day!

Welcome Robbie and that is a spectacular rose.

I really like the roasted neck especially with the maple fingerboard and the Anicos are superb. They are another great tone from G&L

I am glad you are involved with the health care in your country. It is a worldwide issue and we in the US complain about health care costs but our health care is excellent. I was in today as I have been dealing with a Kidney stone the last couple of days. At least we can get in to see someone.

Will watch the videos later as it takes a while to download them. Great start!-- Darwin

Howdy Robbie,

Like Jamie and Darwin, I love the roasted maple neck too, although I would stick with the gloss finish. Esthetically, it is beautiful. What it does structurally/engineering wise can only be judged over a longer time period of course. And the Alnico pups are absolutely amazing; doesn't sound like an ASAT Classic (so no duplication) and way better than a Tele proper.

Anything that can be marked as 'nice, but thanks' among the prototypes? I would vote for 'Cowhide' (hairs, really?), the Deluxe with ash body used as an engineering prototype for the Korina Deluxe (would prefer the Korina body any time for this configuration), and the spalted Alder models (not half as spectacular as the spalted maple guitars).

As far as indigenous musicians, some names quickly come to mind: Redbone (Wounded Knee)
[youtube]tT7TJi2Rk7c[/youtube]
Robbie Robertson (many of his solo albums have a native theme. Robbie is a member of the First Nations)
[youtube]SBrConkrepI[/youtube]

- Jos

Hey Robbie - Great start to the week!

Stunning rose! Hey man, nice shot .

I dig how the roasted necks look tho I'm a bit biased I wonder if their inception was influneced by a certain fellow who goes by the name burnt999...

I like the look of the alnico pup's. Haven't heard what they sound like tho.
Yeah, I think Leo might cringe but he's probably been cringing for some time re other decisions....
I don't think it will do the company any harm tho you raise a good question. At this point, i think the company has established itself as providing quality + the older Leo-era stuff will continue to turn people on to the newer stuff...

WOW- Cool to learn about & hear Jimmy Little - National treasure indeed - Cheers for that.

I too have much respect for first peoples.... hailing from Seattle I have a strong affinity for Native American culture.
Living in NZ, I'm learning about the Maori culture but as you probably know they technically weren't the first people here.
I don't know much about the Aboriginies but I've heard they are believed to have the oldest human history. I read Mutant Message Down Under about 10 years ago and thought highly of it til I recently found out that the story was a fabrication by the author.

The only other Australian Aboriginal reference I was hep to growing up was from this song -
[youtube]M2Wa0LdCsvM[/youtube]

I don't know of any Native American Seattle bands sadly but here's a clip of a Seattle guitar buddy of mine who rips -
[youtube]ww894gHaqeM[/youtube]

Cheers,
KF

Thanks to those who stopped by and those who responded.

Jamie – There are a lot of artists I thought about for posting this week but can’t do them all - so I could well overlook one or two that you might have in mind. LOL I’m with you on the rose ASAT. While I haven't quite decided on pattern on the Santa Fe I do like that trasnsparent turquoise stain over the Ash.

Huck – Interesting comparison of Jimmy to Johnny – hadn’t really thought about it but looking back at the video there are some similarities in demeanour and musical attitude. The roasted maple does seem to have attracted a lot of interest but I’d like to find out more about whether it has a sonic effect, structural advantage or is just cosmetic. Given the rarity of G&L’s in these parts, I doubt I’ll ever see a G&L with a roasted neck in the flesh.

Darwin – I thought for sure you would have included that swirl finish in your “would like to see” list. Sorry to hear about the Kidney stone! Hopefully its not too big.

Jos – I’d like to hear those ASAT Alnicos but as I mentioned above, it’ll probably be a good while before I can hear any up close and personal – and listening to clips just isn’t quite the same. The cowhide had me scratching my head a bit too - wonder what that does to tone. You certainly can’t overlook Robbie and Redbone when talking about first peoples. If I remember correctly Wounded Knee was first released in Holland after Redbone’s US record company refused to release it in the US. I may be wrong but I’m not sure if it ever made it onto a Redbone record in the US.

Kf – Yeah the roasted necks look pretty cool but they still don’t have the character of char! Good point on the Alnico thing – G&L can probably get away with a more tele like option after 30+ years of establishing its own credentials. LOL only you would be able to sneak a Kate Bush clip into a “first peoples” topic. Nice playing from Rich Sysinger.

Cheers, Robbie

While I haven't quite decided on pattern on the Santa Fe I do like that trasnsparent turquoise stain over the Ash.

Same here, its not a bad pattern all - it reminds me of Clint Eastwoods poncho in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - but it doesn't work on a guitar IMO. The turquoise stain looks excellent, particularly with the satin finish - I'd like to see more unorthodox stain colours.

While I haven't quite decided on pattern on the Santa Fe ...

Same here, its not a bad pattern all - it reminds me of Clint Eastwoods poncho in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - but it doesn't work on a guitar IMO.

The pattern would limit the kind of band that woujld be able to get away with playing the Santa Fe (I guess the player rather than collector in me is showing through here). Either way I think maybe a softer grey rather than the hard black might have worked better.
cheers, Robbie