Watermelon in Easter Hay (Frank Zappa)

I love this solo, and a 7-string in drop tuning is perfect for noodling around on it.

Singleton

“Singleton” from Synchronized Seasoning has been slapped together.

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San Francisco to LA in 5 Days (on a Bicycle)

I recently had a little adventure out in California, visiting my brother in San Francisco, then riding with him down to San Jose to see the Cirque du Soleil Volta show my sister works for. After that I headed off on my own down to LA. The video above has some footage from the ride, and ends with a rundown of the gear I took along.

Slapping Together Selected Sections of 'Singleton' from Synchronized Seasoning

Here’s a little video clip documenting some of the writing process for “Singleton” from Synchronized Seasoning. The latter half shows the development of a new chord—the “heartbeat chord”—based on real ECG data. It sounds terrible, but it serves to encode more information into a song that will be at least partially about relationship type stuff, or “matters of the heart.” Hopefully it isn’t too ridiculous.

Strats Pulled at Random

I love the sound of Strat and Tele neck pickups. The single coil tucked way up where the 24th fret would be produces such a glorious tone, which is unfortunately rare in today’s metal music.

When I first got my Agile Sentinel 7-string Strat way back in 2010 or something, I immediately started playing stuff that sort of sounded like Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden. I then started toying around with the idea of covering Meshuggah’s “Straws Pulled at Random” since it struck me how such a moving rhythm can take on a different character with a different guitar tone. It took a few years, and I only recorded the end section, but here we are.

This is somewhat of a preview for some of the aesthetics I hope to achieve with the 6th track on Synchronized Seasoning, i.e., a 22-fret single coil neck pickup tuned to drop-G#, not palm-muted. That tune should be out before the end of the decade.