Small World

D. Shelton · #1 09-02-2015, 07:55 PM

I was up in town today , talking to a guy who has a small repair shop . I was asking about an undersaddle pickup to go with my Baggs soundhole pickup, to get some cool stereo action going . He brought up the possibility of running one pickup/cgannel clean, and the other with some effects , and went on about as setup he did for a guy one time . I've been playing around (in EBow Land) with the Baggs on one channel , going to a Pod and effects , then a condenser mic on the other, and it going to a preamp and then to the pod and a slightly different fx chain, all ending up through to the stereo looper , delay, and recording software . But back to what he was saying about one channel clean and one with effects, he goes " (etc. etc. ... like I did for Michael Hedges " . Not what I was expecting to hear from small shop Bill out here in Nuevo Mejico

.
(needless to say, Bill was in Cali for a number of years prior)

Spook · #2 09-02-2015, 10:42 PM

I get stories all the time from Bill. He spent many years working with Ford at Gryphons. He sets up archtops for me while we talk about Tuck Andress or the early days when Eastman was trying to find folks to sell their guitars. He's an interesting guy.

steelvibe · #3 09-02-2015, 11:15 PM

Man I love Hedges.

Hedges really understood how to capture a mood and speak emotions without words. His song Ursa Major feels just like what it means to gaze into the heavens on a clear night. It is so full of awe and wonder and I love it so much that it is the last song on my daughter's nighttime lullaby mix. I sure wish he was still around!

D. Shelton · #4 09-03-2015, 04:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spook

I get stories all the time from Bill. He spent many years working with Ford at Gryphons. He sets up archtops for me while we talk about Tuck Andress or the early days when Eastman was trying to find folks to sell their guitars. He's an interesting guy.

Yeah, I had no idea where he'd been or worked . It was obvious he knew his stuff , and doesn't mind taking time to explain things . Definitely helping me get things where I need them to be . I also appreciate not having things pushed on me that I don't need , and I'd an easy mark

(guitar tech not being my specialty). Anybody in the ABQ area would do well to head for Studio Guitar !

D. Shelton · #5 09-03-2015, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelvibe

Man I love Hedges.

Hedges really understood how to capture a mood and speak emotions without words. His song Ursa Major feels just like what it means to gaze into the heavens on a clear night. It is so full of awe and wonder and I love it so much that it is the last song on my daughter's nighttime lullaby mix. I sure wish he was still around!

Yeah, that was a big loss. I saw him twice; once touring with Liz Story, and Shadowfax, then a few years later solo. He must've had the setup Bill was talking about, but there was a technical glitch , and he had to play straight guitar, without the fx chain . Not that the performance was diminished in our eyes . Front row seats in a small campus auditorium. Memorable, to say the least .

Br1ck · #6 09-03-2015, 01:17 PM

Say hi from Brick next time you are in. Bill is a great guy, and you just got to admire a dude with a stratocaster tatooed on his arm. I still have an old black tele I got from him. No one is a greater authority on electric vintage guitars. Went to his house once and his living room was wall to wall guitars. Must have been a hundred, and he had Hi Watt amps stacked head high. Must have been seven or eight. Gryphon isn't the same.

He would bring out fun stuff they were working on to show me. Got a look at Tuck Andress' insanely high action once. My #1 bass for the last 25 years came from him too. Warmouth parts mostly.

Back in the 70s, Hedges would set up on the entrance patio of the Varsity Theatre and you could hear him for free. Tuck was my across the back fence neighbor in Menlo Park and I got to hear him a bunch out gardening in the back yard. Good times.

midwinter · #7 09-03-2015, 01:33 PM

There are a bunch of videos of him there on the YouTube (also from small world news: Michael's father, Thane, was my mother-in-law's MA program director).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br1ck

Back in the 70s, Hedges would set up on the entrance patio of the Varsity Theatre and you could hear him for free.

D. Shelton · #8 09-03-2015, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br1ck

Say hi from Brick next time you are in. Bill is a great guy, and you just got to admire a dude with a stratocaster tatooed on his arm. I still have an old black tele I got from him. No one is a greater authority on electric vintage guitars. Went to his house once and his living room was wall to wall guitars. Must have been a hundred, and he had Hi Watt amps stacked head high. Must have been seven or eight. Gryphon isn't the same.

He would bring out fun stuff they were working on to show me. Got a look at Tuck Andress' insanely high action once. My #1 bass for the last 25 years came from him too. Warmouth parts mostly.

Back in the 70s, Hedges would set up on the entrance patio of the Varsity Theatre and you could hear him for free. Tuck was my across the back fence neighbor in Menlo Park and I got to hear him a bunch out gardening in the back yard. Good times.

Ah... hence the handle 'Brick'

I'll definitely mention you next time I go in; it will be fun to see the "what the heck ?!" look as he wonders how I would 'know' you , having only met him recently, here in NM

Gypsyblue · #9 09-03-2015, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br1ck

Went to his house once and his living room was wall to wall guitars. Must have been a hundred, and he had Hi Watt amps stacked head high. Must have been seven or eight.

I take it he's unmarried.

Br1ck · #10 09-03-2015, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gypsyblue

I take it he's unmarried.

He had a girl friend at the time. His living room had a couch and TV in the middle, guitars and amps lining the walls.

I used to hang out at Gryphon every Monday after work in the days you could still grab anything out of the display cabinets. Now you have to ask, but I understand as many was the time I had to point out damage to Richard from jerks with no regard for the merchandise. Gryphon is still a great place, but Bill had to deal with all the electric guitar people. I remember one guy was going ballistic on him. Brought what he thought was a 58 Telecaster for an appraisal. The neck, and pot codes indicated it was a 59. The guy insisted he got it in 58 for his 12th birthday and was raging when Bill wouldn't change the appraisal to indicate it was a 58.

Another time a guy brought in a Les Paul he thought was defective because he could pull the knobs right off. Man, just when you think owing a guitar shop would be cool......

D. Shelton · #11 09-03-2015, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br1ck

He had a girl friend at the time. His living room had a couch and TV in the middle, guitars and amps lining the walls.

I used to hang out at Gryphon every Monday after work in the days you could still grab anything out of the display cabinets. Now you have to ask, but I understand as many was the time I had to point out damage to Richard from jerks with no regard for the merchandise. Gryphon is still a great place, but Bill had to deal with all the electric guitar people. I remember one guy was going ballistic on him. Brought what he thought was a 58 Telecaster for an appraisal. The neck, and pot codes indicated it was a 59. The guy insisted he got it in 58 for his 12th birthday and was raging when Bill wouldn't change the appraisal to indicate it was a 58.

Another time a guy brought in a Les Paul he thought was defective because he could pull the knobs right off. Man, just when you think owing a guitar shop would be cool......

Dealing with people can be bearable when you're doing what you love .
I'm going to have to ask how/why he ended up here in the Land of Entrapment .There was a void after Encore Music (where I got my Lowden) died . Guitar sales has been overtaken by you-know-who. I don't keep good track, but I think there may only be one tiny little high-end shop , if Stan is still there . The city was probably in need of a good tech/repair man , and boy, it got one.

I'm lucky in that almost all 'my people' understand that I will always know more about what I'm doing than they do (making of a certain type of obscure tool ) , so I don't the kind of flak you just described .

GGinMP · #12 09-04-2015, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br1ck

Say hi from Brick next time you are in. Bill is a great guy, and you just got to admire a dude with a stratocaster tatooed on his arm. I still have an old black tele I got from him. No one is a greater authority on electric vintage guitars. Went to his house once and his living room was wall to wall guitars. Must have been a hundred, and he had Hi Watt amps stacked head high. Must have been seven or eight. Gryphon isn't the same.

He would bring out fun stuff they were working on to show me. Got a look at Tuck Andress' insanely high action once. My #1 bass for the last 25 years came from him too. Warmouth parts mostly.

Back in the 70s, Hedges would set up on the entrance patio of the Varsity Theatre and you could hear him for free. Tuck was my across the back fence neighbor in Menlo Park and I got to hear him a bunch out gardening in the back yard. Good times.

Great stories! Gryphon's been my go-to local shop since 1990.

Br1ck · #13 09-04-2015, 02:53 PM

Don't know for sure, but probably the high cost of living in the Bay Area got to Bill. These days I keep hearing of 50% rent increases. This has gone on for decades. Hard for anyone to have commercial space and earn a living here.

D. Shelton · #14 09-04-2015, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br1ck

Don't know for sure, but probably the high cost of living in the Bay Area got to Bill. These days I keep hearing of 50% rent increases. This has gone on for decades. Hard for anyone to have commercial space and earn a living here.

Makes sense; this is a cheap state to live in .