I have always written music on my downtime. But I noticed a trend involving all of my sound recordings during Covid: they’re weird. Very minimalist, but also heavily effected.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but all these sounds caught a glimpse of my state of mind during all the stages of this pandemic. After I listened back to some of them, I realized I needed to develop these ideas further. These short YouTube videos are my way of documenting said sounds for a possible future project.
I got together with some friends and played a jazz gig in West Hollywood, back in February. This is a welcomed change of pace for me, I am always rocking out! Who knows? Maybe you'll see us playing on a lounge near you some time in the future.
I finally got to upload some footage from it. It's a little dark, but the audio is very good!
Part of our set, live at State Social House, in West Hollywood, CA.
The Whiskey Sour Notes:
Laura Serafine (Vocals), Austin Underhill (Bass), Travis Drum (Drums) and Aron Ortega (Guitar).
I got a little creative with some filters while editing this video. It's just me trying to be melodic and putting this guitar through its paces. It blended incredibly well with my rig. It's like I am meant to keep it!!!
Anyway, I bought an eBow a while back, but I haven't really had the chance to use it. This backing track reminded so much of a Steven Wilson song, called "Drive Home". For that song's solo, Guthrie Govan uses a guitar fitted with a Sustainer, which does what the eBow does (sustain notes infinitely), but it's installed inside the guitar. You don't need to use one hand to hold the unit next to the strings. This gives you more freedom to play.
I love that record, so I figured I'll noodle over a track with that note sustaining idea in mind.
I am really digging this guitar. It is basically flawless. I had forgotten how fun Strats can be!
I noticed I didn't use the whammy bar at all on my first review video. While not a full locking tremolo, this bridge is very stable and the locking tuners provide great tuning stability. Soloing to some tracks, while testing the whammy bar and the SSV bridge pickup.
