I'm having an affair with a Les Paul Custom. I feel guilty about it, like I'm cheating on the Stratocaster.
The Stratocaster is svelte, versatile and reliable. But the LP has a seductive, voluptuous quality that’s really turning me on.
The Stratocaster has a slim, easy-to-finger neck. The LP has a fatter, bigger neck, but it’s strings are pliant and very receptive to aggressive bending. It also has incredible sustain.
The Stratocaster is easier to control. The volume knob fits nicely under your little finger; the pickups don’t give you too much output. The LP is harder to manage, and at times it spits out too much signal, almost to the point being completely unclear.
I can’t imagine leaving the Stratocaster, but I feel good when I’ve got the LP hanging around my neck. It makes me feel like a new man. And I get to thinking, in a way maybe the LP helps me reach my full potential...
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
I think I heard some wailing in the vicinity of Brewery Creek yesterday. I think it was Super Robertson, singing a variation of a line in ‘Pinball Wizard;’ “I just handed my postering crown to Stoke.” Or more specifically to Smash. All along Broadway I watched as passersby stopped to read the Stokespeak on the latest wave of advertising.
There is talk at city hall of bringing in tough new bylaws to deal with illicit postering. Toronto has just done so. Part of their initiative includes placing a number of new circular ‘poster holders,’ or whatever the fuck they’re called, around existing light poles so that posterers will have some more space to work with.
Of course this is horseshit. Any posterer worthy of the name targets not just neighbourhoods, but also specific shops, buildings and even events. In Stoke’s case, GM Place when a Rush concert is on, or Scrape records, or the Pic Pub. (This time I’ve been waging a fierce battle for space on a pole outside the Yale. The band we open for on Saturday are virtually a Yale house band, so it’s an obvious target.)
In this city, a guy named Izzy Asper owns both major newspapers, a radio station, and the television station with the highest ratings. Buying advertising, even the tiniest classified, in his papers costs hundreds. Asper is a well-known contributer to certain political parties, some affiliated with local politicians. Putting my conspiracy theory cap on, it looks like he helps people get elected who in turn block off avenues of do-it-yourself advertising, which in turn gives him an even bigger monopoly on the local advertising market.
Even free, independent local papers charge big money for advertising, making it more economical by far, even factoring in copying and labour, to simply go around and poster. No legislation or bylaw will change this economic reality.
It’s not very good for the environment, though, all that paper being used. But it does have the age-old feel of freedom of expression to it. Postering and pampleteering have accompanied most of the major democratic and social breakthroughs in the Western World since the printing press was invented.
Stoke posters usually vary. I design most of them. One of my favorites features a Zippo lighter. The lid of the lighter is open, and a stylish, hot-roddish flame is flickering up out of it. Etched onto the lighter is the image of a Fender Stratocaster. I was going to use this as the signature Stoke poster, but Smash recently offered me a piece of advice: “For future reference - posters with the lighters are cool, but posters with chicks work best.”
I have a lot of posters with chicks too, but I’ve been getting increasingly concerned that they’re too exploitative.
The thing is, I usually choose images that suggest a ‘vintage’ sort of vibe, a blend of the early 1960s (when Rock was down and out, but about to mount a comeback) and the early 1970s (the almost excessively triumphalist era of rock, when musclecars blasted out the latest Sabbath riffs). To me even the name ‘Stoke’ is a throwback to the surf rock of the early 60s. I think I’ve already mentioned that it comes from a Beach Boys instrumental, but it could easily be the title of a pulp novel, or the name of some low budget street/surf gang film.
To convey this vibe, I go for trashy, pop culture images. Covers of pulp novels are a favorite (they have yielded some song titles too; ‘Love Addict’ and ‘Hotrod Sinner’ for example). Hotrod pinups are another good source of imagery. Lately I’ve found that old record sleeves, especially of albums done by crooners of yesteryear like Englebert Humperdinck, offer an endless supply of ‘vinyl vixens’ to choose from.
The look of a pulp novel, or an old record sleeve, or a pinup poster, conveys some of what I’m going for in itself. But having a woman in the picture helps too, and not for the reasons that Smash thinks. Because women’s fashions and hairstyles change often, and are more easily linked to specific eras, pictures of women nicely convey the period they come from.
As for how women react to these things, as Super Robertson recently said: "Sometimes you just put these things out there and wait for the bullet." Women often seem (to me, anyway) obsessed with looking at other women. So maybe these posters garner more female attention than male attention. Maybe they're just an object of curiosity, and convey the style more than the sexual content. Or maybe they’re offensive. I’d be interested to get some feedback but, er, I can’t get the guestbook to work. Oh well.
And the irony of the whole thing is that whenever Smash does his own posters, they never have women in them. They always include pictures of himself.
There is talk at city hall of bringing in tough new bylaws to deal with illicit postering. Toronto has just done so. Part of their initiative includes placing a number of new circular ‘poster holders,’ or whatever the fuck they’re called, around existing light poles so that posterers will have some more space to work with.
Of course this is horseshit. Any posterer worthy of the name targets not just neighbourhoods, but also specific shops, buildings and even events. In Stoke’s case, GM Place when a Rush concert is on, or Scrape records, or the Pic Pub. (This time I’ve been waging a fierce battle for space on a pole outside the Yale. The band we open for on Saturday are virtually a Yale house band, so it’s an obvious target.)
In this city, a guy named Izzy Asper owns both major newspapers, a radio station, and the television station with the highest ratings. Buying advertising, even the tiniest classified, in his papers costs hundreds. Asper is a well-known contributer to certain political parties, some affiliated with local politicians. Putting my conspiracy theory cap on, it looks like he helps people get elected who in turn block off avenues of do-it-yourself advertising, which in turn gives him an even bigger monopoly on the local advertising market.
Even free, independent local papers charge big money for advertising, making it more economical by far, even factoring in copying and labour, to simply go around and poster. No legislation or bylaw will change this economic reality.
It’s not very good for the environment, though, all that paper being used. But it does have the age-old feel of freedom of expression to it. Postering and pampleteering have accompanied most of the major democratic and social breakthroughs in the Western World since the printing press was invented.
Stoke posters usually vary. I design most of them. One of my favorites features a Zippo lighter. The lid of the lighter is open, and a stylish, hot-roddish flame is flickering up out of it. Etched onto the lighter is the image of a Fender Stratocaster. I was going to use this as the signature Stoke poster, but Smash recently offered me a piece of advice: “For future reference - posters with the lighters are cool, but posters with chicks work best.”
I have a lot of posters with chicks too, but I’ve been getting increasingly concerned that they’re too exploitative.
The thing is, I usually choose images that suggest a ‘vintage’ sort of vibe, a blend of the early 1960s (when Rock was down and out, but about to mount a comeback) and the early 1970s (the almost excessively triumphalist era of rock, when musclecars blasted out the latest Sabbath riffs). To me even the name ‘Stoke’ is a throwback to the surf rock of the early 60s. I think I’ve already mentioned that it comes from a Beach Boys instrumental, but it could easily be the title of a pulp novel, or the name of some low budget street/surf gang film.
To convey this vibe, I go for trashy, pop culture images. Covers of pulp novels are a favorite (they have yielded some song titles too; ‘Love Addict’ and ‘Hotrod Sinner’ for example). Hotrod pinups are another good source of imagery. Lately I’ve found that old record sleeves, especially of albums done by crooners of yesteryear like Englebert Humperdinck, offer an endless supply of ‘vinyl vixens’ to choose from.
The look of a pulp novel, or an old record sleeve, or a pinup poster, conveys some of what I’m going for in itself. But having a woman in the picture helps too, and not for the reasons that Smash thinks. Because women’s fashions and hairstyles change often, and are more easily linked to specific eras, pictures of women nicely convey the period they come from.
As for how women react to these things, as Super Robertson recently said: "Sometimes you just put these things out there and wait for the bullet." Women often seem (to me, anyway) obsessed with looking at other women. So maybe these posters garner more female attention than male attention. Maybe they're just an object of curiosity, and convey the style more than the sexual content. Or maybe they’re offensive. I’d be interested to get some feedback but, er, I can’t get the guestbook to work. Oh well.
And the irony of the whole thing is that whenever Smash does his own posters, they never have women in them. They always include pictures of himself.
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