Who Wants Some Head

2024/05/17 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Sebastian from Exhumed was getting pretty tired of the same old spark guitar gag he was doing for the Exhumed set over the last few years. For our Decayed Decades tour, Matt suggested we bring back an old gag, the guillotine. Sebastian would solo, then Dr. Philthy would come out and behead him. Exhumed had done the guillotine bit with Bud, the old guitar player, years ago, but that severed head looked REALLY bad. I offered to make something a little bit better for Sebastian.

I had very little time to get this together between tours, so it was definitely done under a crunch. And there were a few missteps on the way to making this…

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Welcome to Hell – Exhumed with Venom, Inc.

2023/07/282023/07/28 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Immediately following the Ludicra shows in New York and Texas, I had agreed to a tour with Exhumed in late June 2023 opening for Venom. Well, I was cajoled into it. We’d been offered the gig after we’d made plans to go to Japan and Australia, and frankly, my time was growing thin. Matt was worried about our expenses for the overseas trips, however, so he talked me into it. And then they added days. My original plans to go home after Ludicra for a break were dashed. I had to go immediately from Austin to Dallas and meet up with these turkeys and start shows with zero in-person rehearsal.

Complicating things further was the absence of our actual drummer Mike Hamilton. He had asked for this time off to tech an Exodus tour and get some more face time with with his family. Our friend Adam Houmam of Cartilage had stepped in during the last show of our 2022 tour when Mike fell ill. The silly boy accidentally ate someone’s weed gummies because he didn’t ask and he understandably freaked out. Adam was actually able to play like six of our songs with 20 minutes notice. It was Mike’s suggestion to call him in to fill in and Adam was down. Without rehearsals, I was only going to find out how he played our songs live on stage!

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Bicolor LED switch on SIB! Varidrive

2019/03/312020/08/26 Doktor Ross Sewage2 Comments

The Varidrive by SIB! is a gnarly fully AC powered vacuum tube overdrive. It’s got a real analog growl, pushing that tube to the limits for real distortion.

For such a nicely engineered pedal, they forgot one thing: there’s zero indication when you’ve engaged the effect… I mean, other than screaming overdrive in your ears. But visually, ya got nothing, and during a hard core punk rock gig, it can sometimes be hard to tell. Luckily, SIB! already put an LED on their pedal to indicate it’s getting power. It’s not so hard to change that out for a bicolor LED to indicate power AND when the effect is engaged.

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Modify Apple’s MagSafe 2 into MagSafe 1

2018/12/18 Doktor Ross Sewage8 Comments

Apple Computer is such an annoying corporation. They make these tiny changes to their stupid cords because they expect all of us to be rich tech bros upgrading our shit constantly. Well, I’m a cheap skate and I’m still rocking a seven-year-old laptop. But I did lose my charger. It was a MagSafe 1 charger. You know what’s incredibly hard to find now? MagSafe 1 chargers. Well, it turns out MagSafe 2 is the same fucking thing, just slightly different in size.

I picked up this old charger off craigslist for $20. It was late, we met in front of a grocery store, and I didn’t realize it had the wrong end until I got home. Dammit. Do I call the guy back? Do I try and sell this one myself? Or do I fuck it all up on my own DIY like I always do? You can guess the answer.

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Vacation

2018/11/10 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Checkout in the shop will be closed for a few weeks as I’m going on vacation. It will be open again November 28-29, then closed again for a couple more weeks while I go on tour. It will open again December 16.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you want some art for holiday gifts, browse away for now and mark the dates. Keep in mind the time for shipping! Cheers.

70000 Tons of Gore Metal

2018/02/10 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Last year, Exhumed was invited to play the 2018 edition of the annual 70000 Tons of Metal cruise. I hadn’t played with Exhumed in almost a full year’s time while their former bass player, Matt Slime, filled-in for me. He’s logged in more time playing with Exhumed than I have since “replacing” him. I actually did offer Exhumed to take Slime in my stead, because a nice cruise seemed like it would be a good reward for hard work. Well, they insisted I go and I got to enjoy my second 70000 Tons.

I played the boat two years ago with my fellow hooded cannibals. It was a wild ride. We’re obviously not the main kind of draw that the cruise has, it being mostly populated with power metal bands from Europe. They do get a few good death and thrash bands to even things out a bit for the attendees who like something more than just songs about ale and vikings on long boats.

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Travels Through Carcass Country Part 2

2016/08/10 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

We stepped out of the van into the Albuquerque sun behind the aptly named Sunshine Theater. Instantly, I could feel the carcinogens forming in my skin. This place was dastardly hot. The only place to unload our gear was currently baking in the open sunlight, so we opted to leave loading until we could find shade for our multitude of meltable props. Sean and I headed in an Uber to Home Depot and picked up more crap to fix all our broken hardware. We came, we played, we got paid, we were on our way for a two-day drive to Memphis. Until…

We were flagged down on the road by a woman pointing at our front left tire. I pulled off to the next rest stop and had a look. The rubber had quite literally been baked off the steel-belt of the tire, likely by the amazing New Mexico heat the day before. We avoided a blow out, but we did’t avoid being flummoxed by the lack of a tire iron in our rented van.

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Logarithmic Fades, Linearly Speaking

2014/02/072014/06/28 Doktor Ross Sewage4 Comments

I had a very frustrating conversation the other day about a fade out on a song. I thought it sounded too fast. To me, it sounded very linear. I was trying to explain it should be a logarithmic fade out. Sarcastically, I was told I should teach a class on the subject if I flippin’ knew so much. So fuck it, class is in session. When speaking about audio, what does one mean when using the terms “linear” and “logarithmic?”

linear_v_logarithm — Nothing draws readers in like math!

For a linear fade out, a linear equation of the dB decrease could be shown simply as y=e*x+dB, where e is a negative number. That’s a straight line heading downward. When speaking about “logarithms” in audio applications, though, it’s actually describing several things: exponential and logarithmic curves, and their reverse functions. For a “logarithmic” fade out, the function would be y=e^x*dB, where e is a number between 0 and 1; that is an exponential function showing decay. For fade ups, the function can be reversed to y=e^x/dB to show an exponential increase in volume. Fucking confused, yet? YES!*

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