Doktor Ross Sewage

Ludicra Revisited Part 1

2023/07/102023/07/10 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Last year, Ludicra, the rock band that forgot it was a black metal band, reunited. It was at the North West Terror Fest in Seattle Washington. Later in the year, we played an emotional set reuniting in our Bay Area home playing Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA. Now, this past summer, we’ve managed to squeeze a little more life out of the husk by playing Saint Vitus in New York and the Oblivion Access Festival in Austin Texas. And we have at least three more shows left. Then, we’re done.

Some members are ready for the band to be over again. Others are not. But we’re agreeing to an end so that Ludicra can shuffle off this mortal coil in a more celebratory way than it did in the past. It was an ugly death full of acrimony and accusations that got drug out over the course of years. My previously close friendships with John and Aesop shattered and took years to recover. The way we ended in 2011, right after enjoying our first successful European tour with no goodbye never sat well with me.

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Fixing Latex Clothing

2023/01/282023/01/28 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Kind of an odd post for this blog, but music often includes theater and theater includes costumes. On the last Exhumed tour in 2022, I was fortunate enough to have my lovely girlfriend accompany us for three shows. At the last minute, our guitarist Baz remembered a photo shoot I had done with her featuring my teal “sexy nurse” GB-4 bass and my girlfriend in a sexy latex nurse costume she had from before we met. It just HAPPENED to be the exact same colors. I call it kismet. Anyway, he suggested we invite her on stage with us to perform with us and our own inimitable Dr. Philthy! It was a grand idea and she assented.

Latex clothing is a tricky beast. It needs to be tight but this can also make it difficult to put on. It doesn’t slide on like normal cotton, it’s got tack to it when applied to skin. While getting ready before our show in Philadelphia at Johnny Brenda’s, we moved a little too fast and undid some of the seams on the collar of the dress. The seams are glued, not sewn (obviously) and we were lucky we didn’t actually rip the latex. Also of some luck, our direct support had red duct tape that matched the collar’s piping so I was able to make a quick fix for the night and the show went on. This dress wasn’t cheap, though, so we needed to do a REAL fix. So, I learned how to fix latex clothing.

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Pissing on Active Electronics (downgrading my GB-4 bass to passive)

2022/05/162022/05/16 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

I hate active electronics. It’s not that they don’t serve a purpose, they just don’t serve a purpose for me. I play death metal and run everything through distortion, so actives are pretty pointless. I’m not looking for clarity in tone, I’m overdriving everything. Unfortunately, any new gear seems to be marketed with active preamps and pickups and a bunch of bullshit that’s going to fail on me. Such was the case with my OTHERWISE excellent LTD GB-4 bass guitar.

We went on tour in October of 2021 and this bass failed on me two separate times live (and in front of some lovely looking people i was trying to impress). The GB-4 comes with a Seymour Duncan STC-3M3 active tone circuit to compliment the passive Seymour Duncan SSB-4 soapbar humbuckers and it also eats batteries like a mother fucker. Once we’d figured that out after it died on me twice on stage, i was replacing batteries every 4-5 days. Also on stage, something happened to the active treble and bass combo knob, and i had to tape it in place so it wouldn’t crackle. Embarassing. I was done with it. This bullshit active electronics package was going to be ripped out and I was going to piss all over it.

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Operating Theater: Acoustic Model 220

2020/06/102020/08/26 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

A friend picked up this classic Acoustic Model 220 solid-state amp for cheap. It did not work. She figured it was worth the gamble of $50 to buy a non-functioning amp and see if she knew someone who could fix it. The call went up on Facebook for anyone willing to take a look and I answered it.

She had two amps, actually, for me to take a look at. The other was an Acoustic 370, another great piece of solid-state hardware. That one was easy; it had a cracked solder weld and was easily patched. This one was a little trickier. Considering the age of the amp, though, it was still easy and a testament to how durable these old solid-states really are.

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Foot Switchable iPhone Controller

2020/03/132020/08/26 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

This was a continuation of an idea from a very old post. I created a foot-switchable iPod controller for myself that incorporated a DI for easy sample playing on stage. A lot of people really liked it. One such person was Justin who plays in the band Ulthar and Veil. He asked me to cobble a simple version together for him, so I did.

I call it an “iPhone controller” now because who the fuck uses an iPod these days. Do they even make them anymore? I have mine, but… well whatever, the function of the circuit accomplishes the same goal: one stomp makes it play/pause, two stomps makes it go forward, three stomps makes it go back. For fuller details on how to build one, check out the details of the old post. To see the guts of this simpler version, read on.

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Intonating My New ESP LTD GB-4 Bass

2020/03/122020/08/26 Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

Membership has its privileges. I got a new LTD bass from ESP for playing in Exhumed. While I have a couple ESP basses, they are tuned to D for other bands. So, on the last Exhumed tour, I had to drag my old B.C. Rich Ironbird out of retirement because it was tuned to B standard (and looked cool). Exhumed is sponsored by ESP, though. That’s largely just because Matt Harvey is, like, you know… Matt Harvey. He pulled some strings and Tony at ESP made sure we’d all be repping proper for our upcoming tours.

Yeah, that’s the bass I chose. I like the body style a lot; it looks like a Fender P-bass and a Gibson Thunderbird got together and fucked. And yeah, I chose “seafoam” green, or as I like to call it, “doktor” green. Or as I also like to call it, “maybe this metal thing won’t pan out after playing for 26 years and I’d like something that wouldn’t look inappropriate covering dad-rock at a bar” green. In any case, it came tuned to E standard and I needed it in B. So in lieu of hiring someone to do it, I did my own down and dirty intonation on this bad boy.

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Making a Comic Book

2020/03/092020/08/26 Doktor Ross Sewage1 Comment

I made a comic book last year. This is the culmination of a dream I had since I was a child stapling together typing pages of scribbles. I ended up getting into music and playing in bands, but I never stopped wanting to make a comic book. After too many fucking years, I finally wrapped up band life and my old dream into one book, Kickstarted it, and successfully drew and printed this puppy.

It was extremely gratifying to go to a print shop and pick up copies of a comic book that I drew, laid out, and got printed all on my own. Physical copies are available here on my website, or if you prefer cheaper digital, I have them available for sale on comixology.com. But if you’re just interested in the process of creation…

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Add an Electrical Outlet to Your Amplifier

2020/01/052020/08/26 Doktor Ross Sewage1 Comment

In the ’60s and ’70s, it was not uncommon to find an extra power outlet on the back of your amp. I assume this was because live rock music was in its infancy and most theaters didn’t have a milk crate full of quad boxes and power strips to bring power to your multiple amps, reverb units, and bulky-ass Morley wah pedals. The extra outlet disappeared in the ’80s, which is a shame, because they can be so damn useful. I know, because my Ampeg V-4B and SVT have ones which I use all the time to plug in my pedals.

This is Sean’s Peavey XXX amp with an outlet I added. I did it because he likes to place his wireless on top of the amp and Sennheiser, in their infinite wisdom, made the power adapter cord 3′ long. It’s a pain in the ass to run an extension cord for a single DC power adapter, so the outlet makes things easier. I detailed how I did it in a post about fixing that amp. Another option is to get an IEC plug splitter like the one I wrote about before, but that’s just something extra to lose. Sean’s now got a signature Satriani XXX and he wanted it, too, to have the extra outlet. What a time to make a post dedicated to adding this long-lost convenience.

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