October Surprise

So, after coming back from Hawai’i with Exhumed and playing a one off with Impaled at the California Death Fest pre-fest show one day later, I had less than a week to make preparations; it was time for the slack-jawed hooded menaces to once again hit the road and for some good old fashioned monster-on-monster crime. This was to be immediately followed by another short Halloween run with Exhumed. FML.

Our first gig was at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. I’ve played here twice with Exhumed before, once with Revocation. The other time was my very first show with Exhumed in the 1990s where I happened to give myself a nasty little scar on my chest by cutting myself, purposefully, on stage, in a moment of extreme edge-lord-ness. Don’t let your babies grow up to be edge-lords.

Continue reading “October Surprise”

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

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.

no, i’ll never clean the blood off

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.

Continue reading “Pissing on Active Electronics (downgrading my GB-4 bass to passive)”