Don’t take that tone with me

I recently had the pleasure of recording a CD for classical guitarist David Brandon. David is one of the finest guitarists in the country. He was a student of Adrés Segovia and Christopher Parkening, toured an recorded with Parkening for many years, has recorded with Julie Andrews, and runs one of the most successful teaching studios in the country. He is also long-term friend.

I was the first assistant that David ever hired at his teaching studio and I taught for him for 11 years. He was a mentor to me and gave me the chance to start a musical career. So you can imagine how honored I was when David asked me to record his first solo album.

The CD features 17 original pieces that have never been recorded. As a matter of fact, it’s his life’s work (and for those of you that have heard him, yes, Country Jamboree is on there!). I had heard these pieces as a kid when I studied under him and, later, when I taught for him. What a thrill to get to work on the project!

In the coming weeks, I will detail how we created David’s unique sound on the CD. By the way, if you don’t have it, you can purchase it here. Cheers.

Tonight I had the pleasure of playing with one of my favorite songwriters Daniel Markham. I produced Daniel’s first album for his former band Waiting to Derail. If you don’t have the CD, you should buy it. And I don’t say that just because I was involved. I think Daniel is a truly gifted writer and there are just some great songs on it. And I am proud of that record. It’s not hard to make a good CD when you have a great musician and gifted songwriter to record.

It was really a pleasure to get to play with Daniel in a real minimalist setting. And it was a challenge to play musically since I’ve been off of the live circuit for a while (Amy and I are building a new project right now… retooling seems to take forever). The last tune was a nod to Pink Floyd so I had a blast pulling out my best David Gilmour. Gilmour is hands down my favorite guitarist of all time. He uses so much negative space… and every lick is a brilliant gem. Something I never seem to attain.

Daniel finished the night by performing a reunion set with his former bandmates from Waiting to Derail. It was magical. They have such a great vibe. For those of you who were not there, this is probably the last time they’ll be together. It was bittersweet, because I really love that band. But at least I got to be there.

I spent Sun. through Wed. working with Bobby Bookout in Austin. We’re in pre-production for his album, so it’s time to make sure all his songs are in shape and ready to be recorded. We developed several new arrangements and edited/tweaked six of his new songs. It seems the most you can do in a day is arranging 2 songs. It was a productive week. Travis and Paul’s studio rocks. They’ve got a nice large room that sounds really great. And they are super laid back and easy to work with. They introduced my to Sufjan Stevens. Great stuff. I also had a chance to jam with Keenan LeVick and Cale Richardson. Good times.

I’m headed to Austin this week to begin working on the Bobby Bookout record. He’s a great singer and songwriter as well a generally cool cat. We’ve got some great musicians playing on the record. Cale Richardson, formerly of Honey Browne, (now with the Rich O’Toole Band) will be playing some guitar, along with yours truly. Quentin Clendenen will be on drums and Travis Kennedy will be co-producing with me. We’ll do a week of pre-production to start out. I hope to catch a couple of old friends while I’m in town, too.

Ever since I was a kid, I was turned on by album art… Those great album covers of the past (Zep - Physical Graffiti, Kiss- Rock and Roll Over and Triumph - Just a Game are a few of my favorites) were like a window into a new world for me. It was because of a TV ad for a record store in Shreveport, Louisiana, that I began my musical and artistic journey. The album covers started hitting the screen and I was blown away. I made my dad take me to the record store and I bought a Kiss album. It was all over.

I decided I wanted to be a guitarist. And I wanted to make album covers. Both came true. I get the pleasure of creating art for some great musicians, most of which are up-and-coming. The latest projects I’ve completed are an album cover for new artist Andy Eppler and a website for country music hall-of-famer Johnny Lee.

Andy is a fantastic singer-songwriter I met while teaching at South Plains College. He has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard and is a massively prolific writer. He even decided to release 6 albums in 6 months once… and he did. They were home-done jobs, but the fire was there.

I had the pleasure of recording Andy for some of his latest CD and I did his cover. Here are some samples of the art we went with. By the way, you can find him on iTunes or visit his site to purchase his CD.

I ended up using about 150 layers in Photoshop on the outside of the booklet. Each photo (taken by my Chief Engineer Ben Mercado) had to be knocked out (they were originally on a black background) and was heavily treated. Ben took the photos at multiple angles which allowed my to place Andy in the depth of field easily.

The photos were taken outdoors and the sunlight washed them out a little. I used color burn, screen and multiply, along with various levels of opacity to create a stark, vintage, Pink Floydian look for the photos.

Here is a sample of what I did in Photoshop for those of you who like to look at how I treated the layers: Andy’s photo layers.

The background came from a painting Andy had done that we took a photo of when it was backlit by sunlight. That allowed us to capture a greater amount of brush strokes. We took the picture in my dining room. Then I altered the color.

I added the dirt from a photo of a West Texas road. The flower pots actually sit in front of my studio. And that was it. About 40 hours later we had a cover. To see more of my work, visit my gallery. Peace.

Happy 4th of July! Last night I had the pleasure of getting together with my guitar buddy Scott McCraw at my studio to try out his new Garnet Herzog preamp. Designed by Gar Gillies, the Herzog came to fame in the mid-60s when Randy Bachman (The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive) discovered a new tone recipe. Randy would plug the output of a small amp into the front end of a larger amp. This produced a fantastic tone, but the output of the smaller amp would obviously blow the larger one.

Gar would repair Randy’s amps and finally asked why he kept blowing them up. He offered to build Randy a unit that would do the same thing in a safer way. The Herzog was born. Most recently, it has been used by Gordie Johnson of Grady and Big Sugar fame.

We tested the Garnet Herzog using Scott’s Strat (2 humbuckers), my strat (single coils) and an ‘88 PRS through a Marshall 1987x 50 watt, a THD Bi-Valve and a Bogner Ecstacy 101B on a ‘68 Marshall 4×12 (with celestion 85 watters) and a Bogner 4×12 with Celestion 25 watt green backs (yes, the Bogner logo has been modified slightly).

Man, this thing smokes. Scott & I played ungodly loud! This thing smacks the front of the amp hard. In my experience, that’s one of the secrets to good tone… especially with a non-master volume Marshall. The 87x is a ’80s attempt to recreate the Mashall Plexi. Great amp with that Marshall punch, but you’ve to smack the front end to really make it growl. The Garnet does this better than anything else I’ve heard. I used to use a Real Tube or a Carl Martin Hot Drive ‘n boost. Both sound great on the front of the Marshall. But the Garnet completely takes the prize.

My buddy’s Bi-Valve is a stunning amp. It’s on of the most unique tones I’ve ever heard. With the Herzog in front of it, it turns into a fire-breathing dragon.


Next up, the Bogner. And this is where my mind was blown. On the other amps, we ran them hot, loud and distorted. On the Bogner, we tried the Herzog on the clean channel first. It sounds incredible. Fat and rich. And it reacts like a tube amp driven hard into distortion. It is a tube preamp, but I’ve never found ANY preamp that you could put in-line with an amp that reacted right. Distortions or preamps in line always seem to limit the dynamics of the amp (like putting a compressor in the chain). The amp response curve changes drastically or goes away completely. Not with the Herzog. Turn it down… play softer… it just feels right.

The Herzog is a holy grail of tone. I could see it being used to smack any good amp to get more out of it or use it with an optional footswitch on a clean amp. For recording, I can’t wait to try thing thing on a voice or drums. Wow. I have to have one.