Been making good progress in the Rangemaster Treble Booster clone. I love the smell of solder in the morning, smells like.... TONE. heh! But it has an annoying sizzle/crackle to it that does not sound so good. Shit, will be trouble shooting it today.

Last night met up with Ryan13 and Jrab (King's X bass and drum techs). Goddamn good to see those guys. They had just gotten done with RAZR 13 band practice, prepping for their CD release @ the Dirty Dog on Nov 20th. Dug Pinnick sang on the record and will be singing that night. Looking forward to it! But yeah, so good to see them. Was on the phone with Ryan when Jrab got on and said "Quit sleeping in your bunk, we gotta load!" HA, bastard.

Hung at Click's on E Oltorf and played darts and pool over beers and smack talk. Those guys are definitely my brothers man. There's a comaraderie you get from being packed in a sardine can for weeks at a time, having to haul large amounts of other peoples' gear every day no matter your mental/physical state, if you are hungover or hungry, but getting it done every single time. Teamwork. Busting our asses all day together, then partying our asses off all night. Good times. I actually beat Jrab at pool which was surprising. But I always use my same strategy: let my opponent get down to one ball to lure them into a false sense of security and then make my "move," which is try like hell to come from behind before I totally get my ass kicked!. It actually worked this time.

Earlier that day made the run up north to Emmis Radio building to pick up the Adrian and the Sickness 'BFD' CD that I won Tuesday night. And oh my God it sounds amazing. SO proud of those ladies, they made one hell of an album. Will try my damndest to get out of Maggie Mae's early Saturday night to catch the end of their CD release at Momo's. Haven't seen them in awhile anyway, but would like to personally congratulate them all on such a job well done. Hope they make a million dollars, they have earned it!

Tonight I am torn on: Fu Manchu/Lions at Red 7, or the Doug Sahm tribute at Antone's...

* Have never seen Fu Manchu live, and wanted to catch up with bassist Brad Davis a bit since I built him a pedalboard last fall which he traded for a Sticky Fingers (his pedal company) Hari Kiri fuzz. Maybe I can wrangle a guestlist spot from him, will shoot him a text. That and haven't seen Lions in forever and they've been doing very well for themselves.

* But I feel compelled to do the Doug Sahm tribute, as I play guitar for his son Shandon. Shandon won't be in town, he is on tour with the Meat Puppets. Had he been in town we prolly would have played a few tunes. But Jimmie Vaughan (older brother to SRV) is playing along with an all-star cast. Would be awesome to pay my respects to Sir Doug and see a great show as well. Guestlist spot would be highly unlikely, and this show is probably way more expensive than Fu Manchu...

Decisions, decisions...