Stratozen vol. i: The Balanced Forces Of String and Sprang
Just as the Stratozen appears when the sun is highest in the sky, on the day when there is equal work-week both before and after, you must have balance in all aspects of your life.
You must balance thy drinking by going to Happy Hour on Monday as well as Friday. Just as you must balance thy boozing, you must also balance the ancient powers of String and Sprang.
After a deeply spiritual rocking experience, or after a set-up ritual to the bridge and tremolo chakras, especially the addition of more springs resulting in an increase in Sprang, but in a decrease in Sprang for each individual spring, you may find that using your whammy bar makes your ax creak and squeak.
Should you find yourself in such an unbalanced squeaky-sqwuaky state, try a clockwise rotation of the trem claw screws to increase your individual spring Sprang and reduce the creak-n’-squeak.
Only when the forces of String and Sprang are balanced can your rock & roll soul experience true squeekless Whammage and creakless divebombing freedom.
Go forth, my sons, and use this knowledge of the String and Sprang wisely.
2008 Rock Resolution Project
I’ve never been big on the idea of New Year’s resolutions, but I figured that this year, rather than half-assed attempts at giving up the any of the vices I hold so near and dear, I though I’d come up with a few Rock Resolutions that I both both want to and can attain:
I’m still sketching out my goals for where I want to be in a year, but a few points I’ve got down so far are:
- Learn to play Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Texas Flood‘ album in it’s entirety.
- Stop relying on my eyes to tell me where I am on the neck.
- Work on a solo/semi-solo (myself and a drummer) act for gigs. Dealing with bands has been such a pain in the ass this semester that I’m just going to get something together myself, and grow from there.
- Quit wasting all those fingers on my right hand and start puttin’ em to use.
As far as the Mad Stratter, my goals so far are to maintain a few steady, weekly columns:
- <hype machine> ‘Monday Morning Mojo’.
- Every Wednesday, bringing you to peace and tranquility through the power of ‘Stratozen’ .
- ‘Stratosphere Weekly’ every Friday, rounding up the happenings of the Stratocaster world, and covering the nuts & bolts stuff like set-up, hot-rodding and the like.</hype machine>
What are some of your Rock Resolutions for 2008? What suggestions do you have for me for the Mad Stratter website? For JP, Jason, Cary, IG and the rest of you brave pioneers of the guitar interwebs, what can we look forward to from your axe’s and your dubyadubyadubyadotcoms in the next year?
Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom
Thought typically a faithful D’Addario man, I’ve made a switch, atleast for the time being, to Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom
These strings, gauged .010, .013, .017, .030, .042 and .052, give me awesome slinkage for maximum bendiness, while preserving that fat chunkocity I’ve come to love .013 gauge D’Addarios for.
My only complaint is the unwound third, but I’m slowly getting used to that. That, and the fact that I stopped earning D’addario Players Points when I switched… and I’m only 3 sets of strings away from getting this pint glass!
Fender Brings Us A Little Bit of Texas
It’s been reported around the guitar blogosphere that Fender has reissued the Lone Star Stratocaster and the Roadhouse Stratocaster. Both Strats are available in Black, Arctic White, or for an extra $50, that sexy Sunburst you see to the left.
Both of the axes give you that fat Texas tone with Texas Special pickups in the neck and middle positions. While the Lone Star gives you a Pearly Gates humbucker in the bridge, the Roadhouse Strat rounds it out with another Texas Special. Both guitars feature a 6-point Vintage style tremolo, 4-ply brown shell pickguard and 21 Medium Jumbo frets.
While the Roadhouse is equipped with a one-piece maple neck for the Texas Twang, the Lone Star has a rosewood fingerboard to better emulate that defining Strato-Texan’s main squeeze (both have the standard modern 9.5″ fingerboard radius).
$550 will buy you your choice of these beauties in black or white, and an even $600 gets you that gorgeous sunburst. Now if only Fender didn’t coat these fine hunks of Alder with a quarter-inch of polyurethane, you could have yourself a nice DIY Number One replica for about half the price.
What If Pfizer Bought Fender?
It happened once, in 1965, when CBS bought Fender and our beloved Stratocaster… But what would happen if Fender was sold again, this time to Pfizer? Someone over at FreakingNews.com drew up a schematic:
A little bit of a different twist on the Wangcaster concept, huh?
Be sure to check out the DeWalt Stratocaster too… imagine, a guitar that you could use to build another guitar.
