I love Pedals

They're addictive, colorful, and sometimes electrocute you. Guitar Pedals Rule.

I wish I had more. I love to look, to touch, even though I know these have been on some of the dirtiest stages in NYC. The grit just feels right.

My son routinely drops my bowl of picks (a scratched beatles record my sister-in-law baked into a bowl) onto the floor. All my picks are gritty. That's the way it is.

Another, Father-Son exercise I've come up with is creating a pedal train and letting my son attack the knobs. He generally stays away from Flanger and Phaser. It may be the fact that my delay pedal is blue or its hypnotic sound, but he always wants my old Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay PS-3 Boss pedal. Actually this isn't even my original. That had been lost years ago. I actually got it on Ebay to replace it and it cost me almost 3 times as much as I spent initially.

Anyway, he always gets bored with the pedals especially once I'm into it. He knows where all the gain/volume knobs are, knows he's not supposed to touch them, because of his little ears. And he just cranks it every time he gets a change. I know my wife is going to kill me, but he's a little Lemmy.

Who am I to hold him back?

Bringing Home the Bacon

In times of Recession, we are the first on the chopping block:

That good-looking 20 something in accounting who rocks out on the weekends.

Keeping your job or finding one right now is like running a marathon with a midget on your back choking you. Or at least, that's how it can feel.

The point is, father's all over are losing their jobs left and right. Many under 35 lack the seniority to hold onto their jobs (like young teachers) while budget cuts take effect. For many of us it's hard, but as Dad's we have the responsibility of an entire family in our hands which can be extreme.

The only advice I can give is what I do: work harder and longer than anyone else. If musicians, and creative people for that matter, want respect they're going to have to work harder than professions with established respect. For those of us who work oodles of jobs each given year, 2e have to be able switch hats fluidly while skimping on sleep. (Tax time is a nightmare). I can recall working all-nighters at a club, evenings catering, and recording an album during the daylight hours. I don't remember sleeping much.

But that's our gig. That's what a Dad does. When all else fails, when there's nothing that can be done, Dad walks 30 miles to town for a working telephone, or carries his wife down a mountain so they can drive her to the hospital, or works 2 jobs to make sure there's something in the bank when college applications go out.

That's the gig.

And the sooner we throw our shoulders to the wheel, the better it'll feel being a dad, an accountant or a rockstar. There'll all the same.

And the larger the load you'll carry, the easier it will be to bring home the bacon.