Background Inspiration - Shadowblinder

As promised, here is a bit of the inspiration for Shadowblinder, and a little update on the progress.

The Shadowblinder is my Ibanez Gio that I stripped and upgraded. I bought it as a project to see if I could take a shit guitar and make it something special. It wasn't an awful guitar but it was a cheap Chinese beginner model. The neck was straight and the fret wear wasn't too bad so all I needed was some new pickups, tuning machines, and a coat of paint.








Since the concept was to make a metal shit-kicking drop-tuned monster I chose Lace Sensor Drop and Gain pickups. These are made specially for way down tuned crunchy riffage and are fairly unique seeing as everyone rides Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio pickups for everything these days. The Lace pickups kill. Super tight, full frequency, and output for days.

I chose some Planet Waves auto trim tuners for the headstock. These are pretty neat. Besides the really nice 18:1 gear ratio, these tuners are a breeze to string up. There is no guessing about how much slack to put in the string, you just feed it in, lock it down, tune to pitch, and it snaps off excess string. Perfect every time. They are rock solid staying in tune as well.

In thinking up a name for this beast, I was thinking about some of the problems I was seeing all around me. In my work and in the world it seemed that too often, people were just dishonest. Hiding something, holding things back, folding the truth under layers of shade and darkness.

Being the huge fan of Robert Jordan that I am, I wanted something like what would be the name for one of the myths in his world. In The Wheel Of Time saga, the overarching fight is between the light and the dark. The dark lord has many names, one being Sightblinder. He is a taker of light. I wanted this guitar to be a bringer of light. A hero of truth, bane of darkness, the cure for the deceived. Shadowblinder was born.

Now, the song Shadowblinder has been a long time coming as is normal in my process. I think I first crossed some themes about four years ago with the line:

Shadowblinder light my eyes

A punch into a chorus. The Shadowblinder is one you can call on when facing down deception. It will help you see truth where it has been hidden and it will reveal to you the liars.

The most recent spate of inspiration was to imagine this being has sworn an oath. This piece was lingering near the surface. Originally I had wanted something like this painted on the guitar somewhere. Like Tom Morello's many guitars. A pledge to the light, to stand against lie and liar.

I will share the next iteration as it appears in my notes in its entirety and without much comment in a few days. I don't normally like to share and speak about works under construction as I feel it can purge the emotions I am feeding it.

Shadowblinder has taught me a few things. One is that in the rush to complete something, you should try to take your time or you will just barf out any stupid idea and run with it. Case in point: I was struggling to add something to the guitar like a pickguard. I found some neat grating that looks a bit like the Chaos Cross. I feel like the results are less than stellar. So it needs fixing. I've got a good idea, but my compulsion is to keep it secret until it is finished. As I mentioned above, sometimes speaking about it might feel too much like it is done to my mind and the motivation will be spent.

Often, I am reluctant to open up a project again for revision so long after I've named it complete. No longer. It may mean my process gets extended for great lengths, but if it serves the results better I should do it. I will explore this further when I present Gift Of Ravens, a short story that needs a new ending, and maybe a few small touches.

Further, this and these projects have showed me that learning is a very purpose based path for me. I learn far more when I cease practice for the sake of practice and focus on learning to clear a hurdle. For example, learning to solder so I can swap our some pickups, or learning how to use high gain clipping stacks and which amps and settings work with such effects so I can make the brutal riffs I require.

Come back soon for the aforementioned update to Shadowblinder. Follow the progress as I learn to combine several disciplines to achieve my goals.

Thanks for reading.