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.
