Thursday, January 21, 2010
Feedback is Holy Feedback is holy and I can’t wait to join others in worship.  After a year of not playing live, I have a couple shows coming up.  And I’m stoked.  My band Richard Bitch is resurrected with some new and returning members to play the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco on Thursday, March 18.  The next month we’ll play Hotel Utah in San Francisco. What’s in store?  Well, loud guitar.  And, of course, feedback.  I just had the idea yesterday to start writing about guitars, amps and playing.  It’s easy to get into the gearhead stuff, and I certainly will.  My more abstract ideas and feelings surrounding playing are more difficult for me to express.  I thought I’d start with the toughest and most preposterous of all - my ideas about feedback. Feedback feels like ghosts to me.  I get a very spooky feeling when I grab some gain and begin the process of calling the spirits - usually putting the volume right on the cusp of feeding back, then coaxing out the oscillation by slowly moving the whammy bar and letting the strings begin to vibrate.  Initiating that crosstalk between the amp, the guitar pickups and some delay is like conjuring a wind that begins to compound.  Teasing in and out of that layering by standing at different angles to the amp or bringing volume down then back up is just one of my favorite things to do.  I feel like I’m channeling ghosts of notes, melodies and feelings.  Feedback is spooked-out holy shit!!

Feedback is Holy

Feedback is holy and I can’t wait to join others in worship.  After a year of not playing live, I have a couple shows coming up.  And I’m stoked. 

My band Richard Bitch is resurrected with some new and returning members to play the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco on Thursday, March 18.  The next month we’ll play Hotel Utah in San Francisco.

What’s in store?  Well, loud guitar.  And, of course, feedback.  I just had the idea yesterday to start writing about guitars, amps and playing.  It’s easy to get into the gearhead stuff, and I certainly will.  My more abstract ideas and feelings surrounding playing are more difficult for me to express.  I thought I’d start with the toughest and most preposterous of all - my ideas about feedback.

Feedback feels like ghosts to me.  I get a very spooky feeling when I grab some gain and begin the process of calling the spirits - usually putting the volume right on the cusp of feeding back, then coaxing out the oscillation by slowly moving the whammy bar and letting the strings begin to vibrate.  Initiating that crosstalk between the amp, the guitar pickups and some delay is like conjuring a wind that begins to compound.  Teasing in and out of that layering by standing at different angles to the amp or bringing volume down then back up is just one of my favorite things to do.  I feel like I’m channeling ghosts of notes, melodies and feelings.  Feedback is spooked-out holy shit!!

Posted at 2:22 PM Tags: guitar music psychedelia psychedelic richard bitch feedback