Yeah, L.A. is reminding me a little of my homeland right now - wet, grey and cold. What is also quite interesting (and more than a little annoying) is that no one in L.A. can drive in the rain. Everyone is so used to the 350 days of dry sun a year that when it rains, it all turns to shit! Little old ladies driving at 5 miles an hour (I kid you not) and massive SUVs full of hip-hop-blaring 17-year-olds skidding all over the place as they continue to drive the way they do in the dry. It's time for me to hole up in my home and plug the digi Les Paul in and give it a workout.

I took the weird blue-colored Digital Les Paul to Vegas on Wednesday and used it for a couple of songs during the Camp Freddy show. It was a fun gig - Joan Jett, Xzibit, Tone Loc, Scott Weiland, Billy Duffy, Jerry Cantrell, Macy Gray, Juliette Lewis, and Tony Canal all got up and guested with us. The guitar did ok - not sure of the color (it's the only color they do at the moment) but used as a real 'normal' guitar, it sounded ok. The neck (hand-oiled) felt really nice, but the pickups left a little to be desired. If I was to continue to use this guitar, I'd have to change them. The details on the guitar are really nice - brushed aluminium finish on the cover plates and these weird, futuristic looking machine heads. I'm using it in the studio next week as part of the test period, so that will be interesting.

I'm looking forward to getting back on the radio tonight. Camp Freddy have their own radio show on Los Angeles station Indie 103.1 FM, and the show is available on Indie's website as well. We do it every Saturday night, 6-8 p.m., but because of the holidays, we taped a few shows before Xmas. So, we haven't actually been live for a few weeks. If you haven't heard the show, it's very funny, very irreverent - and they let us play whatever music we like. Tonight will be fun getting back to the live show.

NAMM is coming up as well, here in L.A. - I will be attending as usual. It's time to run around and see all the people you haven't seen since last year's show. And I believe Dave will be busy with PRS and Yamaha, so I'll go and see what he's up to. My main point of interest (as always) will be the Gibson stand. And I should imagine I'll meet up with the guys from Modern Guitars as well. That would be cool.

That's it from me this time round - it's time to figure out that damn breakout box that comes with the digi Les Paul, and see if I can make use of the 'record each string individually' function. Last time I heard about that, it was Mutt Lange, recording Def Leopard's album. Didn't that record take two years and cost millions of dollars?

Till next time. The photo at the top from last week's Camp Freddy show, and is Scott Weiland, myself, and Mr. Sex Pistol (Steve Jones).

Peace.

Billy