It's all about the NAMM show this week. I have been busy with my band Doheny (that's the five ugly mugs staring at you from the pic above) the last few days. We are in the studio with Guns N Roses producer extrordinaire, Mike Clink, recording some stuff. But come Thursday, it's off to Anaheim we go! Lots of shiny new equipment to drool over, lots of hands to shake, lots of pics to be taken. Oh how we musicians love NAMM! I will be hanging at the Gibson booth quite a bit - I just love to check out the Les Pauls - I fancy getting one of those new Jimmy Page models, the finish is just amazing. Anyway, I hope you are all going down this year. If you have never been, you have to go - it will blow your mind!

Hummer drivers - I fucking hate them! Don't get me wrong, Navarro drives one and he's my good friend. But on the whole, people who own Hummers just can't drive them. My brand new BMW convertible was parked in a parking lot last week, minding its own business and gleaming in its black-on-black with walnut trim glory, and some mindless Hummer driver reverses straight into it and drives off without stopping! Unbelievable. But that’s what insurance is for I suppose.

The whole Digital Les Paul thing has provoked a lot of interest with people, it seems. Lots of emails, questions, and inquiries. In fact, I think I’m doing an interview with Tom Watson (one of the co-founders of this fine site) specifically on the instrument. I’m still experimenting with it, but the ability to record each string separately is...interesting! Six separate FX processors anyone? It's also very quiet (i.e., no hum) when you record with the guitar using the digital output. It's quite weird actually – you realize how we get so used to hum in our tone that it actually sounds wrong when all noise is removed.

I don’t have a lot to report today – it's time for me to screech out some backing vocals, so I’m going to file this and do a full report on my NAMM experience next week. Feel free to ask me questions, say hello at NAMM if you see me, and have a great rest of the week. See y’all soon.

Peace.

Billy