Getting to know my Fender Twin Amp

Dissecting to understand. Very beautiful stuff.

Recording 16 year old punk duet Petal War

Petal War are Abbie Hornburg on drums and Alex Ruiz on guitar/vocals. Check out Petal War's songs and site here.

Getting Alex all tuned up!

Abbie's view from the drums.

Isolation area for the Fender Twin Amp. Very DIY of us..

The new mixing board. We all referred to it as "sexy."

Hurricane and more.

Its been awhile since I've written anything here, and am thankful that I have nothing newsworthy to report since my apartment and studio were undamaged during the storm last week. The difficult times around us in NYC are hard on the heart, but nothing compassion and a lot of hard work can't get us through. If your gear was damaged, please check with MAIN DRAG MUSIC. They're offering assistance with amp drying and other musical instrument repair: MAIN DRAG .

My bandmates and I in The Julie Ruin have chosen these Hurricane Disaster Relief funds to promote. If you're looking for somewhere to donate, please take a look at our short list: thejulieruin.com/ There are so many more out there.

At Last! Tremolo vs Vibrato

Was flipping through the Deli Magazine today and in the "Production Corner" section was a little article about this. I traced it back to the Fender website. The answer to the controversial and annoying question all us guitarists have: what is the difference between TREMOLO and VIBRATO and why are the terms constantly flipped around????

Amps from two of my favorite guitarists

Billy Zoom's amp. No volume knob....

Monotonix' guitarist Yonatan Gat's amps.

Depends on how you look at it...

My awesome friend Eddy sent this to me. If this refers to MUSIC GEAR, then I would have to SWITCH the Man side to the Women side.....EASILY. Men love those bells and whistles....

One of those shots...

that say it all....

GUITAR GEAR is Fun to Look At

As a part time bartender at a music venue, I don't have much extra learning going on - pouring liquids into cups is fairly easy at this point (and age) and there's only so much creativity and skill that goes with it. So before I cash out on that moonlighting extra money, I decided to learn something at this job about the one thing I soak in and am dying to master: GUITAR PEDALS & GEAR. I should have thought of taking photos of this stuff YEARS AGO. I think these images are BEAUTIFUL!

Here's some of the set ups of Hope Sandoval, members of My Bloody Valentine gear, The Raveonettes, The Black Angels and more. I can't tell you who's who or people won't like it.

Movie Review "It Might Get Loud" - the story of Jack White/The Edge/Jimmy Page

A little over a week ago, one of my students suggested seeing this movie so we arranged a Ladies Night Out trip to the movie theatre, a "class" field trip involving the group of us. We were an amusing crew, when we walked in we realized we were the only women there except for a few girlfriends of dudes, but mostly SINGLE men, sitting alone with their arms crossed and very serious expressions. To top it off, one of us was extremely pregnant (and has since had her baby in that week since then); us all in our 20's, 30's, 40's -professional and definitely non-rocker looking types. But we are all guitar or bass people so we KNEW what we were getting in to.

I was expecting that we'd be heckling, cringing at every turn, or plain out throwing our diet cokes at the screen with every sexist/Guitar Center comment. Our group had one loud laugh and snort when Jimmy Page compared the guitar to the curves of a women early in the film.., but in general the movie was non-offensive, exciting, and a guitar/pedal nerd's DREAM...okay, like MYSELF; and I even teared up a few times....those TONES...whew...and when JP played "Ramble On" by himself and showed us the mansion and hallway they recorded the drum intro to "When the Levee Breaks"....wow. And The Edge, minus the pretentious and annoying name, also charmed me into loving his guitar playing and song writing for the first time since "Sunday Bloody Sunday" came out. Bono...well, thank god he wasn't IN the movie, except the first U2 clips when they were New Wave and 18 years old was pretty thrilling to see.

So if you like guitar and amps and grew up with your parents Led Zeppelin albums, you will love this movie on the big screen. If you are a musician and don't care much about amps, you should see it on video. ... but see it.

It Might Get Loud