Lucinda Williams
I saw Lucinda Williams at the Hard Rock the other night - what a great show! They're pretty much the perfect band. And her guitarist, Doug Pettibone, is always a joy to watch. I've been getting swamped at work lately (and will be for the next few months), so it was great to be inspirted as a songwriter and musician. Her show definitely focused my mind back to writing great songs.

I'm working on my second song of the month, actually. Sometimes after it's been a while since I've written anything, I have a lot of ideas pent up in my head (and heart) that need to get out, so I have an easy time putting it on paper. It's a tough thing to force, but when they're there just waiting for me to grab out of thin air, I'm happy to oblige. It's been slow going getting songs CD-ready, fixing the drums parts, rerecording things, etc. But I'm still working on. Slow progress is better than no progress!

I've also been doing some work on my instruments. I put a Duncan STK_SH2 hot stack in the neck of my '57 reissue. It's a quite, slighly beefier single coil sound. It's not quite as edgy as I expected, but it has a great sound, and I love playing through it. It complements the guitar better than what was in there before. The stock pups were awfully noisy, so it's a definite upgrade in my opinion. I haven't soldered anything in a long time, so I'm glad to say I didn't burn any holes in my guitar - or my hands! I also completely retubed my Dr Z amp. The high pitched whine coming through the 'verb is gone, and the whole amp sounds louder and punchier. It was definitely time.