Gearbuds

We survived NAMM day one, gearfriends. In this mini sode we recap our experiences back at the shmotel, interviewing Mason Marangella from Vertex Effects, hanging out with Chicago Music Exchange and Reverb, NAMMthrax, Univeral Audio's new Luna software, and getting crushed by Animals as Leaders.

This week we sat down with singer, guitarist, songwriter, and YouTube hotshot Joel Bauman from The Band Royale.

We get into his upcoming record release at Lincoln Hall January 22nd, 2020, NAMM prep, Dan Leu playing Cars covers with Michael Shannon, Scott Lucas, Matt Walker, and Jason Narducy, SG headstock repairs, and welcoming our future robot overlords.

Then we dive into Joel’s music and gear journey, what it’s like being one of those YouTube guitar guys, the myth of the Moderne, Gibson Les Pauls, loving on Balthazar Amps and Carstens Amps, stacking pedals by amount of BOOM, recording philosophy, Pete Townsend’s Pete Cornish rig, and missing the Double Door.

Tone tip: change your dang strings.

Well buddies, it finally happened; Brad was on the show!

We talk hanging out in California, the lack of Swedish sun, getting blueberry-shamed in Stockholm, Iggy & The Stooges, ToneTubes, chorus (and lots of other) pedals, and overcoming power differences across the globe with Cioks.

We then get into Brad’s musical and personal journeys, Swedish guitar shops, maintaining separate rigs in the US and overseas, speaking the universal language of music, playing Dumbles, and the inner workings of making boozy fruit water with Brutes Cider.

Jag alksar dig.

Before we chatted with DP in Ep. 33 (have you listened to that yet?!), we recorded a bit of a mini-cast and decided to put it out for y’all.

We spend time closing out our holiday wishlists and talking Rammstein, gear thieves, Our Band Could Be Your Life, the Barym G-Bender, and the Korora Audio Spira.

Then Hank dives deep into beta testing the Balthazar Audio Systems Cabaret 13, Taylor nylon string guitars, getting nervous on camera while shooting the demo of the Fulltone Ranger for Chicago Music Exchange, and hanging out with Jeff Matz and Matt Pike from High on Fire.

No toes were harmed from all of the name dropping.

Friends, this is a big one; Grammy-winning engineering legend Dave Pensado joins Henry and Dave for a conversation that is not to be missed. We get into how he got his start as a musician and engineer, what true mentorship means, and mixing his first all “in the box” number one record with Kelly Clarkson.

Then we discuss taste versus technique, the famous tale of mixing the Christina Aguilera smash Beautiful, his NAMM TEC Award Hall of Fame induction, sharing wisdom for content creators, and developing the first ever plugin to bear his name, the Pensado EQ with Acustica.

Want to know what “hunting butterflies with a tank” means? Find out on this episode.

In the second half of our lively discussion with Eli Caterer, we dig deep into the evolution of his Smoking Popes rig throughout the years. We talk about his first guitar (a 1968 Fender Mustang featured on Need You Around) and amps & pedals, playing with Green Day, the joy of a Marshall Super Lead with the Master Volume mod, and the Dunlop Dookie pedal.

We also get into crafting complimentary tones and guitar parts, bass rigs, Z.Vex Box of Rock, Benson preamp pedal, beauty of cover songs, importance of a volume pedals, theremin masters, and even close it out with a little David Lynch chat.

What a trip!

Friends, this is a special episode. The uniquely wonderful human Eli Caterer from Smoking Popes came over to Gearbuds HQ and we had ourselves a day. Along with his bonkers pedalboard, he brought a special instrument: his first real guitar. As if that wasn’t enough, he treated us to an original compositimprovisation with said guitar, which you can hear ON THE SHOW.

We also did the Usual Podcast Thing, with these topics covered: Italian Westerns, the Casio SK-1, Sensaphonics hearing health with Thurston Moore, the Mike Watt Wattplower, Barym Steel Bridge G Bender, @shadyunclehank’s new vintage Explorer, Strack Woodworking custom guitars, & the story of Eli’s first real guitar.

Come back next week to hear the rest of the story, gearbuddies.

In a special post-Thanksgiving session, the buds talk upgrading headphones, Harmonic Energizer jams with a ’59 Burst, tone tubes, and being thankful for all of the different facets of the music world like flatwounds, Les Pauls, and low-key dad straps. Then they talk hanging out with High on Fire, being stoked on Chicago Music Exchange, and our holiday wishlists featuring the Eventide H9, Traynor bass amps, Shure and Aston microphones, Mono Cases, and using a 15” bass cabinet for recording kick drums.

Whoa! We were lucky enough to sit down with one of the most exciting guitarists on the planet, Nathaniel Murphy… AND we changed our name: Gearhunks forever becomes Gearbuds.

We talk American Valhalla, Perfecting Sound Forever, football vs. football, a brief history of Magnatone amplifiers, Harmonic Percolators, Systech Harmonic Energizer, & Loopereye.

Then Nathaniel very graciously and humbly shares his personal and musical history while providing indispensable social media tips. This is not an episode to miss, buds.

The Hunks do up a duo cast this week, digging into: the Systech Harmonic Energizer, pedalboard gripes, Yarling, mistaking The Police for U2, major Victor Wooten story time, hanging out with Torche, Nunez Amplifiers and Eye Flys / Developing Nations studio, Uncle Hank’s first gear deal, Hot Sticks, Eneloop batteries, @mawkmawkmawk having Moves Like Jagoff, A Little Thunder pickups, Audio Test Kitchen, Strymon Iridium, and Anasounds Element