Latest / Chasing Tone - Guitar Podcast About Gear, Effects, Amps and Tone / 636 - Brian meets one of his guitar heroes, the YouTube drama llama, and a groundhog the size of a dog

Transcript

636 - Brian meets one of his guitar heroes, the YouTube drama llama, and a groundhog the size of a dog · Chasing Tone - Guitar Podcast About Gear, Effects, Amps and Tone

• 0:06
  Brian: Welcome back! Hey, did you know that we're number 179 on an entire music category?
• 0:16
  Brian: Wow!
• 0:17
  Richard: We were 150 last week.
• 0:19
  Richard: I'm going to unleash the drum alarm of this week.
• 0:23
  Brian: It moves day by day, but that's the entire broad music category.
• 0:26
  Brian: I thought that was pretty cool.
• 0:27
  Richard: It is pretty cool.
• 0:28
  Richard: You know?
• 0:28
  Richard: And it's because, bro, you are pretty cool.
• 0:31
  Richard: That's right.
• 0:32
  Brian: Well.
• 0:33
  Brian: I think it's just because this podcast has been going on so long, everyone else stopped listening.
• 0:37
  Blake: And that's that's that's who's left.
• 0:39
  Blake: I would I just wonder if it's like, are we in like the wrong category though?
• 0:43
  Blake: Because like, what's the nonsense category?
• 0:46
  Brian: I was wondering the same thing.
• 0:49
  Brian: Comedy is like the secondary uh category.
• 0:51
  Brian: And I'm like, we're not only comedy.
• 0:53
  Richard: We're definitely not comedy, bro.
• 0:55
  Richard: Is there a goofy?
• 0:56
  Richard: Yeah, no, is there a goofy category?
• 0:58
  Richard: Yeah, so we're like a moron.
• 1:01
  Richard: Big idiot.
• 1:01
  Richard: Moron, there we go.
• 1:03
  Richard: Yeah, right.
• 1:05
  Richard: It's funny though, Bri, because like you say, you know, we we punch above our weight.
• 1:09
  Richard: And I think it is the gravity of it.
• 1:11
  Richard: I mean, you know, and we'll talk a little bit more about why.
• 1:15
  Richard: I said to Bri this week, never meet your heroes.
• 1:18
  Richard: And I said, That's why me and you have never met Bri.
• 1:21
  Richard: Now I think I think Bri thought that he was my hero, but I was actually saying it the other way around, Bri.
• 1:31
  Richard: I'm joking, you are my hero.
• 1:34
  Brian: I get it.
• 1:34
  Brian: I'm too smart.
• 1:37
  Brian: I mean, people have said that to me before.
• 1:38
  Brian: I wish I didn't meet my hero.
• 1:40
  Richard: You know, it's an interesting one because look again, one of the perks of this industry is that you get to meet people that you wouldn't normally get to meet.
• 1:51
  Richard: And when you start, because I can remember starting, it was you know eight years ago, whatever, you are a little bit starstruck, but also it all happened so quickly.
• 2:01
  Richard: Like one week I was nothing to do with this industry, and then within a week it was like, here's Brian Wompler, here's Sinister Gates, here's Andy Wood.
• 2:10
  Richard: And I'm like, all these people are talking to me, and like three weeks ago I was watching their videos on YouTube, so you immediately think I'm gonna befriend them all, they're all gonna be bowled over by best friends, we're gonna hang out with a tang.
• 2:24
  Richard: I think I might have to refuse their offers to join their bands, all of this stuff.
• 2:30
  Richard: And what actually happens is 90% of them you never talk to again because they're busy people with busy lives, and you're not like right.
• 2:39
  Brian: There's a thousand people asking them questions.
• 2:41
  Brian: The last thing they want to do is answer your question about hey, what guitar pedal did you use in 1997 on that album?
• 2:48
  Blake: I can't remember.
• 2:50
  Brian: Most of them have no idea.
• 2:51
  Brian: None.
• 2:52
  Blake: I used to think that was crazy.
• 2:54
  Blake: You know what I mean?
• 2:55
  Blake: I was such a gearhead, still am.
• 2:56
  Blake: I was such a gearhead, I thought, yeah, what do you mean you don't remember what you used?
• 3:00
  Brian: How can you not remember that?
• 3:02
  Blake: I can't remember.
• 3:03
  Blake: I don't remember what I used on most of the stuff I recorded.
• 3:05
  Blake: I'm like, hmm, I've become that person and I'm not a famous musician.
• 3:09
  Brian: You know what reminds me of?
• 3:11
  Brian: You know how when someone, if you meet someone, let's say at NAM or whatever, and they talk about a podcast we've done, and you're like, I have no idea.
• 3:18
  Brian: I don't remember even talking about that.
• 3:20
  Blake: Like I'm I I usually say, I'm sure I did say that.
• 3:23
  Blake: That or that sounds like something I would say, but I don't remember saying it.
• 3:29
  Brian: It's gotta be something similar.
• 3:30
  Brian: You know, like I have no idea.
• 3:31
  Brian: I play guitar every day on a million different things.
• 3:34
  Brian: I have no idea on that date what I used.
• 3:37
  Richard: Right.
• 3:37
  Richard: I mean, if it is your job though, like for me, playing guitar is still very much a hobby.
• 3:42
  Richard: I'm very much an amateur in this business.
• 3:44
  Richard: But if it's your job, it's like sometimes I look at old designs of pedals I've done and I've gone, wow, I'd forgotten I've designed that and I'm not sure why we didn't use it, or oh my god, I'm so glad we didn't use that design, or whatever.
• 3:59
  Richard: But you do just forget about it because you go through so much.
• 4:02
  Brian: Do you ever do you ever go like through old designs and go, oh wow, that's a cool one.
• 4:05
  Brian: We should use that for something else coming out.
• 4:07
  Richard: I literally did that this week.
• 4:09
  Richard: I was literally looking for a particular version of the Wamp logo, and I looked at some of the pedals that were gonna be part of a collective range that we were planning.
• 4:22
  Richard: And uh I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna recycle some of these ideas, let's just say I've done that schematically where I'm like, oh wow, that's a cool thing I did.
• 4:31
  Brian: I don't remember how I came up with that, but let me try that on this other thing.
• 4:34
  Blake: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Blake: So I had a small version of that this weekend.
• 4:37
  Blake: We were at uh a local pizza spot.
• 4:40
  Blake: I knew pizza would be involved somehow.
• 4:42
  Blake: Of course there's pizza.
• 4:44
  Blake: And it was delicious.
• 4:45
  Blake: Shout out me familiar.
• 4:47
  Blake: And there was like an 80s playlist going.
• 4:50
  Blake: And my wife was kind of playing and she's like, Do you know this song?
• 4:53
  Blake: And some of them I didn't know.
• 4:55
  Blake: I wasn't, I'm not like as into 80s pop.
• 4:58
  Blake: But then like the go-go's came on, and I was like, Oh yeah, I know this song.
• 5:02
  Blake: And then it like took me like a minute and a half to be like Which song?
• 5:05
  Blake: Uh, the beat.
• 5:06
  Blake: You know, okay, yeah.
• 5:08
  Richard: We got the beat.
• 5:11
  Blake: No, not that one.
• 5:12
  Blake: Different one.
• 5:14
  Blake: He's got the beat, he's got the beat.
• 5:16
  Blake: That one.
• 5:17
  Blake: Yeah.
• 5:17
  Blake: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:18
  Blake: That's what I was just saying.
• 5:19
  Blake: Exactly.
• 5:19
  Blake: Well, I'm just saying.
• 5:21
  Blake: Are you tone-deaf?
• 5:23
  Blake: Maybe.
• 5:24
  Blake: Um and I it took me like a minute and a half into the song.
• 5:27
  Blake: I was like, wait a minute.
• 5:29
  Blake: I interviewed Kathy Valentine.
• 5:31
  Blake: Like, I was like, oh.
• 5:35
  Blake: Yeah, of course I know that song.
• 5:37
  Blake: I also interviewed her.
• 5:38
  Blake: That's uh hmm.
• 5:39
  Blake: Okay.
• 5:40
  Blake: And I I'm like, and then I'm like, how did I forget that I did that?
• 5:43
  Blake: That was so fun, and she was awesome.
• 5:45
  Blake: And it was a great, great book.
• 5:47
  Brian: Because you've interviewed like a billion awesome.
• 5:49
  Blake: And I was like, and my wife's like, how did you forget?
• 5:51
  Blake: And I was like, because I just published episode 530 something.
• 5:54
  Blake: That's how.
• 5:55
  Richard: We've made a lot of episodes.
• 5:57
  Richard: Interesting fact about uh the go-go's they had a song.
• 6:01
  Richard: Well, they had a song with Terry Terry Hall wrote a song with uh Jane Wheeldon, My Lips Are Sealed, which is all about which is about their affair together, and it was released by Funboy 3, but it was about the singer guitarist from the the go-go.
• 6:17
  Richard: I had no idea.
• 6:18
  Richard: And the other singer was Belinda Carlyle, of course, who has some fame later in the 1980s as a solo artist.
• 6:24
  Richard: Yeah.
• 6:24
  Richard: Yep, yep, yep.
• 6:25
  Richard: Um, which reminds me Tiffany is out on the circuit at the moment, and I gotta say back, Tiffany is back, and I gotta say, the energy she has for a lady who is at least my age, if not slightly older, respect to her.
• 6:40
  Richard: Because I don't have that much energy, and I'm taking all kinds of drugs to prop me up.
• 6:45
  Richard: Um that's not true.
• 6:48
  Richard: Um, Richard, those are downers.
• 6:50
  Richard: That's probably the point.
• 6:51
  Brian: Not all kinds, just a couple.
• 6:52
  Richard: Yeah.
• 6:53
  Richard: So, guys, we should actually explain why we started talking about Never Meet You Here.
• 6:59
  Richard: Because this week, Bri, you got to hang with a certain George, and it wasn't that one of wasn't Boy George.
• 7:08
  Brian: That's just like it wasn't Boy George's son.
• 7:10
  Brian: Yeah.
• 7:10
  Brian: So, I mean, those who've listened to the podcast have heard me say for years about Brad Paisley, Fren Mason, and George Lynch.
• 7:18
  Brian: In some way, shape, or form over the years.
• 7:20
  Blake: On every single episode, yes.
• 7:22
  Brian: Pretty much, yeah.
• 7:23
  Brian: So you've mentioned once or twice an hour.
• 7:27
  Brian: And the and the truth is, like, I've talked to George a bit on the phone, just here and there, about like a delay pedal he was using at one point.
• 7:34
  Brian: And maybe met him at Nam for a minute once, but I've never hung out with him.
• 7:39
  Brian: So this weekend they're in town.
• 7:42
  Brian: And they invited me out and hung out with them, which was a surreal experience.
• 7:48
  Brian: Like at this point, I'm like, look, I almost named one of my kids George, right?
• 7:52
  Brian: So it ended up going.
• 7:54
  Brian: I was like, is it George or Brent?
• 7:56
  Brian: I guess we'll call this one Brent.
• 7:58
  Brian: Um, so yeah, and then the next one was a girl, so George didn't really fit for daughters slash, right?
• 8:06
  Brian: Yeah.
• 8:07
  Brian: That's my daughter Slash, exactly.
• 8:09
  unknown: Okay.
• 8:10
  Blake: George Foreman's named his daughter George.
• 8:13
  Blake: Or just to be there or something.
• 8:15
  Brian: Just to hang out with uh someone that you grew up, someone like I told him, like, dude, I would not be making pedals if I did not was not teenage Brian trying to get the tones that you got at that time.
• 8:27
  Brian: Like I wouldn't be here.
• 8:29
  Brian: So, in some way, this is all your fault.
• 8:32
  Blake: This podcast is his fault.
• 8:35
  Richard: So blame George Lynch, listeners.
• 8:37
  Richard: That's right.
• 8:38
  Richard: So that must have been very surreal for you, Brian.
• 8:41
  Richard: And did you take him any pedals to play?
• 8:43
  Richard: Did he throw any pedals at you?
• 8:44
  Brian: You know, he said that he was looking for a chorus pedal.
• 8:48
  Brian: And I said, Well, have I got the perfect pedal for you?
• 8:50
  Brian: In fact, it's two choruses, uh, plus some other stuff, but we'll we'll tape the knob down so it only does chores for you.
• 8:57
  Brian: Right.
• 8:57
  Brian: Uh and uh yeah, so he's he uh used it as a terraform, threw it right there in his chain, he's like, dude, wow, let's do it.
• 9:04
  Brian: And which is not common.
• 9:05
  Brian: I'm like, you you want to do this before the gig?
• 9:09
  Brian: Like, yeah, what could go wrong?
• 9:10
  Brian: It'll be fine.
• 9:11
  Brian: So of course I'm up there sweating the whole time.
• 9:13
  Brian: I'm like, man, I hope that I hope something doesn't happen and it just happens to malfunction.
• 9:18
  Brian: Because this was, you know, I tried to get one from the factory to overnight me one so I'd have it quick, you know, so I'd you know, in time for the show.
• 9:26
  Brian: It didn't arrive in time, so I had to take my own personal.
• 9:29
  Richard: Oh no, and who knew what software was on it, Brian?
• 9:33
  Richard: It could have been a custom Brian mod.
• 9:36
  Brian: That's the thing.
• 9:37
  Brian: I'm like, man, I hope this thing is this thing is duct taped together.
• 9:41
  Brian: I hope it's gonna work.
• 9:44
  Blake: You know, in that same spirit, Scott introduced a new fear to me that I didn't know that I needed to have.
• 9:50
  Blake: Um, and it's not happened yet, knock on wood.
• 9:53
  Blake: But uh, whenever we get to go see some of our artists play, I'm always like, oh, it's so cool to go get see our artists, and uh and they're making music with our stuff.
• 10:01
  Blake: That's so awesome.
• 10:02
  Blake: Scott's like, every time I go see one of our artists, I'm just like, please don't break a string.
• 10:06
  Blake: Please don't break a string.
• 10:07
  Blake: And I'm like, why did you tell me that?
• 10:09
  Blake: I never even never even crossed my mind.
• 10:11
  Blake: But uh now I think about it every day.
• 10:13
  Brian: And they're like, Yeah, I only change my strings once a month.
• 10:15
  Brian: You're like, oh no.
• 10:16
  Brian: Oh no.
• 10:17
  Blake: Oh no.
• 10:18
  Blake: Oh, and you play hard.
• 10:22
  Blake: Uh yeah.
• 10:22
  Blake: So that's a that's the thing.
• 10:24
  Blake: Now, you know, it's not happened yet, though.
• 10:26
  Blake: So it's a it's a fear.
• 10:27
  Blake: It will happen someday.
• 10:28
  Blake: Somebody's gonna snap a high easy.
• 10:30
  Blake: Strings do break.
• 10:31
  Blake: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Brian: And can you imagine me in the audience are like, is the string joy guy out there anywhere?
• 10:38
  Richard: Oh hiding.
• 10:40
  Richard: No?
• 10:40
  Richard: What about you, Ernie?
• 10:42
  Richard: Ernie Ball, up the cup.
• 10:44
  Richard: Ernest is Ernest Ball in the front.
• 10:48
  Richard: Um that's really exciting, Bright.
• 10:51
  Richard: I'm I'm really chuffed for you.
• 10:52
  Richard: That's a another box ticked.
• 10:55
  Richard: And uh, will we see uh as a George Lynch signature pedal in the future?
• 11:00
  Richard: I don't know, man.
• 11:02
  Richard: Sounds like it's the terraform right now.
• 11:06
  Richard: I see.
• 11:07
  Blake: Maybe some.
• 11:08
  Blake: That'd be awesome.
• 11:09
  Blake: If you want to sound like George Lynch, get yourself a terraform.
• 11:12
  Blake: That's what I'm hearing.
• 11:13
  Blake: You heard it right here.
• 11:14
  Richard: Um but Brian, you you did sort of come away thinking about you know, distortion plus chorus equals glorious pedal.
• 11:24
  Brian: Yeah, because you know, the way he was using it was the way you would think chorus and or you know, core a chorus distortion.
• 11:31
  Brian: A core part sounded mad, it sounded awesome through the mains, right?
• 11:35
  Brian: And so I'm like, dude, this is a pedal.
• 11:38
  Brian: You know, this is gotta do something like this right there.
• 11:40
  Richard: I mean, um I told you for my 80s band, I basically on my board had a gearbox, uh, ego 76, a terraform, and a catacombs.
• 11:51
  Richard: That was all I needed for an 80s band because you've got delay, you've got lovely, clean compression, and you've got the most I mean, I I love the course, but but also the the flanger on that terraform is so much fun to play with.
• 12:08
  Richard: So it's it's such a great unit.
• 12:09
  Richard: It's sold really well, by the way, Bright.
• 12:11
  Richard: I'm sure you're aware of this.
• 12:12
  Richard: It's yeah, it's done.
• 12:13
  Richard: The terraform did really well.
• 12:15
  Richard: It continues to sell well.
• 12:16
  Richard: Um, yeah, I wonder if there's yeah, go on.
• 12:20
  Brian: Uh as you say, my only bitch is the one that you know, and it's it's the one we can't fix, which is how do you make the print larger?
• 12:26
  Brian: Because it's hard to see.
• 12:27
  Brian: Oh, but we now ship them with magnifying glasses.
• 12:30
  Brian: Small small pedal, lots of options.
• 12:33
  Richard: I but we did actually take it up a little bit.
• 12:36
  Richard: There was like a version 1.1 where we changed the type.
• 12:39
  Richard: But it you're right, it's still at like five points.
• 12:42
  Brian: There's a point where yeah, you you just can't make it any bigger.
• 12:45
  Richard: Yeah, no.
• 12:46
  Richard: Um, so uh maybe there's an invention here, Blake.
• 12:50
  Richard: Let's uh let's pin that for our book.
• 12:52
  Brian: What I'm thinking is maybe a USB output on the back, and that way you could like put an iPad right behind it, and that way it's just as iPad far too modern.
• 13:03
  Richard: I want a matrix display like you get on the road signs.
• 13:06
  Richard: That would work really nicely.
• 13:09
  Richard: Right at the back of the stage.
• 13:11
  Richard: There you go.
• 13:12
  Richard: Well, that's really exciting.
• 13:14
  Richard: Um, what else has been happening?
• 13:16
  Richard: Well, look, as I said, I'm gonna bring the drama llama now.
• 13:19
  Richard: Brian, you will have missed most of this because you are out playing with A-list celebrity.
• 13:24
  Brian: I saw there was a lot of stuff going on, but I don't know what happened.
• 13:27
  Brian: So I'm gonna ask a lot of questions here.
• 13:29
  Blake: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:30
  Blake: I saw like I I the briefest summary.
• 13:33
  Richard: So, like, let's let me summarize how it started.
• 13:36
  Richard: Because it started quite innocently and then kind of got a bit nasty.
• 13:41
  Richard: And I don't mean nasty, nasty, nasty, but I do mean left a bad taste in my mouth.
• 13:47
  Richard: So uh there is a uh, I guess, influencer, youtuber who runs a channel um called Six String TV.
• 13:56
  Richard: And apparently he reviewed a guitar, did a very bad review of the guitar.
• 14:01
  Richard: Like, like it was a terrible, it was like an AI guitar.
• 14:04
  Richard: It had like 21 chords, and it it wasn't good.
• 14:07
  Richard: And he's kind of known for doing negative product reviews.
• 14:11
  Richard: So he did a negative product review.
• 14:14
  Richard: That's that's kind of I have to pause you here.
• 14:17
  Brian: Is your dog really mad about something?
• 14:20
  Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:20
  Richard: What is going on over there?
• 14:22
  Brian: That dog, I've not heard that dog out forever.
• 14:25
  Richard: So so I just said George Lynch and something happened to my dog.
• 14:29
  Richard: He just went off.
• 14:30
  Richard: Hold on.
• 14:31
  Richard: Uh I let me attempt to communicate with him telekinetically.
• 14:36
  Richard: Uh is it working?
• 14:38
  Richard: Where's my phone?
• 14:39
  Richard: Hold on.
• 14:40
  Richard: Shut up, creature.
• 14:42
  Richard: He it is it it it is true, the the smaller the dog, the louder the bark.
• 14:50
  Brian: Um, and I've I've got the same problem.
• 14:53
  Brian: So I inherited my well, you bark lock too, Bri.
• 14:56
  Richard: I didn't know that.
• 14:57
  Richard: You should see it.
• 14:58
  Richard: You you have a loud bark too.
• 14:59
  Brian: Uh yes, yes.
• 15:01
  Brian: Oh, you have a loud dog, yeah.
• 15:02
  Brian: The little dog that we have, yeah.
• 15:03
  Brian: It's uh and it's always at the most annoying time.
• 15:06
  Brian: Yeah.
• 15:07
  Brian: Yeah.
• 15:07
  Richard: Like when you try and tell a story to your podcast buddies, right?
• 15:11
  Brian: It's like, you know what?
• 15:11
  Brian: The dog's been quiet all day, I'm gonna podcast.
• 15:14
  Richard: And then I tell you what though, I mean, Riverside, which we use for recording, is brilliant at uh taking those out.
• 15:22
  Richard: If you use the magic audio feature, Bright, it'll just eliminate that dog bark.
• 15:25
  Richard: You'll hear this weird, kind of like a cuss of sound in the background.
• 15:29
  Richard: But anyway, back to my story.
• 15:31
  Richard: So six-string TV string TV, who was known for making kind of negative spun videos.
• 15:37
  Richard: He's done some stuff as well.
• 15:39
  Richard: Weird angle, but okay.
• 15:40
  Richard: It is a weird angle, but it's an angle.
• 15:42
  Richard: And I'm also gonna preface this by saying the guy's like 20 something, like young 20.
• 15:47
  Richard: So he's young.
• 15:48
  Brian: Is is he chasing like the viral video thing?
• 15:51
  Brian: Like is it that type of channel?
• 15:52
  Brian: Very much so.
• 15:53
  Brian: Okay.
• 15:53
  Brian: Okay, so you gotta ex you gotta expect some drama like that.
• 15:56
  Brian: There's gonna be some drama.
• 15:58
  Richard: Like that's how you get clicks.
• 15:59
  Richard: That's how you get clicks for a reason, right?
• 16:01
  Brian: That's the gig with that type of channel.
• 16:03
  Brian: If you don't like it, don't watch it.
• 16:04
  Richard: Yeah, but it looks like he's gone a bit too far with a few and I'll watch it.
• 16:10
  Richard: He's gone a bit too far with a few people.
• 16:12
  Richard: So the thing that Ryan from 60 Cycle Hum took Umbrage with, and I thought it was a brave video for Ryan.
• 16:18
  Richard: Um, so this six-string TV fella runs an agency of YouTubers, and these YouTubers are all guitar YouTubers.
• 16:28
  Richard: And funnily enough, when he gets a guitar, some of those do.
• 16:31
  Richard: And in fact, at one point Andy Ferris was on his books, but decided it wasn't the right value proposition for him, he said very strategically, and uh also this is where the the Ryan thing freaked me out a bit.
• 16:46
  Richard: Uh, Emily from Get Offset, who is kind of in that whole circle of you know, kind of trendy YouTubers, she's uh on his books as well, which Ryan called out in the comments.
• 16:57
  Richard: And he basically offered a company, he said, uh, if you give me$7,000, I'll take down my negative video, which is what we call in this country extortion.
• 17:10
  Brian: Uh I was gonna say that sounds that sounds like a legal issue.
• 17:15
  Richard: Yeah, it's it's for sure questionable at the very least.
• 17:18
  Richard: It it's incredibly questionable.
• 17:20
  Richard: Now he maintains this was a joke.
• 17:23
  Richard: The like person from the company like wrote back and said, That's literally six months' wages in my country.
• 17:30
  Richard: So I'm guessing it's a you know a far eastern country with a low cost of living, and he said, What about um two thousand dollars?
• 17:38
  Richard: And as a response, uh Six String TV went back and said the price is now ten thousand dollars.
• 17:44
  Richard: Now whether he was joking or not is impossible for us to to tell, but it it is 100%, and I'm not this is nothing to do with him, but it is a shady practice for any guitar company to pay to have reviews uh removed.
• 18:05
  Richard: Guitar company, any company full stop.
• 18:07
  Richard: And I I wrote that my one public comment on Ryan's video was the only way to spend money on rectifying a situation where you've had a bad review is to fix the problems and then spend money on getting a reviewer to review it and say, Oh, look, they've fixed the problems.
• 18:22
  Richard: Do it the honest, transparent way.
• 18:24
  Richard: This community is too small not to do that, and a lot of products.
• 18:28
  Richard: Here's my here's I got there's this brings up a lot of questions, but yeah, there are more to this, by the way.
• 18:34
  Blake: It gets worse.
• 18:35
  Blake: Okay, so here's one.
• 18:37
  Blake: He says it's a joke.
• 18:39
  Blake: He said, I was joking.
• 18:41
  Blake: I was just joking.
• 18:42
  Blake: If they had said, okay, here's the money, would you have been like, oh no, I was just joking.
• 18:49
  Blake: I I I'm not actually gonna take it down.
• 18:51
  Blake: Or would you have accepted the money?
• 18:52
  Blake: Kind of down.
• 18:54
  Blake: Yeah, a one-way joke, right?
• 18:55
  Blake: That's what I mean.
• 18:56
  Blake: Like, I was like, oh, it's a joke when you get called out for it.
• 19:00
  Blake: Yeah.
• 19:00
  Blake: But like, if they had just accepted your proposal, would you have then told Ben when you're like, oh, I'm just kidding.
• 19:08
  Blake: I I kind of doubt it.
• 19:10
  Blake: I'm not saying I'm not saying you wouldn't have.
• 19:12
  Blake: I'm just saying.
• 19:13
  Blake: Who knows?
• 19:13
  Richard: Like, I do not know this guy, and I will say again, this guy is very young.
• 19:18
  Richard: So I, you know, I give the benefit of the doubt.
• 19:20
  Richard: But Ryan's a pretty good judge of character.
• 19:22
  Richard: Like, I kind of see Ryan as one of my um that's Ryan Burke from 60 Cycle Hump.
• 19:29
  Richard: He's he's one of my moral compasses in the gear world.
• 19:31
  Richard: If Ryan calls something out, it normally means there's something smelly, because he is as fair as his hair.
• 19:38
  Richard: He is literally like one of the most and we've sent him loads of gear, and you cannot influence Ryan.
• 19:46
  Richard: Like you send him gear and he reviews it, like most of the reviewers we deal with, like 99%.
• 19:52
  Richard: You get what you get and you can't influence it.
• 19:55
  Richard: So he's very honest, he's very open, and so that's why I took this as a okay, if if Ryan's calling it out, I'll I'll look into it.
• 20:02
  Richard: Within the space of 24 hours, another um studio came out.
• 20:07
  Richard: Now I forget the name, Sonic Drive Suit Studios.
• 20:10
  Richard: I think.
• 20:10
  Richard: Yeah, it's got good stuff, yeah.
• 20:12
  Richard: Uh, and I've seen him, he's he's reviewed some stuff from the boutique camp for and he came out and he said he had an experience with this guy where he bought a guitar from a German company that it turns out was being run by this guy, but he didn't know it when he bought the guitar.
• 20:29
  Richard: He bought the guitar, had QC issues.
• 20:31
  Richard: Six string TV has a guitar company as well.
• 20:33
  Richard: Six string TV is behind a guitar company called I Forget.
• 20:38
  Richard: They're they're German sounding, and all I can think of is Toast of London, and all I want to say is unter pantsy, but it isn't called unter pantsy, alright?
• 20:47
  Richard: That's just Toast of London.
• 20:49
  Richard: But it's something like Ice Negger or something like Schwarzenegger mixed with I forget, but ice hammer or something metal, and it makes like BC Rich style guitars and and stuff like that.
• 21:02
  Richard: So six string, no, not six string, um, Sonic Drive, still with me, listeners.
• 21:07
  Richard: He bought this guitar from um this this company, turned up there's some QC problems.
• 21:13
  Richard: He returned it, he didn't go through the reverb return procedure, he just like put it in the box it came in and sent it back.
• 21:21
  Richard: It got back, they claimed it was damaged.
• 21:24
  Richard: And he said, Well, you need to claim on your insurance, and they said, Well, you've underinsured.
• 21:29
  Richard: He said, Well, I've insured it by for blah, blah, blah.
• 21:31
  Richard: Now, the company was saying, Can you pay us for this insurance claim?
• 21:35
  Richard: And he said, No.
• 21:37
  Richard: And the one person who said to him, Maybe you should pay for the insurance claim, was the guy behind Six String TV, who at the time he didn't realise owned the company.
• 21:47
  Blake: So he was kind of like going from a side work for him or like I think he owns it.
• 21:51
  Richard: I think it's his company.
• 21:52
  Richard: He's he's put out a video kind of fessing up that he owns it.
• 21:55
  Richard: Okay, so he was like, Yeah, you should pay the insurance, even though everybody else was saying you.
• 22:00
  Richard: shouldn't because you did the right thing, so that was a bit shady, but you know what?
• 22:04
  Richard: I'd be like, ah, that's just again naive business practice.
• 22:08
  Richard: But then it turned a bit threatening.
• 22:10
  Richard: There were cot comments put up on his post that included his like postal code and his address, and it was like, is someone trying to point out they know my details?
• 22:23
  Richard: And at this point, Sonic Drive Studio abandoned the community he'd built up, which by the way, I was never a member of, and I feel aggrieved about that, which was a like community.
• 22:32
  Blake: Like a Discord community or Facebook?
• 22:34
  Richard: Yeah, like I think it was like a Facebook group or a messenger group for like guitar people.
• 22:38
  Richard: Okay.
• 22:39
  Richard: So since then, there have been no less than like 20 videos about this six-string TV guy.
• 22:46
  Richard: And I get it, there's a lot of people hurt, and he's done some things that are really bad.
• 22:50
  Richard: But I am now worried about the impact on him of an internet pylon.
• 22:57
  Richard: Because that's what's happened.
• 22:58
  Richard: The entire guitar YouTube community, including a lot of friends of mine and and and everyone here, have kind of gone, yeah, this isn't cool, and here's my video about it.
• 23:07
  Richard: And not every everyone's made a video.
• 23:09
  Richard: The one person who made a kind of guys, let's not get our pitchforks out video was actually Andy Ferris.
• 23:15
  Richard: And I spoke to Andy Ferris about it at length.
• 23:18
  Richard: Because it is, look, the guy's made some mistakes.
• 23:21
  Richard: He needs to own up to all of those mistakes immediately.
• 23:24
  Richard: But then he needs to be transparent and move on.
• 23:26
  Richard: He can play guitar, he can host a video, he has got talents.
• 23:30
  Richard: So the fact that he's done some shady things really isn't good.
• 23:34
  Richard: And he needs to own up to all of those.
• 23:37
  Richard: But at the same time, it's hard for anybody to be, you know, judge and jury about this, not knowing all the facts and just seeing videos fly back and forth.
• 23:48
  Blake: It's it's interesting to me, like, and I I get it.
• 23:52
  Blake: When you when you're first starting out, you maybe don't realize that the the guitar community, especially, but the mu the MI world in general is just not very big.
• 24:03
  Blake: It's you're truly once you get in it, you know, it's it's definitely a six degrees of Kevin Bacon from just about anybody you could imagine talking to in the industry.
• 24:11
  Brian: More like about two or three degrees.
• 24:13
  Blake: Yeah, exactly.
• 24:14
  Blake: Did somebody say bacon?
• 24:17
  Richard: Bacon.
• 24:17
  Blake: Yeah.
• 24:18
  Blake: It's very, very close.
• 24:20
  Blake: Like, so maybe you don't realize that when you first get in, and that doesn't excuse shady behavior at all, but you learn it pretty quickly.
• 24:27
  Blake: I mean, at least I did.
• 24:28
  Blake: It was like, oh, you know that?
• 24:30
  Blake: Oh oh everybody knows it.
• 24:32
  Blake: Oh, I know I all of a sudden I feel like I know 80% of people, you know, and it didn't take very long.
• 24:38
  Blake: So it's confusing to me that somebody could even exist in like exist in the industry actively working with people for probably longer than six months.
• 24:49
  Blake: I don't know how long he's been at it, but I think it only takes about four to six months actively pursuing something to read.
• 24:55
  Richard: He's been at it for years.
• 24:56
  Richard: This guy's been in the industry for years, and he's done a lot of like hit pieces on other companies.
• 25:01
  Blake: Well, then he should know better than to like think that he's gonna get away with not disclosing his business interests when he's a pu when he's a public figure.
• 25:11
  Blake: It's one thing if nobody knows who you are, but like if you're actively trying to be a YouTube personality and run a guitar company, like I don't know.
• 25:20
  Blake: Like we we thought it was funny because we're like everyone knew Lee Anderton had something to do with victory.
• 25:26
  Blake: Like, that's what we thought, but apparently not everyone knew that, you know.
• 25:30
  Richard: Correct.
• 25:31
  Richard: Um and funny you should mention that because KDH, who obviously we we had on the show, and and I am, you know, I I I've criticized some of his work in the past, but I've grown to be more of a fan of some of his angles because he he's actually pretty good at what he does, he's very good at what he does, to be fair.
• 25:47
  Richard: Um, he's uh he's gonna release a video about this next week, and he released a preview which kind of shows him just like you lied to everybody to to the guy from six string TV on like a phone zoom interview.
• 25:59
  Richard: So it there's gonna be more drama.
• 26:01
  Richard: I can't help thinking that this is an opportunity for six string TV.
• 26:05
  Richard: Now he's gonna take a breather and walk away, but I'm like, dude, your profile is probably the highest it's ever gonna be.
• 26:11
  Richard: Release release a video every four hours if you can.
• 26:15
  Richard: But what it actually does point out, and this is something kind of Brian, I thought you would kind of have a view on, is like the the negativity, the clickbaits, it it it's a it's a diminishing return.
• 26:28
  Richard: If you're not making videos that are positive, then I think you're on a hiding to nothing.
• 26:33
  Richard: And I think that's part of the problem I have with this whole situation.
• 26:37
  Brian: Well, I think the thing a person I think the thing a person doesn't really understand if when they're making videos is that the uh the type of video that you're making attracts a certain type of audience.
• 26:51
  Brian: And if you want to continue grow, you're gonna have to communicate with that audience and make more things for them.
• 26:56
  Brian: And if you're always making negative content, then that means a lot of your viewers are gonna be more negative.
• 27:03
  Brian: They're gonna lean more that way.
• 27:04
  Brian: And plus, you're gonna have to continue to just making make negative after negative after negative video.
• 27:10
  Brian: And that's just a soul-crushing drain at the end of the day.
• 27:14
  Brian: Like I always I I look at the Whopper channel, it's never gonna be that big because I'm not gonna do the things necessary to make it that big you're not gonna play the algorithm in that way because I have no interest, no interest at all in that.
• 27:27
  Brian: Yeah.
• 27:28
  Brian: Zero.
• 27:28
  Brian: Zero.
• 27:29
  Blake: You know, in the in the more popular scene, uh, you know, this is this is gonna be a weird reference, but I think it's so I think it's the most public version of what you're talking about.
• 27:42
  Blake: Perez Hilton.
• 27:43
  Blake: You guys familiar with Perez Hilton?
• 27:45
  Blake: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:46
  Blake: The the negative, negative finding dirt person from the early 2000s and continued forever, eventually did that so long, and I'm not saying that this is the reason this has happened, but eventually went so far that like they had a mental break.
• 28:04
  Richard: And I mean, more than a mental break, they they like physically harmed themselves.
• 28:09
  Richard: That's what I'm saying in a way that only someone with incredibly low mental health would do.
• 28:15
  Richard: Now and it was incredibly problematic.
• 28:18
  Blake: Yeah, now is this a like, you know, I'm not saying that that's the reason they did it, but but this negativity didn't lead to a good place for sure.
• 28:27
  Richard: And and there's been a lot of videos that say things like, aha, karma for six-string TV.
• 28:32
  Richard: And so it feels, and I checked this with with Henning, because Henning is kind of connected to all of this.
• 28:36
  Richard: I said, you know, it feels as if everybody has their own take on it.
• 28:40
  Richard: Like it feels like this guy has probably done more things to more people that we don't know about, and and he wouldn't commit either way, of course, but that's the feeling I get that a lot of people were annoyed at him and were waiting for a chance to pounce.
• 28:55
  Richard: But I always think back to a brilliant book, which I recommend for everybody, and it's about 15 years out of date, but it still makes a lot of sense.
• 29:02
  Richard: So green eggs and ham.
• 29:03
  Richard: No, not green eggs and ham bride, but that's a great, great book.
• 29:06
  Richard: But I hate to break it to you.
• 29:08
  Richard: Dr.
• 29:08
  Richard: Seuss is not a medical practitioner.
• 29:10
  Richard: You can't use to get you medical marijuana, all right?
• 29:14
  Brian: That's what I did wrong.
• 29:15
  Brian: Dr.
• 29:15
  Blake: Seuss got his name because he got drunk one time, and I can tell you that story later.
• 29:19
  Blake: Okay.
• 29:20
  Richard: Um, but no, so you've been publicly shamed by John Ronson, which talks about someone who had a Twitter pile on and it, you know, led to some really bad things.
• 29:28
  Richard: Ultimately, this whole mentality of getting the pitchforks out and going after people, it does entertain, but for for, as you say, Bri, the wrong reasons.
• 29:39
  Richard: And I think, you know, once an algorithm dictates what you put out to the point where you're thinking, how can I make a controversial hate-filled video that will get me clicks and I will earn money from it?
• 29:52
  Richard: That's a broken business model, unless you're happy to be that person.
• 29:56
  Richard: Because I wouldn't be, and I know you wouldn't be Bri.
• 29:58
  Richard: But if I'm not so sure.
• 30:02
  Brian: Like, how do you build a brand off of hate?
• 30:04
  Brian: I'm not a fan of that.
• 30:06
  Blake: Yeah.
• 30:07
  Blake: It doesn't lead to anywhere good for anybody.
• 30:09
  Blake: Yeah.
• 30:10
  Blake: And then this the the whole like I one thing I can kind of relate to is when you're starting a project.
• 30:17
  Blake: So let's say like the Six String TV, you know, public channel is a project, and that's going.
• 30:23
  Blake: Okay, that's going and it's going well.
• 30:24
  Blake: Cool.
• 30:25
  Blake: It often, as we've all done, like Chasing Tone Podcast is a project that we work on.
• 30:31
  Blake: You know, it takes more than people realize to do this silly show.
• 30:35
  Blake: But it's a thing that we work on.
• 30:36
  Blake: We, you know, we put effort into and have for a long time.
• 30:39
  Blake: When you're starting out new things that are attached to different stuff, there's a period of time where you're like trying things to see if it's gonna work, to see if you even want to talk about it publicly or not.
• 30:52
  Blake: And my experience with that has been like there's been several like projects I've worked on that ended up going nowhere.
• 30:57
  Blake: So I'm like, I'm glad I didn't talk about them publicly because they ended up fizzling out, you know?
• 31:02
  Blake: Um, and then like the but the example that I'm thinking of is when Scott and I first started working together officially.
• 31:10
  Blake: I wasn't really sure where Stringjoy was gonna go at that point, but Tone Mob was already like a public thing.
• 31:16
  Blake: And so I wasn't talking about it quite as openly for the first little bit because I was like, I don't really know what's gonna happen with this company.
• 31:24
  Blake: But once it was clear that like this is gonna be a thing, I had to start being like, hey, I've been involved with this company for a little while and start talking about it publicly so people knew.
• 31:35
  Blake: Otherwise, I felt like I was not being honest, like I couldn't just be like, these are great strings, everybody, and I have no interest in telling you that otherwise.
• 31:42
  Blake: That you're like, I I have to tell you my involvement, I can't keep that a secret.
• 31:47
  Blake: And I was advised by some people to keep it a secret, and I think they were wrong.
• 31:51
  Blake: Um, I I I don't understand why you would do that.
• 31:56
  Blake: And maybe this guitar company falls in that category where he was still trying to trying to to to figure that out.
• 32:03
  Blake: It's possible.
• 32:04
  Blake: Um, but I think it it becomes apparent pretty quickly you've got to tell people the stuff you're involved with if they face the if it faces the public.
• 32:11
  Brian: Yeah.
• 32:12
  Brian: It's I think it's always in your best interest, man.
• 32:14
  Brian: But I I'm a big believer in like a personal brand, you know, like like you, for example, Blake.
• 32:19
  Brian: I mean, you've done a bunch of different things.
• 32:22
  Brian: You know, and you're known for a bunch of different things.
• 32:24
  Brian: If you were just a if if tone mob was faceless, then I don't think things would have gone as well.
• 32:33
  unknown: No.
• 32:34
  Blake: No, I mean I did it, I did a lot of faceless content for several years because I wasn't sure if I w what I wanted to do with it.
• 32:44
  Blake: Like I was like, do I want to be a guy that people know?
• 32:47
  Blake: Um but it became apparent like this is the only way to do it.
• 32:52
  Blake: If you if you don't want to be in front of the public, you need to just stop doing what you're doing.
• 32:57
  Richard: I mean, you're quite handsome and you've got all the hair in the right places, which is more than what you can.
• 33:07
  Brian: Mr.
• 33:07
  Brian: I sneezed and accidentally shaved off my head.
• 33:10
  Brian: Uh shaved that hair off my head.
• 33:11
  Brian: It's a right.
• 33:12
  Richard: I am currently without hair, yes.
• 33:14
  Richard: Uh but but no, you're you like it.
• 33:16
  Richard: And and Bri, you're you're a kind of you're my um grounding post on this, I guess, because I do think about like your journey and how you built a personal brand.
• 33:28
  Richard: It didn't start out with a big plan, and it didn't start out with, right?
• 33:32
  Richard: So first I've got to game the algorithms to get this many followers, and then I'll earn this, and that's my plan.
• 33:38
  Richard: It was much more organic than it was like I like modifying pedals, I don't like building windows.
• 33:44
  Richard: Modifying pedals is more fun, and eventually it kind of like span out into everything else.
• 33:51
  Richard: So sometimes if you for what I guess I'm trying to say, if you force a journey, then then it's very easy to take the wrong path.
• 33:58
  Richard: And I've been there for sure.
• 33:59
  Brian: I've I've but I agree, but I would add one part to it because a lot of people think, oh, well, that's that then that's what I need to do.
• 34:05
  Brian: I need to do exactly what I want to do, and then everything will magically work out.
• 34:11
  Brian: And I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I kind of started at this is what I like to do.
• 34:16
  Brian: What are what problems are others having that I can help with?
• 34:20
  Brian: And maybe I can help solve those problems.
• 34:23
  Brian: You know what I mean?
• 34:24
  Brian: Where it wasn't so much about me, I was just trying to take what little bit of knowledge I had to help a few people.
• 34:31
  Brian: And then I just kept trying to do that through the years.
• 34:33
  Brian: And that is your mantra.
• 34:35
  Richard: Literally, every time I talk to Bri about like Brian, I'm I'm stuck with something, I don't know how to make this work.
• 34:41
  Richard: He's like, right, well, what is the problem you're trying to fix?
• 34:43
  Richard: And I'm like, God damn, he's right again.
• 34:46
  Richard: Yeah, but it is, it it's it's how you you break it down, and and again, uh the second mention for the um Welsh author John Ronson, but I've just read his new book, The Castle, and it talks about a period before YouTube Kids when the guy who was getting like 170 million hits had done it by making these bad baby videos where he and his daughters pretended to be babies, and for some reason they hit the algorithm so well that he was like coining it in like tens of thousands of dollars a day from this video, and he was one of the first people to get over a million views on YouTube, and then overnight the algorithm changed and he lost it.
• 35:28
  Richard: But on the journey there, other people saw what was happening and started to game the algorithm, but it was basically done by nefarious foreign actors, essentially, who had no idea what they were producing, and they just produced whatever content matched the the keywords that were were being spouted by YouTube.
• 35:49
  Richard: So they would make baby Spider-Man Cry Death Blood, and they would make these horrific videos that got through to children before YouTube clamped down, and all they were actually doing was taking the keywords and creating garbage content, and that's a place we should never be at.
• 36:09
  Richard: We YouTube should never be our master, and I think that's kind of my message to any YouTuber out there.
• 36:16
  Richard: I mean, forget about six string TV.
• 36:18
  Richard: He has his own issues to deal with now as a result of this.
• 36:22
  Richard: Any YouTuber just make good, honest content.
• 36:26
  Richard: And if you're not earning money from it, it's not the right way for you to earn money.
• 36:30
  Brian: Have you seen these services?
• 36:32
  Brian: I think one's called like oneof10.com or something.
• 36:34
  Brian: It's real big with YouTubers, but basically, it will tell you the things that are going viral right now, so you can make a video just like it.
• 36:41
  Brian: And it'll say, here's what to title it, here's what to make it about, here's what your thumbnail should be.
• 36:46
  Brian: Like it does all that algorithmic crap.
• 36:50
  Brian: You know, where so many people talk about AI slop.
• 36:52
  Brian: I think there's just slop in general.
• 36:54
  Brian: Some of it's just AI, some of it's not.
• 36:56
  Richard: I think AI slop, oh, sorry.
• 36:59
  Richard: Your your wise president is now referring to it as super intelligence.
• 37:04
  Richard: So we're gonna just let's let's rename this.
• 37:08
  Richard: Yeah, it's right.
• 37:08
  Richard: Yeah, so it's got a problem, rebrand it.
• 37:11
  Richard: I think you're right.
• 37:12
  Richard: I think you're right though, Brighton.
• 37:13
  Richard: I think actually that's one of the one of the nuggets of wisdom of today is there isn't just AI slop, there is algorithmic slop full full stop.
• 37:22
  Richard: And and it needs to be fully stopped.
• 37:25
  Richard: So look, I hope I hope this situation resolves itself.
• 37:29
  Richard: I don't think the levels of drama have done any of the kind of YouTubers any great favors.
• 37:35
  Richard: I'm gonna discount the bigger channels like Ryan and like the um I forget his name, the uh one we talked about a minute ago.
• 37:43
  Richard: Sonic Drive, yeah.
• 37:44
  Richard: Sonic Drive.
• 37:45
  Blake: Because I don't want to put words in into those guys' mouths necessarily.
• 37:48
  Blake: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Blake: Um especially Sonic Drive.
• 37:50
  Blake: I'm not I've never spoken to him, but I have watched some of his videos and they're he makes great content.
• 37:55
  Blake: A lot of these people make great content, which is what frustrates me.
• 37:58
  Blake: But I'm just I'm just gonna throw this out there.
• 38:00
  Blake: This is my theory.
• 38:00
  Blake: I'm not trying to speak for Ryan, and he can speak to this if he wants to, but he's a very positive guy.
• 38:06
  Blake: He doesn't thrive off of negative content.
• 38:09
  Blake: He does thrive off of negative YouTube comments, which he will gladly repost to his audience.
• 38:13
  Richard: He is a negative an example of how to deal with uh YouTube negativity, yes.
• 38:18
  Blake: Yes, but he is not a negative content person, even when he doesn't like something or he has an opinion on something, he's not Mr.
• 38:24
  Blake: Negativity.
• 38:25
  Blake: He's overall very positive content creator.
• 38:27
  Blake: So I have to imagine he didn't really want to make that video.
• 38:31
  Blake: I don't know if he said that in the video, but I'm guessing, knowing Ryan the way I do, that was not his, he didn't wake up that day and go, like, I'm so excited to film this.
• 38:40
  Richard: And and he's right.
• 38:42
  Richard: Like separately, we should all investigate creating a new website I've invented today called Guitar Mafia.
• 38:49
  Richard: And what we do is we just put up negative videos and we invite people to bid to take them down.
• 38:56
  Brian: So it's kind of like eBay for extortion.
• 39:00
  Brian: I think yeah, good idea, great idea.
• 39:03
  Brian: Write that down.
• 39:05
  Blake: He's just joking, though, guys.
• 39:06
  Blake: He's a joke, yeah.
• 39:08
  Richard: But but that's what really got to Brian was the kind of extortion element.
• 39:12
  Richard: And again, I'll say it again clearly Six String TV said it's a joke.
• 39:16
  Richard: But I think my learned friend, Mr.
• 39:18
  Richard: Wyland, makes a good point.
• 39:20
  Richard: It's a joke when you're not being paid a check for$7,000.
• 39:24
  Richard: But if they send you a check for$7,000, do you tell them it was a joke?
• 39:28
  Richard: So I don't like extortion.
• 39:30
  Richard: I understand that people are trying to earn money out of um, you know, demonstrating gear, but the gear industry, the music equipment manufacturers industry, doesn't have an unlimited pot.
• 39:43
  Richard: And it's gonna spend its money in other ways over the next 10 years.
• 39:48
  Richard: It's not gonna throw it all at YouTube because there are lesser returns from that model these days, I would say.
• 39:54
  Blake: Well, and I'll say this from the brand side.
• 39:57
  Blake: When I am paying a content creator for something, I am paying for two things.
• 40:03
  Blake: I am paying for their time and effort and skills that they have acquired over years doing this, and I'm paying for them for access to their audience.
• 40:14
  Blake: I am not paying them to say nice things or to give glowing reviews.
• 40:19
  Blake: I have no control over that, and I don't ask for it.
• 40:22
  Blake: Now I would say if they don't really don't like the product for some reason, please tell me before you make the video, and I'll see what I can do about that because I want to make the best product that I possibly can.
• 40:32
  Brian: Or you'll pay them not to make it, one or the other, right?
• 40:35
  Blake: Yeah, I'm definitely if somebody tried to extort me like that.
• 40:40
  Blake: Let's just say I know how to get on planes.
• 40:46
  Blake: No, I'm just saying I know how airplanes work, okay?
• 40:49
  Blake: Okay.
• 40:51
  Blake: Yeah.
• 40:51
  Blake: As we discussed last year.
• 40:53
  Blake: So upset last year last week.
• 40:54
  Brian: Google Maps is free.
• 40:56
  Brian: Okay.
• 40:56
  Blake: Uh not really, but it makes you send you something.
• 40:59
  Brian: Hmm.
• 41:01
  Richard: Yeah, and threatening people and making people feel better.
• 41:04
  Richard: That's not cool.
• 41:05
  Richard: None of this is cool.
• 41:06
  Richard: So there is a whole bunch of uncool here, but but let the drama end this very moment.
• 41:11
  Richard: Um, speaking of, I understand you've got a new pet living under your house, Bri.
• 41:16
  Brian: You know what?
• 41:17
  Brian: I thought we've had goats, we've got cats, I mean, we've had a lot of different animals.
• 41:21
  Brian: What I don't have is a skunk.
• 41:23
  Brian: You know?
• 41:25
  Richard: I sent you a packet, didn't you get my packet?
• 41:26
  Richard: Oh, a skunk.
• 41:28
  Brian: Oh, right, yeah.
• 41:30
  Brian: A live, living skunk.
• 41:31
  Brian: Kind of like a cat with a white stripe on it.
• 41:34
  Brian: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Brian: Apparently, we have a pet skunk that um it keeps trying to well, so let me back up.
• 41:39
  Brian: So I have a I have a groundhog problem.
• 41:41
  Brian: What?
• 41:42
  Brian: For some reason, yeah.
• 41:43
  Brian: So for some reason, groundhogs keep trying to burrow under my barn here.
• 41:47
  Brian: I'm inside of a barn with the built-out studio inside.
• 41:50
  Brian: And they keep like making holes underneath it.
• 41:54
  Brian: Well, this skunk decided that he was going to try to occupy one of these holes.
• 42:00
  Brian: So obviously, it smelled like a pot factory in here over the weekend.
• 42:06
  Brian: But that's the only reason.
• 42:08
  Richard: But enough about you, bro.
• 42:11
  Brian: So after that situation was taken care of, I said we gotta fix the skunk problem.
• 42:15
  Brian: That's right.
• 42:15
  Brian: Um yeah, we had to call, we basically had to call someone to uh come out and try to trap Peppy Lapia.
• 42:23
  Brian: What's that cost?
• 42:24
  Brian: Is he fringe?
• 42:25
  Blake: Um what's that cost, Brian?
• 42:27
  Blake: Because uh let's just say there's a neighbor in my area who, as you've heard before, likes to feed everything, and uh that has caused nightly visits from two skunks.
• 42:39
  Brian: It is yeah, it is uh it's a little pricey.
• 42:42
  Brian: I I will say it's it's like 300 and some change for the first animal, 75 for each s animal after that.
• 42:48
  Brian: Might be worth it.
• 42:49
  Brian: Hmm.
• 42:50
  Blake: So yeah, it is a little pricey, but it but I think it's worth not getting sprayed.
• 42:54
  Brian: You don't want to get sprayed by a skunk.
• 42:58
  Brian: Bad stuff.
• 42:58
  Richard: Can you barbecue a skunk?
• 42:59
  Brian: And groundhogs will tear up everything too.
• 43:02
  Richard: What I said, can you barbecue a skunk?
• 43:04
  Richard: Is that is there a you know solution there for everyone?
• 43:07
  Brian: That's what Blake could try.
• 43:09
  Brian: Like, you know, I don't know what a skunk actually tastes like.
• 43:11
  Blake: Yeah, that's I mean cut off the smell glands, it might be pretty good.
• 43:17
  Blake: Might be pretty good.
• 43:17
  Blake: I mean, they might be better for me.
• 43:20
  Blake: Yeah.
• 43:20
  Richard: Uh I don't think we even have groundhogs in this country, Bri.
• 43:24
  Richard: I'm pretty sure we don't.
• 43:25
  Richard: We have moles.
• 43:26
  Richard: You have hedgehogs.
• 43:27
  Richard: We have hedgehogs, but we don't have groundhogs.
• 43:30
  Brian: Have I sent you the pictures?
• 43:32
  Brian: Not of a groundhogs.
• 43:34
  Brian: I haven't.
• 43:34
  Brian: No, I need to.
• 43:35
  Brian: This groundhog is massive.
• 43:39
  Brian: Absolutely massive.
• 43:41
  Brian: I mean, it's it's the size of a dog.
• 43:43
  Richard: I mean, if it isn't at least jabber the hut proportions, I'll be disappointed, bro.
• 43:51
  Blake: Jabba the hut when he could slither or when he was stuck to the the sliding.
• 43:55
  Blake: Stuck.
• 43:55
  Blake: Stuck to the throne.
• 43:56
  Blake: Okay.
• 43:57
  Blake: Throne jabber.
• 43:57
  Blake: It's gotta be throne jabber.
• 43:59
  Blake: Okay, yeah.
• 44:00
  Richard: Um Sla Slither and Jabo is a lot smaller.
• 44:02
  Richard: He was a lot smaller.
• 44:04
  Richard: So a couple of quick stories here.
• 44:08
  Richard: William Shatner singing Metallica.
• 44:11
  Richard: You guys must have seen that clip.
• 44:12
  Richard: Oh, you know I saw that.
• 44:13
  Richard: You know that checked all my boxes.
• 44:15
  Richard: And I say singing very loosely.
• 44:17
  Blake: But if you're familiar with spoken talking things, if you're familiar with William Shatner's.
• 44:22
  Richard: I mean, look, how wonderful is that?
• 44:24
  Richard: Like a 93-year-old or something like that is up there singing.
• 44:30
  Richard: What is that, Bri?
• 44:33
  Richard: Well, that is a big groundhog.
• 44:35
  Brian: That's a big groundhog, guys.
• 44:36
  Brian: Go ahead.
• 44:37
  Richard: Brian, that's a wild boar.
• 44:39
  Richard: That's not a groundhog.
• 44:41
  Richard: Wow, you could mount that thing.
• 44:43
  Richard: I mean, ride it.
• 44:44
  Richard: I mean Brian, that's you that's a gun.
• 44:47
  Blake: You could put a saddle on the back.
• 44:48
  Blake: That's just a human in a suit.
• 44:50
  Blake: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Richard: That's not a groundhog, Bri.
• 44:54
  Richard: Wow.
• 44:54
  Richard: I I need to move to Indiana.
• 44:57
  Richard: Oh, I did, I did read something about Indiana the other day.
• 45:00
  Richard: Yeah, I I read about a town, uh, I think it's in the north of Indiana, called Mark Town, which was made by the steel magnet Clayton Marks.
• 45:09
  Richard: Are you familiar with it?
• 45:10
  Richard: It's a tiny little industrial town that was based on Letchworth Garden City in England.
• 45:17
  Richard: And like this steel magnet, Clayton Mark, just made this complete replica of an English town right in the middle of Indiana somewhere, and it's kind of like deserted now.
• 45:26
  Richard: You need to go there, Bri.
• 45:27
  Richard: You need to that sounds good.
• 45:28
  Brian: Yeah, that sounds great.
• 45:29
  Brian: Or if they have blood pudding there.
• 45:31
  Richard: Black pudding, Bri.
• 45:32
  Brian: Black pudding, whatever.
• 45:33
  Richard: Same thing.
• 45:34
  Richard: Same thing.
• 45:35
  Richard: I have skunk sausage.
• 45:38
  Richard: I'll give you a skunk.
• 45:39
  Richard: Wait, no, hold on.
• 45:41
  Richard: Um, PRS have just come out today with new Land Rover Defender styled silver sky guitars.
• 45:49
  Richard: So they're painted in Land Rover Defender colours.
• 45:51
  Richard: There's like a blue and a yellow.
• 45:54
  Brian: What is that?
• 45:55
  Richard: So a Land Rover Defender uh is the English equivalent of a kind of 1940s Willie's Jeep, Bri.
• 46:03
  Richard: It is a utilitarian farmer's four by four that now costs£100,000 and is being driven by drug dealers, much like the Mercedes G-Wagon.
• 46:12
  Blake: Yeah, but the difference between that and the G-Wagon is that this breaks all the time.
• 46:17
  Richard: Yeah.
• 46:18
  Richard: And that's what disappointed me.
• 46:20
  Richard: Because in their colour schemes, I don't see one galvanic rust.
• 46:24
  Richard: I don't see one rotten rubber.
• 46:27
  Richard: I mean, they've got their colour schemes completely wronging.
• 46:30
  Blake: I know, I know.
• 46:31
  Blake: I love the old Land Rovers.
• 46:33
  Blake: I think they look cool.
• 46:33
  Blake: I'm more talking about the new ones that are, well, I guess they've always been slightly unreliable, but they're they're super cool looking vehicles.
• 46:41
  Richard: Yeah, they're cool looking vehicles, but they are super unreliable.
• 46:44
  Richard: I had a Range Rover once and uh it broke down every week, basically.
• 46:49
  Richard: I sold it after the amount I'd spent on repairs equaled the amount I'd spent on buying the car.
• 46:55
  Blake: Spoke with Dylan Foxone about his Land Rovers.
• 46:58
  Blake: He said, I love my Land Rovers, but don't plan on uh getting one if you don't really, really like working on them.
• 47:05
  Richard: Yeah, if you don't like spending money, forget about it.
• 47:07
  Richard: But these are nice, these silver skies look nice.
• 47:09
  Richard: The blue one's got my name all over it.
• 47:11
  Richard: Uh it's Guitar Summit on Friday in Germany, which is a legal.
• 47:17
  Richard: I'm not going this year.
• 47:18
  Richard: I had planned to go with Jamie Humphreys to promote his course, but that's all gone a little bit peat tongue, as we say over here.
• 47:26
  Richard: So uh I might go next year to promote Oliver FX, uh, Stroke Amplify Creative.
• 47:33
  Richard: But everyone has been asking me if I'm going to that show almost like Nam.
• 47:38
  Richard: Yeah, it's become the Euro Nam.
• 47:40
  Richard: And Dave Friedman's gonna be there, actually, Bri.
• 47:42
  Richard: Uh he's yeah, he's going there.
• 47:44
  Richard: He's doing he's doing a couple of things with our friend Jamie.
• 47:48
  Richard: Um, because I'm not gonna be saying too much uh too much surprise news here, but there is a new Freedman Amp coming out at some point.
• 47:58
  Brian: I was gonna say, are we allowed to talk about that yet, or is that still no?
• 48:00
  Richard: It's not coming out for a little while, but there is a new Friedman Amp coming out.
• 48:03
  Brian: I'm excited about that one.
• 48:05
  Richard: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Richard: Have you seen the new um the new uh Tone King thing as well?
• 48:13
  Richard: I have not.
• 48:14
  Richard: Is it released yet?
• 48:15
  Richard: It's not released yet, and it's very similar to the Friedman thing.
• 48:18
  Richard: Like not similar, but flavored similarly, Bri.
• 48:22
  Brian: So what you're saying is I need I need to run stereo.
• 48:25
  Richard: You do need to run stereo and and and also I'm just gonna put this out there.
• 48:30
  Richard: The uh the design on this new Tone King thing.
• 48:33
  Richard: Well, let's just say when boutique needed a little bit of help, they called in the professionals.
• 48:37
  Blake: Ah, yeah, I got that.
• 48:40
  Richard: Interesting.
• 48:41
  Richard: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:42
  Richard: Um now speaking of the professionals, did you know that the A-Team van was actually three colours and not two colours?
• 48:50
  Richard: Like most people think that the A-Team van was black with a red stripe down it, right?
• 48:56
  Richard: Wrong.
• 48:57
  Richard: It's black with a red stripe, and above the red stripe, it's like gunmetal gray, Bri.
• 49:03
  Richard: No, it's not.
• 49:04
  Richard: Yes, it is.
• 49:05
  Brian: No, it I it is not.
• 49:07
  Brian: I swear to you, this is not.
• 49:09
  Brian: I had I had like I loved the A Team.
• 49:11
  Brian: I had toys as a kid.
• 49:12
  Brian: I no, no, no.
• 49:13
  Richard: Worth a lot of money now, made by Galoob.
• 49:16
  Brian: Galoub.
• 49:17
  Brian: Let me just search this, it came up.
• 49:21
  Brian: A Team Van Mandela effect.
• 49:24
  Richard: It's not the Mandela effect, Bri.
• 49:26
  Richard: This is the cathode ray tube effect where we all watched A-Team on such poor quality TVs, it just blurred it and it looked a bit like it was black.
• 49:37
  Richard: It's not.
• 49:40
  Brian: Are you sure?
• 49:41
  Brian: I disagree.
• 49:42
  Blake: Uh you know, I'm seeing I'm seeing multiple different versions here.
• 49:46
  Blake: Are you sure we don't just have hard like I'm telling you, boys, that the A-Team truck has a silver roof.
• 49:56
  Blake: Some of them do, some of them don't.
• 49:57
  Blake: I'm looking at BA Baraka standing by one that does not have a silver roof.
• 50:02
  Blake: No, it's just a bad photo.
• 50:04
  Blake: More than one van is what I think is going on.
• 50:08
  Blake: Uh uh, maybe.
• 50:10
  Richard: Um, but if I look at Star Car's wiki, which everyone knows is the ultimate source, the black and metallic grey GMC Van Dura van with its characteristic red stripe.
• 50:25
  Richard: Apparently it's in uh it's in England at the moment.
• 50:28
  Richard: Uh, you know what?
• 50:29
  Richard: It's been a long time since I looked at this van.
• 50:31
  Richard: Why do I want here we go?
• 50:33
  Richard: It is a common error that the van is said to be all black, whereas in fact the section above the red stripe is metallic grey.
• 50:41
  Richard: This error was even continued on most toy models of the van.
• 50:45
  Richard: Oh, I think we all thought that was the case, Bri.
• 50:50
  Richard: Because that could be.
• 50:51
  Richard: That could be.
• 50:52
  Richard: So that is this week's non-tone related Mandela effect for you, Bri.
• 50:57
  Richard: Okay, good deal.
• 50:58
  Richard: Um, oh, very quickly, this one's from the UK.
• 51:03
  Richard: A Tesla driver faces charges after allegedly playing guitar whilst driving.
• 51:10
  Richard: Now, this guy had some kind of weighting device that he'd attached to his steering wheel, so it thought he was still holding the wheel, and he had blocked the cameras off in his car with tape, so the automatic Tesla distracted driver detection system was not working.
• 51:27
  Richard: And he was playing guitar whilst he was driving, I guess.
• 51:30
  Brian: On a moment sometimes, sometimes when a song comes on, you gotta shred it up.
• 51:35
  Blake: It's just like I gotta get this idea out before I forget it.
• 51:38
  Blake: I gotta get her, I gotta get it, I gotta get her recorded, gotta get it laid down.
• 51:42
  Richard: He was probably playing some math rock in like seven, six time or something like that.
• 51:48
  Richard: Something super complex.
• 51:50
  Richard: I mean, like, why, guy?
• 51:52
  Blake: Why would you do that?
• 51:54
  Blake: I mean, if you give people the ability to have self-driving cars, they do worse stuff while they're driving.
• 52:01
  Blake: Let's just put it that way.
• 52:02
  Brian: There's a good point.
• 52:03
  Brian: You make yep.
• 52:05
  Richard: Some of them play the bass guitar, you mean?
• 52:08
  Brian: Yeah, how long until there's a drummer that gets cut?
• 52:13
  Blake: He's just in the backseat.
• 52:15
  Brian: Exactly.
• 52:18
  Blake: Uh that'll happen when the uh Tesla A team van gets made.
• 52:23
  Blake: There you go.
• 52:24
  Richard: In black and grey.
• 52:25
  Richard: Uh, I know we've got to wrap up quickly.
• 52:27
  Richard: There is a new Electro Harmonics uh Echo Flange out, which is uh an Adrian Belu signature.
• 52:33
  Richard: Looks pretty cool.
• 52:34
  Richard: It does look cool, I'm just gonna say that.
• 52:36
  Richard: And also, we must have missed this, but did you see the Vox made a mini version, like an AC mini amp, Bri?
• 52:43
  Brian: No, I didn't.
• 52:44
  Richard: I think this may need to get in the camper van with you.
• 52:47
  Richard: I think this is uh this is trailer party.
• 52:50
  Blake: 10 watt$100, and it's out of stock on Vox.com.
• 52:54
  Blake: So I must have sold my.
• 52:57
  Blake: The Vox Dynamic Response Circuit, a unique and all-analog circuit designed to deliver the tonal response of classic tube amps.
• 53:04
  Blake: So now it's solid state.
• 53:07
  Blake: It's definitely solid state.
• 53:08
  Blake: It's$100.
• 53:09
  Richard: It's too small to be tube.
• 53:10
  Blake: Yeah.
• 53:11
  Blake: Well, it's not too small, it's just too easy.
• 53:13
  Blake: It's cute.
• 53:14
  Brian: Yeah.
• 53:14
  Brian: It's cute.
• 53:15
  Brian: It is a cute little bugger.
• 53:16
  Brian: Yeah.
• 53:17
  Blake: Oh, it's got uh uh aux in and headphones, so you could use it as a little jam-along thing.
• 53:23
  Brian: That that's actually a perfect camping amp.
• 53:25
  Brian: It is.
• 53:27
  Blake: That's a tiny speaker.
• 53:28
  Richard: How big is that speaker?
• 53:30
  Richard: Someone made the point.
• 53:31
  Richard: Like, will speakers ever go the way of CRTs?
• 53:34
  Richard: Like, we used to have these giant TVs, now everyone's got a flat screen.
• 53:38
  Richard: Will flat speaker technology ever work?
• 53:40
  Richard: Because I know it's been done.
• 53:42
  Blake: Um I used to have some flat speakers, they were like a hi-fi speaker.
• 53:48
  Blake: Um, they sounded really good for that stuff, but I don't know how they would do in a guitar application.
• 53:52
  Brian: I mean, guitarists love their old vintage equipment, right?
• 53:55
  Brian: I mean, if it's if you start changing the way the speakers sound, I don't know.
• 53:59
  Brian: I mean, of course neural modeling.
• 54:02
  Brian: So what the hell do I know?
• 54:06
  Richard: That's the greatest ending line ever.
• 54:10
  Richard: But of course, neural modeling.
• 54:12
  Richard: I know.
• 54:13
  Richard: Mic drop, exit stage left.
• 54:16
  Richard: Okay, I can tell you who knows.
• 54:18
  Richard: You know who knows?
• 54:19
  Richard: No, you tell me, Blake.
• 54:20
  Richard: Who does know about what the next big thing in guitar tech is?
• 54:24
  Richard: Surely.
• 54:29
  Blake: Oh, yes.
• 54:30
  Blake: Specifically Bill Bays, Andrew Adkins, David Tyndall, Dave Trombetty, Eric Wilson, Vidar Frostad, Michael Freer, Sean Arbo of Gunstreet Wiring, Rick Calhoun of Honey Picks, Patrice Fournays, Dylan Talks Tone, Missouri Electrical Box Company, Kevin Harrington, Barry from Grez Guitars, Tom Kelly, Jake Young of Man the Helm Podcast, Pigsy, John O'Neal, Robert Carr, Hunter Hudson, Rob Stokes, Nick Spano, which uh thank you for the video, Nick.
• 54:56
  Blake: That was really appreciated.
• 54:57
  Blake: Check out the Stringjoy whiskey video.
• 54:59
  Blake: Uh, Sasha Sir, Jay Stratton, Harry Post, Harvey Pettles, Allison Carroll, Bum Laser, Anthony Stevens, Atta plays guitar, Philip Carter of the 40-Watt Podcast, Christopher Logan, Jason Engelhart, Dylan Lewis of Leeward Sound, Josh, James Thompson, Colin Littlejohn, Machete of Odin, Derek Lyons, Darth Bagel, Dustin Romero, Wizard of Waz, Crappy Tom, Bud Cole's pharmaceutically enhanced ponytail.
• 55:24
  Blake: Hmm, interesting.
• 55:25
  Blake: DJ Farnes, Kyle Viana.
• 55:27
  Blake: How do you enhance a ponytail?
• 55:30
  Brian: Bud Cole, Bud Cole has a lot of ponytail stuff going on.
• 55:33
  Richard: He's got different ponytails.
• 55:34
  Richard: Like, yeah, that's interesting.
• 55:36
  Richard: Also, he apologized, and we never spoke about it on the show, but that's for next week.
• 55:39
  Richard: We'll get to that next week.
• 55:40
  Blake: Yeah.
• 55:41
  Blake: Robert Hahn, John Hill, Nick Call, Kyle Ray, Your Face, David Vangelista of the Guitar Dads Podcast, Roxy Gwynn, Derek Howe, Churchill from Cam Girls, plus Ross Edwards, William Price.
• 55:53
  Blake: Thank you all so much.
• 55:54
  Blake: We love you.
• 55:57
  Blake: At least we like you a lot.
• 55:58
  Brian: All right.
• 56:01
  Brian: Thanks for listening to the Chasing Tone Podcast.
• 56:03
  Brian: If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, shoot me an email at podcast at wamperpedals.com and I'll personally get your email.
• 56:09
  Brian: You can reach Blake at infotonemob.com.
• 56:12
  Brian: Richard is Richard at WamperPedals.com.
• 56:15
  Brian: If you want to support the show, the easiest and free way is just to share this episode with a friend, leave a rating and review wherever you listen.
• 56:21
  Brian: Helps more than you know.
• 56:22
  Brian: Be sure to check out Blake's other podcast called the Tone Mob for even more guitar talk.
• 56:27
  Brian: If you love pedals, of course, check out wamperpedals.com.
• 56:30
  Brian: If you're curious about designing and building your own guitar pedals, head over to guitarpedalcourse.com for step by step courses.
• 56:36
  Brian: And for bonus content, behind the scene discussions, and extra fun, join us on patreon.com slash chasing tone podcast.
• 56:44
  Brian: Thanks again.
• 56:44
  Brian: We'll talk to you next week.