The lovely people at Bax Shop(great store if you’re in the Netherlands), where besides ThomannI buy most of my gear, finally sent me my Bugera back. Even though the Blackstar is no slouch (as witnessed by my latest release): The Bugera just rips it’s head (haha, pun) clean off in raw power. It’s supposed to, it has 20 watts more and it’s a tube amp, while the Blackstar is a solid state one (and a very nice one at that).

It’s a Blackstar ID:100 TVP. Yes it’s solid state, and no I don’t care. It hits like a Mack truck. Very versatile box that makes interesting noises.

Well, it’s spring, and with spring comes the spring cleaning. Or so I’m told. Anyway, because my loud-as-fuck amp is in the shop for repairs (busted fuse, I think. Anyway, a warranty case), and subsequently am not using it, it gave me an opportunity to untangle the cable junction behind my 4×12 cab. I also rotated my desk setup 90 degrees. The result is quite a lot more room made free, and better audio coverage for my monitors.

And then something cool comes your way. I can’t get into details yet, but it means I will have to pump my free time into my music, or more specifically, the music of RÁN. I have until the end of February to finish all the songs from the upcoming Rock to Hell CD in a scratch state, since we now have a reason to crunch and get that album out as soon as possible.

Sometimes I get a break. This time, I used that break to acquire a new axe for my arsenal of stringed noisemakers. This particular model is the Parallaxe Solar V 7, a signature model from Ola Englund of Feared, Six feet under and The Haunted. It is a very nice 7 string guitar, with a nice ebony fretboard and very nice Seymour Duncan pickups. Now I have to decide which guitar I bring with me when I visit Nekron from RÁN in Iceland this Yuletide.

In the previous post, I outlined some ideas for creating some revenue with my music. I have done two of those things I mentioned, and I would have to look into the others. First of all, I hooked up with Distrokidand I am releasing content through there. My single “Hymn of Belial”has been released there and is now available on Google Play, Spotify, iTunes and many other places. More releases will come as I sort out the artwork for those tracks.

I have been thinking. I can write music. I got some music production chops. I also have quite a bit of nice gear to record with. When I ask for feedback about my music, I usually get positive comments about my production quality (many people are actually surprised it comes from a so-called ‘bedroom’ studio). Now that got me thinking. Why don’t I generate some extra revenue with it? I got some ideas to generate some income from this (warning, incoherent stream of thought ahead):

The guitar. Wonderful instrument, but also a potential source of problems when you push yourself too hard. I just came out of a bout of tendonitis, as I overloaded the tendon in my fretting hand, and most notably the tendon that connects my thumb to the rest of my body. This is called ‘De Cuervain’s Tendinosis’, and it can happen when you grip incorrectly. I usually warm up before I start practice.

Wow, what a week it has been. I haven’t been putting time into music again since I was just starting out with BMPS. If Andrath must slay, my guitar game needs some work. I have the skills, but I need to hone them again and I need to push some boundaries. I’m up for that. There are some areas I’m going to put some time into: Stamina. I would like to have it where I was gigging with BMPS again, possibly even better.

Welp, I have another project. My good friend Didrik from RÁNrecruited me to play in his band. I’m looking forward to it too, since I’ll be crushing stages not before long. I do have to learn a lot of material though. It’s not all super mindblowingly difficult stuff, but still, it is quite a lot of stuff to learn and memorise. Since I am pretty much stage-ready since I have all the gear that I need (head, cabinet, axes, stompboxes, cables, pedalboard, etc), I am looking forward to getting out there again, even though I’ll be pretty much unrecognisable with all the corpsepaint, leather clothing and spikes.

Emiel Kollof

Passionate geek with musical tendencies

Hacker, Tinkererer, Philosopher

Netherlands