The Schmoejoes

It's been a long time since I posted any new video, so here it is! I've posted a few things to the YouTubes, and the Myspace; here's some YT links to our infamous 2-set St. Patrick's Day show at the Inferno Tavern:

bewithme dontcomehome

Don't watch them too many times, you'll wear out the tape.

Of course, I've posted links in the 'Pics' section, and I'm sure you can find the same ones if you visit our Myspace page, because you're smart. Everyone says so. Sadly, I don't have any footage of Seymore Saves the World's performance, but you'll be able to see us together on June 14 at the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis, and you can bring your own damn camera.

To all you Silvertone geeks: there she is, the Silvertone 1446L with kung-fu Bigsby action.

Those of you who've seen The Schmoejoes know my '64 Silvertone 1446L is the coolest guitar ever made. Thanks to my talented luthier pal Bobby Nelson, I now have another, the '60 Silvertone 1427L! Here's a pic of the gals together. :) Beautiful.

The Silvertone 1446L (on the left) is a thinline hollow-body guitar, and one of the few that came stock with a Bigsby tremolo. One of the nifty things about this guitar are the angled pickup surrounds - these were unique to this model.

The Silvertone 1427 is a big jazz-box style guitar, reminiscent of the Gretsch guitars of the era. Unlike the 1446, it has no block supporting the plywood top - due to this, some of these guitars' tops have sunken somewhat over the years. There was another model identical to the 1427, the Espanada. The Espanada had an aluminum binding and a fancier tailpiece, which you can see here. You'll notice that in addition to the aluminum 'Espanada' on the headstock, there is another 'Espanada' badge on the upper bout. I don't believe 'Silvertone' or 'Harmony' appear anywhere on the guitar.

I bought my 1427 a few years ago, and due to the issues it had (coming up), it's spent most of the time hiding in its case.

Harmony made both these guitars for Sears, who used the Silvertone name for many of their instruments and amps. Commonly, they are referred to by their Harmony model numbers: H1446 & H64 respectively. Harmony didn't sell a black Harmony-branded version of the 1427 that I know of, however, I have seen a few examples of Harmony-branded 1446 guitars with twin cutaways.

To my knowledge, these two guitars were the only ones to come stock with actual Gibson pickups - mini-humbuckers in the 1446L, and P-13 single-coil pickups in the 1427L. The P-13s were predecessors to the P-90 single-coil pickup.

Unfortunately, my 1427 was suffering from microphonic pickups, which made it useless for plugging in. Bobby yanked the pickups, potted them (which is the process of dipping in wax to keep the wee little wires from moving around and resonating), and popped them back in.

'Wow', is all I can say! What a difference! I'm able to crank up the volume, and hear this thing sing. If you live around the Twin Cities/Southern Minnesota area, and have some guitar problems, get ahold of Bobby - he'll help you out, and your guitar.

If you're a fan of Silvertones, come see The Schmoejoes - I'll be playing them!

P.S. If you have any of these, or any other cool Harmony or Silvertone guitars, and are looking to sell them, let me know!

The Schmoejoes played Bunker's Music Bar & Grill on Saturday, April 7th, and it was about as surreal as it gets.

If you ask, I'll tell you that I lived in the Twin Cities for quite a few years, before I met my lovely wife, and moved to Waseca. Since I've been down here, I've gotten pretty lazy about making the hour and a half drive up to the Cities, even though I only have to turn right, then left, and left again (punctuated by lengthy straights). A side-effect of this laziness means I don't see my old pals nearly as much as I used to - once a day has turned into once a year.

Imagine seeing people you haven't run into for 10 years, all in one room - and then you get up on a stage and perform. Odd. It was kind of like a dream, where you see all these people from your past, but you don't have clothes on - or they all have fish heads, or something.

The show itself went pretty well - the sound was great, the beer was free and endless, and the audience was close, appreciative, and I got the distinct impression that they were actually there to see the bands!

I'm looking forward to seeing my old pals again, and meeting new ones when we play the Uptown, on the 14th of June. See you there!

April 3rd was the 3rd birthday of The Schmoejoes, and it passed with no party, presents, or birthday song. sigh

I admit, I didn't expect any.

It reminds me of a time long, long ago, when I was talking to a teenaged-girl about the band I was in then (which will remain unnamed ;). We spoke about the kind of music she liked, and I mentioned that she'd probably like my 'Unnamed Band'. She asked how long we had been together, and I proudly said, "5 years!", as that was rather unheard of - most Minneapolis bands had a life span of two years before breaking up. Lead singer sleeps with keyboardist's girl, and suddenly, Drama!

The teenaged-girl snorted derisively, and said, "Pfft. I only listen to new music."

I just stood there with my mouth open.

Aye - here's the rub:

Saturday, April 7th - The Schmoejoes @ Bunkers Music Bar & Grill in Minneapolis, MN w/ Morrisson & Alison Scott

The Schmoejoes will be opening our first show in the Twin Cities. As you know, it's required to come to our show by City of Minneapolis statute 137.23.48a. Really. Read the book.

$6 at the door. Get there early (9pm or so) to hear our solution to Global Warming, which is easily worth $3.75.

Friday, May 4th - The What's Up Lounge in Mankato, MN w/ KitCar and The Mood Swings 3 bucks; a bargain at twice the price, but a devilish deal at thrice.

Thursday, June 14th- The Uptown Bar and Grill in Minneapolis, MN w/ Seymore Saves the World - Seymore kicks off their US tour to spread the word of their new record, and The Schmoejoes are there with oranges, so they don't get scurvy on the way! Free! Bring an orange, and it will still be free! So, like, don't bring an orange then.

Thursday, August 9th - Music and Movies in District del Sol - Parque Castillo in St. Paul, MN - Free! Run in the grass while The Schmoejoes alternatively caress, then assault your ears. Come for the music, stay for the movie! (As soon as I know the movie, you'll know the movie. :)

As you may have noticed, I've posted a quite a bit in the last few days - I'm trying to roll it into a habit. I've berated my old pal Patrick to do the same - especially now that he's pushing a record and playing out.

I'm of the opinion that I can't write a song every day, so I might as well write something, and that being a post on here. I've pointed out to Patrick that, "If there's not something new when people get to your site, they're going to forget you the next time they're 'out there' surfing."

I've had a few favorite sites go dead on me, after luring me in with interesting talk, cool links, funny prose and the like. I'd check them frequently at first, a couple times a day, stalking them for new stuff. After some time, a couple of weeks or so, I'd taper off - I'd actually be annoyed that they weren't 'giving me my fix'.

A couple sites would come back; I'd happily forgive and forget, some would stay dead. The dead ones I had to take off my list of RSS, which seemed so final. Throughout this, I was curious how anyone who cared enough to put something on the net, keep it updated, garner a following, etc. would just toss all the work they put into it one day, sans explanation.

Since this is a site about The Schmoejoes, I post things about us, about stuff we did, shows we've played, shows we're going to play, and an odd bit here and there. I'd guess this is rather different than a LiveJournal or the like - we have shows. Posting the shows the other day was about the most tedious thing I've done for some time.

I'm not just posting shows here, I'm posting them on our MySpace site, I'm posting them on Google Calendar, Redfizz.com, TCMusic.net too. They all have their own little 'way of doing things', which means reformatting everything at best, or using pull-down menus for every field at worst. It took me over an hour to get everything 'right'.

My wife informs me that it's my own damn fault - people can come here if they want to know when we play, screw all these other sites. I agree. Why should I have to jump through hoops to post shows, update info, and change things on 10 different sites? All the info is here. Why can't they come get it, say, through a special RSS feed, and repost it in whatever format they like? Warning: Geeks only past this point.

It's like this: The Schmoejoes are booked at the Smokey the Bear Festival. I fill in a web form hosted on my site, with venue, date, address, time, comments, other bands, etc. It gets posted to my site, and auto-pings MySpace, and all the other sites I'm signed up on. They grab it, add it to The Schmoejoes profile; they're up-to-date, I'm up-to-date, and rather than an hour and a half of posting, fixing, reformatting, logging in and all the rest - I'm writing/recording/practicing/having a beer.

Oh, I want this.