Early Spring Fruits

1950s Inspired S-Style Partscaster Guitar with a Fat Neck

I hope there will be many more posts like this. Over the past several years guitars and amplifiers have become a big part of my life and they bring me a lot of joy.

The main goal of this guitar build was to have a Stratocaster for slide using my favorite neck. I have a real hate love relationship with this guitar shape. I grew up annoyed with their ubiquity thanks to Eric Clapton. Ironic I suppose because his signature neck is supposedly a soft V… You’ll see why in a bit.

Screenshot closeups from Youtube Video of Harrison playing on Lennon Song

I really love George Harrison’s slide solos. They sing with the most beautiful voice. This was my sonic motivation that led me on a deep dive for the known specifications on his Stratocasters. This guitar is inspired by them, not an attempt at a replica. In short his are ‘60s guitars. And mine is more 50’s style, like the neck.

It started with the Fender Ed O’Brien Stratocater I got. I fell in love with how it’s neck feels in my hand. It’s called the Fender EOB, 10/56 “V”. Guess you could call it a soft V shape. For years I thought about buying another. Just didn’t want to dissemble my EOB Stratocaster just to start over. The Fender manual specifications say its profile height is .895” at the first fret and 1” high at the 12th fret. The fret board has a common 9.5” radius. It’s made entirely of maple, both the neck and fretboard, with medium nickel frets, truss rod adjusted at the heel, and old style tuners.

Without realizing it I duplicated the colors from my modified EOB Strat. White body, black pickguard, maple neck, off white knobs, & silver hardware. This is my current favorite guitar color pallet. Is there another famous guitar of this style? Not sure what inspired my color choices.

S-Style partscaster in a 1950's style setup for slide guitar playing — My S-style partscaster. Based on 1950’s tech and a fat neck.

Here are the main parts and the builders who made them.

The body is by BloomDoom Guitars. It’s swamp ash and has a thin aged blonde white nitrocellulose finish.

The neck is by Fender. (See above.) Apparently it’s not liked by some as they regularly come up for sale. Bonus for me! May need another. Really! I dream of an aluminum neck with this kind of profile.

The loaded pickguard was built by Brandonwound. The pickups are 50’s style and low output. It’s a historically accurate 8 hole guard with a distressed old look. Sounds amazing. All five positions have real character. Yes, I know Fender didn’t use black pickguards on Strats till the ‘70s.

The hardware is from Callaham Guitars and is made in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. It’s vintage Strat style that came with a tremolo bridge, jack, neck plate, saddles, strap buttons, etc. I ordered the hardware distressed and it looks great. Didn’t end up using their tuners on this guitar. Maybe the next build. (Thinking about a HSS strat.)

Right now the strap I’m using is a cheap white leather one from Levis. I had no idea it would feel so great.

Major thanks to Alex at Cosmic Sea Guitar Repair for assembling and setting up this guitar. His advice and support over the past few years has been amazing.

Brian Russell’s History with the Early Days of Podcasting

I started podcasting in 2004 after learning about it from Adam Curry’s show Daily Source Code. I also read David Winer’s blog (10/26/2005) at the time.

It began with Ruby Sinreich giving me an early iPod for my birthday. I thought, “What can I MAKE to put on this thing?”

The answer to my own question was the Audio Activism podcast in 2004. Here is an old version of the Audio Activism website (October 4, 2004). This is my very first podcast from October 3, 2004. The show was called “3 URLs” and it was my take on important and fun website content. Part review and part “Check this cool stuff out!”. HUGE thanks to ibiblio.org for hosting lots of my work over the years!

In 2005 I began organizing the world’s first self organized conference focused on teaching people how to podcast. It was called PodcasterCon and was held on Saturday, January 7, 2006, at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Over 200 people attended. Half came to Chapel Hill from outside of the state of North Carolina. Big thanks to Paul Jones for his help. Many others assisted. Here are some photos from PodcasterCon 2006. This is a movie someone else made that includes me opening up the event to a crowd of people.

Here are a few newspaper articles that describe my work at the time.
Podcasting takes off – News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC) – March 22, 2005
Radio cast in a new light – News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC) – January 8, 2006

This is one newspaper article I wrote that was published in print.
DIY radio – Or how I learned to stop worrying about the media and start podcasting, (Wayback Machine archive link), December 18, 2005

When time allows I’ll add more info about my work and all the fun I had then.

New Traditionalists, Devo record, 1981

I’ll never forget how I FELT when I first heard the song “Through Bring Cool”. A cousin in small town Tennessee gave me the vinyl on a trip one summer. I ripped open the plastic wrapper and set it on the turntable. It really did sound different that way. The lyrics! The bass! The drums! One of the few times someone in the ‘80s introduced me to something dfferent. Pop rock radio and three Beatles records were my entire musical world then. Thanks DEVO! #Devo #cool #music #anticool

Is Future of all Local Retail Mobile?

Originally written July 29, 2021

Reinventing the food truck itself to be more affordable, energy efficient, and flexible can allow new generations of people to start retail businesses that serve their neighbors and feed their children. Especially beyond selling food.

Can trucks be made VERY energy efficient and super affordable? (Without tax incentives.)

Real estate prices, both sales and rental costs, will continue to rise for decades to come. We are already at a point where a new entrepreneur who wants to start a brick & mortar retail business must plan for three locations at the start plus revenue beyond traditional sales. Such as online sales and wholesale business models. (Ex. Coffee shop that is also a roaster who sells wholesale beans to local retail stores and online.) Gone are the days of the modest one location store in a building where the owner and their family live on top.

Other retail startup options involve purchasing commercial real estate. Owning has its challenges but can control costs and act as collateral for loans. But this is a very different business than selling goods. Plus the upfront costs are enormous and interest expenses from loans can keep people and families chained to debt for their entire lives.

The food truck resurgence of 2008 in the United States has continued and grown. Many entrepreneurs see it as a start up ramp towards physical static building locations. Others work on and on in their panel vans.

This concept is a necessity for the future of the lower and middle class retail entrepreneur. Mega corporations like Amazon are radically changing commerce itself. The pandemic is forever changing the labor force and how we interact in person. Global wealth is changing banking which owns most commercial real estate. Some may believe their kind of growth is endless. But the chasam between the lower/middle class and the so-called upper class is not. There will be a fundamental breakdown of economics as we understand it if human labor and service is eliminated. Because the demand for scale and the future of human viruses is demanding automation on a new scale of AI powered machines. These smart robots will replace all retail positions at some point in the near future.

We must reinvent the simple entrepreneurial opportunity with simple physical sales for every woman, man, and child.

Is this to be done with a new product that most can not afford? Or is it a method of using existing cheap used technology? Can the food truck be reinvented to accommodate ANY retail business idea?

Lifelike Sculpture Casting Dream

I dream that I was working to make a lifelike sculpture of a bag of sand. (?) Maybe it was a pillow or a bag of sugar. I hand made a model. Someone introduced me to Ron Howard who showed me how to make the 3D model with software. The idea was to use it to make a mold from it.

The night before I was reading about psilocybin mushrooms in Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind”. As soon as I was barely conscious I got the idea of making a mold to cast small mushrooms then hand paint them. Specifically the blue Psilocybe Azurescens. Is it possible to make a cast from a living mushroom?

Back to Podcasting

One area I’m most proud of innovating in is Podcasting. I got involved because Ruby bought me an iPod in early 2004 and I wondered, “What can I make for the iPod instead of just consuming with it.” A few months later I started the 3URLs show on AudioActivism.org. On October 3, 2004 I released the podcast episode 3URLs 10/03/04. Thanks to Ibiblio for hosting the mp3s and website for all these years.

Recently I’ve started a new show called Flathead Monster. It’s just interviews with interesting people about what they do. I still have a RSS feed for FHM but I also share it on Youtube. As one does in 2019.

My first episode on fhmon.com is with Brendan Love and we talk about tattoos.

Flathead Monster Podcast by Brian Russell, Episode 001, Brendan Love on Tattoos

Support My Film Photography of Changing Architecture

Buildings can have lives most of us never see.

Over the years I found myself gravitated towards taking art style photo of buildings and their details. Doors, roofs, old, new, and ancient. I didn’t start out looking for subject mater. I just found I like these 3D objects we live and work in. I should thank old friends who are architects and my sculpture professors.

Now I’ve decided to use a cool crowdfunding platform called Patreon. My main goal is to help fund the cost of film, development, processing, printing, and finishing. Maybe more in the future. But right now if you can donate a few bucks a month it will really help.

Head on over to patreon.com/brianr and watch my welcome video and read my project statement. Thanks!

Drone Digital Tanpura and Thee Gristleizer

First experiment augmenting the sound of this cool Radel brand electric Tanpura and Tabla using the amazing Gristleizer from Endangered Audio Research. Part of work I’m doing towards more music creation and ultimately longer recordings.

Three Words

Abstract art is dream like. Both are foggy and full of potential. These great graffiti works I stumbled upon last week have some literal meaning in there. After all they are words. But I can’t penetrate their meaning so they remain foggy to me.

I have a particular dream that is full of potential. I’d like to teach fine artists how to support themselves using business skills. In my typical unrealistic dreaming way I see it more than casual meetings at coffee shops. But a full fledge school with studios and dorms on a campus.

When I was nineteen and entering college I went to a fine art program to avoid the office. It wasn’t until I was out of school and using a computer to do book design that I thought about business and money beyond paying for rent.

Twenty years later I’ve worked in numerous offices, started my own physical business, and served on several economic development boards. It’s not a group of experiences I expected to have at this point in my life.

My dream is to adopt a new business language outside of the MBA program. Mainly to help young creative people obtains skills to support themselves in our violent capitalist society. I just don’t believe opting out of business completely is an option. At some point we are all confronted with trading cash, physical or digital, for something such as rent.