Giving Our Best

It has been a fun, busy and beautiful week here at the little workshop in the woods, named Wingfeather because the feeling of it as a nest where flight begins… this perpetual springtime never leaves. Every day something good, some manifestation of our best and highest, works its way closer to being born through our hands. Here is a doubleneck coming together for HD Custom Guitars, one of a very few retail sources for new Birdsongs. They like the custom stuff and give me creative freedom, and it doesn’t get much more custom than a doubleneck fretted / fretless bass with a 7 piece, figured-top body and a hand carved scroll. They’ll have this as soon as it’s ready, contact them with questions. They also have one in stock, a special build of a Cbass out of hundred year old brewery tank redwood! That was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. They put up beautiful pictures, so hop on over there and check it out! (snort). 

https://reverb.com/shop/hdcustom-guitar-supply

https://reverb.com/item/3252941-birdsong-cortobass-16c-342-31-scale-bass-guitar-redwood-beerbass-theme-build

There are easier ways to do all of this – more efficient, less messy, less costly. But isn’t that life? Sometimes it’s not about efficiency or neatness of process or watching the pennies. Sometimes it’s about the journey you take and the ripples you make. The results. Which are really not yours though you helped them to be; they belong to the sea. You get the journey, and know it has meant something. Not everything is a convenience store sandwich, MalWart yard art, or a Hyundai that looks like a Ferrari. Those have their place; but there are also devoted chefs and sculptors and machinists doing what they do – and it costs – and you pay – and they pay too.  

https://www.amazon.com/Back-New-York-Doug-Raney/dp/B000003UV4

Been grooving to an album I came across by a great jazz guitarist Doug Raney – Back In New York. Not only is his guitar tone one of the best to my ears I think I’ve ever heard, but the recording is pristine and the band behind him is fantastic. I can’t believe I had never heard of him, and I can’t recall hearing his father either – jazz guitarist Jimmy Raney; I had heard the name or seen it on album credits in passing. So many artists and players – and craftspeople – do what they do only known in certain circles. Even great ones. Forget fame & fortune, most don’t even make a living at it. Some of us are very VERY lucky; you can put all the right pieces together and there’s still no guarantee. That’s how life works. The only guarantee is that if you don’t try it won’t happen. Past that, you can carefully stack the odds better... but life happens. 

Sometimes artists really do give us their best – I don’t mean “best shot” but the best of what is inside them. Really THEIR BEST. All that’s worth sharing of lives teetering on edges unseen to those of us on this side of the wax. Some live hard lives, not having the tools to stay intact, perhaps half a bubble over that fine line between creativity and insanity. But whatever their failings and fallings, we have these incredible documents of their most shining moments of transcendence, and we spend a few bucks on them one time and have them as part of the soundtrack – threads in the tapestry – of our lives. They move us, they inspire us. No matter who you are, give your best to something - those ripples will spread, even if your life just goes completely to shit. You will be remembered. You will be loved. Just give us something, share the beauty inside you... we may not find you or be able to fix things, but your best has a home in the hearts of more people than you'll ever know. 

Doug Raney died last year but you didn’t hear about it. I didn’t hear about it. I didn’t even know he existed. I will never play like that but I can definitely squeeze a few precious drops of direct inspiration into my cup and carry that forward, and with his music filling the air, craft beautiful tools that will sing all over the world in the warm hands of artists in their moments of bliss.

LISTENING TO: Doug Raney jazz guitar albums, Boston's 1st two albums, Joe Puma It's a Blue World, Bruce Forman Pardon Me!, Bill Evans & Jim Hall Intermodulation. (Hey, I post these so you'll go look them up and taste something different off of life's buffet. Look them up on YouTube, go find & buy the ones that move you.)

IMPACT

Doing some setup work on an older build, a guitar. If you find your Birdsongs seem to hold tune, feel solid and really take road punishment, it does have something to do with the guy who owns this. Long before my life layered into the garden I tend now, and he had any of “my” guitars because making them wasn't even a thought for me yet, I went over to a new friend’s house out in the Texas Hill Country woods. Hanging right by the wood stove was a beat up old guitar, and I offered that it might not be the best place for it. The guy was from New York City, so imagine this in the proper accent: “Man, if something’s gonna stay in my life it’s got to be able to handle the way I live.” I made this for him about seven years ago - so far so good!

One of a cherished handful of profound and wide-reaching nuggets he would launch into my world in the years to come, I immediately got it – that a tool should be able to withstand the way I swing it and survive in my environment. Otherwise it’s worthless to me as a tool. This had a major impact on how I view an instrument and thus as my life and chapters progressed how I design and build them for you. Impact.

There is a Facebook post circulating about listing 10 albums that had an impact on you as a teenager. It said you can only list an artist or band once and they had to have a real impact on you; of course it has degraded through reposting into “Listened the shit out of” or something, but that’s what happens whether it’s whispers in a line in kindergarten or Van Halen to Winger… it all distorts and dilutes eventually. Here is my list to suit the original gravity and guidelines, in no specific order although #10 was my first album and I think #1 was my second:

1. Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps
2. Blue Cheer - Vincebus Eruptum
3. The Woodstock Movie soundtrack
4. Journey - Escape
5. Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
6. John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat - Hooker 'n Heat
7. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle
8. Ozzy Osbourne - Diary Of a Madman
9. The Cars - The Cars
10. REO Speedwagon - Hi Infidelity

#11 and 12 would have been The Ramones Rocket To Russia and Andreas Vollenweider Caverna Magica; season heavily with listening to the Dr. Demento show every week and it all makes sense. One huge track was the playing in “Maggot Brain” by Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel… but that’s not an album. What are yours?

Lastly (but certainly not leastly) I wish to acknowledge a truly great man the luthier community lost this week. I remember Jim Mouradian in a tiny workshop above a music store in Cambridge, MA where he repaired & modified uncountable guitars over the decades, being very generous with his time and very free with his advice. Way back in the journey I brought him my third guitar, “The Bean” (above) and asked him to critique it and basic questions about small batch production. I really didn’t even know what to ask, but I went to the mountain and climbed to the top to seek the master. The narrow stairs might have a big block Chevy intake manifold leaned up or something, so you stepped carefully. I climbed them and went in past the cases and and a carburetor on a box, into a workshop absolutely packed with tools and jigs and projects and instruments in various states of repair. I walked in with this weird little guitar that somehow had come together and worked amazingly well as its own design, and maybe 45 minutes later came out with a head full of how to make it happen over and over again. He made that wild green bass played in Yes among many others, truly served a wide circle of players, passed on a lot along on the way, and this week’s work was dedicated to him. Also in his honor... those old Studebaker hubcaps are staying on my stairs for at least another few days. 

Go help something good happen,


Listening to: Jim Hall & Tom Harrell These Rooms – all week. Amazing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy new year friends! We’re rested, re-gathered, and ready to rock and roll. In fact we’re already rocking in here, after some excellent rolling; sometimes I really do leave the workshop – it’s rare but it does happen. Pulling oneself out of context helps one recharge and renew their vows to life. Mile marker signs rolling past, driveways of friends old and new, and beach sand on the floorboard of an old custom van; songs were written and good inner work was done. I walk in many circles with reverence, but can definitely tell you this - at the Church of Econoline, services are sporadic but the retreats are positively life affirming.  

So it looks like I’ll be an easy “yes” this year. Many option combinations I would usually politely decline, like customized Shortbasses, Birdsong-Curlee mashups, oddball combinations of the pickups we offer, etc. I’m feeling a bit looser about it all this year. Next year? Who knows. I don’t even know what my build schedule is going to look like next year – only that last year was cranking, this year will be the busiest yet, and it already has a bunch of really cool oddball stuff in it I can’t wait to get rolling on... so bring it on! This all might have to do with 2017 being my 20th year building guitars & basses. I can’t believe it was that long ago I stepped up from bolting together parts to cut & shape some wood and sign my name on the headstock, but it indeed has been. And what a journey it has been! Some things – active electronics and tremolos – I just don’t do, but I can leave the electronics holes for your tech to install your favorite circuits into, etc. SO if you’ve been wanting something odd or in-between from us, this is the year. Ask away. I might want to take it easy on myself in ’18 or ‘19, we’ll see. For now, I’m feeling great and have lots to do and I’m very lucky, blessed & grateful… so it’s all in and balls out for year 20 for me, and year 13 for Birdsong! (Here's the first and something more recent...)

One option coming off the plate this year however is the shipping of anything with rosewood in it out of the United States. New, VERY wide sweeping laws under what’s called CITES makes shipping of any rosewood from raw wood to “all derivatives” (such as a fingerboard on an instrument or knobs in our case) subject to fees, applications and governmental paperwork on my end, and permits to be scrutinized by customs officials thousands of miles from here (and you) - risking international confiscation through mistakes or misunderstandings on anyone’s part – as of the beginning of 2017. This gets tricky even for a personal shipment of one’s own guitar, let alone commercial shipments like your new Birdsong getting to you from the USA. Or not. I understand why it is being done, but the red tape and risks involved don’t fit with the realities of a small workshop like ours who ships a handful of instruments out of the States every year. So until exceptions are classified & clarified, that handful will have maple fingerboards. I’ll keep you posted as anything changes. None of this affects clients, builds or shipping within the States – just across international borders.

Also this week, it would be impossible for me to live it without acknowledging the 10th anniversary of the passing of John “Uncle Johnny” Kirtland, a man whose impact on my life and this little guitar company was huge. He lives on in everything to come out of it, as his ripples are in everything I do. Absorb your mentors’ work in with yours and keep their tools working; replacing his fingerprints with your own is the greatest honor you can give to an old craftsman when he’s gone.  

To close this first Friday news page blog of the new year, picture this. A man who makes musical instruments meets another who makes surfboards. They look out from the shoreline towards the blue horizon and ponder their positions, different yet the same. We devote ourselves and spend our lives manifesting into the world tools by which others interact deeply with the uncontainable vast and elemental mystery, itself manifesting in waves. For those who participate in the dance, moments of connection and bliss are found in the riding of these waves. Waves of surf, waves of sound – different yet the same. We ride them and are connected to the moment, to things greater than ourselves, in our dance with forces beyond and infinite. The instrument maker, the man who works with the wood, does not surf – he comes in ceremony to renew his vows to life.

The workshop doors are open, Boston’s 1st album is sunrising the air with guitar crescendos and grooviness, and the first batch of guitars and basses to fly the nest in 2017 are being worked on. It is an honor to serve you – your music and thus your life and the lives you dance with. It’s more than a feeling.

Surf’s up,

Listening to: Too much to list, but the SKUZZ interview with Jason Newsted from a few years back was great, WTF podcast with Roger Waters was really something, and Boston, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Dickie Betts Highway Call, Billy Squier Don’t Say No, Bhagavan Das Love Songs For The Dark Lord and a bunch of Grateful Dead long jams and The Master Drummers Of Rajasthan come to mind. Hey, life’s a buffet folks!

December Thoughts

Over Thanksgiving weekend the 11th “Album Of The Month” for 2016, "Ether Or" was posted at Soundcloud (listen to the playlist) and Noisetrade (download as an album, as it was put together – tip optional and appreciated). An eclectic collection of instrumental pieces from a solo acoustic guitar meditation to wild psychedelic freeform “Space jam” with guitar based rock band tunes and textural soundscapes between. Most of it was layered to life during the mid 2000s and this is a “Scott Beckwith & Friends” release because others contributed a layer here & there on it. More info is at www.sbeckwith.com

December is shaping up like this – the workshop is working until December 20th when we break for Christmas & Holidays through January 8th or so. A short break for us because we have so much to do in here. Closing the doors to the workshop for a bit is healthy and, unless I can meditate myself into actual bilocational ubiquity instead of what it looks like around here sometimes, is necessary since I’m expected for a few dinners. But it’s like calling a child in from the yard in the middle of a play adventure. I don’t wanna, I’m not done yet! Really, I do wanna, and I gotta...

Part of being a go-getter is that part of your brain constantly trying to nail down the steps between the “Now” and the goal – what’s most efficient? When can this happen? What’s next? Reset! New goal! Take aim! What are the steps? That drive. It works for you in that I push to get through the line to somewhere reasonably close to the build time estimate I gave you those months ago, but we all realize that’s reasonable as in home cooking for a big table of folks with a line waiting out the door, not “Fast food” counter reasonable… because we’re not fast food. Believe me “The manager” in my head puts in overtime. I know from years at this most of you are more patient with the process than I am. I’m a kid having adventures in the woods in here; I want it all to happen at once and just go roll around in the sawdust pile with my little daily to do lists and mantras and conjure up these tools of creation from my magical kingdom!!!

Reality? It’s more of a daily meditation and focus in the moment on one step at a time; that’s how it works for me. A good and steady pace but calm. The pro quarterback vs. the high school quarterback. Life has honed this guy I find myself now into the chef you see through the window off to the side, light reflecting off of tools in motion, helping hands on either side. Yeah, you can see him sweat; that old saying is bullpuckie. But for what you see of that there are heaping plates coming out of that little room, seemingly endless and steady. And you sit knowing yours is on its way, whether now or next or a half hour. It’s a great pace and a wonderful zone, but I know it’s not sustainable and I’m grateful for the breaks… AND your patience with the process. And your trust in manifesting an instrument to be your voice. (That's a pretty high calling in my world.) And everything all around me and all of you, especially the occasional client who is like a kid in the back seat on a car trip. I LOVE you guys. Because I get that, I get the enthusiasm completely – it’s me in here every day, just like you. I may have to remind you at times that this whole custom order cookin’ up a bass or guitar for you process between us is more “We’re making a baby” than “Will that be all sir? Here’s your tray!” but I have to remind myself of that in here ALL THE TIME. 

Yours is also on its way, I promise. 

This will be the last blog here on the news page for 2016. It’s home stretch time and my hands need to be making basses. I’ll still be posting on Facebook, so if you’re not friends (Scott Beckwith) or following (Birdsong Guitars) you’re missing more of this and pictures too! Check onto the music pages linked at the top towards the end of the year, as by then I’ll have the 12th album up there, and some of you “By the end of the year, I think…” new Birdsong mommas & daddies will get contacted by me because yours are flying the nest! The rest of my friends and the head-manager-voices and the builds in process at whatever stage all awaiting the “nexts” that keep us on the path to what will be tomorrow, we will all meet up back here as soon as I can gather myself up from the Holidays and again get things finished and started and movin’ along... 

Honestly, all of this is mere detail when we think of all that is celebrated this time of year and all we have, despite challenges and pesky uncle Thurmon spraying pretzels out his mouth and little Reggie who falls down the stairs every year and those dad gum teenagers coming back in giggling with their eyes all red and all. Someone’s going to look at one eyed grandpa Bill and say “I’ll keep an eye on that” without thinking about it first and old cousin Beatrice, well… she’ll fart. It happens every time. I know. And every time you say "Can I quote you on that?" or ask her to pass the cheese and all hell breaks loose, and that only makes you laugh harder until you're all red and can't breathe and start waving yourself away from the table and your mother starts asking you if this is really necessary and muttering about your father and not knowing what she was thinking or where she went wrong and now here you are absolutely beside yourself in the kitchen, with the dog staring at you like you're nuts, trying not to listen, pulling yourself together for an uncomfortable re-entry trying not to look at anybody because you'll explode. It's a tentative composure at best; I know.  I know.

Despite all the nuttiness this is a glorious time of renewal and gathering. Be grateful my friends. Be grateful for the big things if the little ones are loose marbles right now, and if the big things aren’t so happening find joy and hope in the little things that will, like pieces of wood and wire and tuning machines and screws, somehow with a little love, a bit of drive and a heap of devotion become something much much bigger. Love everyone around you, even brother Mitty who you’d rather just finally DID leave the country like he’s been ranting about doing every time he’s asked to pass the salt or how his day was or how big a piece of the pie he’d like since he was a mumbling red eyed teenager too. LOVE that guy. He’s doing the best he can.

We all are, here, together, overlooking the quirks and spittle and air biscuits of the human condition, looking deeper for a while as we gather with gratitude for our blessings. If you don’t think you have any, turn off the screen and look around for a while. Go for a walk in the woods. Eat some pretzels and milk.

That’s the news from the Wingfeather Workshop, the little green nest in the woods where the sun shines, sawdust is made and all of the instruments are above average. From our circle to yours we wish you Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a hopeful and healthy New Year!

(Call or email, we’re not disappearing. Scott’s cell phone: 512-395-5126. He’ll take your orders personally and answer any questions any time.)   

Listening to: Skip James live in '68, Jim Hall & Attila Zoller live in '73, and The Wipers Follow Blind.

THANKSGIVING

In the same way one making their own music still loves others' and still enjoys what influenced them in the past, I am still a total geek for all kinds of guitars & basses. I'm not a purist or all that self-absorbed into my own trip, past what it takes to be "all in" and deliver the goods. I know I have an answer for some but for others there are other answers. This is one bass I truly love. 

Its story is for another time, and let me be clear - I don't love it because it plays great, sounds fantastic, and is a great design that balances... it's not even close to any of that. It wasn't close to any of that when it was new in 1969 (or designed in the late '50s) and the "reissues" didn't fix anything, mostly just made everything cheaper somewhere else. The back pickup is useless - most of these just had the big ol' neck pickup, it's the iconic - if a bit soupy - tone of this design. 

But I love it. It's got soul. Aside from the character & honest road wear of this specific example, and the fact that its neck profile is a big part of what became the Birdsong neck, it's fun. It has its own tonal personality. I wish it had more clarity, deeper lows, less sludgy mids, and a body that would balance. I wish it had better hardware and a better bridge design. I wish for a bit more resonance, few more frets, and a few less dead spots. In short (pardon the pun) I wish it were a Birdsong... 

HMMMMMmmmmm......

(Tom Waits-style voice: "What's he DOING in there...")

Thoughts for Thanksgiving weekend:

Wherever your road takes you, know I am thankful for you; for what you share into my life, for what you allow me to share into yours. We are together today in gratitude for results of sacrifice and union; of time spent and of gardens from seed that bloomed. The chairs full will empty, and those empty will fill again. Time and tide wait for no one; we must take the hours as they come and make moments as we go. From our circle to yours we offer wishes for a warm and safe Thanksgiving. Please pass some of this blessing along in your own way unto those who are neither, and share the riches in your heart with all around you. Peace and love be upon you and your home on this day. 
 

Listening to: The Wipers Follow Blind; T.J. Kirk If Four Was One; Mudhoney Mudhoney. 

Thursday Thoughts & The Cbass

Sneakin’ one up a little early on a Thursday on you! The Friday news blog has been a tradition for probably a decade at this point, with a handful going up on a Saturday and the occasional early bird when it’s ready and Friday’s looking busy. 

Among so much other fun at the Wingfeather Workshop, a demo video was made for the Birdsong Cbass, where I actually head-to-head it with the very vintage Fender Pbass that was used to dial the model in tone-wise; it’s basically a light, comfy, balanced, easy playing Cortobass with both classic & more modern Pbass tones. Check it out!

The actual Cbass used in the video is now available and ready to ship! It is our standard poplar build for this model and everything you need to know is in this video. Want to make yourself or that special bass player happy for Christmas? Here ya go! Call 512-395-5126.

Speaking of which, it’s push time here at the little workshop in the woods, that time of year where we forge onward and see just how much we can get done before the end of the year and Holiday break. As always there will be a handful of “End of the year” 2016 builds that just won’t get done and one or two surprise ’17 builds that will. It’s not linear because the orders are all different and it flows in here in small batches grouped by similar tasks and which plank is getting cut for what… things like that. They all shuffle their way across the workbenches in due time, and we do thank you for your patience with the process. 

We’re a small workshop that has been steadily busy since 2004. I sometimes get asked why we don’t get bigger and go into production. Well, I’ve taken it to the edge of that crossroads and, going by the way it felt there, decided we would remain a small workshop and not turn into a factory. Oh the instruments would be fine, and I have no doubt after 12 years at this I could sell ten times what we can build now. Maybe this is something to look at in the years to come as I wear out, perhaps Birdsong itself would fly the nest and soar to its full potential. For now, though, to me it’s a beautiful thing the way it is. You just gotta really want it and wait… and again, thank you for that! You get a hand built instrument crafted by hands that want to be here and want to be doing this, and we get to make guitars & basses for patient people who REALLY want what we do. Everybody wins.

We’re planning some fun things on the menu for 2017, and as we’re only able to serve so big of a menu – like any small town café – there are a few things that, for one reason or another (and sometimes just to make room), will drop off. But just because we tighten up the menu as we put a few new offerings on it doesn’t mean anything is “Out of production”, like there are giant molds and computer programs we just destroy… the templates & scribbled notes are still here for most of it and if we’re still tooled up for it we’ll cook you up any past offering we can, no problem. We love them all. But we’re not done cooking up new recipes yet!

Thanks for being with us. Here are some random pictures from the archives, and we’ll talk again next week; I’ll know what the schedule is looking like and fill you in on that. Maybe tease you a bit on the new stuff. For now, it’s back into the shop where a pair of Shortbasses is in sanding, a pair of mahogany Hy5 5-strings are in routing, and there’s a small pile of headstocks to shape. Have a great weekend!

Listening to: Queens Of The Stone Age Rated R Deluxe Version; Deep Purple Burn; and the Eddie Trunk podcast. Kind of a rockin’ week!

Decisions

11/11 – the numbers! And I started writing this at 11:something. I’m very aware of patterns and numbers in my world and I’ll tell you, this year has been one of elevens. 

It certainly has been a week of decisions, hasn’t it? Mine in here are pretty much as always – what is the next list of nexts that need my attention, and how do I make this piece of wood sing? How do I make this assembly of diverse parts and pieces come together to serve its best? 

I do it by judging each ingredient by what it brings to the table, and I fit it into the recipe where it can do what it is best at, where that is needed the most. It’s the same way people are in my circle, and I view my family of clients and anyone in my world – hearts and strengths. You are all so much more to me than some ist or ism or how your world has shaped you to view things in a particular way. It is of no more matter to me in here where you are on any spectrum than in what color you show up there; you’re deeper than your clothes to me, and deeper than those. I hope you’re all doing your best, and I hope my work and these instruments go out and help people bring their best to the musical gardens of lives today and tomorrow, and long beyond our times. 

Everyone has a position on the field, and I’m lucky enough to have found mine. This week I just did what I always do, concern myself at those deep levels with what I can truly affect with my attention and devotion, and focus on that as how I impact the greater world. I was put here to help fill the world with music with certain tools – literally and metaphorically. Your tools may be different, your tune may be different. A lot of my tunes these days are wood and wire, and the occasionally better running old engine. I know folks whose hit songs are flowers and vegetables, numbers, shapes in clay, healing the sick. To me, I can’t separate music from anything else in the same way I cannot separate breath from the process. And so, I hope to contribute via that. 

I serve the muse - I want everyone to feel the music better – it seems to make things better overall, return perspective and balance; there is precedent that a good sweaty groove does good things down real deep. Go get it on.  

And speaking of service, I want to thank all of you who have served and are serving now, it’s amazing the contacts I get here and there from far reaches who say they read this page every week. Blows my mind; I’m happy you’re here, honored to share your time. I try to share what’s true to me in the moment in my little workshop world off to the side and out in the woods. Today I feel such gratitude to you veterans, and to the veterans in your world please pass along my gratitude as well. I can’t get my head around “Veteran’s Day Sale!” – I mean I get it as a businessman, but as a businessman second behind a man first that just isn’t going to monetize that and turn it into a circus to sell another bass or two. What I WILL say is that if you are a veteran, and that means from combat to cook – you all signed on, you all did the deal – and there is anything I do that you want, please get in touch this weekend and I will make some special arrangements for you. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.

Everybody have a great weekend – we’ll meet up here again next week. Thanks for checking in! Here are more random past pictures from the archives. Laters!

Listening to: 
Kirtans, jazz guitar, Slash w/Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators GC Sessions, and Stephen Stills ‘70s live stuff from the internet. Oh – and Scott Beckwith & Friends, “Ether Or”, coming out next week!