Kevin Bronson on November 11th, 2008

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[Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder continues to chronicle the band’s 20th-anniversary tour:]

Chapter 2 (Washington, D.C.): You can subtitle this one “The First Victim, or, Why It Pays To Have a Really Great Guitar Tech.”

Right before we began rehearsing for this tour in October, I read Alex James’ autobiography, “Bit of a Blur” (2007).”  In short, a decent but in no way a great read. If you’re a big Blur fan, you’ll find enough in it to keep you interested throughout the duration of book.”  If you are a casual Blur fan, I would probably suggest reading a biography on Damon Albarn, because Alex James doesn’t have too much to say about the musical or artistic side of Blur. As a big Blur fan, I found myself wanting to know more about Graham Coxon than anything else. But I’m a guitar player, so go figure.”  So here ends my short book review section.

The reason I was thinking about James’ book was because that’s pretty much how my last week and half felt: blurry.”  We started in Columbus, Ohio, and now I’m in Washington D.C., with stops in Cleveland, Toronto, New York, and Atlantic City along the way. Somewhere in there was a meal at a Bob Evans [above]. But rather than putting all those experiences in narrative form, sometimes a simple picture says more.

What you see in this photograph is a repaired headstock on one of my guitars, one that, let’s say, “fell” out of my hands at one point of “United States” during the first of the New York shows. Without getting too existential (or should it be Existential with a capital “E”?) and not asking what happened or why, the happier story is that the guitar is working perfectly and in use every single night. In fact, the guitar didn’t miss a single show, and for this I have thank my guitar tech, Jason Baskin, one of the best techs/tone sculptors out there (and a really good friend). To be honest, he did give me a little grief for giving him some extra work, but I really did deserve it.

So the tune goes something like this: When things get blurry, guitars get broken.

Questions

A few nice people have taken the time to write in and ask questions, and I am very happy to try and answer one or two questions if it is something I can even respond to. Someone sent in question in regards to the extended ensemble.”  If you’ve had a chance to see us play on this tour, I think their musical contributions speak for themselves.”  But in terms of what they add to playing with the band, I would say that it has been one of the most rewarding musical experiences I have taken part in. Gabrial, Stephen, Gingger Shanker (yes, with two G’s!), and Kris are all fantastic musicians and great people.”  With all the nonsense that surrounds being in a band, the two-and-half hours when we actually play are extremely musical, and these four musicians have significantly added to that particular element of the show.