FOUNDLINGS 01 - Looper Jam

Dustin’ off the old lead chops!

Welcome to my first Foundlings post. The other day, while routing around an old hard drive, I stumbled upon a bunch of abandoned digital artifacts. I thought it would be fun to resurrect some and share them here on Love Songs Etc from time to time.

First up, a looper jam.

When I was a kid, I sprinted home from the school bus. I couldn’t wait to get my hands back on my cherry red Epiphone semi-hollow body electric guitar. The second I got home, I’d plug her into my little Crate amp and let it rip.

I spent hours upon hours playing along with AC/DC, BB King, Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin. As I got a little older, I gravitated toward the singer-songwriter crowd. It became less about playing along with records and more about learning to write my own songs. For this, I turned to my Montoya steel-stringed acoustic. Many embarrassingly bad songs followed.

In recent years, it’s been 99% acoustic. For the longest time, I only picked up an electric when I needed one for recording. That changed last November. Boy was I rusty. To dust off my electric lead chops I made a daily practice of jamming with a looper pedal.

The Line Six DL4 looper doesn’t allow for saving loops, so I jammed to the loop in the video above for days. Eventually, I held down on the second button from the left, and like a sand mandala, it was gone forever. Well, actually not gone at all since I filmed the improv above.

GEAR DORKING!

The audio was recorded with the camera mic out in the room, hence the slightly janky sound quality.

The video features my Fender “SRV” Stratocaster. (Find out which Rock and Roll Hall of Famer gifted the instrument to me in this post from March 8, 2023.) I usually keep the volume rolled off a bit. As I mentioned above my looper was the Line 6 DL4. My amp of choice was my 1967 Fender “Drip Edge” Vibro Champ. (Another gift. This one from my Uncle Rich. Learn about Rich and his musical history in this Shop Talk post from May 7, 2024.) The amp sounds great since returning from the shop. Jesse Quitslund of Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar and Acme Instruments is a Fender amp guru. He hipped me to a tone setting that I’ve been loving. Bass on 10! Yeah... Bass on 10! Then, start with treble on 10 and roll back until it sounds good. In the video, I’m using the neck pickup and have the treble set to 5. Often, I keep at around 7.

Peace & Love Songs,

Pete

PS: Here’s a picture of me and my first electric guitar, a cherry red Epiphone 335 copy. I kinda regret selling it to my cousin. At least it’s still in the family.

Young Droge rocking the Epiphone into the Crate CR-60.