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Conan Neutron is a guy, Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends is a band. It is a band developed to serve the songwriting of Conan Neutron (the guy) whose recordings featuring Dale Crover of the mighty Melvins on drums. The band’s live lineups has a revolving cast of players. Spangle, and sass, small scale arena rock for smart alecks and malcontents. Big riffs, critical thinking, and big smart rock for freaks, nerds and weirdos.
It'd be a lie to say anything other than Nirvana started me on my path. Kicked my world in as I was just the right age. The bands that really made me want to play for real and made music my life the way it is were Unwound. Sonic Youth, Melvins, and later the Jesus Lizard all shaped me, and the buzzsaw guitar of Johnny Ramone started my merry way. Much later on, I spent years trying to figure out what John Reis was doing in Drive Like Jehu and accidentally came up with my own stuff. Wonderful!
I'd tell myself to worry less getting the perfect sound and advise myself to start to thinking more about songs fit together. I'd say I got REALLY good at songwriting about the time that most of my peers were quitting music. Hey, at least I figured it out eventually. I'd also say: putting your hands in different places until you get a cool sound is a totally valid way of coming up with stuff. For some reason, I used to feel like it was somehow a lesser way of doing things when I was younger, which was silly and insecure.
When I'm touring and playing live or recording, it really does feel like one of the only times I'm actually myself and not just cosplaying as a normal person, feigning interest in normal person things. I feel truly and wholly alive, and that what I'm doing is adding something beautiful and cool into the world. It isn't that I'm not a functioning adult or anything, but for the time that the playing is happening, I can transcend mediocre miseries, casual cruelty, and the endlessly spiraling unfulfilled needs of modern society. It is beautiful and it is pure and there is nobody who can take it away. Nobody.
Xotic EP because it is the best boost I know of for me. Just more of the awesome guitar sound, a little more driven and such. It is the pre-amp of an echoplex, and I love that!
I'm a total sucker for the small clone chorus sound, it's all over the Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends stuff, and although there are other chorus sounds out there, that's the one I like the best and makes me smile. The shimmer appeals to me on an atomic level.
I'd probably go with the Belle Epoch 3rd, since it can do short delay stuff really well and the full-on echoplex experience as well.
If it is a desert island, you're going to want a little variety, right? Get Pink Floyd with it while looking out over endless seas... that sounds pretty cool to me.
A favorite one is playing something "in reverse", meaning come up with a progression or something and just start at the end and go back. I like doing inversions and alt voicings and things like that... so something can sound basic and boring and suddenly it is ethereal or vaguely off-putting or reminds you of deep open spaces.
I also find value in just completing things, even if it turns out not to be what I wanted. Just move on... sometimes context can be everything, and a part that was "basic" can be completely amazing in a different place and arrangement.
Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends actually started 10 years ago, so that's a good question. Picking one artist is crazy because I feel like it changes so much and so often. The top 20 or so stay the same, but the order changes. DEVO would be a great bet. I feel like it is all a rich tapestry and I get just as much out of Bon Scott era AC/DC as I do Fugazi, just as much from Melvins as Wire, and just as much from The Birthday Party as Thin Lizzy.
Music to me is just as much a concept as sound and songs. So yeah... if it is just one... DEVO, and sure... let's still say DEVO.
I didn't come up playing the songs of others. Learning songs and playing them and whatnot. So it tends to be one of mine. THAT SAID, in recent years I've settled into "If You Want Blood... you've got it." by AC/DC, no particular reason why, but those full-voiced chords kind of give you an easy feel to hear how a guitar actually sounds. That's for guitar...
For Bass, it is the intro for Six Pack by Black Flag or Night Goat by Melvins.
My custom Electrical Guitar Company Jagmaster. Coolest thing I own and intrinsic to my playing and the sound of my band. Changed the way I play in a good way, and was my go-to for my evolution into the songwriter I have now become. Totally tied to the instrument. I love it so. How much? Well... it is in the band logo!
Man, I really have almost everything I need and want, and I feel so very grateful about all that. That said, I sold my Traynor YBA-1A for tour funds earlier this year and i'd love to get another one. Even if it doesn't work for me live the "Canadian Marshall" is just cool as hell and I loved having one.
Custom Electrical Guitar Company Jagmaster Guitar (Lace Alumitones) with neutron blue snake head cable and neutron blue right angle to straight standard to amp. I say neutron blue because it is my favorite color.
Voodoo labs Pedal Power 3 Plus, and shaped to length Rattlesnake Panhead patch cables. I don't use anything else unless I absolutely have to.
Boss-TU3 tuner
Catalinbread Naga Viper Treble Booster
Xotic - EP Booster
Earthquaker Devices - Cloven Hoof Fuzz Grinder
Electroharmonix Small Clone - Chorus
Earthquaker Devices - Bit Commander Analog Octave Synth
Earthquaker Devices - Tetacle Octave
TC Electronics Hall of Fame 2 mini - Reverb
Catalinbread - Belle Epoch Echoplex simulator
Orange Dual Terror 32W head on "Fat Channel"
There is a lot of intentional tone stacking in different combinations for different sounds and the midrange punch reacts very well to the other guitar which is a MusicMan HD-150. The guitars work in conjunction for a very full and huge sound. I have a strict "one in... one out" policy, so anything I want to put in has to replace something that is already there. Also worth noting that the pedal board has a little color changing spotlight that focuses directly on my live, blasting light off of my spangled jackets and refracting it in cool ways. That doesn't STRICTLY affect the tone, but it is notable.
Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends
former:
Household Gods
Victory and Associates
Mount Vicious
Replicator
Action Chief
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