So Jenn called me yesterday and said we can play at the River Rock coffee shop in St. Peter next month, probably on April 12th.* We used to play there on a fairly regular basis. It's a little over an hour from the cities -- just head south on 169 and you'll run right into it. Also, sounds like there's some places we could play in 'Kato that'd actually pay us. For yayz!!

I'm glad I never got rid of my first guitar -- I've been playing it lately and it makes me nostalgic. It's a red Squire (Fender's budget line) Strat with a white pickguard. Shortly after Mom bought it for me back in the day, she had a Fender Lace Sensor pickup installed in the bridge position for my 17th birthday (I think), and the thing's honestly a pretty hot sounding guitar. A while ago a guy did some work on it for me -- replaced some broken pieces and sort of disabled the imitation Floyd Rose**, which never worked that great anyway. Also, I use slightly heavier strings and keep it tuned a full step below standard tuning. I'm not sure why any of you needed to know all that, but whatever.

That is all.

*OMG, that's the day after lonely_doll's birthday!

**Anyone remember the "race car" effect Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars used to do at the beginning of "Kickstart My Heart" with the tremolo bar? Hilariously, I used to do this with the crappy locking system on my cheap Strat and then the rest of the song would be horribly out of tune.

The journalist in me wants to change "folk music group" to "indie rock duo."

The Coffee Hag is the first place Jenn Melby (i.e., half of indie rock duo Sister Gin) ever performed. It's also the place my friend Rachel Winter and I used to hang out at all Sunday afternoon, playing checkers and drinking lattes. I think it may have been the first place I stopped in when I went to Mankato the first time as a 19-year-old college kid. It's sort of like the greatest independent coffee shop ever.

Speaking of memories, the 300th issue of Guitar World was in my mail today! It's been published since 1980, and I've been reading (and collecting) it since 1989. I probably taught myself about 80-90 percent of what I know with magazines like this. Also, in a moment of pure genius, they decided to do the cover based on the movie "300." (Guys like James Hetfield and the dudes in Slipknot look especially apropos 'cuz they're always making 300-esque faces...)

I've been reading the latest Guitar World and decided I needed to check out:

Flash Bathory -- Found her in an article spotlighting DIY musicians on MySpace.

Disturbed -- I've actually got their second and third albums, but it sounds like they're continuing to transition into a more "classic" metal sound. These guys are definitely underrated. Also, CHECK THIS OUT.

Allan Holdsworth -- I've been meaning to get some of this guy's stuff practically since I started playing guitar.

Rory Gallagher -- There's a collection of riffs transcribed in this magazine that felt instantly familiar when I played them -- this means I've been ripping off guitarists that've been ripping off Rory (I'm guessing Slash is probably one of them). I wanna know who to send off a mental "thanks" to next time I throw some repeating triplets into a solo.