Today I went to Craig’s to deliver the parts that are going into the Epiphone Casino.  We wanted to make some more tracks with the old pickups for comparison.  Craig played the Casino through my Boss Katana 50.  I played cajon.  I didn’t expect to play cajon all day, but I was learning and it was fun, so I did.  I have posted pictures of the Casino, the cajon, but not the Katana 50, so here it is:

Boss is a Japanese company, a division of Roland.  Usually Boss makes effects pedals and Roland makes amps and synths, but somehow Boss made an amp.  The Japanese character there is the hiragana letter that is pronounced “ka.”  A “katana” is a Japanese sword, the big one.  Samurai carried two swords, the katana and the smaller wakizashi.  This amp is an incredible value.  It can be loud or soft, has lots of features, sounds great and costs about $230.

Here is a track from the session.  This was recorded into an iPad using GarageBand.

The song, sung by Craig, is one I wrote in high school.  I think it was the second song I ever wrote.  It was recorded by Mary McCaslin on her record, “Way Out West” on Philo records.  You can still buy the CD, I think.  Nice album.

Update: I should add that the song was inspired by the Sylmar earthquake.  I woke up because because my door was rattling madly as if someone was trying to break it down.  I opened it just in time to see all the electrical transformers on all the power poles in the neighborhood explode with bright white flashes.  I thought it was a nuclear attack.  That is what I meant by “And if it seems, we’ve come to harm.”  I see that the quake was in 1971, so technically, it was a few months after I had graduated from high school.