Paulo Giovanni Campo and Texas Davey

Paulo Giovanni Campo and Texas Davey do it again!  A pseudonym release from the outtakes of the newest funk release.  Perhaps we'll have follow-ups in a Volume II? 

https://maleorder.bandcamp.com/album/volume-i

New Album: Extraterrestrial Wet Dream

 

Out now!  My latest solo album.  Thanks to all my friends who helped make it possible!

https://lumband.bandcamp.com/album/extraterrestrial-wet-dream

Extraterrestrial Wet Dream is a project (Aaron)Lum dreamed-up, channeling inspiration from 70-80s funk and disco greats like Parliament Funkadelic, Prince, and the Italian disco group Kano. The group tries to connect the lines of funk, soul and disco together with sexual innuendos or being overtly over the top, but with some ghost remains of Lum’s rock guitar shredding roots. It was also an excuse for getting together with new and old musician friends, While Lum played his role on his usual vocal and guitar duties, he got to deep dive into the world of synths from the 70s and 80s along with resurrecting his saxophone playing for the first time since 2008. The album features legendary bassist Mike Watt of the Minutemen, Iggy Pop, and Porno for Pyros. Ex-band mate from the hip hop group Lost History and current People of the Abyss solo artist, Trevor Brown on Drums/vocals. As well as Fukuoka punk rockers; The Born Shit Stirrer’s original bassist, Paul Blair. Special thanks to Jan Bart Leeuw on keys, samples and whistles. Melisa Delgado on Viola, Ryan McMahon with his pertinent information, and Jon Bates for yelling!  

We hope it’s a testimonial for shaking your ass.

 

Preorder for my Next Solo Album

 

Hello earthlings! Today we drop the per-order for our next album and total invasion. My friends and I Lum, have gone through a transformation musically. We hope you can find the time to head over to our page and check out the funk we’ve been cooking…..13 tracks coming your way soon. Until then, please enjoy two new ones out now.

https://lumband.bandcamp.com/album/extraterrestrial-wet-dream

Peace and Funk

 Lum

New Single and Album Announcement

Hello earth. Today was a good day to put out a single. Some BirdsReturn. It’s a collaboration with author Courtney Jensen to accompany his next book in his fantasy series. His first book, The Crown and the Caged God is out now available on Amazon or Bonstanbooks.com. This song takes place in a medieval type world, sung in a tavern after mourning the loss of a desolated city. I promise it sounds much more cheerful than that description. We tried to emulate what happens with oral traditions overs generations, where words often get changed or misinterpreted. So we passed the song around a few times between each other without truly seeing the written original lyrics. Courtney is a great writer and I promises the book is not your average fantasy novel. So please check out all he is up to at CourtneyJensen.com and his youtube channel.

I also wanted to announce my next album, Extraterrestrial Wet Dream which should be out before the year’s end. It’s a funk/soul/disco/jazz album. I know... a total left turn from the previous album. But this it the point of these albums. To try new things. The inspiration started from late night jams with my punk band’s (Born Shit Stirrers) founding member Paul Blair on bass

Special guests will be Mike Watt from the Minutemen, Firehose, and Iggy Pop.  Trevor Brown on drums of People of the Abyss. Our first album together with him on drums in16 years, since our time together in the hip hop band Lost History. Also long time collaborator Jan Bart Leeuw adding keys and samples and Melisa Delgado on viola.

I hope you enjoy these releases. We all put a lot of work into them.

Love, Lum

 

 

The Crown and the Caged God

 

An almost lifelong friend of mine has been writing a fantasy book for nearly a decade, and now part one of book one has been unleashed upon the world.  The Crown and the Caged God.  Years ago I was asked to help paint the world maps that correspond with these books.  That art will be in coming books.  However the writer, Courtney Jensen is a fantastic artist as well.  He spent a lot of time on not just all aspects of the art by hand, but the page layout and every small detail in the world he's tried to create.  While my copy of the book is still on it's way to me, I can promise the writing I have read from it is great. There will be future installments of the story, so you can get started with book one part one here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991314514

 Seems art and humanity are values being questioned these days because of new technology.  This was 100% human made.  This is a subject the author talks about from time to time on his youtube channel. Which usually has various weekly short journal subjects.  Ranging from topics around writing, art, society and even old video games which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@courtneyjensen

End of broadcast for the day!

Enjoy

 

New Slicks Vinyl Ep I Recorded and Mixed

 

So I've recently been more comfortable calling myself a recording engineer and mixer.  I recently got some work via England to record a local band, the Slicks, all the way here in Fukuoka (although the members are spread out across Japan now).  Funny enough, when I told other musicians around town that I was recording the Slicks, everyone said, "I used to listen to them in high school!" So unbeknownst  to dumb me, I was in a cool opportunity to record an influential band.  The Vinyl Ep is out now on Private Scandal and put out by Connor Dobson here:https://privatescandal.bigcartel.com/product/slicks The band sounds great even if they hadn't played in many years together.  They didn't miss a beat.  Very 70's punk sounding.

Telecaster Mods to Make Them More Playable

The Telecaster. What some would call simple perfection or a blue collar working man’s guitar is a 74 year old design. While there have been many other iterations of it, the original standard modal has had very few changes to the design by the original company who launched it, Fender. As great as the guitar is, there are 3 major design flaws that really effect it’s playing ability and should have been modified on standards off the factory line many years ago. As much as I would like to blame “boomers” or the stubborn allergenic-to-change guitar community, truth is, most of us just want to emulate our heroes who owned the same old guitars with their flawed designs. So Fender keeps making them the same way. The good news is we can mod these changes fairly cheaply and easily. Here are three mods that should be standard on Teles to make them more playable. 

 

1. Replacing the Jack Plug Dish Thingy

Worst ever.

Seriously. What the hell is this thing? It doesn’t appear on any other guitar in the world for good reason. They should stop being made. You can’t fit right angled jacks into it securely. It comes loose quickly, and it’s a pain to tighten it back up. The whole thing is holding on to a janky piece of metal wedged into the body. Just toss this thing and buy a screw mounted cup type plug mount. You’ll never worry about it again.

 

 

 

2. Intonating the Three Saddle Bridge.

While some newer models have the 6 saddle, fully intonatable bridges, the old style bridges are made for 3 saddles. Each sharing two strings and usually at a flat angle. This makes the higher positions on the guitar neck become out of tune. I know some people say this is part of the charm of a Tele, but I’d rather play in tune. No one listens to a record and hears an out of tune guitar and says, “gee, what a great Tele.” You can buy compensated angled saddles out of a variety of materials. They’re usually spot on with a little adjusting.

 

 

3. Angling the Selector Switch like a Stratocaster

This won’t bug everyone, but if you switch pickups in the middle of a song then the Tele will have you fumbling around trying. There is a reason the Stratocaster has an angled pickup selector switch. You can use it on the fly much quicker and easily. There are replacement control plates which do this plus moving the volume knob back a bit to allow for quick switching.

24 years of corrosion under the old plate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Runner ups.

The neck pickup. I tried for years to like them. Tried many types of traditional styles. I don’t like them. Personally I think replacing them with anything is an improvement.

Top load strings on the bridge. You can bend the strings better and it seems to be less bright then the through body string option.

In Series wiring for the middle position.  Despite playing a lot of funk, I hardy ever used the stock parallel wiring.

Until next time space cadets 

New Release From Born Shit Stirrers!

I can't believe I've let almost a year pass by since posting on here again.  While I have been busy, I honestly forgot to and often put it off.  Lots of music recording and production has been coming in for me and not just my own projects.  So I've been caught up in it.  Speaking of which, here is my latest release from our little punk band the Born Shit Stirrers from the good people at Serial Bowl Records https://serialbowlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/scratch-n-sniff

We've come a long way.  From shitty closet recordings to the first vinyl I fully mixed.  I think it's our most eclectic album yet.  My old college roommate even pitched in with a tune he used to play at drunken parties.  Hopefully everyone enjoys it, or isn't too offend at the very least.  First 100 orders get a limited poster.  Available on 12 inch vinyl, CD, or digital download.

In other news, in the off chance your in Japan and near me, I'll be playing my first solo gig after at least a decade.  OK, back to work.  I'll be back with more to say on various subjects again soon I hope...

Love, Lum

Are all MXR Phase 90s the same?

After fixing this phase 90, yet again.  I realized that all the chips are the same in all of them.  Just a different box on the outside.  Check out the script switch and the Eddie Van Halen print on the board.

 

Lum's Gone Country!?!?

 

https://lumband.bandcamp.com/album/titanium-country-hits

 

Well, here it is. 12 tracks of a genre I never thought I’d record. Well kind of one genre. Really Americana I guess. But there is some genre bending with some heavy stuff, funk and even hip hop.  Took me years to appreciate country music and basically a lot of digging around in the past dusting some stuff off. I think I came up with my own take on it, although far from traditional. I really wanted an excuse to call up old band mates as well as current and new ones, to make a kind of time capsule of a bunch of people who I’ve enjoyed playing with over the years. There are even some family contributions as well. If you weren’t on this one I hope I can catch you again in the future. This really was challenging and fun to make (even if I was getting obsessive about it). I think I needed this. Big thanks to all of the players on here. Couldn’t have done it without you! Really!  Sorry this blog has been quite this year.  I do have tons of pedal stuff backed up to get to.  I've just been in the studio a lot, which is a good thing.  I'll try to get back to it soon. 

Peace and Love

~Lum