09/29/2026
Long post - tour update: (skip it if you're looking for cat or food pics).
This tour has been interesting. First and foremost, I'm the guitar tech out here. I work for the hip-hop artist Ty Dolla $ign, which in itself is odd given that I've never, in any way, been in the hip-hop world. But Ty is different than a lot of his peers; he is a multi-instrumentalist. He plays, and I've watched him create on, every instrument in the room. He plays guitar and bass live, which is why I'm here: to make sure he has what he needs as an artist on those instruments.
Well, a little over a year ago in Tampere, Finland, for my birthday, Ty brought me out from behind the backdrop to do a shred solo over his hit song "Carnival," the finale of his set. He has brought me out every time since then, and we've done some incredible gigs: Amazon Prime Live, celebrity auctions where everyone in the room was a famous person, and huge international festivals. I feel very fortunate to be a part of it.
So this tour comes up. He's about to go out in support of Bryson Tiller. They are in the planning stages, and everyone around him is questioning him, multiple times, "Are you sure you want to bring a guitar tech out on this? The extra expense to pay, feed, bunk, etc. a GUITAR TECH?!?!" Ty went to bat for me multiple times, telling everyone, "Yes, I want him there so he can come out and jam with me like we've been doing."
So... I'm the guitar tech, yes, but now it's kind of official. I'm playing for this artist. Not in the capacity of so many of my repair clientele I have in my shop who are awesome players in high-level bands or big-hitting mercenary players, but I'm in there in a way. And if you've been following this page, you see that I'm finally getting a taste of what my A-list clients do and the crowds they play to—the places they play. Still the tech, though. Let's keep it real.
In the first week of the tour, I was setting up the dressing room rig while he was doing a TikTok Live and he put the camera on me and said, "This is Wendell, my touring guitarist and teacher." I just kind of scoffed, but I WAS showing him what we call "cheat codes" for things he could do on his own material live.
Well, as the tour has gone on, I show him these little tips and tricks along the way. And I have to say, as someone who has been a guitar teacher off and on for decades, to have a situation where I show someone something one day, see him working it into actual songs the next day, and watch him push his own envelopes with it live that night in front of tens of thousands of people, has been one of the most gratifying things in my entire playing history.
So through all of this, we've been developing a musical camaraderie. I'm still the tech, but I'm really the only other person in the camp that he has any kind of musical fellowship with. There's our playback guy, Fai, who is his producer in the studio too, who he definitely is tight with, but it's a little different between two instrumentalists.
Ty and I are trading playlists and stuff, and I couldn't believe the amount of hardcore, metal, punk, and classic hard rock this guy is deeply into. He's blasting Sabbath and Zeppelin out of his dressing room all the time. I learn his songs and I say stuff to him like, "That definitely has a metal vibe to it," and he'll say something like, "I was listening to Korn that day."
A couple of shows ago, I went into the dressing room to check on him and make sure he was good with the setup. He sat me down and told me to record a solo over this thing he was working on. Cold turkey. No warm-up. I didn't even get a good listen-through to the track. I just started blazing over this thing he just laid down. I noodled over it a little, completely lost as to what I should be doing, and he went, "OK. That's it! That's all I need." I just shrugged and said, "OK, whatever," but was thinking, "Cool, maybe I can start recording for the guy."
Ty and I have been sharing our musical influences with each other. He knows I'm a big EVH guy, but he's always throwing things at me to get my reaction. Yesterday, I was setting up the guitar rig in the dressing room and he was playing something over the studio speakers that was some really raw-sounding stuff, but it had shred guitar going all through it. I asked him, "Who is THAT?!?!" He just got this big grin on his face and said, "That's you." LMAO. I didn't even recognize myself! And it was just ridiculous. But he's turning it into something.
So what's next? Not sure. All I know is we play here in Milwaukee tomorrow night, Minneapolis the next night, and a whole bunch of other cities for the next month. We'll see where this wave takes me.
