Thomdawg's Music

10/14/2024

Not to bore ya'll, but I've been on a Flea Bitten Dawgs kick lately. We slowed down a bunch, not for any reason, but have been getting back into it. That and getting ready to work my new ukulele into some of our songs. I do love to play the romantic ones, the ones where you can show your heart a bit. R
Enjoy!

Flea Bitten Dawgs

08/01/2024

...and thank you....for a real good time!

07/16/2024

Well there’s another one in the books, Pickin’ on Picnic! This year’s festival was no different from past events, well curated, professionally run, and loved by all there…it’s a big family!
We came into this festival with days of rain, sometimes as much as 3-5 inches at a time! On set up day for the vendors there was still standing water on the camping field. They asked us to not get there before 6:00 to let the Walnut Grove dry a little. It was damp but not wet by then. Set up was easy but had to be a little faster to build my camp site behind my booth before it was dark.
Besides my booth, I brought an EZ-UP to set up for my daughter! I was given the booth site nearest the stage! It gives me a great view of the stage…and the bar is right next door! I asked where I should set up my daughter’s tent. Right next door! This was the start of a truly wonderful festival!
While it is kinda listed as a Bluegrass Festival, it has a lot of non-bluegrass, and more fringe styles of…kinda bluegrass… It was great to personally know some of the entertainers. A person I met 3 years ago when she was in the band contest, almost won, then came back last year…won, and got a slot on the main stage! Andi Jane and the Honky-Tonk Cabaret!
While this is a music festival, the vendors are also a big draw. After vending for a lot of years, I have many friends who also love this type of life, make stuff, travel to the site, set up, have a ball helping folks get the goodies of their choice, and the all-important rip down and drive home.
Getting to be right next to my daughter truly made this weekend super special! It was her first longer term vending, and she, with her helper friend, Jen, had a ball! With us having the EZ-UP tents attached to each other gave us the feeling of a big booth. She is a great artist, doing crochet and ceramics, and my handmade instruments, really set us apart from the typical hippie stuff you see at many festivals. Go Team Artist!
During the weekend, I got the idea to ask folks if I could take a picture of their tattoos. Something with this trend is it crosses all ages. Young, old, so many styles from simple to darn near the whole body! You’ll find a bunch of photos of the Tat’s in my pictures.
I’ll put more info with each picture. Thanks for reading and holler if you want more info, or if you want to add your tattoo’s to this collection!

03/29/2024

Last weekend was one of those good ones!

Lil Rev grew up in Milwaukee, WI and was first inspired to play music when he was just a kid listening to his dad’s record collection. His first love was roc...

02/29/2024

Most people that know me here on FB know about my woodworking, making musical goodies. While my craft was taught me in the early 80's by a master luthier, it wasn't until 2010 that I started on my current endeavor.

During the 1990's, I was focused on a different aspect of music. Beside my playing music ( since 1962! ), I built electronics to help with the noise I so loved to make! I think it was in 1964 when my father drew a schematic on a piece of paper, handed it with a handful of parts, and told me to go build it. If I looked through enough boxes, I might be able to find that passion tone circuit.

Fast forward to the 90's and I'm devouring everything I can find on vintage amps, with the help of my father, a recognized tube electronics expert. After falling in love with the Western Electric gear from the 30-50's, I became interested in how they sounded. With Western Electric #91 theater amps selling at that time for +$10,000, I wasn't going to get the chance. So I started building amps just to listen to them.

That turned into building amps to sell to help finance my hobby. I did that for many years, with most of them being kinda weird designs that sounded great! I'd build with anything I could find to house an amp, or hand built the chassis myself. Most of these were an expression of my artistic side.

This picture came about in an organic fashion. It's a guitar pre-amp designed to kick up a solo. It's a rather large stomp box! I good friend gave me a bag of old k***s from electronic gear from the 1930-1940's. There were a couple of these k***s in the bag. I fell right for this look! On my shelf of "stuff", I found this super cool transformer, a jewel light, and a pushbutton switch. The box was from Radio Shack, and bought because of it's vintage look. Next came the layout on the top!

When I built this, there was no schematic to follow, shoot, I didn't even draw out a plan. It was just thinking about all the pre-amp sections I've built and start soldering! It turned out pretty cool, both sound and looks.

I have to relay one story about my father and his knowledge. I had designed a guitar distortion pedal. It could make an amp roar at a very low volume! We are at Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house so I thought I'd bring a drawing of my schematic. I didn't tell him what it was. He looks at my drawing for a second and says, "You know this thing is going to distort.". I never doubted him again!

Thanks for looking at my past. By the way, I'm playing through this pre-amp tonight at a gig!

02/08/2024

Do you have a Thomdawg's Music shaker or a drum? If you do, you're in good company! These musicians have my goodies, some have more than one!

Lil Rev, If you've heard the phrase, "He wrote the book..." ,well Marc really did write the book! Many lesson books for Hal Leonard lesson books!

Peter Rowan, Grammy-award winner and member of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. One of Jerry Garcia's sidekick in Old and in the Way. Wrote Midnight Moonlight.

Michael "Supe" Granda, Founding and current member of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils. Helped write such greats as, Standing on a Rock, The Way to get to Heaven, Jackie Blue.

Johnathan Singer, Digital media artist for Dead and Company.

David Bromberg, Over the course of four albums for Columbia and five for Fantasy Records, and through associations with artists like Bob Dylan, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Hartford, George Harrison, the Grateful Dead, Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt, Bromberg’s reputation, repertoire and following grew exponentially.

Mark Schatz, Twice voted Bluegrass Hall of Fame's bluegrass bass player of the year.

Bela Fleck,
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. An acclaimed virtuoso, he is an innovative and technically proficient pioneer and ambassador of the banjo, playing music from bluegrass, jazz, classical, rock and various world music genres. Wikipedia

Ya'll wanna join this list!

01/30/2024

Sometimes a piece of wood just screams, "Make me a live-end table!". This is a table, but it's a small display table. I've worked with this lumber before as a burl called Chakta Viga, but the wood is called Paelo. It's a beautiful red colored wood from Mexico. At first, it was going to be cut up and turned into shakers and drums, but after looking at it this design came about. My current love of working with filling defects in the wood with turquoise and epoxy looked like it would be super cool here, and it is!

I hope you enjoy this table as much as I do! Thanks and tell me what you think!

01/22/2024

Just back from the Brown County Ukulele Festival. I had the privilege of helping people find their favorite noise! At this festival it's like everybody is family. My favorite festival every year! Time to get back in the workshop!

12/07/2023

Besides the instruments I craft, I enjoy building boxes. This one started with thoughts of being a shaker, that wood on the top is really gorgeous! This one is a tiny bit larger than most I build but I wasn't going to cut that piece. So, the top is Chakta viga burl with the stripes and trim wenge. The base is also wenge. The side are a spalted maple with wenge corners. It's a little larger than 3.5 inches square. It's a beauty!