Nick Ogawa

New haircut!

I cut out all the slots in the fingerboard and will be ready to hammer the actual fretwire into the fingerboard soon. I’m still trying to determine if it’s better to glue the fingerboard to the neck first, or if it’s okay to have the frets in before gluing.

I guess trial and error is the way to go. It’s doubtful that this will be the only one I make. I’ve got the pickups and wiring all ready to go. I plan on routing the body tomorrow.

I’ve got my supplies, as you can see below. Although I hate to burst any bubbles about my amazing craftsmanship, I must admit I purchased those two parts online. I did however draw the design, and will be routing that myself, out of wood not pictured here. I would’ve posted a pic of that too, but it’s just a couple of pieces of plywood glued together and struck me as a very boring picture. I’ll be installing frets on the fingerboard soon, so we’ll see how that goes, more on that later. Some people might ask, isn’t putting frets on a cello cheating, and to those people I say, who cares?

I’m using this fantastic instructable as a guidline more or less, because my goal is to make something really authentically electric, instead of all the bizarre looking instruments out there that are called “electric cellos.” What the heck is the point if it looks like some kind of crazy mechanized weapon, or a bizarre avant-guard piece of art. Not to say that I don’t intend for this to be art, but the point is for elegance and functionality, not some sort of utilitarian implement.

is it wrong that I really really want one of these sniper bikes?

I went and voted early yesterday. The line was pretty crazy, but it was totally worth it!

I bought a cello neck and fingerboard through the internet and they finally came today. I’ve got this pet project to build my own electric cello. I have one of the Yamaha ones, but it’s very robotic and mechanical looking and I want to take a stab at making my own design. It will basically be a trial run because I’ve never built anything like it before, but it will definitely be a fun project. The design will be loosely based on the shape I use for waxatronic - which is my electronic stuff that you can find here.

The TVOTR concert this weekend was awesome! I thought the flow of the show was really well done, although I was skeptical at first. They played “Wolf Like Me” for their 4th song, which seemed like a bold move, especially in the typical save-the-hits-for-last concert mentality. But it really brought the crowd in and they kept the energy high even through some of the slower sparser songs after that. “Golden Age” was a lot faster than on the record but it was still good. Dave Sitek had these windchimes hanging from the end of his guitar for a bunch of songs, which was pretty crazy. It was hard to tell what they were really doing, but I guess they must have added some kind of sustained overtones to add to the overall wall of sound he makes.

I’ve gotta say, I’m pretty excited about seeing TV on the Radio this Saturday. I’ve got their new album and have listened to it a bunch of times and it’s awesome.

Looking at my post from yesterday I realized that the picture doesn’t make Atlanta look as pretty as it actually is from my window, mostly due to all those wires. I work right near Piedmont Park, and I ate my lunch there yesterday so I took a picture. It was pretty nice to sit in the sunshine in October, especially since it’s supposed to snow in VT today. While I ate my sandwich I read David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster.” It’s really not the best thing to read while you’re eating, but it’s pretty awesome stuff nonetheless.

I’m back . . . at least for now. I spent some time in Vermont, which was a nice break from New york. Life is much slower there, and it’s nice for about a month, and then it gets a little too slow. Then, I moved to Atlanta at the beginning of September. It was kind of a crazy whirlwind move. I’ve got some new music that I’ll be putting up soon. Meanwhile, I’ll just leave you with a picture of Mid-town Atlanta from my office window.

Next Monday, August 18 at 7pm EST I’ll be playing on the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour in Lexington, Kentucky. The show is broadcast all over the place, and they have station listings, as well as webcast info on their website, www.woodsongs.com. Please tune in if you can.