Today I came across one of my long lost and most prized albums of all time. Incubus’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E LP. And inevitably there is one question that pops in my mind every time I see the cover. Who the hell is the dude with the mustache? The picture, for some reason, has always struck me as somewhat intriguing and mysterious which only ads to the conundrum of this remarkable album. After years of wonderment, I finally took the time to do a little research on just who is Chuck, and found this page which still, unfortunately, leaves question however, it does shed some light on the subject.
Apparently no one really knows who this guy actually is. Many rumors over the years have suggested things such as that he was a figure in some of the ol’ Miller beer commercials, a porn star, and best of all, a girls cheerleading coach. Some have even speculated that he is former Marlboro Man “Chuck Boyd”, father of lead singer Brandon Boyd. In a reported interview with Brandon, he states that the picture is from 1974 and the only thing he is certain on is that “Chuck” is in fact Charles Mulholland, a Salem cigarette model in 1976. He claims to have met Chuck during the filming of the “Pardon Me” video in which Brandon states that Chuck plays an older version of himself. According to the interview, Brandon thought it was a really cool picture so the band decided to throw it up on the album covers and then spread a bunch of ridiculous rumors about who he is. Brandon states that he was “the coolest guy I ever met”. But we still can only speculate the truth, I mean, Brandon admits to spreading rumors of his Identity and whats to say the band has ever stopped? I even dug up this MySpace Profile in which the user claims to be THE Charles Mulholland himself. Check out the links and decide for yourself. As for getting down to the bottom of the matter, there is really no way to be absolutely certain but one thing I am sure of is that this may very well be one of the best hooks/gimmicks of all time for probably one of the best rock bands of all time. Rock on Incubus and Long Live Chuck!!!!
If you should find yourself bored at the office, and need to kill an hour or so, PaperGuitar.com has a rather large collection of papercraft guitar templates to help spice up your desktop. Not quite as good as the real thing, but hey, they look cool.
DIY site Instructables has just recently had a nice run of killer tutorials. First in line is this very well put together and informative tutorial by Instructables user drums787 which is a very informative guide to tuning your drum set. A must see for drummers. Check out the instructable here….
Here is a great step-by-step tutorial by instructables user jonboytang, on how to make tonepad.com’s Tube Screamer Clone stomp pedal. The tutorial is done up very well with a ton of pictures to accompany it. Check it out here.
Check out this neat little free application from Gieson.com for tuning your guitar online. The app loads right in your browser or you can download it as well. For PC and Mac.
SmallBox Effects has several DIY guitar effects projects for the DIY musician. The great thing about the projects at SmallBox are that the diagrams are extremely simple to understand as they include pictures of the parts and their wiring all in one image so that even an 8 year old could probably figure them out. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Projects include an LPB (line power booster), “Fuzz Face”, A/B box, and even a project on finishing and tooling your casing for your electronics. Go to SmallBox and check them out.
These days there are so many great free virtual instruments and effects showing up all over the net so we have decided to create a new category called “Free VST“. The newest addition is TAL-BassLine 1.0.1, a free virtual bass synth from TAL(Togu Audio Live). TAL-BassLine generates phat bass sounds and weighs in light at only about 1MB. For Windows and Mac. Also be sure and stop by the manufacture’s homepage where they have many more free high quality effects plugins as well.
The Lazy Snake is a free killer virtual electric piano synth from Andreas Ersson with several variations like wah an tremolo. Visit the vst’s homepage for audio samples.
Looking for some good finger exercises to help you improve your guitar playing? Generate your own at guitarcardio. Just enter in a few parameters like scale, root string, root note, and difficulty and BAM, guitarcardio will generate a tablature exercise for just for you. You’ll be rockin like Dokken in no time.
Found this cool how-to at Make today on creating your own Low Wattage Attenuator Box on the cheap (around $40). Use this box when you would like to boost your input signal on lower wattage amps without distorting your waveform giving you an extra punch. Link to project @ GuitarPug…
Just as the title states. Making-Music has put together a killer list of free digital music software. Check out their post titled “100 latest FREE music making software - June 2008” where they have put together a list of 100 free excellent effects, instruments, and synths for your downloading enjoyment.
Its really great to see more bands out there jumping on the free digital music train. Since the demise of Napster and AudioGalaxy, and not to mention the greedy bite of the RIAA, it’s been more than painful to acquire free, quality music legitimately. But thanks to artists like NIN, and the thousands of Jam Bands out there, who offer their works free to their fans, the revolution is well on its way to resurrection. Nine Inch Nails is currently offering their new album “The Slip” for free download at nin.com. They also have a free download of “Lights in the Sky Over North America 2008 Tour Sampler” that features several tracks from several different artists (a place to bury strangers, does it offend you yeah?, crystal castles, deerhunter, and nine inch nail). You need only supply a valid e-mail address for them to email the albums to you.
Killa Pluggies has a nice collection of free downloadable VST plugins for the electronic musician. 6 Effects modules and 1 Organ emulator to be exact. The effects include a phaser, chorus, flanger, autopan, overdrive, and even a detuner. Check out their site where you can download them all free. Link to Killa Pluggies…
Check out AIMP2 which is a really nice advanced multimedia player that gives Winamp a run for its money. It supports just about any format and even comes with a file converter, an audio recorder and even a tag editor. You can even use it to control the speed, time, and pitch of your tracks as well as add effects like reverb and chorus to the mix. Best of all its free.
AIMP Homepage: http://www.aimp.ru/
Download: aimp_2.50.248_rc2.zip
If you have the time and the cajones, gmoon @ instructables has a hell of a DIY tutorial for building your own Tube Guitar Amplifier along with nice schematices for you do dive into. It is a very well put together and extensive Instructable. Below is a video of him playing through his custom amp and it sounds quite nice. This one is well over my head but some of you serious DIYers out there should get a kick out of it.
Today I came across one of my long lost and most prized albums of all time. Incubus’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E LP. And inevitably there is one question that pops in my mind every time I see the cover. Who the hell is the dude with the mustache? The picture, for some reason, has always struck me as somewhat intriguing and mysterious which only ads to the conundrum of this remarkable album. After years of wonderment, I finally took the time to do a little research on just who is Chuck, and found this page which still, unfortunately, leaves question however, it does shed some light on the subject.
Salem cigarette model in 1976. He claims to have met Chuck during the filming of the “Pardon Me” video in which Brandon states that Chuck plays an older version of himself. According to the interview, Brandon thought it was a really cool picture so the band decided to throw it up on the album covers and then spread a bunch of ridiculous rumors about who he is. Brandon states that he was “the coolest guy I ever met”. But we still can only speculate the truth, I mean, Brandon admits to spreading rumors of his Identity and whats to say the band has ever stopped? I even dug up this MySpace Profile in which the user claims to be THE Charles Mulholland himself. Check out the links and decide for yourself. As for getting down to the bottom of the matter, there is really no way to be absolutely certain but one thing I am sure of is that this may very well be one of the best hooks/gimmicks of all time for probably one of the best rock bands of all time. Rock on Incubus and Long Live Chuck!!!!
Its really great to see more bands out there jumping on the free digital music train. Since the demise of Napster and AudioGalaxy, and not to mention the greedy bite of the RIAA, it’s been more than painful to acquire free, quality music legitimately. But thanks to artists like NIN, and the thousands of Jam Bands out there, who offer their works free to their fans, the revolution is well on its way to resurrection. Nine Inch Nails is currently offering their new album “
If you have the time and the cajones, 
