On July 14th and 15th 2013, my wife Carla and I had the extreme privilege of fulfilling a 10 year dream to see Man or Astroman? play a live show, at a two-night double feature in Chicago's Empty bottle bar. Arriving an hour early, I found a pleasantly intimate venue with friendly staff and delicious local micro-brews. Due to the small size of the place I was confident about getting a good spot up front to discover clues about Brian Causey's pedal setup and guitar sound, being satisfied with that alone. But never in a million years would I have guessed what life changing events were about to unfold.
The first incident occurred during the last song of the set, one of my all time favorites "Special Agent Conrad Uno", when there appeared to be something happening with Causey's Hallmark Custom 60. It was during the interlude when the Peter Gunn theme was normally played but instead Causey flipped the guitar upside down and started banging the headstock on the stage creating a myriad of sounds. Then unexpectedly, the legendary Star Crunch stepped over to where I was standing and literally handed me his guitar, AND pick!
Exhausted from a 5-hour drive from Detroit to Chicago after an already long workday, and trying to psychologically deal with what was going on, my mind was in a muddle and the Peter Gunn riff escaped me. But I shook it off quickly and collected my thoughts after hearing the sound of my fast punk down-stroking the second string coming from far across the stage. Suddenly I was caught up in Birdstuff's beat and began playing on autopilot, whatever came to mind in time with the drums and rhythm guitar. It was just some Shadowy Men like riff, but in reality a purposeful setup to do what I've always dreamed- a move that captures the classic Man or Astroman guitar sound that's eluded me all these years. But would it work? I've tried Silvertones, Teiscos and various hollowbodys with marginal results and now, in front of a crazed audience, I'd be testing the actual live guitar setup of Brian Causey himself! (Carla got it on VIDEO! Click here)
Making my way down the scale inevitably towards the bottom, I raised the neck and grabbed hold of the Mosrite-like tremolo to end with an explosive chord and speedy vibrato combo. I remember the feeling of it as I bent, the spring moving easily with minimal effort. Yet a slight tilt was more than enough to change the pitch completely. So when I torqued that sucker like a wildman for maximum vibrato at the end, it made all of my surf punk psychobilly space twang dreams come true! And so, at that very moment I knew my quest was finally over. The Mosrite/Hallmark tremolo design truly is the corner piece in the Man or Astroman guitar sound puzzle.
Needless to say my time with the Hallmark was coming to a close, so I played a farewell riff and raised the guitar up as high as I could for one last tremolo trist before handing it back to Causey who then put it out crowd surfing. In amazement of what just happened, I glanced down to my hand where I still held the pick gave me, worn from being played the entire show. Some people next to me were cheering and said something I couldn't understand so I just gave a nod and smiled in response. Little did they know, that this event was without a doubt one of the most memorable and defining moments in my entire life.
After the show, things quieted down and the bar was about to close. Only a few people mingled around and the place was mostly empty. So as crew began removing equipment off-stage, I took the opportunity to snap some photos of the entire setup including Brian Teasley's drum kit. Inside the kick drum was what seemed to be rolled up pieces of bed padding, that space age memory-foam stuff. I also noticed Remo and Evans drumheads and Sabian cymbals. Then, one of the Astro road-team techs overheard myself and another fan discussing the equipment, so while carrying the Hallmark Custom 60 away he allowed us to touch the strings and examine their gauge. What a great guy! I guessed out loud that they were certainly lighter, probably 11's and the crewman just nodded before carting off the legendary instrument.
A few minutes after, lurking in the shadows in an area off to the side, I noticed a strangely familiar figure examining some equipment. It was Brian Causey himself, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity to meet my favorite musician and biggest inspiration of all time slip by.
It was a truly a thrilling moment, walking over to introduce myself to a legend like that. I mentioned the years of research, trial and error spent trying to find the Man or Astroman sound, and was greeted with sympathetic ears. He was super nice about it and patiently listened to my story so I decided to ask the question that had been burning in my mind every time I saw that $6,000+ pricetag- "WHY MOSRITE?" Why do you play such an expensive brand guitar, what was your first Mosrite and why? Well I wish I could've written down all that was said, but to paraphrase it was basically that he never played Mosrite as a brand exclusively. Several years ago, he walked into a little guitar shop where some guy was selling a Mosrite Mark 1 for around $1000. The seller told him a little about it, Brian tried it then bought it, that's all! He then told me about how in the years to follow the Mark 1 took serious beatings on the road. (minutes before the encounter, I actually saw a guitar tech walk away after setting the Hallmark against an amp- as soon as he walked away, it fell over and slammed to the ground) Causey said he wanted guitars that wouldn't break the bank if stolen, damaged, etc. so he decided to try the much less expensive Hallmark Custom 60 and has been using them ever since. Causey also mentioned that he thought paying Mosrite prices for a guitar is just ridiculous!! (I asked him if he knew Dana Mosely or had any connection with Mosrite, and he said no, adding that he wasn't at all impressed with the Ed Roman shop which lead to a quick conversation about how absurdly commercialized and over priced it is)
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| Me and Brian Causey, wow! |
Brian Causey turned out to be a super nice guy and was actually willing to chat for quite a while. The following bullet points are things that I remembered from our conversations:
- He ONLY uses the bridge pickup
- Miracle of Genuine Pyrex, like many early Man or Astroman album recordings were done with a Gretsch Tennesean, not a Mosrite Mark 1!!!! I did a little checking on this and found that the Tennesean uses a pickup called a Hi-lo tron (at like 3k ohms) which can be purchased for around $100, the same price as a Dynasonic. If you check out videos on this guitar and the pickup, it sounds unbelievably awesome and you can definetely tell it's a Shadowy Men kind've sound. I might just be buying one to put in my Teisco Trump hollowbody! In fact, I'm tempted to say that the Tennesean might be THE guitar for the Astro sound rather than the Mosrite Mark 1.
- Besides the 1st Mosrite he got at a store for like $1000, Brian Causey uses Hallmark Custom 60's exclusively, and has for years.
- Used a single SM57 to record the amp output for early albums
- Causey has recently been talking to Bob Shade at Hallmark about making custom Man or Astroman guitars! We chatted for a moment about the importance of a zero fret and I'm pretty sure his signature guitar will have one, unlike some Hallmarks such as the wing-bat.
- I asked specifically what genre Brian would classify his music as and he just shrugged his shoulders, not really seeming to know what to say. I then asked what he thought about the future of surf music, and weather he felt it was declining in popularity over the last few years. There was a pause of silence after that so I felt compelled to give an example, albeit a poor one, that I was having a difficult time finding people interested in my own surfy album, and also unable to find any/many new surf bands online. His response was short and to the point, that Man or Astroman always packs a place with people/sells out a show. Which is true, but what I was really trying to see is if he thought the style in general was out of vogue. I mean I'll personally never tire of surf music or any of it's sub-genres, but it just seems like people aren't really excited about that anymore. So from the perspective of one who's attempting to create new surfy/spy-fi music, I just wonder if there's even an audience out there for it.
- Brian Causey uses a lighter-medium pick, and has several Dunlop custom-made glow in the dark picks that he said don't really glow well and asked me to try one out! He actually gave me one to keep and after taking it home and testing it, I found that it does indeed glow, but fades quickly. (video coming soon) I'll be using this pick to complete the Beady Dine album! (visit BeadyDine.com to hear for yourself)
- Causey has a collection of 24+ guitars INCLUDING a Teisco made Silvertone Mosrite copy, though from what I remember in our conversation about that he seemed to consider it cheaply made and wasn't impressed, so perhaps he has the model 1440 and not the well-made 1445.
- I asked him what he thinks about people like myself writing blogs and trying to learn about his setup & style of playing, was he angry or agitated about it and he sympathetically said that he 'understands' and mentioned Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet as an influence to his own playing.
- I asked how he comes up with songs, what was he doing when he wrote miracle of Genuine Pyrex? Though he couldn't specifically recall, he did say that most of his songs are written under extreme pressure to just get it done, that he gets deadlines to have the songs done by and kind've smirked telling me that sometimes he'll wait till' the last minute and under pressure just writes the songs in a hurry.
- I asked what he thought about analog vs digital recording like pro-tools, and he said that though he's an advocate of the analog recording sound, many good things could be accomplished digitally if the user is crafty and quality minded, which makes sense.
- He's never heard of M3 California pickups, though I told him about it and how much I like the RH-100.
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| Beady Dine Meets Man or Astroman? Pictured here is...(front row left to right) Paul Chesney, Carla Chesney and Robert Delbueno, aka Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard. Photobomb by Greg Chesney. |
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| Photobombed by Brian Teasley aka 'Birdstuff' |
This was one of the most profound experiences ever and I found this legendary band's willingness to talk and hang out with their fans after the show a testament to who they are as people. I'd been waiting a long time for the opportunity to experience Man or Astroman? and because of their generous, fun spirit I have the wonderful gift of memories and lasting inspiration to keep for rest of my life for which I am truly grateful.
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| Final decision on guitar sound? I installed my Teisco/Silvertone guitar with Gretsch Dynasonic and light-up "Astro-meter" to comemorate the ever-present influence of Man or Astroman. |
Meantime, I can't wait to reveal something astounding that solves my Mosrite quest mystery once and for all, which is that there are 3 key ingredients to an authentic Mosrite sound: 1.) an actual Mosrite bridge pickup 2.) Really low action via a zero fret and thin fretwires often referred to as "speed frets" 3.) Almost as important as the pickup- the Vibramute ROLLERBRIDGE- must be positioned directly below the pickup, in fact it must be touching the bridge pickup! If you satisfy these requirements, I guarantee you'll have a Mosrite sound.
