Manifesto
Greetings Earthlings!
Welcome to Strange Earth Dispatches, a newsletter for sharing my electric-guitar-building adventures, plus other stuff. The themes you will encounter in my writing will be centred around the use of sustainable and responsible guitar-building practices and working respectfully with the amazing material we call wood. Expect frequent meanderings to reflect on my favourite songs, books, and my love of birds and trees. I am also a musician, so don’t be surprised if I get distracted and talk about being in bands and writing songs. This newsletter will be monthly and I will try to keep it to about a ten- or fifteen-minute read.
But before I begin, you may be wondering who I am. I go by many names. It’s confusing, so pay attention: I was born Kyle Edward, but I was adopted and renamed David Barry. As a kid I was nicknamed Geeker for several years, then rechristened The Beave in my adolescence. As a teacher I am known to my students as Mr. Guillas or Mr. G or simply “Teach,” as a partner I am called “Honey,” and as a dad I am known as “Dad.”
Today, people call me various versions of all these names, except Kyle. That one never took. Anyways, I guess this dizzying array of appellations has contributed to a bit of an identity crisis. So, to avoid further personal turmoil, and to add to the confusion, I lump most of my creative life under the name Strange Earth. So far, these creative endeavours include guitar building, music making, and now a newsletter.
I’ve lived a creative life for almost as long as I can remember. I’ve played guitar in one band or another for my entire adult life, including a nine-year stint in the iconic, legendary, world famous Propagandhi.
Currently I play in a band called Agassiz: equally iconic and legendary, but definitely not world famous.
I also have a little solo project called Spawn Songs in which I record songs for my daughter then share them on BandCamp.
My love for music, and specifically the guitar, broadened in 2019 when, at the age of 40, I took up guitar building. I’ve been learning on my own, spending most of my evenings trying to improve my craft. Early in this guitar-building journey I decided to commit to using only bio-regional, local or salvaged wood. I also dabble with natural-dyeing processes, using flowers and other dye sources grown or foraged locally. These materials and processes can make beautiful guitars and, I believe, show care and respect for the earth. (Follow me on Instagram @strange_earth_guitars.)
Perhaps some brief introductions are in order. In the pictures above are the guitars I have built so far, shown from left-to-right in order of creation. My first build was a replica of the Gibson SG I have owned, played and loved since 1996. My second build is perhaps the classic “second build”: having gained some confidence, I thought I would design my own body. This was fun, and something I have stuck with, but I now find this particular guitar slightly ridiculous, and so it lives in a case in a dark corner of my basement. My third build was a Telecaster knock-off, and my first foray into natural dyeing (shout out to my talented partner Mandy for turning me onto this). Build number four remains one of my favourites, and was a definite progression in the refining of my skills, particularly the fret work. Build number five, though, is my favourite. It’s a seven-string multi-scale beast with a body made from salvaged Green Ash and dyed using foraged acorns and home-grown marigolds. It’s the number-one axe I use in my band Agassiz. Builds six and seven were built together, with number six going to my good friend Chris from Propagandhi. My eighth build was an experiment: reclaimed Douglas Fir from an old army barracks for the neck and body, and no truss rod in the neck. I learned a lot from the experiment, but the guitar is not one of my favourites. Build nine, however, is. It’s another 7-string multi-scale, but this time built for my good friend The Rod, also from Propagandhi (friends in high places, I guess…).
And that brings us to the present, where I am currently working on a guitar for another friend. I’m trying some new things on this guitar, and will showcase it and its build process in a future newsletter. I will also be designing and building myself a bass guitar in the near future, a process I will also cover extensively here. My interest in using natural-dyeing processes on wood is growing, so you can also expect me to reflect on this process often. Finally, I will be moving my workshop to a more suitable location in the coming months, a location that will spare my family from the noise and dust of being in the basement. I love setting up spaces, and look forward to sharing this process here.
OK, so why write a newsletter? This is a good question. I don’t actually know why I want to write one. I do know that I struggle and crave to make some sort of connection with the world—the human world, that is. I’ve never had much trouble connecting with the rest of it. So, I guess I’m just going for it: sharing my creations and thoughts with others. I have no idea what I’m doing or what to expect, but that’s part of the fun. Maybe this newsletter can be a way to open a dialogue with other creative people? Or maybe it’s just a self-centred forum for me to pontificate at the dark abyss of indifference.
Either way, I will endeavour to enjoy myself!
Reading
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, Ed Yong
An Immense World by Ed Yong is about the diverse ways animals perceive the world. “There are animals,” Yong reveals, “with eyes on their genitals, ears on their knees, noses on their limbs, and tongues all over their skin.” Pretty amazing how these familiar sense-organs can show up all over a body. More than this, the eyes, ears, noses and tongues of different animals are often capable of sensing realities beyond what we humans are capable of sensing. Zebra Finches and other birds, for example, can hear so fast that they pick up all kinds of nuanced meaning in their calls that human ears miss entirely. And this is to say nothing of the ability of some animals to sense magnetic or electric fields, realms essentially unknowable to us without the use of technology.
These realities are just as real as what our own senses reveal for us. Indeed, animals and the worlds they sense have just as much worth as humans and the world we sense. Quoting Henry Beston, Yong asserts that animals “are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” Fuckin’ rights. Yet humans scurry about the earth with such hubris and arrogance, thinking we are the pinnacle of evolution and intelligence, ignoring–or worse, demeaning–the intelligences of other lifeforms. For shame, people.
This book is a lesson in how the sensory world of humans, like all animals, though seemingly all-encompassing, is very much limited to a sliver of the “complete” reality, if there even is such a thing. It’s also a lesson in how we can broaden our own understanding of this strange earth by paying attention to the other earthlings around us. And finally, it teaches us that, though we know a great deal about life on earth, there is a great deal we do not know. I find this humbling and magical. Those powerful mysteries out there that can stun you into wonder and awe are part of what makes life worth living.
Listening
“Indiscipline,” King Crimson
I love this King Crimson line up. Adrien Belew is one of my favourite musical personalities. He is absurd, funny, playful and super creative with his axe. He is the perfect foil for the stern arrogance of Robert Fripp.
This song is just so heavy at times, and the final “I like it!” delights me every time I hear it. And lest we forget Tony Levin on the Chapman Stick and the great Bill Bruford at the kit, who holds down a frenetic 4/4 while the guitars whirl in 15/8 time. Or something like that.
There is a live version of “Indiscipline” on YouTube which features Fripp’s most recent lineup, including Levin and THREE drummers, but not including Belew or Bruford. It is killer. Definitely check it out:
But also check out the original recorded version with Belew:
“I do think it’s good!”
As a long time listener of Propagandhi, and later Giant Sons and Agassiz, the linear notes have always been part and parcel of the joys of new music. With a shift to digital media, I am glad such types of linear notes have found new homes. Thank you for sharing you ideas, thoughts, and inspirations on guitar building, music, and the world around us. I look forward to the next installment and wish you good fortune on the next builds.
excellent read! I will look forward to more!