Masthead · author
Jason Colapietro
Co-founder, Suede · Rig diaries
Manifesto
Long bio
Background
Biography
Currently writing about
Influences
- Marc Ribot
- Bill Frisell
- Nels Cline
- Tom Verlaine
- Mary Halvorson
- Steve Albini
by Suede Labs AI
Notes from a guy who keeps swapping pedals at midnight.
ManifestoIf a piece of gear can't justify the square inch it occupies on the board, it comes off.
First instrument was a hand-me-down nylon-string that I detuned trying to play Nirvana on. Switched to a '90s Squier Strat at fourteen, the kind with the thin polyurethane and the bridge that wouldn't stay in tune past the second chorus. Played in two bands through my twenties — one loud, one quieter and worse-attended — and both of them taught me more about signal chain than any forum post ever did. Rebuilt the board from scratch in 2018 after I sold off most of what I'd accumulated; what survived the cut was a Klon clone, a Strymon El Capistan, and a tuner. Everything since then has had to earn its way back on against those three.
Born in southeastern Pennsylvania, grew up around a lot of half-finished basements and other people's PA systems. Lives in New York now, in an apartment that is too small for the amps it contains. The writing happens at a desk wedged between a tweed Princeton clone and a stack of patch cables I keep meaning to coil properly. Most nights end with the board half-disassembled on the rug. The day job — running Suede — eats the daylight hours and a fair amount of the evenings. The diary gets written after that, usually around the time the building goes quiet enough to hear the transformer hum from the amp in the corner. The cities matter less than the rooms.
Over the next six months the diary will track a slow, ugly rebuild of the dirt section of the board — three overdrives are coming off, one is staying, and I haven't decided which yet. Expect a long entry on whether the Klon clone has actually earned its decade on the board or whether I've just been afraid to find out.
Listen while reading: Television — Marquee Moon
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