They released a new album earlier in the year These Are the Good Times People and are hitting the summer festival circuit hard this year. They play Fuji Rock's Green Stage at 12:30 pm on Friday, and the next day finds them on the main stage at Suikerrock Festival in Tienen, Belgium. (And you think you'll be tired...)

At least their guitar techs only need to do half the work!

Front man Chris Ballew plays the "basitar", a Gibson SG with all six strings taken off and replaced with only two heavy ones (a .060 gauge top string tuned to C# and a .036 gauge bottom string tuned to G# for you gear fanatics). This technique was actually developed by Ballew's good friend and Morphine front man, the late Mark Sandman.

As a compliment to Ballew's "basitar", original guitar player for PUSA Dave Dederer pioneered the - you guessed it - "guitbass" style by customizing his Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters. With this, a regular guitar is strung with only three strings. The top (or lowest pitched) string is .065 gauge tuned to C#, the middle string is .045 tuned to G#, and the bottom (highest pitch) string is .035 gauge tuned to C# again, but one octave higher. You rockers out there will recognize this as a "Drop D" tuning, down half a step. For those that don't play guitar, this is an open style of tuning that allows you to play crunchy barre (or "power") chords up and down the guitar neck with just one finger. Rock on, Wayne!

And that ain't all the customized axes coming to Fuji Rock. Also playing this year is Seasick Steve, a swaggering blues breaker and one man band. He says his chopped guitar is "the biggest piece of shit in the world," and calls it the 3-Stringed Tranz Wonder. He also accompanies himself on percussion with his "Mississippi Drum Machine", a stomp box decorated with a Mississippi license plate and a small piece of carpet.

Catch his Dog House Music Friday night in the Crystal Palace (23:45-0:30), Saturday night on Naeba Shokudo (18:30-19:10) and Sunday afternoon at the Field of Heaven (14:00-15:00).

Anybody know if any of the other artists (excluding whacked out hippie fusion art rock jazzy types) play home brew instruments? Cuz I think this is just the beginning...

Jeff