September 20th, 2009



This was created the same day as the LGW Blues recording. A lot of what comes out of my amp is just off the cuff - kind of let it fly attitude. And this is what flew. You will also hear one of my Flangers at work here also. It is the Electro Harmonix one, Something I have had with me since about the 4th year of Playing Guitar.

September 19th. 2009



This has been something that I have been after for a very long time. For one reason or another, it never took place. That now thankfully is in the past.

I recorded this on the 18th of September. This was on the second day of jamming after about a 3 year hiatus from the Guitar, It wasn't that I didn't want to play, it just kept getting placed on the back burner. The Guitar that I am using is an Ibanez, which is about 5 years old. It hasn't been played nearly enough, but hopefully that will change.

The other Electric guitar I have is A Royal Artist. This Ibanez weighs easily twice as much as the Royal artist, but the royal artist is a semi hollow body, where the Ibanez is a solid body Guitar. The Solid body is like a totally different beast in so many ways, but mainly the rigidity of the guitar is what I find is the biggest difference, The hollow body flexes some what in the relationship with the neck of the guitar as your playing and adds a whole different element to the guitar and what you can do with it as you play. I haven't ever tried to manipulate the neck on this one. I don't think it would do me much good.

One thing I noticed is that Steve's name is very similar to Steve's name from the previous post. Two totally different Steves, just to clear that up.

Steve finally Got an amp of his own. it was a huge cabinet with four massive speakers below the amp itself and heavy as all get out. It was also some off brand that worked about 3/4 of the time. This was probably a year or do after we first met up. Steve's lead work was coming along fine and it got much easier for us to get into tune with each other.

I don't tune in the normal way. I tune apparently in an open G. It is a what is called a power chord and works just fine for me. It drove some guitarists that I jammed with crazy. I wasn't playing guitar buy just being able to lay my finger across the neck of the guitar and produce a chord. I was supposed to manipulate the strings in such a manner as every other guitarist. I tried that many times. Couldn't get it to work. Then I saw Footage of Woodstock. There was a Black guy playing at wood stock that used his thumb to lay across the neck. I can't remember his name right now, but I think the song he played was Here's come the sun. Once I saw that, I started detuning strings till I got the right mixture to produce an open chord. I actually only have 4 notes different going across the neck, with six strings. But It has worked for me. Still, it drove some folks crazy.

Personally, I think it was due a lot more to Ego than what or how I was playing. Usually the one's that complained the loudest, I could out play them and they didn't like it. My lead work was coming around, as was my technique with the pick. There was also something else that I developed that I absolutely Loved.

I heard a song in my head, and then I was able to reproduce the sound of the song through my Amp. I will never forget when that happened. I was at my Mom's house. T had my amp set up in the living room, with the parents gone for the weekend. I had a very long patch cord. I was getting a drink of water in the kitchen. I took a long drink, while I came up with this tune for some reason. I set the glass down, grabbed the guitar and played it on the guitar. I heard it coming out of the amp in the Living room. I was amazed at being able to do that.

I hadn't ever tried before, playing a song IO created, But that opened a flood gate. I started creating more and more songs in my head and would work on recreating them with th4e guitar. It worked many times, and many times it took quite a bit of work to get the song recreated, but I would usually get eventually. I especially liked it when I started playing songs that I didn't have to create in my head. It became like my fingers were doing the creative work on their own. (Continued)

Digging deep, going back to the stone age, I need to Introduce you guys to Steve. Steve and I made some amazing music together, for many years. He started with a fender Guitar Copy, white, with a maple neck. In contrast I had a Mosrite Copy, a semi Hollow Bodied guitar that was quite similar to what Ted Nugent used for many years and may still do. Been awhile since I have seen Ted play. My guitar, when we first met was in it's natural colorage. It was a sunburst stain with a deep yellow paint job over most of the body. It looked great if you were into Country western music, but I was into, and still am into Rock and Roll. Preferably fast loud progressive music of my own creation.

But it certainly wasn't that way when we first met. I had probably been playing guitar for about 4 years. I could play, sort of, and I knew how to tune it real good, which helped tremendously. Steve had a great ear for tuning as well, so if nothing else we were always in tune when we played. At first, Steve was able to out play me. He could play rhythm and lead guitar,which I was totally jealous of. I could Play rhythm, mainly and totally sucked at playing lead. I had the one amp, A Fender pro reverb amp which I still have. Its a beautiful marvel of Human engineering and provides great amplitude to the music I provide to the front inputs of the Amp. 100 watts, 2 - 12 inch Celestion speakers, a solid heavy frame and that great Fender name. It has Tube technology which doesn't really fit hand in hand, because tube amps are not technically advance, and their in lies their beauty.

Tube amps, especially this Fender, has such a nice warm tone to it, which you would be able to hear, if I din't have the guitar plugged into anywhere from 2 to 4 different "toys" before the music finally hits the amp. The sound has traveled from my guitar, through a distortion unit, which has taken the original sound and transfered it into a rough rock necessary sound. It also goes through either one or two flangers (which I am not even going to be able to describe what the effect is within this blog. Some day when I have a day or two I might try to explain it, but it iis so much easier to just hear the effect in use. I think it is amazing.) Then last might be a waa waa pedal, but not very often. (to be continued)