Tag: Music

40 Years Later

I went to my first real concert on October 23, 1986. I went with my Uncle. It was Triumph at the Worcester Centrum in Worcester, MA. It had been rescheduled from an earlier date… I don’t remember what the original date was. I heard that guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett fell down a flight of stairs while getting off of a plane and screwed up his knee so they had to postpone a couple of dates while he recovered. I don’t know if that’s true or not, it’s just what I heard.

I was 15 back then and early in my sophomore year of high school. I was a big Triumph fan, but maybe not that big a fan. Certainly not as big a fan as I was of the other three-piece band from Toronto, Rush. Still, Thunder Seven, Allied Forces, and Just a Game were A-List albums in my book. Never Surrender and The Sport of Kings were both really good too. They were touring to support Sport of Kings when I saw them that night, and a couple of years later my first real band would cover a song from that record, Tears in the Rain. It often went over surprisingly well when we played it, even though the guys in the band were probably the only people in the room who were familiar with it. I wonder if anyone thought we’d written it? Probably not. It was WAY better than our handful of original tunes. I mean, WAY better.

I didn’t know it at the time but Triumph was just about reaching the point where they were falling apart. I recently read Rik Emmett’s memoir and he mentions that the first nail in the band’s coffin happened during the recording of Sport of Kings. They had planned to record a song written by an outside writer, a groovy little ballad called Just One Night. It was expected to be the album’s big single and the band had decided that drummer/vocalist Gil Moore would sing it. The guy who was originally hired to produce the record had spoken privately to Rik Emmett and said he should be singing that song instead of Moore and he wanted Emmett to break the news. Emmett did, on an airplane flying home to Toronto, and I guess Moore lost his shit (probably very politely, given that they are good Canadian boys after all) and that was the first step toward everything falling apart. It took a couple of years but eventually, in ’88, Emmett quit.

Moore and bassist/keyboardist Mike Levine eventually tired to bring it back from the dead. They hired guitarist Phil X, who these days is best known as Bon Jovi’s lead guitarist, and made one more record. I heard a song or two on the radio and it was pretty good, but not good enough to really reignite my interest. I had high hopes for Rik Emmett as a solo artist but his first record was a glossy poppy disappointment and that was that for me.

Fast forward to a few months ago and out of nowhere Triumph announced a 50th anniversary reunion tour. Rock and Roll Machine Reloaded (Rock and Roll Machine was the name of their second record in Canada and their first in the US). I think the reloaded part of the tour’s name sort of points to some lineup changes. Early on they reported to us that Mike Levine would not be playing at every show. He had a medical issue to deal with (something wrong with his hand, I think?) and he would join the band onstage whenever he felt up to it. I’m pretty sure the tour ends next week and the total number of appearances he’s made is equal to zero. That’s disappointing. 

Due to that, a second bass player, Todd Kerns, was added to the lineup. Additionally, Phil X would also join them. He wasn’t a member 50 years ago, but he was a member in the 90’s. That seems fitting. When I saw them in ’86 they did have a second guitarist on stage with them. His name was Rick… something. I forget. I do remember finding him a little annoying. Like, I wanted to see the trio. I was okay with the extra guy but maybe he could have stayed off to the side out of the way. I was an asshole. Sorry. As if two extra musicians weren’t enough, Gil Moore made it clear that he wanted to come out from behind the drums and sing a couple of songs from the front of the stage. That requires a second drummer. Brent Fitz was added. He’s a keyboard player as well so I guess he’ll also be covering some of Mike Levine’s parts.

So this Toronto trio is now a group of five or six (if Levine appears). I guess everyone sings so the vocal harmonies are going to be denser than they used to be. Also, Moore and Emmett are old now, both in their 70’s. Their vocal ranges are nowhere near what they used to be (especially Emmett, whose near-soprano days are long over) so the “new” guys are going to be singing lead on a some of the songs. That is… troubling to me. That sort of makes me fear that this is going to be a tribute band that just happens to have two original members. I don’t know how I feel about that, but I am choosing to ignore it and just enjoy having this long lost band back again.

When the tour was announced, the final show was scheduled for June 6th in Boston and it sold out instantly. I tried to get a ticket but no luck. A couple of days after they went on sale I went to ticketbastard’s site just to see how it looked and there was a show on June 4th with almost no tickets sold. Huh? I Googled and sure enough they had booked a second Boston show and somehow didn’t really announce it. I grabbed a ticket in the back. I don’t want to say a cheap seat… how about a less crushingly expensive seat. 

Now here we are on June 4th and I am psyching myself up to go experience the Rock and Roll Machine in person for the first time in almost 40 years. I’m flying solo for this one. I didn’t want to subject anyone else to the 80’s of it all. I checked the venue’s camera policy and point and shoots are acceptable, so I am totally bringing one. We’ll see how it holds up to the lighting and the distance. I expect lots of blurry, shaky messes. Doors open at 7:00 and the show is supposed to start at 8:00. The opening act is April Wine. I’ve heard of them but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single note. I know they are another Canadian band so I expect them to be very polite and I will be equally polite as I wait for the headliner.

My Uncle passed away a long time ago. He’ll be with me in spirit though. I’ll be thinking of him. Especially if Rik plays the acoustic solo from the Thunder Seven record, Midsummer’s Daydream. Uncle Johnny was very impressed with that one.

Happy 50th anniversary to the first band I ever saw live. Here’s hoping for a good time at the old rock and roll show.

PS: I tried to find the set list from October 23, 1986. I failed. I did, however, find the set list from October 24, 1986. It is probably the same, and from what I remember it lines up.

  • Tears in the Rain
  • Somebody’s Out There
  • Allied Forces
  • Lay It on the Line
  • Midsummer’s Daydream
  • Follow Your Heart
  • Drum Solo
  • Take a Stand
  • Magic Power
  • Rock & Roll Machine
  • Guitar Solo
  • Spellbound
  • Rocky Mountain Way
  • Fight the Good Fight

If there was a difference, my show might have swapped the last two songs. I remember their Joe Walsh cover closing the encore, but maybe it closed the set and Fight the Good Fight (by far their best song… like by astronomical units) was the encore? Who can say.

Busy Busy

Today is Sunday. The last day of May, 2026. It is about quarter past 8:00am and it is 48 degrees out. It is warmer than it was for most of the day yesterday. Thanks for nothing, mother nature.

I have a home owner type project going on this weekend that is both overwhelmingly intimidating and completely kicking my ass. That’s probably why I am writing this post rather than actually working. That’s okay though. I guess. Maybe?

We are doing a long term sort of thing. At some point later this year we are going to upgrade our HVAC system. We had a guy out to do some routine maintenance on the AC unit and he told us it’s pretty much at death’s door. Shit. The upgrade is going to cost a fortune, but Massachusetts has some solid rebate and loan options if you qualify. Now in order for us to qualify we have to have some work done on the house to bring us up to code. 

One of those upgrades requires me to clear a three foot wide path around the outer walls in the cellar. Unfortunately for me, about 60% of those walls is made up of storage and closet space, all of which is full to bursting with crap. I have to clear all of that out which wouldn’t be too bad except that our cellar interior is also full of crap… well, crap, a laundry room, an office space where I do my morning exercise and my music stuff, and a living room. Basically, I have to pull everything out of storage but the only place that makes sense to move it to is already full of stuff. Shit.

The solution then is to purge. We’re going to book a visit from a junk removal service. They are going to take as much of the shit as I can pile up. Then we’re going to book a second visit and they will take the rest of the shit when I pile it up where the first load of shit was piled up. After that I just have to move furniture away from the walls. It’s going to suck to the high heavens, but it is worth it. We have all of that storage space (which was a huge selling point when we bought the house) but it’s all full. Now it will be cleared out for the most part and we can get to work filling it with new useless shit. Bonus!

So that’s my big project for this weekend. My smaller, less important project is already finished. On Friday night after work I mixed two songs. I wrote them on Monday, Memorial Day (I think the last time I wrote about them in a post here I said I wrote them on Sunday, but it was Monday). I had the bass, drums, and rhythm guitars done on Monday. I put the vocals on both songs on Thursday morning before work, and put the lead guitars down on Friday before work. Then I mixed them and uploaded them to my alonetone.com account before bed on Friday. For the first time in ages I submitted something to the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge thing. 

I accomplished something musically. That felt good. Maybe next week I can accomplish something photographically too. That would also feel good. Creativity is good for my soul, or something like that.

So Much for Grand Awakenings

What Can You Do

Okay… time to start my day and see if I can’t get some stuff done. Happy Sunday, everyone.

Not Fun and then Fun

It is 3:30pm and it is already the longest day in the history of the universe.

I went to sleep at about 10:30pm last night. Later than I would have liked, but earlier than most days over the past month or so. I woke up at about 2:15am needing to go to the bathroom. I’m old. It happens. Deal with it. When I was done I fell right back to sleep.

Then at 3:51am my phone rang. It was work. The overnight staff were dealing with a customer issue that was causing the customer a lot of stress. I knew what the issue was but I wasn’t sure how to find the process that was causing it. Fortunately the overnight guy I was on the phone with mentioned one little detail which set off a trigger in my teeny tiny little mostly still asleep brain and I knew where I had to go to set things right. By 4:15 I was off the call. I took a few minutes to write a message to all of my staff members who would be involved in the follow up during normal business hours and I went to bed. I didn’t sleep much before my alarm went off at 5:30am, but I did manage to snooze a little.

All of that was not fun. Not fun at all. It was a lot less catastrophic than it could have been, but it is never fun having work call in the middle of the night. I’m just glad I was able to help. Even though the situation was not fun, I felt pretty good about myself when it was over.

By 6:00 I was out of bed and starting the day. By 6:15 I was in the cellar starting my daily exercise. The ball was rolling. An hour later the fun part of the day was starting. Guitars, babie!

On Monday I wrote two new songs and started recording demos. Bass and drums were MIDI instruments, rhythm guitars were the real thing, the melody was sketched out on a keyboard and lyrics were written stream of consciousness style to fit the melody. Yesterday before work my laptop and I drove to an empty parking lot in town and I recorded the vocal tracks for both songs. Today before work I recorded the lead guitar parts. Normally the lead guitars are my favorite part of the song demo process but right now I am so out of playing shape that there are no calluses on my finger tips and playing for more than a few minutes hurts. The strings start to feel like razor blades, especially when you play like I do and you bend strings all over the place. Ouch.

Still, despite the pain, I was able to finish tracking both new songs. Now all I have to do is mix them so that they are somewhat listenable (relatively speaking, of course) and then they are done. A few years ago I was writing 10+ songs each month over the course of the whole year. Last year I did the RPM Challenge in February (write and record an album’s worth of music all within the month of February) and then nothing for the rest of the year. This year was starting to look the same. I finished RPM in February and then it wasn’t until Memorial Day weekend that I even thought about doing anything more. Now that I am feeling like I am back in the saddle again, or some horse shit like that (get it? Saddle? Horse shit? Oh, come on!) I am thinking about trying to write a bunch in June and then do the fifty ninety challenge over the summer (that challenge is to write 50 songs in 90 days between July 4th and October 1st). We’ll see if I can stick to that.

So on this fine Friday in May, in fact the last Friday in May, the day started off not fun, and then for a little blast of time it was fun, and then it was just the usual… right up until about an hour after lunch when the lack of sleep caught up with me and now I am completely out of gas with 93 minutes left in my work day.

It’s going to be a long afternoon.

Blah

Memorial Day Weekend: Three days of rain and gloom and cold.

The Tuesday after Memorial Day Weekend: Blue skies, sun, 80 degrees.

Mutha puss bucket.

It was a good weekend otherwise. We tried to have a cookout but had a cook-in instead. I was hoping my step son would be able to join us but he was too busy. My step daughter was away for the start of it but she came home Sunday afternoon. That was nice. 

I didn’t go out to take pictures or anything, not just because of the shit weather. I was also feeling too lazy. I sort of made up for it, in the creativity department, on Monday though. I wrote two songs. The demos aren’t finished, but everything is written for both of them. My finger tips are still burning from recording the rhythm guitars. The strings on my ES-335 felt like rusty razor blades. It was fun.

We found out today we’re going to have a little bit of work done on the house that is going to require me to do a HUGE amount of work in the cellar to prepare for it. It’s not for a couple of weeks but I am already feeling overwhelmed by the very thought of it. It’s an important project that will lead to an even more important project a few months down the road, but for now… fuck me.

I’m going to a concert next week. Expect me to be super psyched about it in the coming days. That’s a little blog spoiler for you.

Nothing much else to write about today. I had to commute to the office today and I’m about 20 minutes away from my commute home. I’m in the office again tomorrow. Hopefully the commute is better tomorrow, but I doubt it. Whatever.

Okay, I’m clicking publish now.

Noodles

The electric guitar was noodled upon today. I worked out two new song ideas on my laptop and decided that even though I was grossly rusty and have no calluses at all on my finger tips, I put rhythm guitar tracks onto both songs. Four tracks on one song and two on the other.

My playing was absolute garbage but I enjoyed every second of it. Well… not counting the burning agony in the tips of the fingers on my left hand. That’s a kick in the nards, but other than that… Fun.

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Struggle

Today has been a tough day. Nothing bad happening, just lots of stuff at work happening simultaneously that is stressing me out. The stress increase is unnecessary and pretty irrational, but it’s real none the less.

We have been asked to setup a new development environment that has an extension with our new ai software. I’ll save my ai rant for another post (and you bet your sweet skynet fearing ass that many such posts are coming) but suffice to say I have been having a ton of trouble getting the new environment up and running. Most of my team got things running without issue but a few people have been hitting major trouble. I don’t know if my troubles count as “major” but I had to uninstall everything today and start from scratch and it finally worked. Finally. I feel a huge relief.

Today is Monday and I haven’t posted anything since Thursday. That’s crazy. I never go that long without boring the internet to tears with at least one pointless post. What’s wrong with me?

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me… I’m currently not in a band. I’m starting to get to the point where its not a matter of wanting to be in a band, it’s a matter of needing to be in a band. Maybe even multiple bands. A cover band, an original rock band, a bluesy jam band… all of the above?

I’m also starting to reach the point where my desire to start going outside and taking pictures of everything is getting out of control. By extension, my desire to try new 35mm film cameras is also getting out of control. I’m having to force myself not to open up ebay when I am sitting in front of a computer. A Nikon F5 (or F6, or F4, or F2) would really hit the spot right now. Also 100 new lenses would really make life better during these dark days of fascist dictatorship.

Speaking of our fascist dictatorship, I consider myself a pretty militant atheist but I grew up catholic. Can I just say that on this day in history I would really like to give the pope a high five?

What else, what else… the Red Sox are no longer the worst team in the big leagues. When I looked at the standings yesterday there were a whole two teams with lower winning percentages. Nice. On top of that, the Bruins clinched a play off spot. Bring me that post season, where they will likely get bounced in the first round.

Okay…. that’s it for this post. Back to work, you.

Big Weekend

This has been quite the big weekend and it has very little to do with a zombie who gave up his weekend for our sins. But I digress.

Today, April 5th, is the 19th anniversary of my first date with my wife. Clearly she wasn’t my wife at the time, but it was a pretty good first date. Very successul. We celebrated by going to a matinee. We saw Projet Hail Mary again. It was my second viewing and her third. Great movie. If it is playing on an IMAX screen anywhere near us next weekend we might go see it one more time.

After the movie, Jen made a fancy easter/first-dateiversary dinner and it was wonderful. We ate at the dining room table like civilized people instead of slumming it in the living room in front of the TV like usual. It was a very nice moment.

Yesterday we had my in-laws over for a pre-easter easter dinner. Jen made lasagna. I don’t like lasagna so she made me some pasta on the side. She’s the best.

After dinner I hopped in the car and headed to Boston to see a show. Throwing Muses. It was a fantastic show. I was feeling kinda negative at first. I was feeling like I’m too old to go to shows in bars. Two songs into the Muses set though my whole universe changed. By that time I was actively trying to think of a world where I could see Throwing Muses live every day for the rest of my life. It was magic.

There was one negative though. Halfway through their set I got a nose bleed of all things. Not just any nose bleed, but a massive, gushing nose bleed. It was everywhere. I looked like I was living through a horror movie. Gore.

To summarize, it’s been a very good weekend. I’ve been nuts about my wife for 19 years now and I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier as time goes by.

Now, a few pics from the show last night.

Was That Greeny?

I posted the video of Rush playing at the Juno Awards Ceremony the other night. Being the guitar nerd that I am, while 99% of me was consumed with bliss over seeing Rush again, 1% of me was noticing that Alex Lifeson was playing a Les Paul that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with before.

It looked like a vintage burst. Something made between 1958 and 1960. It was faded from sunburst to yellow the way a lot of ‘58’s and ‘59’s are. I assumed it was the real deal, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Alex play a real burst before. I know Geddy Lee owns (owned?) one, but Alex usually plays newer models. Even back in the 70’s, before vintage Les Pauls became too enormously expensive, he played 70’s models.

So as I was watching the video I was wondering whether the guitar was a reissue or the real thing. There was something about it though… something familiar…

Holy shit, was he playing Greeny? Possibly the most famous of all Les Pauls? Arguably the finest example of the finest electric guitars ever made? Was he playing Peter Green’s Les Paul? The one Peter Green played in Fleetwood Mac and sold to Gary Moore for whatever Gary happend to have in his wallet at the time? The one that Moore sold to pay medical bills (at least that’s what I heard) and then years later a collector sold to Kirk Hammett of Metallica? The one with the out of phase neck pick up that inspired guitarists world ‘round to install their neck pick ups upside down to try to replicate?

Gary Moore, Peter Green, Kirk Hammett, all playing Greeny

So was Alex Lifeson playing Greeny?

I can’t find a good picture of the spots near the bridge pick up where the paint is warn away, but you can see it in some of the low res pics I’ve seen and in the video. The worn spots are there. You can see in these pics that it has the mismatched knobs and the neck pickup is upside down. The visual things are there.

The question then is, is this the real guitar or is it a replica? If it is a replica the question then is, is it the $50,000 replica that Gibson released in a very limited run a few years ago, or is it the $20,000 version that they released in a slightly less limited run, or is it the mass produced Gibson USA version that sold for… I can’t remember… was it $6,000? $8,000? Something like that.

There are stories out there reporting Alex and Kirk Hammett hanging out together. I know Kirk is a fan of Alex and Rush and I think I’ve read that Alex is a fan of Kirk and Metallica (I know I’ve read about Geddy Lee being a Metallica fan).

I hope it’s the real thing. My guitar nerd brain also hopes that Hammett sells it to Lifeson and he takes it on the road with him and I get to see him play it when we see Rush in New York in July. That would be awesome. If I had to guess though… it’s probably a reissue.

I hope it’s the real thing though. That would be so cool.

They’re Back, Babie!

Last night was the Juno Awards ceremony. That’s the Canadian version of the Grammy’s. The show included this one ditty from this little Toronto based rock and roll combo…

They are back! For really reals, Rush is back!

Maybe an odd choice of song, but it was the first song on their first album so it was sort of fitting that the first public appearance with their two new people, Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards, was that same first song… though if they were going to go with literal first songs they should have gone with their cover of Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away, which was their first single. But I digress. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson on stage again. We’re going to see them in New York in a couple of months and I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT!

Pedal Board

I did a little work on my band pedal board. Specifically, this is the pedal board that I usually keep at my band’s rehearsal space… even though the band kinda doesn’t exist anymore… and I don’t know what the future holds. Whatever.

I replaced the vibe pedal and the analog delay and both of the overdrive pedals and the wah pedal. I also added the little compressor. If only I could have replaced the dust. This thing sat out for a really long time.

I also went out and ran some more errands earlier. Another obligatory look at the downtown clock.

And that is my Sunday so far, as of about 2:30pm. What else will the day hold? Well, I’m heading over to the Apple Store to pay a little homage. Dig it.