Tag: Music

Thread

I feel gross using the facebook/instagram owned twitter alternative app, Threads. Really gross. 

That isn’t quite enough to stop me right now though. I am such a social media hypocrite/whore.

Anyway, someone asked, “what are your guitar goals for 2024” or something along those lines. I responded with a few. I figured I would port the response over to this post and maybe add a thing or two because I ran out of characters on the app. First, does the embed code work? I tried just sharing a link the other day to see if that pulled anything in, but it didn’t. I found that each post includes some embedding HTML code. Betcha a dollar it doesn’t work…

Post by @reallytallredhead
View on Threads

https://www.threads.net/embed.js

Based on the preview function in the editor, it didn’t work. Oh well. Here’s the text I wrote:

I want my cover band to finally get back together after a covid-hiatus and an exiting singer.

I want to write a shit ton of songs, record listenable demoes of all of them, and maybe have one or two that don’t objectively suck.

I want to play a bar gig for the first time since Feb 1, 2020.

After getting my 1978 Les Paul refretted a couple of months ago, I want to do the same with my 1979 ES-335 along with maybe getting a new wiring harness so that all four of my guitars will be in gig shape.

Me: https://www.threads.net/@reallytallredhead/post/C1ch8b9LyTx

Yes, kids… I just quoted myself. I dun did that.

Anyway, there are a couple of things to add.

I want to replace all of my guitar straps with heavy, leather straps like the one I have on my 50th birthday present Les Paul Standard. I have amazon shipping one for my Les Paul Custom and it should arrive tomorrow.

I want to buy either a Gibson Les Paul Junior, a Gibson Firebird, a Gibson Les Paul Standard with P-90 pickups instead of humbuckers, or a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. The order I wrote them is from most wanted to least most wanted. The chances of me buying any of these is about 0.0000001%… so there’s a chance.

With all of these goals in mind, mostly I would just settle for playing more. That’s what I really want to do.

I Played Guitar Today!

Oh thank heavens, I played some guitar today. I worked on two songs for Record Every Month. My finger tips are sore as hell, but I played my Les Paul Custom with the new frets and it felt really good. Really good.

I seriously over did the obligatory pics.

114/365
114/365
Sorry, I couldn’t resist

1971

Daily writing prompt
Share what you know about the year you were born.
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I was born in 1971. One super important event occurred that year but I am going to make you wait for it. First, I Googled “events from 1971” and figured I’d share a few things that I found.

This site gave a top 10 list. Allow me to share it:

  1. The New York Times begins to publish sections of the Pentagon Papers
  2. The Voting Age in the United States is lowered to 18 yrs old when the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified
  3. Border battles between India and Pakistan erupt into full-scale war
  4. The Walt Disney World Theme Park is opened in Florida
  5. The Soviet Union launches the first space station, Salyut 1, into low Earth orbit
  6. Ibrox disaster in Scotland when On January 2nd 66 die in stairway crush at Rangers v Celtic football match
  7. A new stock market index called the Nasdaq debuts
  8. Decimalisation in United Kingdom and Ireland both switch to decimal currency.
  9. Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher’s ends free school milk for children over the age of seven
  10. The US table tennis team visits to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) known as “Ping Pong Diplomacy”
https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1971.html

You can click the link to get more details. Interesting stuff. Americans, you’re welcome for the 26th amendment. Also, for Disney World.

This site also gave a short list. There’s a lot of cross over, but I’ll share a few highlights.

  1. The total number of American troops in Vietnam dropped to 196,700, the lowest amount since January 1966. On the other hand, the number of British troops stationed in Northern Ireland increased to 11,000.
  2. The Supreme Court “unanimously upheld the constitutionality of busing as a means to ‘dismantle the dual school system,’ of the South.”
  3. Charles Manson, along with three of his female followers, were convicted of the Tate-LaBianca murders.
  4. Here are some sports facts from 1971: The Pittsburgh Pirates won their 4th World Series, the Baltimore Colts were the Super Bowl champs, and the Montreal Canadiens clinched the Stanley Cup.
  5. Satchel Paige became the first African-American MLB player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  6. The first Starbucks opened at the historic Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. The coffeehouse chain was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl, who later sold the company to Howard Schultz. Today, Starbucks has 32,938 retail locations worldwide.
  7. The South Tower of the World Trade Center “topped out at 1,362 feet, making it the second tallest building in the world.”
  8. In 1971, Amanda Holden, Corey Haim, Denise Richards, Justin Trudeau, Lance Armstrong, Mark Wahlberg, and Ricky Martin were all born.

Yup, my birth year sent Charles Manson to jail for what turned out to be the rest of his psychotic life.

So what is that one huge event that I teased at the start of this post? It’s mega. It’s universe altering.

In July of 1971, Rick Wakeman joined Yes. By the end of 1972 the universe had been granted the musical masterpieces that are the albums Fragile and Close to the Edge.

You’re welcome.

Admirable Traits

Daily writing prompt
What is something others do that sparks your admiration?
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This is a tough one for me. There are a lot of things I could mention, but explaining them are somewhat beyond me. Maybe I’m just suffering from some minor brain fry today. Maybe I’m just letting the cold, damp weather get to me. I don’t know.

The one thing that comes to mind is focus. I am such a procrastinator that focus is an issue for me. Is work ethic a better term in this case? I don’t think so. I think my work ethic is okay, I just feel like I need a jump start now and then to get me out of procrastination mode.

Speaking of procrastination… it has more or less taken me three tries (and counting) to write the prior two paragraphs. Ugh.

What are some other things? I admire people who don’t have to eat all the time. Even post-gastric bypass, I feel like I am snacking on something all the time. I also feel like the length of time I can go in between snacks is getting shorter. Yesterday my stomach was yelling at me to eat all day long and it was annoying.

I admire people who are decisive. I am not decisive. I am Mr Indecisive. I constantly second guess myself. When other people do that I get upset because I have faith in their decisions, even if they are just gut reactions. I don’t feel that way about my own decisions though. I doubt and doubt and doubt.

I admire musicians who have the discipline to practice. I just can’t do it. I can’t sit down and practice scales or picking patterns or anything like that. I have to come up with a project and work on it. That’s one of the reasons I do so many song writing challenges. I feel like I won’t play at all if I don’t have a project to work on. I wish I could just sit down with my guitar and practice for the sake of practicing. I admire people who can do that.

Okay, there are a few examples. It took me almost an hour to write this because I am in full procrastination mode today. How’s that for irony?

Two Rush Items to Note

I have two things I want to comment on that refer to members of Rush.

First, I watched the second episode of Are Bass Players Human Too this morning before work. It focused on Robert Trujillo of Metallica. I knew nothing about this guy as I’m not much of a metal fan, never mind a Metallica fan. I saw them in 1989 when Jason Newsted was their bass player. I guess Robert Trujillo played for Ozzy Osbourne back in the 90’s. I saw Ozzy in the 90’s but Geezer Butler was playing bass at that time. I guess I sort of missed him twice then? Not really.

Anyway, Robert Trujillo is the current owner of Jaco Pastorius’ Fender Jazz bass. The one he ripped the frets out of to turn it into a fretless bass (but what did he put into the gaps? How did that work?). Watching Geddy Lee play Jaco’s bass, even if just for a few seconds, was something that I did not realize I needed in my life. It was a quietly magical moment.

On a side note, Metallica’s bass player owns Jaco Pastorius’ bass, which to many is the holy grail of electric bass guitars, and Metallica’s guitar player, Kirk Hammett, owns Peter Green/Gary Moore’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which to many (including me*) is the holy grail of electric guitars. How did that happen? Does Metallica’s drummer own Keith Moon’s kit or anything? That would be too weird for my tiny brain to process.

Anyway, on to Alex Lifeson. I mentioned yesterday that Lerxst has released an overdrive pedal. It’s called By Tor. The first write up I read said that it had two channels that shared drive and tone controls. I don’t think that’s the case. I think one channel is just a volume boost and only has a level control. The other channel is an overdrive which has level, gain, and tone controls. That makes more sense.

Check out this demo from (the youtube legend) Andy from Reverb. I started watching this last night but had to shut it off before I finished. I’m posting it here so that I won’t forget to watch the rest of it later tonight.

*Peter Green’s Les Paul is probably my definition of The Guitar Holy Grail. The only guitar that might challenge for that tile would be Eric Clapton’s 1960 Les Paul Standard that is generally known as The Beano Burst. It was stolen in 1966 and has never resurfaced. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, but unless some collector gives it back to Clapton we will probably never see it again. The reason it might not supersede Greeny is simply that I prefer the spec of a 1959 Les Paul Standard to the spec of a 1960. The neck is supposed to be thicker on 1959’s. By that logic I would probably prefer 1958’s to 1959’s as the neck is supposed to be even thicker on 1958’s. How’s that for cork sniffing? A little too much, maybe? Nope. It’s never too much.

Are Bass Players Human Too?

I just watched the first episode of Geddy Lee’s TV show, called Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?

I freakin’ loved it!

It was about 20 minutes of Geddy and Les Claypool of Primus just hanging out. The two of them are just plain goofy and it was kinda delightful.

I’ll admit that when Geddy was reading from a script he didn’t sound particularly… professional. It’s clear that reading copy is not something that he generally does. When he and Claypool were just talking to each other it felt natural and… I’ll say it again, delightfully goofy.

There are three episodes left. One is the new guy in Metallica, one is (I think) a former member of Hole, and the third is some guy who used to be in some band called Nirvana or something.

I’m looking forward to all of them. I now need to know, are bass players human too?

Geddy Lee: Two New/Old Songs

We’ve known about these two songs for a few weeks now as he’s been playing the recordings on his book tour, but Geddy Lee released two new/old songs today under the title “The Lost Demos”. They were recorded during the writing of his one solo record, “My Favorite Headache” back in 1999 or 2000 or so. He dropped them from consideration as they were a little two personal to share. One is apparently about an argument he had with his wife and the other is about the death of Neil Peart’s daughter.

After one listen, I like them both. Good stuff. Enjoy some new/old/previously unreleased Geddy Lee!

After two books and one TV show (which is out soon… possibly today, I think. Not sure) it’s time for Geddy to start writing some new music. Preferably with Alex Lifeson, but another solo record would be welcome too. We’re ready, Geddy. Bring it on.

A Good Day for Genesis Fans

Today is a good day for fans of people who used to be in Genesis.

Peter Gabriel’s first album of new original material in 45000 years has finally been released. It’s called i/o. He’s been releasing it one song at a time for the past year, but the whole thing is out now and it’s pretty freakin’ magical. Is it as good as So or his third record? No. It’s good though.

I knew that one was coming, but I didn’t know about this one. Steve Hackett released a single today. It’s called People of the Smoke. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet but it’s on my to do list for today. I knew he had an album on the way sometime relatively soon, but I didn’t know there would be a single out today. Excellent!

This coincidence is making me wonder what Anthony Phillips is doing today. I wonder…