Bad Day

My perception of music drastically changes when I am not feeling very good. I am in the mood to hear soft, slow, meaninful songs versus the fast paced loud songs I usually get into. I have been listening to things like A Perfect Circle and slower Incubus tunes. I am not sure what I have right now but if I don't make it to class, you guys know the reason!

Glory Years re-lived

Ok, as much as I appreciate musicians and their work, sometimes you have got to be told when to pull the plug. Or at least tame it down a bit. One of the worst things I saw was good old Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones out performing for half time during the superbowl, you all know the one. Well I believe Jagger is about 62 years old, and I definately aplaud the effort and the energy, he is in pretty decent shape for a man of his age. So they put on a decent show at best, but any stones fan or any fan of musicians would not want to see one of their favorites unwind at a show. As much as I like some of my favorite artists (Incubus, Tool, Lamb of God, Primus...) I don't want to see them 30 years past their prime, it is just saddening. I got the opportunity to attend an Ozzfest tour in 2003, and it was amazing. Chevelle, Korn, Disturbed, Manson, Ozzy, not to mention Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, and so on. Great show, great audience, when Ozzy hit the stage the older part of the crowd got energized. But Ozzy, wasn't looking to good. His motor skills are falling fast, he pranced back and forth on the stage with his shoulders shrugged forward and awkward steps. He really looked bad in my opinion. The image thing doesn't bother me as bad but when I am not able to understand lyrics that I know already, then it is time to step aside Ozzy, you have had a fantastic career. It is going to be tough to keep seeing things like this happen, too many artists past their prime are beating out the last few breaths of music life they have. I am not saying that I just want them to quit, I want musicians to play music as long as they can, but I don't want to see a 62 year old shaking and thrusting his pelvis in front of an enormous audience. The stand out artists who I believe went out in style was Mr. Johnny Cash. The cover song "Hurt" was well played by Cash I think. You could actually feel the sorrow and sadness with him. He knew that he wasn't about to get on stage and try to dance around with his guitar. It is sad to think that some bands are saved from this relived glory by a tragedy of some sorts. Nirvana is to be forever held as an Icon because of the Death of Cobain shortly after reaching their peak. The Beatles are immortalized because of their brilliant career but the losses of the band members played a role as well. Elvis is huge and people want to believe that he is still alive, Tupac is the same story. An infinite amount of respect comes to excellent musicians if they die during the middle of their careers. It is kind of sad to think of it that way.

Podcast and Recording! Well it's about time!

Ok I know I have said this for some time now, but I do finally have one guitar recording out. It is under the weekly podcasts called "Rockin Recordings". It is a crude recording and still needs to be touched up. Also keep note that it is just a jam session, nothing that I have written or realistically worked on for more than a few minutes. What did you think I was going to shame one of my good works as the first trial recording. Hah! Oh well it is just my way of saying I pretty much just threw it together so if it doesn't sound good, my bad folks. Anyway I also have a new Podcast up, it is in the player to the right titled "What you left me(acoustic)" and that is exactly what it is.

Ric Rac

The Rickenbacker 650D Dakota
One word, beautiful. Rickenbacker just may hold the secret to my heart. Solid walnut body, through body maple neck, Humbuckers with a single coil tone. It is so difficult to make decisions upon instruments! The list price for this guy is right around a grand, but the more I look into it the more I see that it is actually a bargain. Excellent tone, great hardware, hand polished neck, what's to go wrong here?

Weekly Podcast

Alrighty, this one is by Downside, don't worry there are only a few more from these guys. This one is acoustic and was recorded all at once in Fergus Falls Minnesota. To give it a listen just click on the play button on the player to your right under the heading Weekly Podcast.

Ahh yes Fernandes

Well well we have here a Ravelle Elite electric guitar by Fernades of course. This badass has a Carved maple top, Mahogany Body/Neck, The patented Fernandes Sustainer system built in also a Seymour Duncan humbucker at the bridge. I was borderline at buying this guitar over my Schecter for many reasons. Great tone, good looks and unlimited sustain! The Sustainer system put out by Fernandes is truly unique. I played around with it for a bit while I was at the store making my final choice and it was difficult. The Sustainer gives you a few options, it can have infinite sustain, allowing to hold out notes for an unnaturally long time, and the notes being held don't change from their true tone. But if you flip a switch then you have something else to play with, it automatically creates a harmonic to the note(s) you are playing which can be something similar to a pinch harmonic, and I found that pinch harmonics all of a sudden become all too easy. My guitar guru that I grew up with said I made the right choice in the Schecter because he would have called me a cheater for the whole harmonic deal... guitarists out there, you know what I mean. It's body structure carry's some similarities to that of the Les Paul, but cut just a bit more. I was told by the salesman that Fernandes was currently in a lawsuit with Gibson because of their similarities with that of Gibson's. True or untrue I do not know how the story ended. Anyway it is still an amazing instrument, one of which I would very much like to add to my collection some other time down the road, hopefully sooner then later. For some more depth or just some better looks at this beauty just go right here to Fernandes' official site

Beginner's Luck

Well now looking at being an all-star guitarist someday? Or maybe you just want to play some tunes around a campfire. Whatever your reason is, I am going to give a few little bits of advice for someone who is just picking up a guitar for the first time. First of all, before you can really 'play' you need to get your fingertips used to the wear and tear that those lovely strings provide to your hand. The best way to begin playing I believe would be on a classical, nylon stringed guitar. The strings are loose, thick, smooth, and really easy to get sound out of. An electric guitar would be the next step up, then an acoustic. The thing about electric and acoustic guitars compared to that of a nylon classical is that the stings are steel or some metal, and are wound much tighter than that of a classical. The tight steel strings will shred your fingers down to the meat, which is very unpleasant (I've done this many times). If you don't have access to a classical though, you are just going to have to either take it slow, or play through the pain. Anyway, once you can pick up and play your guitar for a decent amount of time without crying, it is time to start learning some fundamentals. You need to get used to chords and have nice transitions between them, not to mention have a smooth strumming pattern. The easiest chords to learn are G,C,A,D,E,Em,Am and power chords, which you can find tablature/notation for on just about any guitar website. If you master these you can master almost everything off of many artists albums. Take Greenday and Jack Johnson for starters, almost all of their songs are based around these few chords, and once you train your ear by learning the chords, you will recognize more and more from other artists too. So you have your chords, now it is vital that you develope a smooth strum pattern. each string should be plucked through the strum just as evenely as every other. It should be solid and whole, not choppy. Have someone listen to you try some chords and see what they think, because most people can hear a chop, or muted strings. A good way to keep motivated is to learn some of your favorite songs (those containing guitar that is). As soon as you get your first verse correct or even simple riff it is really exciting. Take you time and listen to some of those songs without your guitar in hand. Really memorize the sound, strum pattern, the beat, the transitions with the lyrics and so on. If you know the whole structure to a song before attemtping to play it, things go very smooth. Well I believe that is about enough for now. I will spit out some more hopefully helpful words at another time.

Testing Testing 1..2..3..

This is a sample of music from my old band. The members are as follows: Taylor Seibel on Vocals, Ryan Davis on Drums, Bob Haley on Bass, Chase Hendrickson on Guitar, and yours truly on guitar and back up vocals. A fair warning, it is somewhat old, so keep in mind I will have some newer material out soon.


Click here to get your own player.

Pea Pods

Podcast Music Blast
Well PMB is a fairly basic site, basic setups as well. The quality of the podcasts are fair, nothing spectacular by all means. I listened to three musicians: Lanky, Billy Harvey, and Shane Bartell. Overall not my style of music, and I think that a live recorded podcast is alright but there is a lot of down time when the artists are just speaking to the crowd, so it is kind of a drag. They used Beta's Podcast Ready as their method of delivery, and were also sponsored by Fresh Media Works and PMC top 10. The audio itself came out of iTunes, which many of them have. I like listening to 45 plus minutes of live music and all but it really bugs me when i can't see the performance, so I would suggest cutting out some of the stage talk and get down to the music.

Mark Forman's Getting a Leg Up Podcast
This Podcaster was somewhat confusing for me to figure out. His podcast touched upon a bit of opinion, but he wants to be all about the music. There are one or two songs between each of his times he speaks, but he never mentions what the name of the artist about to be played nor any information on the music track whatsoever. I came to the assumption that the songs were the same as listed a little bit up the page from the flash driver he used to play his podcast. One nice thing he had was that you had an option to add the podcast to iTunes.

Rough Mix
Rough Mix does exactly what it says, it is "Live Daily's dedicated spot for music below the big label radar.." They deliver a pretty decent audio quality and give their respects to the artists that they are playing. Similar to a radio station. minus the commercials and worthless conversation. This is their first podcast, right around 45 minutes in length. So hopefully I see some updates in the future.

Digital Phlow
This one was difficult to figure out, i believe the large majority of text is in either Swedish or German. But the song titles and descriptions were not so I thought I would see what kind of music is being podcasted from across seas. They try to focus on podcasting individual songs, through an embedded player. A lot of techno and remixes and also seems to be pretty thick with updates. Some pretty good beats, makes me want to dance inside of a Mitsubishi.

Podcast Map
This is a great site to hear some great music. It is literally a map of the world, you can narrow down your region and find a particular podcast that might catch your eye. I was caught listening to the Texas Blues Cafe, They use a great flash player through Podomatic, where you can leave comments, add the file to your own iTunes, leave an email address in order to get new episodes, or even get the player for your own purpose. They have several podcasts to find what you want to hear.