Guitars, tips and great music discussions
Mark Goffeney is definitely in the running for my vote for the most unique guitarists to have come around in quite some time.
I saw this somewhere and when I saw it I knew that I had to post about it.
I mean have you ever tried this feat, no pun intended!
It is hard but this guy makes it look just plain old easy? Check out his site and enjoy the show!
Mark also has a great myspace account.
Keep on Jammin’ indeed!
Has anyone out there heard of this guitar maker? I found out about these guys through a patient that I was taking back to their room after a procedure. The patient was a bass player and said that it was the pride of the collection. So curious about it I went and googled it.
To my amazement the makers were none other them Leo Fender – Maker of all pre-CBS Fender as well as Music Man instruments – and George Fullerton.
Leo Fender, we all know who he is but, the other guy, not so much. George Fullerton is the co-creater of the Fender Stratocaster. Not a bad thing to have as a lasting legacy of a man now is it!
G & L was the result of Leo having to sell his company in 1965 due to health problems that he was having in the early 60’s. It was started up in 1980 at the same location that had housed his Clarence Leo Fender Research (CLF) facility.
Some of the musicians who use these beauty’s are personal favorites of mine. For example:
Carl Perkins, Canada’s own Gord Sinclair (The Tragically Hip), Peter Frampton and Bob Mayo (Peter Frampton Band), Neal Schon (Journey), Davey Johnstone (Elton John band), Gary Hewitt (Gary Allan Band) and all the guitarists from Aerosmith and INXS. Just to name a few.
If you happen to come across this post and own one of these beauty’s PLEASE write a comment here about your experiences about your axe. We’d really like to hear from you, please?
Keep on Jammin’
Well my mother works in a church and the church decided hey, why not go the the Vatican for a holiday! She also had the idea in he head that mys sister’s son A.J. who is half Italian, might be interested in going to Italy and maybe see some relatives there time permitting. Nice idea there mom!
A.J., is a great kid around 17 years old. He is unbelievably smart but not too ambitious. He has some great taste in music and tried the guitar but dropped it early in his oh too short career. He is a really cool kid!
So last night as they boarded the chartered bus to take them to the airport, my dad and aunt Helen saw them off and then went home to have a cup of tea. After wards they would then go out for dinner at my Aunt’s favorite restaurant, dad’s treat.
So, A.J., my mom and around 27 older people (yes 27 older people) were finally off to see the Pope!
Back at home having their tea 1/2 an hour later, my aunt was reminiscing about the time she and her mother went to Rome and had the time of her life! “Oh the places we went, the art we saw and we met the Pope!” she said to my father! Screeeeech! They then heard the sound of thump, thump, thump, getting louder, louder and louder!
The door swung open, my mom flew by both of them with their tea cups just about in front of their mouths, grabbed something from the bedroom while screaming something unbecoming of my her and then said “A.J. forgot his wallet” all while running back out the back door!
My dad and aunt looked through the dinning room window towards the front of the house only to see the charted bus stopped there with the bus door open, the driver and some of the passengers looking perturbed and A.J. was looking out his window with a smile on his face! Priceless!
I wonder if the Pope had good old A.J. in mind when he was thinking this one up?
Keep on Praying!!!
My question to all of you guitarists out there is, does anyone out there place their guitar picks in between their 4th and 5th (consider their thumb as 1st finger etc.) finger while using their remaining fingers to play bare finger picking during certain parts of a song?
I’ve been trying different ways to bring the pick from the 4/5th fingers up to the regular position for years with very slow results.
I am just missing a fine detailed part of the process to make it flow effortlessly.
Can anyone out their give me a different aspect on how to do this?
If someone knows of a video on line to assist me I’d be in their debt forever.
Keep on Jammin’
I was made aware of the Saga concert on the morning of the show.
Tony, God bless that guy, called me on Saturday morning and asked if we were going to see them that night. I had told him that I knew nothing of the show and hung up to get some tickets on-line.
My wife was not feeling up to going to the show so I naturally decided to contact my keyboardist friend Rick to drag him along.
The tickets were $20.00 Can. the seating was in general admission. We were one the first one’s there so we decided to stand beside the stage. We waited for a long time until Tony,the old keyboardist from Pylis and his beautiful wife Laurie to meet us there.
Last time we saw Saga live was around 2 years ago at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto. That night we stood on the right side of the stage were Ian Crichton the guitarist traditionally played. Tony wanted us to be on Ian’s side of the stage so I could be amazed by his wizardry. At this point I was recovering from a heart problem and I thought that it was really nice of my old buddy to be thinking in this way!
This time I thought we should be on the keyboardist Jim Gilmour’s side because of Tony’s nice gesture the last time we saw the boys in the band.
We were around 15 feet, yes 15 feet away from him and it was wonderful vantage point to see the band from. Tony couldn’t have been happier.
Here is the set that they played that night!
Trust
That’s as far as I’ll go
Wind him up
Your not alone
The one
The Perfectionist
Conversations
Scratching the surface He did this solo and it was dedicated to a married couple that he knew.
The Flyer
The Perfectionist
The Runaway
See them smile
Compromise
Careful where you step
Don’t be late
Don’t be late is my favorite Saga of all time! It really was the best song that I have ever played then and now!!!
Encore
Humble stance
On the Loose
The end of a Rocking Roll/Progressive Rock era ladies and gentlemen.
Keep on Rockin’ Saga!
Earlier this morning my old friend and keyboard player from Pylis gave me an unexpected call. He informed me that Saga was playing tonight at a great venue called Jeff Healey’s Roadhouse in downtown Toronto. He said that he got some tickets for him and his wife and wanted to know if we were interested in going. I asked my wife and she was not feeling up to it due to her illness
I’ve never been there but it has been house to many a great band. It holds up to 600 guests and it has been up and running for many years now.
Get back to you soon!
Keep on Jammin’
My wife and I are going to a blogging convention in Las Vegas in November, but we both need passports! If we don’t get them we won’t be able to fly into the United States.
I had to get photo copies of this that and the other thing Sunday night, get our photo’s from this Greek Photo Finish shop in the heart of Greek Town (The Danforth to Locals) run by this really nice little Asian couple on Monday. Gotta love the big city or what?
I went downtown one day last week. On that day I got up at 6:45 (early for me) so I could go see my old buddy Dave the Criminal lawyer guy downtown Toronto to do his part with the Passport legalities! When that was done I was going to go home pick up the wife, go back downtown to do the Passport paperwork stuff when it dawned upon me that, “Why don’t I just do it when I was downtown doing some paperwork stuff with Dave? So I did it, thus eliminating around 2 hours of driving downtown.
While driving home I picked up some earth worms for our pet turtles. Nice! Had to go there anyway at some point in time. I was busy that day. I also ended up getting the muffler replaced, now our car doesn’t sound like some kid’s street racing machine, that just got his ride pimped right!
While I was waiting for the car to be finished I walked up to my favorite store in the world, the 12th Fret and bought some new strings for my Fender Lead II. Walking into the store I was greeted by the presence of a new White Gibson SG Double neck, now that’s a greeting! It was about $3568.00 (Can) by the way in case your wondering.
While walking back to Speedy Muffler King to pick up the improved ride, I walked into this neat sidewalk patio and had a few light refreshing liquid beverages. The finger foods were nice too, as was the conversation with the owner an older Macedonians lady.
When I finally returned home I had a well deserved rest. What a busy day that was! Cheers!
Keep on Jammin’
I was introduced to the Vox Tonelab SE peddle by a guy who I was playing with this past weekend at the Arlington Hotel’s Capron’s Cavern, Paris Ontario.
The event was being held for a dear family friend who was celebrating his 50th birthday. Craig Peeler was the guitarist who played a wide variety of tunes. I brought along my Larivee and he graciously let me jam with him on stag that night.
Wow, I was at Steve’s Music on Queen St. in Toronto today and I was looking at a Vox ToneLab SE. This thing looks HOT! Unfortunately they did not have this in stock but was getting them in this week.
John Boldt was the rep. that I was talking to and he was very up to date on his pedals. He was saying that 12AX7 dual triode vacuum tube is used at the end/output of the inside mother board of the floor peddle. This has quite the warming effect on the sound. The tube is not used for the power of this system! He said that most pedal companies are using the vacuum tube at the beginning of their process but Vox was using it at the tail end instead. This makes sense because you would always want a warmer tube sound coming out the speakers.
I would recommend this little piece of equipment heaven for anyone’s collection!
Keep on Jammin’
Now I already have a good pick-up system in my Larrivee L-03 but when went into my favorite guitar store, the 12th Fret in Toronto, I feel madly in love with the L.R. Baggs IMix.
Now I have been looking to update my pick-up system in my L0-3 lately and found many systems in which to chose from. I have narrowed it down to two items. (1) the Fishman Ellipse Blend vs. (2) the LR Baggs IMix.
When I went in I talked to my favorite guitar guy Tim Cameron. Being the honest guy that he is he immediately directed me to a acoustic guitar pick up god named Nevin. I told him what I was looking for and told him that I was just looking to hear the differences between the two and he paid as much attention to me as if I was going to pick one up right then and there, now that’s service!
He brought me two guitars that had the pick-up systems already in them and put me in their little music room, plugged me in and let me got at them. Wow, was I impressed with both!
First I tried the Fishman Ellipse Blend. It had a real nice sound but I was detecting feed back. I know that I was in a little room but for some reason the feeling and sound was off to me. I realize I am knew at the finer subtleties of acoustic pick ups, but it was a gut feeling. It was very refreshing to see that you can adjust the position of the mic inside.
Then I tried the LR Baggs iMIX. The sound was full, responsive to very fine picking and it can overpower your senses, in my view that is.
Guitarist realize that since the sound of the acoustic guitar is very complex and fickle, so therefore it is a must to use more than a single pickup to attempt to sense it.
The iMIX uses the Baggs iBeam under-bridge pickup with a Baggs Element under-saddle piezo. The Element pickup senses the strings and provides the presence and feedback resistance of piezo while the iBeam reads the sound inside the guitar and adds natural fidelity, albeit with increased feedback sensitivity. The signals from the the two pickups are blended, in this case via the rotary blend control, on a side-mounted, Baggs iMIX Onboard, pre-amp. This pre-amp also features three slider controls for volume, treble and bass, plus a phase reverse switch for a measure of elementary feedback control. A fingertip pressure releases the battery from its compartment for a quick change when required.
iBeam
Element
Now all that I have to do is get my wife on board!
Keep on Jammin’
I had tried in vain to locate exactly which house the Legendary Canadian guitarist, Dominic Troiano, lived in ever since my neighbour’s son had told me. I kept asking him if he could remember and he kept saying that he’ll someday soon he’ll go around there to try and jog his memory. I’m still waiting on that one Johnny.
A fellow employee in the hospital that I work with was a great friend to my neighbour’s son John. He too also said that he remembers his brother Dominic trying to play guitar. He had told me that they hung around Domenic’s brother and played cards with him for when they were young. I had met him at work one day after John had told me about our previous neighbour and asked him the same question. He had gave me the same response that John gave me.
I, being the very introverted person that I am, talked to everyone in the area that looked liked they lived here for ages. With the same question that I had for John and his buddy in hand, I obtained the same answer over and over again.
Now 5 years later, I stumbled upon the answer on line by chance. My jaw dropped, I grabbed my wife’s Canon camera and got in the car. In case your wondering I took the car because I didn’t want to be seen taking a picture of someone’s in secret. The owners may have thought that I was casing the joint!
Now I’m finally in front of the ex-home of Mr. Troiano. Like a kid at Christmas, I get out of the car and just stare at it. I just can’t believe that I’m there.
He lived at the house on the right hand side of the picture. This is the type of home that is quite common in our area. It’s a semi-detached white house with brown trim. Small front yard with a small parking pad but just knowing that he lived and grew up here made it fell bigger then what it was.
In the front yard there was a middle aged man with his little dog talking to a neighbour. The man looked like a jazz musician and approachable. So what the heck, I might as well get out of the car and talk to the guy.
It turns out that he really is a jazz musician and very well aware of the history of the home. He told me that he has even approached the Troiano family through e-mail to see if they wanted to re-visit their own home! Now that’s a real gentleman.
He said that the home has not been renovated that much and that the feel of the home was almost the same as when he got it. He also told me that he bought it from the Troiano’s. The molding floor and ceiling was original and so was the front door.
After talking for a while, I asked him if I could take some pic’s for this post and he said yes. The thing that got my attention the most was the door. Imagining Dominic going up to that door and opening it sent goose bumps all over me, wow!
So now I know a little bit more about the history of our great neighbourhood and can share it with you all.
Mr Dominic Troiano R.I.P.
Keep on Jammin’