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Archives for 2007

Fellow Brantford guy does well

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A great friend of the Power family’s son Jessie, is truly the apple of his father’s eye. In a recent article about Jesse from the Brantford Expositor this past Thursday, July 19, 2007, pretty much sums up the bright future ahead for this Brantford Musician. I really wish him the best of luck!

I fondly remember many stories about this man’s son and his guitar playing ability. I recall many stories about him doing the things that kids do over the years but never ever met the guy. He, along with his father, was a player whom I had always wanted to jam with but never had the time to do so. I hope that I can jam with him now that he is a star in the making, LOL!

I just checked out Jesse’s Myspace and LiveVideo and found it quite refreshing. He is just an honest guy doing a honest man’s gig in my home city of Brantford! I hope that this is not his Last Song!

Keep on Jammin’ Jesse




Bass guitar wonderland

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I love playing bass once in a while even though I’m ok at it. I wish that I had the technique to do some “bass slapping” but my longer finger nails prevent me from doing so. I can pull it off in playing songs on my guitar like Neon (John Mayer) or Peggie’s Kitchen walls (Bruce Cockburn) but the doing them on bass is another matter left to the masters of the 4 string.

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My wife came across this site called weirdomatic and bookmarked it without telling me, but I do have selective hearing (like most men) and I had to check it out when I stumbled upon it early one morning while she was asleep.

This site has the best and original looking basses that I have seen anywhere.

Even if your not a bassist check out this link anyway. These artisans are unreal in their abilities to create functioning works of art. I would never have considered some of these styles to actually work.

The bass’ do not look to be ergonomic, but they would be a blast for anyone’s collections. Even just to look at them and admire the artistic merits is worth looking at.

Keep on Jammin’

Who needs coffee to wake up in the morning

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Well kidz I woke up this morning, thank God for that, and was surfing and collecting e-mail at breakfast when a nice women started to rapidly knock on our front door. Looking at her she could have been easily mistaken for one of those Jehovah Witness people, but she had a look of concern in her eyes.

I got up off the couch and opened the door. She immediately started to talk about the next door neighbour’s hydro wire making strange buzzing sounds and the smell of burning wood in the air. She dragged me outside and I soon realized why she had that look in her eyes.

A branch the neighbour’s tree was hanging precariously on the upper tier of the hydro pole. We could smell burning wood in the air and see some leaves on the branch starting to smoke and then just suddenly went out. Wooo, that was close.

As the threat subsided I thanked her and she went on her merry way. I then went inside our home to explain to my wife what had just happened. We both agreed that I should take pictures to have just in case something happened later for insurance purposes. She said that she would also contact the City and the power (Hydro) company to inform them of the incident. So at this point I went back outside to see if everything was still ok.

Upon going outside to take a few pictures of the branch in question, another branch caught on fire. After the shock wore off, I had this vision in my mind of the whole damn tree catching on fire followed by our neighbour’s house soon after. Did I tell you that we are in a semi-detached home right beside said neighbour?

I then ran over to the neighbors to try and get them out of their home. After telling them to get out I walked back to the sidewalk and all of a sudden there was this HUGE BANG sound followed by little shards of cement and little burning leaves flying through the air. Who needs coffee to wake up in the morning when a BIG BANG can do the same at the fraction of the cost.

I wish someone had caught my body and facial expression at that moment on tape! I bet that I looked like one of those people in a wild west movie being told to dance while the local drunk at the saloon peppers the floor below their feet with bullets. I felt like I nearly jumped out of my skin. That would have been hilarious to see.

Next thing I know, half the neighbourhood was beside me asking me what happened and saying that their power is out. My wife was now on the cell phone, hanging out our front door while talking to 911 and the fire people. She then gave me the phone and I was talking to a woman. I told her quickly what had happened and she said that the fire fighters and police were on their way. Just as she said that, they were flying down the street and right in front of me. Boy, now that is service!

So all is well in our neck of the woods and now I can get back to my morning coffee.

Keep on Jammin’

Fantastic guide to Green Cars

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It’s nice to see that car manufactures are beginning to design more and more green cars. My wife and I try to live a fairly green lifestyle. In fact she’s been writing about it on her gardening blog recently. Over the last few years we’ve been changing slowing and living a greener lifestyle.

One major change that we’d like to make, probably with our next car purchase would be to get a green car. Probably a hybrid or if possible a pure electric car.

With this in mind, I was happy to find an article about the Greenest cars on earth over at the Vcars website.

Vcars specializes in the sale of Used cars and I suppose it won’t be long before they’ll be selling a few used green cars since there are more and more types of green cars on the market each year.

The article that I read discusses the many types of green cars that are presently being sold, as well as prototypes and manufactures plans for green cars of the future.

Probably the most well known green car is the hybrid Toyota Prius. This vehicle and it’s specifications are discussed in the article, as are a number of electric cars such as the G-Wiz, and the Sakura Maranello4. It seems that both of these cars can be found on the streets of London. As far as I know we don’t have anything quite like that available to us here in North America, but I hope that we will soon.

Then there are cars by a variety of well known manufacturers that produce a very low C02 footprint compared to many other vehicles on the road today. Cars such as the Honda Civic, Lexus RX-400h, and Lexus GS-450h are all considered green cars.

If you have an interest in cars I’m sure you’ll enjoy the article, and if you are interested in living green you’ll find some very useful information that will help you decide on your next car.

You must go to the site and see the prototypes of future green cars. Did you know that there’s plans for a Tesla Roadster Electric Vehicle? It looks amazing! Scroll to the last third of the article to see a photo of this cool looking car.

Overall I found this article quite informative and I’m sure I’ll go back to it when we are about to buy a new car.

1,800 Guitarists Set World Record Playing ‘Smoke on the Water’

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Now that would be a sight or should I say sound to hear! I hope that they were all in tune. I wonder how far they got in the song?

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Anyway, those crazy (and I mean that in a nice way) Germans just seem to love their hard rock and where the mullet seems to never have gone out of style.

They had 1802 guitarists, ranging from 6 to 80 years of age, play this tune simultaneously.

It happened on Saturday, June 25 2007, in the village of Leinfelden-Echterdingen in the German state of Baden-Württembergwonder. Makes one wonder what the previous record is. Well if you really want to know it was in June in Kansas City in the US, where 1,683 guitarists got down and riffed together.

The Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan was trying to take part in a live link-up from England, but was prevented from singing along by technical problems. Now that would have been cool to be there if they did get the glitch to work right.

If the record is not exceeded by September, the record will go into the Guinness Book of Records.

Keep on Jammin’

My new SONY HDR-SR5 Video Camera

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So we finally got ourselves a more then capable HD Video camera. Our SONY HDR-SR5 was bought this past Sunday. I have been going over the manual for some time now and I must admit it seems easy enough to use but to get the desired effect maybe another story.

hdr-sr5.jpg My first video attempt was just random shots here and there around the house. I also had the opportunity to video some fireworks down at our local park. It was Canada Day on Sunday so perfect timing! The focus was so fluid and the simple effects were just plain simple to execute! The touch screen was very user friendly not to mention very cool as well! It is set up in such a simple format that even my parents, I think, could figure it out. Sorry mom & dad!

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The HDR-SR5 has a CD for running the camera for idiots and another for the recording software as well as an in dept PDF manual that is very straight forward.

If you are looking for a HD Video camera I think you should check this one out! The only problem that I have with this so far is that we need a S-Video cable to plug it into our SAMSUNG HDTV. Otherwise full steam ahead.

Today I will install the software in my laptop and try out a few of the basic functions. I hope the software allows me to import the audio from an POD to the final video. If I am having problems the old boys at G-Force Media Productions in Toronto, can certainly help me out!

So wish me luck! Finally after all the hype about my starting to set up lessons on line it really will be coming soon to you my good readership!!!

Keep on Jammin’

Nice Finger picking on this guy

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Boy is this guy good. His name is Steven King and I will be watching out to see if he will be playing in Toronto any time soon! Also, check out the positioning of his middle pick up on his guitar, neat huh?

He may come across to some guitar players as the typical technically perfect musician with a lack of feel, but that’s ok, he’s really good at what he does. The best part comes at 1:02 of his performance.

This was the feeling that I got when listening to this type of player when I was 13 – 14 years old. I couldn’t get my thick head around the idea that this was great or, to a greater extent, cool music to play for audiences.

Then again, I was in a Kiss tribute band at the time, see earlier posts from this era of my career. Once again, my best and most influential guitar teacher was looking out for my development without me even realizing it.

He started teaching me little ditties to play that were both cool and technically satisfying for me to play at the time, and also some kids my age thought that it was good to listen to as well. Later on, I started to play “Suite Case” blues by Rik Emmett of Canadian Super Group Triump, from the Just a Game album. This direction of guitar playing has truly stood the test of time with me.

So take a little listen to this style of guitar picking. You might even try to decide if this is a style that you may want to add it to you own repertoire of techniques. Also go to youtube and input his name to find more of his work. You’ll envy this guitar guru!

Keep on Jammin’

Guitars made out of recycled material

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You’ve got to read this story!

This guy, Lenny Piroth-Robert, makes guitars out of discarded cigar boxes. Have you ever heard of such a thing? He uses the empty cigar boxes to make the body of the guitar. it takes him about 8 weeks to make a guitar and they are apparently selling like mad on the internet.

I’ve got to check this guy out! Oh, did I mention he’s Canadian? Yeah, he’s working out Montreal. Check out his site – Daddy Mojo Custom Cigar Box Guitars. You’ve got to see the guitars. I want one! Hey, they sell for $175 to $375, I think I can talk the wife into that.

Best Canadian band that you never heard

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Well this is a follow-up post from my last one.

Most music lovers in Ontario in the 80’s, were exposed to and grew up with some of the most extraordinary musical talents. But the ones that were

I bet that these guys would have done well for themselves in the European market. Bands of that era especially Saga, which had a huge cult following in Germany, shows that it can be done! Some of them tended to just peter off a bit in their later stages of the European introduction.

I just thought that I would introduce to you all, to an eye opening Canadian talent that changed my view of how to play in a uniquely Canadian way. Some of you I highly recommend you listen to this a couple of times, to really appreciate it. The guys are truly showing us here their advanced interpretations of just how to play their music to us here. Imagine the guys who influenced them!

I would just killed to play this song live with the old Pylis band. Our keyboardist Tony could play anything on those damn black boxes of his! The guy is just way too modest for this world (you got that Tony?).

So without further adieu … Ladies and Gentlemen … FM!!!

Oh, BTW, Nash is the guy in the bandages.

This little ditty is of them during their Gary Neuman period. There is a great hint of Roxy Music and Yes in there to tantalize your musical ear as well.

Keep on Jammin’

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