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You are here: Home / Archives for 2007

Archives for 2007

The Guitar Resource

June 16, 2007 by Chris

Just like every other guitar player on the planet, you realize that there is always someone out there that knows more then you do. You may spend your time, like I do, by searching, and then figuring out different styles to play that will help develop a unique sound that you can call your own. This does take a long time. Or, you can search the web for sites that can dramatically speed up this process.

Some great guitar sites even expose you to different ways to listen and understand overall musical structures. Well, I think that I have found one that does all the above and then some. The site is called The Guitar Resource. This is like one stop shopping for technique!

The Guitar Resource has an article called Circle of Fifths that will help with everything from finger exercises all the way to chords and chord progressions.

Not only does the Guitar Resource provide information on how to play, but it has a great selection called How to Read Tabs that compliment and makes the site that much more informative.

The videos that he makes about his topics are top shelf! He has the uncanny ability to make you feel relaxed and he doesn’t talk down to you. His posts also make you sit down and think about what and how to achieve all this without all that dry musical theory stuff. It gives you the very basics and lets you go from there. If you want more detailed info, then just ask him. It’s just that simple.

The tools provided at The Guitar Resource are simple and straight to the point. You don’t need all the bells and whistles to achieve your goal, and I think that he has that aspect all sowed up since he started in March 12th, 2007.

I also found a fabulous book in the portion of his site called Recommended. The book is called the “Practical Theory for Guitar”. Yes it certainly is a must have for any guitarist regardless of his/her level. I looked at some articles and found it simple and straight to the point, so I’m seriously thinking of buying it! I have to hand it to this fellow, he certainly got it right on this one too.

If you visit the guitar resource be sure to check out the tabs that you will find across the top of the site. He has a section called The Store. Within the store you will find a featured product as well as a selection of categories such as Guitars, Amps, Strings, concert shop, guitar instruction, parts and accessories and whole lot more.

All and all, as the name says, The Guitar Resource it is a great resource site to fit all aspects of your guitar playing needs.

Keep on Jammin’




Filed Under: Guitar Equipment, Music, Web Site Promotion Tagged With: accessories, blog, chords, guitar, guitar player, guitars, how to, learn, Music, musical, play, playing, progress, progression, recommended reading, Shopping, strings, the guitar resource, Video

The Band is mostly Canadian eh?

June 11, 2007 by Chris

I’ll bet my life that most non-Canadians did not know that THE BAND was made up of mostly Canadians. They hail from the same neck of the woods that I came from. The History of “The Band’s” connection with Ontario is well documented. I am originally from Brantford and it happens to be in the middle of the area from which they all originated. Must be something in the water?

Well to tell you the truth, I didn’t realize this until a couple of years ago.

I had heard stories of one of them, Robbie Robertson being from Canada, but as far as I knew, they were the biggest and best in the world in my opinion, and I figured they must have been from some other place in Canada.

Check it out:

Robbie Robertson, is from Toronto but spent a lot of his younger years in the Six Nations reserve. I use to go there a fare amount and had friends from that area. It’s not far from Brantford.

Rick Danko lived in Simcoe. My family went to the Simcoe Winter Lights Festival regularly. They put on this great Christmas light show near the downtown part. There is great park and it has a small river running through it and the best time to go is when it is snowing heavily! You will think that you are at the North Pole, really great little town.

Richard Manuel is from Stratford. This is quite the quiet town. It’s around the Kitchener-Waterloo (which had it’s name changed from Berlin, during World War II) and is now known for the Stratford Festival. This is a Shakespearean festival that every kid from the southern Ontario area went to see many times throughout their childhood. The theater is a must to see if you enjoy great acting and visual effects.

Garth Hudson, is from London Ontario. My sister lived there for a while and I went there the odd time. Nothing really special about this place, but if I went there more often I probably would have found something.

Who says us Canucks are only good at hockey!

keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Canadian, Culture, Entertainment, Great Bands, History, Music, Musicians Tagged With: band, Brantford, Canada, Canadian, Christmas, downtown, fair, Famous Canadian bands, festival, Garth Hudson, hockey, London, Ontario, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Simcoe, Six Nations Reserve, Stratford, The Band, Toronto

McCartney’s secret gig

June 8, 2007 by Chris

What a drag, and I was just in London that day as well!

Just kiddin’. Now this is a gig that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss if I WAS THERE.

Imagine been in a little pub holding around 500 patrons or so people and checking out Mr. McCartney as the house band of the night. Now that’s worth the over priced cover charge isn’t it?

I remember seeing him in Toronto at the Sky Dome and it was just fabulous. The sound was well, the Sky Dome but it wasn’t all that bad none the less. But a venue with 500 people … love it!

Filed Under: Great Bands, Music, Musicians, Video Tagged With: club, gig, London club, Music, news video, Paul Mccartney, secret, small venue, Video

Rolling Stones Interview

June 5, 2007 by Chris

Hey, if you like the Rolling Stones you might want to take a minute and look at this video that I found. The band takes a few minutes for an interview as they prepare for their European tour.

This is a great band to see live if you ever get a chance. They just have so much energy on stage.

The Rolling Stones often come and rehearse here in Toronto before big tours, then they end up playing in a small venue just before their tour starts. We almost went to one of their pre-tour shows before their last tour.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Great Bands, Music, Musicians, Video Tagged With: band, European tour, interview, Live, Rolling Stones, tour, Video

The Grand Old Danforth Music Hall

May 31, 2007 by Chris

The Danforth Music Hall is quite the fixture in my neighbourhood. It’s been around since the 1919 and originally called “Allen’s Danforth theatre”.

It had it’s hey day back when Vaudeville acts where all the rage! It changed it’s concept and purpose a number of times and eventually was called the “Century” but kept it’s distinctive beauty intact.

They’ve just renovated this gem on “The Danforth“, known by the locals, and is fully up and running. They have underwent extensive renovations from top to bottom that reflects it original Grandeur. New state of the art sound/lighting system, new seats that are wider (now that’s worth it weight in gold in itself), updated lobby/washrooms and bar area!

This is the kind of jewel that you pass everyday and say to yourself, ” I gotta get in there some day!”. Well, hopefully I will not have to wait that long.

I just went to their site and found a treasure trove of musical talent that is just screaming out to me to go see! Besides, there is tons of parking and seconds away from the subway.

These are a few of my choices that have caught my eye!

Rick Wakeman, the man is a musical genius and machine when it comes to the keyboard (Tony, you gotta see this guy to believe him)

Stephan Stills, now this is a guy you want to go camping with, imagine the sing songs around the fire! (Stevie my favorite brother-in-law, keep this date open)

Rickie Lee Jones, she would be a nice addition to one of my backyard parties. (Jon, will we see you there?)

Just to name a few! My eyes are on Rick Wakeman.

Their site is easy to navigate plus there are some video’s of the artists in their “Events” section, just in case you want to refresh your memory of who they are.

So if your in my neck of the woods, check out this Grand Old Lady and hope to see you there on Aug. 17th/07 when Mr. Wakeman is playing.

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Entertainment, History, Music, Musicians, Recreation Tagged With: keyboard, Music, musical, Rick Wakeman, sound, Stephan Stills, The Danforth Music Hall, Video

Great gift ideas at Designer Gifts

May 27, 2007 by Chris

Designergifts.com is a new online store that is owned by onlinestores.com. It think they’re trying to get a feel as to how people respond to the items that they are selling as well as the look and feel of the site.

Personally I’m very happy with the way the site has been designed. The menu system is easy to navigate, there’s a good selection of categories and sub categories in the menu that will take you to the sections that you’re interested in with ease.

Product wise I’m also pleased with the selection. I’ve visited some so called “gift stores” before that only have maybe 20 items to choose from. Designer Gifts is nothing like the other stores that I’ve visited and quickly left. No, it’s got a huge selection of items. They have a Cheap gifts section but there’s nothing cheap about the gifts displayed there. The items appear to be of high quality and I’m fairly sure that if I were to go into a department store and find a similar item it would be more than twice the price.

Along with quality gift items you’ll also find an area that sells deluxe greeting cards. There are cards for all occasions in that area and the cards are very nice.

giftbasketman.gif

Being a guy, I spent more time looking at the Gift ideas for men portion of the site. There’s some great gift ideas to be found in that section. You can buy personalized gifts like army knives that could be engraved, flasks, Bath and body gift ideas for men, and even gift baskets for men. I actually really like the look of the gift basket that I’ve shown above and wouldn’t mind one bit if someone wanted to get that for me as a gift. Hey, my birthdays coming up a little more than a month you know.

They do have some high tech gift items like the MP4 players and Digital picture frames, but I suppose they could stand to get a few more gadgety types of items in their lineup. In fact, I really do think that that would be my only suggestion.

The prices seem very reasonable, and as I said earlier the items look to be well made and of high quality so I’d be happy to either give or receive a gift from Designer Gifts. How about you? Why don’t you go visit the store and see what you think.

Filed Under: Sales and Marketing, Shopping Tagged With: cheap gifts, designer, gift ideas, gifts, gifts for all occasions, gifts for men, gifts for women, good prices, Online store, quality gifts, shipping

The Perfectionist

May 27, 2007 by Chris

This is another song from Saga that we played in Pylis. The song starts up with an acoustic guitar that then goes into an electric. My Gibson RD Artist fulfilled that dual roll quite admirably I must say.

It wasn’t until recently that I re-visited this song on my Larrivee L-03 acoustic.

The lyrics were just fascinating to listen to and the guitar forms are much more complex then I remembered. As you may or may not know, I’m not a lyricist by any stretch of the imagination. I just pay attention to the level of difficulty of the guitar, the overall structure and emotion that a song provides.

Later on I will start teaching people how I “interpret” how a song is played. So check out this song, and try to pick out all of the guitar progressions and remember them when I start video taping my version.

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Canadian, Guitars, Music, Musicians, Songs to play, Video Tagged With: 1980s progressive rock band, a song, Acoustic, acoustic guitar, Brantford, Brantford 1980 rock band, guitar lessons, interpretingbest canadian keyboardist, Larrivee, Music, Musicians, play, Plyis, progress, progression, progressive rock band pylis, Pylis, pylis brantford 1980s band, RD Artist, Saga, Songs to play, teach, teaching, the perfectionist, Tony F, Tony F keyboardist, Video, video guitar

Boston Foreplay Keyboard Intro

May 27, 2007 by Chris

Just a short post. If you’re like me and you’d love to learn the whole song or even a small part of this song, here it is. Enjoy!

For those of you who are not familiar with the band or this song that they play here is their version of how to play this tune live!

Keep on Jammin’


Filed Under: Music, Songs to play, Video Tagged With: Boston, Boston Foreplay, guitar, Intro, keyboards, learn to play, Music, part of song, whole song

United States Flag Store

May 27, 2007 by Chris

united-states-flag-store.jpg

My wife and I are proud Canadians and we display our Canadian flag at the front of our house.

It’s kind of interesting that Canadians aren’t quite as interested in displaying their flag as Americans seem to be. Having said that, those of you who are interested in purchasing American Flags should visit the United States Flag Store. Once you visit the flag store you’ll probably be astounded by their wide selection of flags. They don’t just sell US Flags, no, they also sell World flags – as in flags from many countries from across the world.

You purchase just about anything to do with flags at the United States Flag Store, from Outdoor Flagpoles – which includes both residential and corporate flagpoles, as well as pins, patches and badges, car flags, state flags, flag related accessories, and patriotic related items from patriotic decorations to patriotic wear. There’s even a patriotic gift idea section.

I found that the site was very easy to navigate. Just visit the category, listed on the left side of the page, that you’d like to visit and then drill down through the sub categories until you find the flag related item that suits your needs. Most items have thumbnail photos so it’s easy to see what the product really is, plus you’ll find a good description of the item when you click on it’s thumbnail. A few items that I clicked on even brought me to a page that displayed a large image of the item so I was able to take a really good look at the product. united-states-flaghat.gif

I honestly can’t think of any other items that they might add to the site other than perhaps some children related types of flags or patriotic items. There must be some kind of patriotic toys out there, shouldn’t there be?

The prices seem to be quite reasonable and the flags appear to be well made and of high quality from what I can tell by reading descriptions and looking at the images on the site.

If you are looking to purchase a flag for your home, or a flag related item make this site your first stop and I’ll be it will also be your last stop too.

Filed Under: Culture, Shopping Tagged With: Canadian, flag, flags, online flag store, Patriotic, patriotic items, United States, United States Flag Store, US, US flags, USA

Well …

May 24, 2007 by Chris

Ok good readership, it’s time for part II of Chris’s excellent adventure!

The day started off with great excitement! I was going to put plan II into effect.

I had brought my guitar to work to do a little practicing at lunch 1/2 hour before I went off to play in front of Mr. Max himself, Kim Mitchell, at the street level Q-107 booth in downtown Toronto. I was on the hunt for a little quiet jam room to hone my trade.

1st, the theatre (that’s how us Canucks spell it) room, damn it’s locked! Then off to the large conference room on the 4th floor, ah, somebodies in there! With broken heart, Larivee guitar and lunch in hand, I headed off to the old smoking area outside.

PERFECT, nobody there and it was nice and sheltered from the mid afternoon sun, with a little breeze to help unwind. I unlock the unbridled enthusiasm, and guitar out of my case and start jamming! This went on for awhile until I had to return back to work. At this point I said to myself, “bring it on!”.

My great boss Liz in the recovery room (oh lets not forget Jennifer), whom I am sure is reading this now, let me go a bit early that day for my inaugural stumble, I mean graceful leap onto the national radio scene!

I got home, put my tools of battle (or as Arlo Guthrie put it “instruments of destruction” from Alice’s Restaurant) in the car and off I went ready to conquer the world!

Parked the car, took my tools out of the trunk and headed off to the promised land! Got in front of the street level booth with heart and adrenalin just a racing and then … he swiveled around… slowly!

The look on his face was truly as sight to see. With raised eyebrows, he mouthed the words ” I don’t have any tickets left”.

Keep on Jammin’ (or in this case crying!!!)

Filed Under: Canadian, Great Bands, Music, Musicians, Recreation Tagged With: Max Webster, Q 107, Q 107 street booth, yonge and dundas square

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