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The early St. Pius X Elementary School

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If memory serves me correctly I started off playing in grade 5 at St. Pius X elementary school in Brantford.

My teacher was believe it or not, Mrs. Lord, yes that is correct! What a name for a Catholic school teacher. She was a guitar player who, played it for us in our music class. She played and we sang. She was playing some type of classical guitar and at the time I thought she was GREAT!

She played and we sang songs from the radio, which was in the early 70’s, and they sounded perfect. Songs like ” Seasons in the Sun”, ” Starry starry nights”, ” Alone again, Naturally” (which is a song that I still play today and is a long time favorite of mine) and I think she also played ” Natures way” as well.

We all started off learning the basics like, how to hold the guitar and the pick. This I found odd because she didn’t use one. She said that she felt more comfortable playing the guitar like that. She then taught us about the strings that we would be playing.

Then we progressed to chords! They were very basic ones. Anyway, I then remember her telling us that in our next music class she was going to show us how to play songs! I thought that would be a blast.

I guess everyone was excited with this new part of the curriculum, I know I was. I had a bit more of a leg up on everyone on this part of schooling. Imagine that mom and dad, I was at the head of the class for once!

Keep on Jammin’, I did




Compare and learn more about loans at SelectLoans.co.uk

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I hate having to apply for loans. Don’t you? It’s like the bank has all the power and you stress while you wait to hear whether they’ll say yes or no to your request.

The only loans I’ve really had to deal with have been student loans from when I went to college, and the loan for our car. Our credit rating wasn’t so hot when I applied for our car loan and I ended up having to accept a loan offer from my bank that was at a higher interest rate than I thought I should have had to pay.

It’s too bad that I didn’t know about places like SelectLoans.co.uk when I was searching for either unsecured loans or secured loans. I could have just used the site to compare loans and perhaps to get quotes from different loan and banking institutions in order to get the best rates.

If you think that you’re going to need to take out a loan sometime in the near future you should check out the SelectLoans.co.uk site as there are a lot of great resources there that discuss mortgage rates, financing and interest rates amongst many other topics.

I do think that loans are a necessary evil that pretty much everyone will experience at some point in their life. Unless you have a great job and earn lots of cash you’ll have to take out a loan one day for a car or a house or some other type of expense. The best thing to do when you get a loan is to make sure that the required payments are reasonable and to pay the minimum or greater each month so that you can get that loan payed off on time.

I know some people that take out loans to pay off their credit cards, and then end up getting more credit cards and take out more loans to pay off those bills. I don’t believe in that kind of behavior. It’s a bad cycle to get into and eventually those kind of people will fail to make their payments on time or over extend themselves and end up with bad credit ratings.

How do you feel about loans? Do you know people who’ve gotten themselves in trouble by taking out too many loans?

451press needs blog writers – earn money blogging

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Hey Gang … my wife, Tricia, writes for a blogging network. It’s called 451press and they are looking for some new writers to take over existing blogs. Check out my wifes page to see the list of blogs that they need writers for – there’s a huge variety of topics to write about, so I’m thinking that some of you might be interested.

Oh yeah, you can make some money by be a 451press writer too. Check it out.

Keep on Jammin’

My second amp – a Silvertone Sears modell 26122

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I can’t believe what you can find out there online.

I was writing a post today and as usual, drifted into la la land. Or should I say down memory lane.

I came across this guys site and he had the same amp that I had when I was in grade 7, I think. It was called a Sears-Simpson 12-watt head .

This amp was purely for looks. It had a huge cabinet that was very impressive to look at for the uninitiated guitar player wanna be. I do believe it only had a 12 inch speaker but the big black box made it look like many more were hiding in there.

sears-simpson26122.jpg

I just kept this thing around and used it to play through until I was given my HIWATT. After a while I had a great idea on what to do with this under utilized big black box. I just to put it underneath my HIWATT to make it look even bigger. Boy was I the cat’s meow back in the day.

The speaker box was very light but durable. I never tried to hook it to the HIWATT because I thought that the speaker cones (the little round things in the middle of speakers) would end up being shot out it to the other side of a room.

This is the amp that I had to use my BOSS Distortion DS-1 with because it had no distortion on it at all. Now I know why it didn’t, because it was a bass guitar amp! This was a true case of size over substance.

Keep on Jammin’

TestFreaks reviews Television brands and models

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A couple of years ago, the wife and I, decided to get a new TV. Well it wasn’t so much as decided to get a new TV, our Sony was dying! We’d turn it on and it would take 15 to 30 minutes to warm up and show us what was on the television screen. We thought about getting it fixed, but getting it fixed would cost about the same amount as buying a brand new regular TV of the same size. That’s when we decided to not only get a new TV, but to get one that was HDTV ready.

I only wish that I’d discovered the Testfreaks.com website before we went hunting for a new television. The TestFreaks site has LCD and Plasma TV articles. Reading the articles of the various television brands and models would have made picking out a new TV so much easier since it has so many TV ratings.

Well, I’ve found the site now, and I’m bookmarking it. When we get around to renovating our basement the DLP TV that we did end up purchasing may get moved to the basement, or we might end up getting another new TV for either the living room or renovated basement. The TestFreaks site will come in handy the next time I’m doing research on the different types of televisions and brands.

If you’re shopping for a new television set be sure to look at the articles on TestFreaks before you make your final decision.

The guitar solo that I can nail the best

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This is the solo that I know I can pull off live with no hesitation. I do not consider myself as a lead guitar player but others might object to this. I do not wish to be thrust into the limelight because musically, I feel uncomfortable with it.

The band that I played this song/solo with was called “Pylis”, pronounced “Pie-lis”. We were a band from Brantford Ontario in the early 80’s. Saga was the style of music that we naturally gravitated to. It was challenging to us and we could reproduce live quite effortlessly.

The first guitar solo on this song was something that I could not wait to play. It had to be played with a steady fingers and the ability to milk the hell out of every note! In my opinion, it was one of the best songs we played.

Tony, the keyboardist and my best friend, was the backbone for this one. His abilities to play many keyboards at once left not only myself but others to say, “How the hell did he do that?” The sound that he made doing this was sooo huge that it honestly boggled my mind how he could play it to a “T” at will. When he played it, it was like listening to the album without anyone else playing. WOW!

Aldo, the bassist, was way too much fun to hang out with. Too bad the bonehead didn’t come out to Tony’s “80’s band Reunited” held Oct. 10th/2004 at the Hard ball in Milton Ont.! (I have to acknowledge Tony’s wife, Laura, for all the support that she gave for this memorable event. If it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have been the success that it was.) Aldo was one of the singers in the band and he could pulloff Geddy Lee like no one else.

Now for the drummer, Chris W. He was like the older brother that I would love to drink to excess with one minute then, wrestle him to the ground. He was a tall and lanky fellow. This made it child’s play to me. Being a little guy, I always went for his ankles and then just pushed him over for starters! He had such the perfect voice for this song that it made you wish that you could sing it just like he did. His drumming was 2nd to none. He had this Silver Slingerland 8 piece kit, the one that Neil Peart used in 1975-76, that was out of this world and boy could he play like it as well!

So here is the tune that I’ve been talking about, so just sit back and enjoy!

Keep on Jammin’

My Medal Pedal – Boss Distortion DS-1

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I honestly did not use this pedal much after obtaining my 50 watt, HIWATT 1/2 stack, but it was invaluable until I did. This was the first pedal that I got when I was like the kid that Jerry Doucette sang about in his greatest song ever, “Mamma let that boy, play some Rock & Roll”.

It was overpowering at first, for a young kid. That was in the pre-metal/experimental years.

Eventually I learned to tame it, or was it the other way around, interesting? I had dropped that thing so many times I can’t remember but as they say, “takes a beating”!

Some of my friends used the Over Drive pedal. I just thought that it was not what I wanted my music to sound like. It was too rough and not well defined, honest – that is what I said when I was a kid!

Which one do you like?

Keep on Jammin’

Learn about promoting your site at the Apogee Search Blog

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My wife is the person that set up this site and does all the maintenance on it – like adding new features and promoting the site when she finds new directories to list our sites in. However, I’m slowly learning a bit about promoting sites.

Not everyone has time to work on promoting and optimizing their own sites – especially if you are running a small to large business. That’s were Search engine marketing firms such as Apogee Search come in. Apogee has been in business since 2001 and in that time it has grown to become one of the largest search engine marketing firms in the world.

Apogee works hard to promote their clients websites using proven marketing methods – paid search, affiliate marketing, natural search, and pay-per-call. They even have a Search engine marketing service that set completely sets up and customizes Pay Per Click accounts for your business or website.

I personally enjoy reading the Apogee Search Blog from time to time. There’s always great information about marketing and optimizing resources.

Their most recent post “Why I’m not a fan of Google Sitemaps” was full of helpful information. We use Google sitemaps on our sites to help get new posts and pages indexed faster. I didn’t realize how important it was to have good internal linking on your site to help promote new pages though. Read the article for more information on how to use Google sitemaps to your best advantage.

Anyone working on promoting their own site should bookmark the Apogee Search blog. Every time I visit the blog I learn something new.

My first Chorus pedal

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It was the Boss CE-2. Boy, those were simpler days.

This was my 2nd peddle that my great parents bought for me. I was the first in my direct and indirect circle of Brantford musicians to have this one.

I thought that it was a peddle that Alex Lifeson used. It was that good at reproducing the songs and effects that he used!

I almost died when the one of the knobs broke off this baby when I was going from a friend of mine to back home for the night. I thought that it was broken beyond repair. Yes, I very naive back then, electronically challenged you might say.

Here is The Illustrated History of Boss products that will make you become nostalgic or laugh your butt off! I was doing both.

In a Musician.com article, it says it all. A very simple pedal for a simple guitar player.

Keep on Jammin’

APEX 420 Home or Studio Mic

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The APEX 420 microphone is just fabulous for anyone who uses it for home, professional settings, or even live settings. The greatest upside in my eyes is it’s durable construction. Remember, when some closet superstar singer comes over to your house/studio to see this thing, you won’t have to worry about them damaging it when the get their curious fingers all over it. It’s nice to have a scratch resistant finish as well.

I was first introduced to it by Rick Jones, of the Toronto renowned G-Force Media Productions Team. It’s a great product that they use with stunning results. Rick has used this item to capture the voice qualities of soft, hushed tones of his customers to the aggressive Rock/Hip Hop extremes, effortlessly. He has even used it for some of my cuts using my Larrivee L-03 acoustic. The G-Force Media Production page is in the redesign stage now, but when the redesigned site is up you’ll be able to listen to music and audio samples and hear for yourself how nice the Apex 420 microphone’s sound really is.

It is used for various jobs. It is basically a pressure condensed mic. If you have the time, research this type of mic, it’s impressive. You will be able to make it switch from a directional or omni-directional mic. In live gigs it offers excellent feedback rejection and better isolation of the sound that you want, not the sounds that just show up for the hell of it.

So if you get the chance to use this mic then do it, it’s worth the drive. If anyone is in the Toronto Area, give Rick a call and listen for yourself.

Keep on Jammin’

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