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John Mayer, love him or … at least try to learn something from him!

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Boy, John Mayer, who seems to everyone else on the planet except me; to be the best guitar player from an technical/artistic aspect, is a girlie guitar player? For me, this is the biggest crock of shit coming from these musically challenged people who happen to listen to him, even if it just in casual listening!

My guitar playing approach, is to (1) listen and see how difficult and unique the playing approach is and (2) well … that’s it!

I live to be able to pick guitar players brains and incorporate them into my own distinct style of performing! After all, there is no suck, in my thinking anyways, performer that has come up with a definitive original style that is completely theirs and theirs alone! Everyone has certain influences that help them create their own style.

When I listen to John Mayer, I see different colours of sounds. I am aware that basic chords are … just chords, in the primary position. But what John does is, rip them apart and put them back together in a refreshing way that helps cut through the different direction/genres that are out there right now.

I had the chance to see/copy a show that John Mayer did in Chicago (my brother lives there and what a place to see, if you have not been there then don’t just surf there, go there!). Buddy Guy was playing with him for 2 songs and wow, what a treat for the uninitiated. John Mayer was ripping these chords off and Buddy Guy was blasting away these solos and then trading off with John. Man, if that guy, John Mayer or Buddy Guy for that matter, walked into a music store and I was there playing guitar, I might just put mine down.

I am currently figuring out a song of John Mayer’s called “Neon” in the acoustic version. This is a song that I can play technically but the fine nuances will take me a while. It’s like the time I was figuring out how to play Lady Madonna”, the piano part that is, on the guitar. It was the first time that I attempted to use a pick (Jim Dunlop, 1 MM) and every other finger on my right hand to play the song. It took me around 1 whole year practicing it until I felt comfortable to play it on stage.

The thumb slapping on “Neon” is fun, as usual! The best album to listen/figure out this on is “Inside wants out”. I have become accustom to this technique by playing “Who put that bullet hole in Peggy’s kitchen Wall” by Bruce Cockburn. I also put in a bit of a bass thing in there to really create the big sound!

So, who is the young girl or soccer mom, who listens to John Mayer Now?




My first Rock Bands Concert … a KISS tribute one at that!

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I mercifully skipped grade 7 for you all and went right to the good stuff.

Well I just have to let the cat out of the bag and swallow my pride on this one! Yes I was playing in a KISS tribute band and was Ace Frehley. Well in all honesty, the majority of the tunes were KISS tunes. I was the only one in the band who did not belong to the KISS Army though.

I was into more challenging music but the only guys I knew that could play were these guys! Don’t get me wrong, these guys were my best friends for the longest time! Eddie, was the drummer and had extensive gigging with a “Polka Band” and Brian, the guy in my previous posts was the other guitar player. We didn’t have a bass player at the time due to the fact that no one we knew played the bass.

When I was in grade 7, I remember playing with the Muroz brothers. It was fun because they had taken lessons and could play their instruments well. I think we played some Queen, Led Zeppelin and some pop tunes of the day. I forget why we broke up but I guess that is how it goes. Sorry, I just had to write a bit about the grade 7 thing!

Anyways, we would practice and practice for hours on end. I keep trying to get these guys to slow down and take apart the songs that we were playing and it did sink in to some degree. I’m sure that they would tell ya differently but it’s my blog so there!

As we grew older we found that other schools had band and that they were playing live at their schools so we had no choice, let’s do a live show. Our first and only show was to be played at “St. Bernard’s” school. This was what we thought was our big break!

During this time I had been introduced to another band in the making. They were both in high school and they were just who I was looking to play with. They were Tony, the keyboard player who sounded like a god on that thing, and Harry the guitar player who could play quit well technically but lacked the feel that you need!

Anyways, when we played the show, I had a blast! My soon to be band mates where in attendance and the show went on. Brian, who was like Gene did this wild guitar solo in the audience with the help of MANY GUITAR EXTENSION CHORDS while i was lying on the stage moving these knobs on my old ” BOSS BF-1 FLANGER”. Our band was named “Duce” and when we played it to start off the show, the words go something like this, “Get up and get the hell on out of here!” and there goes Brian singing it directly to a nun, I almost blew a nut laughing so hard on stage!

So, how was that?

My first Rock concert I’ve ever played in … in grade 6 that is.

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Well I remember that being in grade 6 was quite a musical experiment to me.

A new kid named Brian came into our school that year. He seemed very cool but different from the rest of us. He spoke with a funny sound in his voice (that’s how I explained it when I was in grade 6 anyways). He was smart and a good soccer player. He also had a older brother who started hanging out with my older brother.

His brother liked and had all of the same music that all of us listened to, as well as some UK sounding style bands that we never had hear of. The guitar playing and singing was quite interesting. They also lived besides my brothers girl friend at the time. Soon we would start going over there to see them as well as her.

Brain and I got along great from the start. One day while in class, the teacher gave us all this assignment that was a report on what we liked and had to do a report on it in front of the class by years end. So, being off the wall as we were back then, we both thought that we should do a report on “Alice Cooper’s” new album, that everyone had, called “Schools Out”. We both thought that the best way to do a report was, not just to bore our fellow class mates by talking about it but, to sing it to them! This was also appropriate because it was almost the end of our school year.

We talked our teacher into letting us both do the same topic and that we would do it together in front of the class as well!

This was very exciting! So we listened to the words on it and sang it over and over again. We also knew that we had to give out information to the class for their own notes and asked my mother if she could do something for us. She was working on this thing called a “computer” at her work. I remember her bringing home papers that she read so, I asked her if she could go to work and do what ever she did with that computer thing and print these words out so we could give out to the class for the assignment. So, she did!

The day finally came for our report to be recited to our class and boy I was just bouncing off the wall with excitement! We had told our older brothers what we had in plan and they just laughed at the idea and said that it wouldn’t fly. By them laughing at our idea, it drove us with even more determination to make this the best report ever!

So when it was time for us to go up, we then gave out the copies of the song and walked up to the front of the class!
We had the teacher sign out the record player from the library so we could have the song playing while we sang it, in front of them. She then put the record in it and put the needle down! We had chosen ” Schools Out ” and sang our little hearts out! We even moved around like rock stars and ended our first rock concert, so we thought, with an screaming grade 6 class so much so that the principle came down just to see what the hell was going on.

Ahhhh, the simple things in life!

What was your first concert that you gave and how did it turn out!

Keep on Jammin’

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