Good God, I thought that my RD Artist was heavy!
Keep on Jammin’
BTW don’t forget to check out my newish Guitar blog Guitar Licks and Tips. I’ve got some great posts over there for guitar and music enthusiasts to go through.
The Theremin is a instrument of the future
This little device looks like something that would be found in an old Frankenstein black and white movie or something out of the Hilarious house of Frightenstein.
The inventors name was Leon Theremin and the Theremin was built in 1918. Vladimir Lenin liked the instrument so much that he actually took lessons!
This instrument was made more main stream while Jimmy Page of Zed Zeppelin used it in the studio and on stage. He plays this instrument in Whole Lotta Love and No Quarter.
You don’t really have to touch it to make sounds, get that all of you out there that say they can’t play any instruments! This video will show you how so check it out ok, you know who you are!
Keep on Jammin’
Back from Vegas Baby, part 2
So, now for the our next experience in Vegas.
Tricia, the brains behind everything technical, was trying to connect to our hotel wireless connection while I put away all of our belongings in the room.
3 hours later and countless calls downstairs and the company who is running the entire network system and we had to get a new room! Yes, 3 hours into our stay in the hotel that bragged about their wireless internet connection, we had to move to a new room!
Before we even accepted any new room, we asked if we could go to the rooms that we were offering us, to check out our connection there before even thinking about moving anywhere. It was something that they encouraged as well. Ok, that sounds like a good idea, let’s do it!
They sent us a attendant with the new rooms keys and off we went. I forgot to mention that while Tricia was attempting to connect to the system, the one and only Mr. Fab called us on our cell and wanted to get together at the Outback outside our hotel!
Now with this little factor adding to the drama of finding a room in a hurry to meet the infamous Mr. Fab, the first room was chosen. Our signal strength was pathetic at best! In total, while being in the Imperial Palace for 4 days, we had 3 connections to the internet lasting 15 minutes each. That’s right, on-line for 3 times lasting 45 minutes in total.
I do have to say that they did not charge us at all for this unacceptable service. If they did charge us then the tone of this post would be considerable different. The staff on the phone was polite both at the hotel and the Hotel Wireless company who ran the system. The only thing that was unprofessional was some of the lies they told us. They may have been small but insulting none the less.
So my advice to anyone who is going to stay in a hotel on the Las Vegas strip and want wireless connection, do not go to the Imperial Palace. They didn’t even offer us a free meal or anything at all for all our wasted time – and that wasted time trying to connect to the internet and making all those calls must have amounted to about 6 hours!
In my next Vegas post I’ll tell you about partying with Mr. Fab and all the other bloggers we met Thursday night and so on!
Keep on Jammin’
New Look
So what do you think of the new look of Guitar Licks?
I think it’s much better than the old look! When I created this blog my wife quickly picked out a theme and we realized fairly fast that we really didn’t like the look of the theme. Unfortunately I don’t do any of the design work. Tricia does all of that stuff. She’s been so busy with her other blogs that she just didn’t have time to get around to changing this theme. It’s always been on the list … but ya know, other things come up and a big job like this gets pushed aside.
Anyway, she worked all evening modifying a theme for this site. I like it.
Indie Update – read about up and coming Indie Bands
You just have to love Indie music! Since the turn of the millennium Indie bands have been using the Internet to promote their music and they’ve been quite successful. Their success of course is directly related to consumers use of the internet as a medium for listening to new music, gathering current information about bands and of course buying the music produced by these bands.
Another great thing about the success of Indie music on the internet is that these bands don’t have to bow down to the rules of the big labels. They can stay true to their music. Some of these brave souls just like to create music to be appreciated and listened to while someone else takes the spot light, no biggie for them.
I recently visited the indie music blog. It’s official name is Indie Update. On this site you’ll find honest articles and opinions about up and coming Indie bands.
One of the write ups – The onerepublic review – talks about how this indie band has had great success on MySpace and how Myspace is offering Indie bands a great new way to gain exposure. I believe that each of the Indie band articles on this blog have a link to each bands MySpace page where you can listen to samples of the bands music and learn more about the band members.
I was captivated by the Indie Music history series. In this series of post you can read how Indie music came about and how it’s evolved from the 1960’s to the present day. The author has really done their research for these Indie Music History posts. I’m sure you’ll be fascinated when you read them.
If you enjoy Indie Music I think you’ll want to bookmark or subscribe to the Indie Music blogs rss feed so that you can keep up with the latest Indie bands on the scene.
Well, that was fun
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’
To the guy who practises random acts of kindness
I hereby announce the winner of this years “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” award is R. JACKSON the proud owner of Prestige Glass International!
Ok everyone … please calm down and take your computer seats!
It wasn’t hard to come to this decision. You see … Earlier this month I was ill and we thought it might have been a heart problem that had plagued me a few years ago. You might have heard about this on my wife’s blog You are in my World Now. During the short period of time that I was ill, I’m better now, I found out that one of the greatest keyboardist in Rock history, no it’s not Robert even though he is an accomplished keyboardist in his own right, Rick Wakeman, is playing a concert this Sunday at the Danforth Music Hall here in Toronto.
The prices for these tickets were quite pricey and at the moment I couldn’t afford them. The concert might even be sold out by now too.
Now this is where Robert comes in. He was searching for information about the Rick Wakeman concert and he came across the post on my wife’s blog that discussed how much I wanted to go to the concert. He read it and then replied:
I just realized that Chris is ill, by looking at this site a little closer. The spare ticket to Rick Wakeman is yours for free.
Now that is the reason why he is this years recipient! The man went way out of his way to provide me with music that will sooth my ill heart!
At the beginning of this post I mentioned that Robert has a company called Prestige Glass International. Well I took a moment to visit his company site and his company makes some very cool stuff that you should check out.
My favorite pieces are under “Canadiana” Inukshuks (in-ook-shook) and Vases & Bowls. The Vases & Bowls remind me of some of the ones that my relatives make in Ireland.
I don’t think that I told you about my family roots, but we are from Waterford Ireland. Yes, the place that makes the world famous Waterford Crystal. As luck would have it, I still have 2 cousins that do the glass blowing and cutting at the plant. Too bad they weren’t there when we were doing the tour of the factory a few years ago.
Since my cousins weren’t at the Waterford factory when we visited we did a tour of the plant with the regular tourists. While watching some guys do their work on their benches I kept asking the the tour guide some detailed questions about cutting and the tools they used. After a while he kept wondering why I had many questions I told them that I was a goldsmith and diamond setter. I also said that during the tour we saw some pictures of our cousins through out the plant. He then laughed and said “Oh ya, they did say some of their cousins were going to show up some time.”
At this point we were nearing the end of the tour and he said why don’t we hang out and talk to the boys on the floor, and that’s what we did. After being introduced to them the tour guide told them who we were and they said “Do you want to take a crack at it?” and I said “Why not!”
So cheers to this years recipient! Maybe he’ll let me take a crack at glass blowing behind his bench.
Keep on Jammin’
The Guitar Resource
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’