Guitar Licks

Guitars, tips and great music discussions




You are here: Home / Archives for fun

So how was your summer of 2008

by

Ours was uneventful, but we all had a ball just hanging out together! It rained like it’s never had before, but we hung in there.

IMG_4908 copy Our area rec’d the most rainfall ever and we’re expecting an early winter, at least we’re not receiving any of that nasty hurricane weather like our neighbors to the south, hang in there gang!. We don’t mind the fall at all, but this last winter we had record snow fall. It could have been worst!

We went swimming in Lake Ontario multiple times, went walking through some neat streams in our immediate area and had a beer on a really nice, high end patio with midnight at Woofstock 2008!

It was our first summer with Midnight, since she was a puppy when we first got her, and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world! The pictures that midnight will remind both of us of the fun we had during those cold winter months. IMG_4893

So let’s sit back, enjoy and savor these last warm summer evenings in the lawn chairs and have a light refreshing beverage (that’s code for wobbly pop) like we are with midnight, as we speak! No, she has her own seat at the backyard table, it wasn’t mine.

What did you guys do over the summer?

Until we drink again!





Max Webster coming off the moon

by

Just in case you have not heard of these guys, here is a little ditty and my old band Pylis played way back in the day.

It has everything you want in a tune to play live! It’s fun, difficult to play and most of all IT’S A CANADIAN BAND!!!!!

Enjoy!

Keep on Jammin’
Max Webster R.I.P.

Woofstock

by

Woofstock is North America’s Largest festival for dogs. It’s held in Toronto on June 7th – 8th in the downtown core. “The summer of canine Love” is a good way to describe it! 140,000 people can’t be wrong!

My wife, Midnight our black lab and myself just came back from this crazy event and what a blast it was! They blocked off a fairly large area of streets in Toronto and it was informative and tons of fun!

There were so many people and their dogs all over the place.

The vendors had great freebees and the products were top shelf stuff! There was even this company called Happy Tails that have a Pet Resort & Pet Camp in the very popular Muskoka area.

Our guests have the freedom to come and go as they please between open pet-sized bedrooms or cabins, fireplace lounge and one of many large dog parks segregated by size and temperament. They can run and play all day, chasing chipmunk and dragonflies, hunting frogs, swimming, and umpteen other things dogs being dogs like to do.

There is also a human equivalent called the Deerhurst Resort not too far away as well. There is no connection between the two but it’s nice to have the best of both worlds right next to each other. If we had more dollars then sense, then I think we’d be there!

The best thing I we took out of this event was the ability to bring our dog right inside a very respectable pub for a couple of Guinesses! Cheers, a little hair of the dog won’t kill ya! Hope to see you there next year, drop me a line and we’ll buy the first round, really!

Keep on Jammin’

Hope I’m like this in my Golden Years

by

Have you ever thought of what it will be like in your Golden Years, well ya better start now!

You can see another humorous video over at my other guitar related blog Guitar Licks and Tips.

Keep on Jammin’

Late in the Evening drumming

by

This is a song that I just love playing! It has everything a player, with heavy rythum guitar influences would want.

The rhythm is very catchy. It’s Simon and Garfunkel so everyone has at least heard the song one. The chord can be played in such a way that they all open with really big fat sounds to them!

stevegadd.jpg The biggest thing about this tune is the drummer is and drumming itself. I can play the drums at a decent level but I would love to play this song the way that only Steve Gadd can.

I have never seen a drummer play with 2 sticks in his hand but this guy certainly does and he does it well!

If your a drummer looking at this post here is a challenge for you! Go get on your kit and try this one out. Wait until you reach 0:48 on the video counter at the bottom left of the screen. Try it out and get back to us! If your not a drummer, go and get the old pots and pans out or if your not that ambitious then do it air drumming style!

Enjoy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDU9691Q-Uw&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Keep on Jammin’

My Fender Lead II

by

I have been using my Fender Lead II as of late. I only have one guitar stand and I rotate the guitars that I put in it many times throughout the year.

I got this guitar off a exchange student from Japan around 1984-85. Oddly enough, this is a Student Guitar, meaning the body is smaller making it easier to play. He was a little low on funds and he wanted to know if I wanted to by it. At first I started to give him lessons and he was not that bad if memory serves me correctly.

While looking at my black Fender I started to wonder what year this baby was built so a Googling I will go!

fenderleadii.jpg

This site was the one that I ended up at. You can normally determine the age of your guitar by the serial numbers. Mine is “E0 09736” so it’s made in 1980, that makes it 27 years old! If you have a Fender guitar just sitting around the house, go and get it and find out how old your is. Get back us on that one if you have one.

I just love the sound of the X-1 single coil pick ups on this one. You can raise the pick ups by turning the 2 screws at either end of the pick up clock wise. This adjustment brings the pick up closer to the strings thus you get a stronger signal.

There is a phase reversal switch that works when you are in the middle position or using both pick ups at the same time. This switch is really nice to have at your disposal.

multiplefendlead2.jpg

I know I will try to get a picture of mine up here soon!It has 21 medium Jumbo frets with a 4 bolt neck piece. It has a “Soft V or C” profile neck, which means the part of the body which attaches to the neck section of the guitar. The neck itself is maple. The small headstock is a nice reminder of the past Fender guitars that were built between 1954-65. Oh, headstock is part where you tune the strings on the “head” of the guitar in case your unfamiliar with guitar terms.

The bridge, where you put the strings on the body of the guitar, is designed after a Fender Telecaster. Keith Richards plays this type of an axe.

As far as I know it was made at the Fender Fullerton California plant. It was also one of the last fender guitars to be made at this legendary location!

So hats off to my 27 year old gal and hope we’re together a lot longer!

Keep on Jammin’

A Canadian Amp called Traynor

by

I never did have an interest in the sound that Traynor amps had so I didn’t pay any attention to them. No great guitar player played on one except my most influential guitar teacher Chris P. Even the place that he taught at, the old “Alonzo’s Music” on Colbourne St. in Brantford which is now called LA Music, was stacked to the ceiling with Traynor amps. Ah, but Mike Defo from the Brantford 80’s band “Vigilance” used Traynor guitar and P.A’s. Boy did I envy his playing as a young guitar player!

petetraynor.gif Peter Traynor is a longtime friend to Dominic Troiano, both from Toronto area , who made these Traynor amplifiers that are the most famous amplifiers that ever came out of Canada.

Troiano and the boys from “Bush” were the first band to take that equipment across the border and play it in the USA.

Peter Traynor isn’t a wealthy man, because he sold out to the person that was funding him.

Anyway, it’s a company called Yorkville Sound. It’s probably one of the biggest corporations in Canada, but it is Bush’s amplifiers that were made by Peter Traynor that actually broke through in the United States and made them money.

traynorhead300×161.jpg Traynor went well out of his way to make sure he got it right for them. He was a great innovator. He’s a genius and a very important person in the Canadian culture of music. After the infamous accident in Death Valley on their way to Vegas, they played the gig, and it was all that Traynor gear – the guitar amp, the bass amp… they just dusted it off, stuck things back on, and it all worked. Talk about Canadian toughness, I guess he got that toughness from our way of dominating the ice in HOCKEY!!!

I was inspired to write this post after reading a “Bush” site about John Prakask, the great bass player from the band.

Keep on Jammin’

Bass guitar wonderland

by

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.

strange_guitar_21.jpg

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’

Keith Richards being shown how to play guitar

by

It is just too funny to watch someone put Keith Richards in his place! He is just too funny, I love how he just pisses Keith off so much that you think it may end up with blows being thrown! Chuck Berry is the only guy in the world that could actually put Keith in his proper pecking order of guitar players. Enjoy, I did.

Keep on Jammin’

Meta

Archives

Pages

Tags

Acoustic amp band bands Brantford Bruce Cockburn Canada Canadian concert Entertainment fender funny General guitar Guitar Equipment guitarist guitar player guitars Home house Humor humour instrument jammin jazz John Mayer keyboard Live Music musician Musicians play playing Progressive Rock Pylis rock RUSH Songs to play sound strings Technology Toronto tour Video YES