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Ball Media Productions

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This is a company that is owned and run by an old guitarist buddy that I use to play with way back in the day. His name is John Ball and what a success story his is.

John and I always played together but not in the same band. We hung around the same circle of friends and musicians and to make a long story short, we had different playing styles that never really over lapped. He gravitated to the harder speed metal sort of arrangements while I was under a more Progressive Rock, Jazz and to a lesser extent Pop genre.

My sister and John were closer in age and they both were in the same grade at St. John’s College. Boy did both of them get themselves into a little bit of trouble as kids during those years! Then again, I was no angel either.

His company is called Ball Media Productions and he had his humble beginnings in our home town of Brantford, Ontario. He at first started his empire with a recording studio in the basement of a well known Brantford music studio called Music and Sound. Over the years he has branched of into different area’s as he sees fit.

Now his company has a jaw dropping amount of specialized services that can now compete with the big guys!

Ball Media includes Printing/Bindery, Packaging, Branding/Indentity, CD / DVD Replication, Graphic Design and Web/Multimedia plus video area’s of expertise. Take a look for yourself and if you do need his services for anything no matter how small, just tell him “Stickman” sent you!

I wish him well with all of his company’s future endeavors but I know that he doesn’t need it!

Keep on Jammin’ Johnnie!




Late in the Evening drumming

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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 new fingernail experiment

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Well good readership, I have been going on for a while about fingernails. Let’s make things clear, I’m talking about the ones on my right hand only!

I envy people with finger nails that they could use as screw drivers! I just wish that there was a product that really made a difference on mine. The only thing that I found on line is the Guitarist Guide to Fingernails.

At work in the surgical area, there is a new finding that acrylic finger nails trap germs on them and that we are told not to use them. Ahhhhhhhh, but I need mine to play at the level that I am accustomed to. So, I have decided to go a different root this time. I am forgoing placing the regular acrylic tips on and just placing the hardener right on to the nails themselves. This totally eliminates the tips that are causing the problem.

In order to pull this off, I had to let my nails grow a bit longer then I would have them praying just to have a larger surface to work with. You know just in case things went south very quickly.

I am now back from my secret manicurists hide out and we’ve successfully applied the above mentioned hardener right onto the nails on my right hand. To the axe cave I go! I then picked up the axe and started to put my experiment to the test!

At first, I tried a bit of Bruce Cockburn’s If I had a Rocket Launcher and it was not that bad. I then began to adjust the length and shape of the nail to my specifications with my handy dandy file.

Now it was time for tougher challenge, playing Blackbird at warp speed! They are holding their own so far. Finally, the acoustic version of Neon from John Mayer, perfect!

Now let’s hope that it will continue this way!

Keep on Jammin’

Trying out Thumb picks

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While looking for thumb picks to try and spice up my picking style, I came across the regular/traditional plastic ones and the newer look and feel plastic and metal ones.

I know that you’ve all seen the plastic thumb picks before and they all seem to have the same feel to them. When you put them on they have this loose tension to them. It has the illusion that it would slide off my thumb fairly easily and that poses a problem with me. While playing hockey I tend to almost squeeze the sap out of it when playing and I bring that attitude to my guitar game.

The one that Tim Cameron directed me to was the National “L” one. nationalthumbpick.jpg

This one has a different feel to it all together. It has a nice firm feel all the way around your thumb, but the exposed pick maybe a little bit too big and clunky for my liking.

The next one that I was shown was a little bit unique from your everyday thumb pick. This one is called the PROPIK.

metal-plasticthumbpick.jpg

The one to the left is called a Good Grip Thumb Pick.

I liked this one because it allows me to adjust the tension of it to my liking. The best feature of this one is that the exposed pick that I will attack the strings with is smaller then most thumb picks.

I do not need a big clumsy thing on my thumb that is not as precise as a regular guitar pick. Therefore I give this product one thumbs up! Get it?

If you use any of these picks, please let us know the pros and cons of each one!

Keep on Jammin’

Tonelab LE

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I was introduced to the Vox Tonelab SE peddle by a guy who I was playing with this past weekend at the Arlington Hotel’s Capron’s Cavern, Paris Ontario.tonelabse.jpg

The event was being held for a dear family friend who was celebrating his 50th birthday. Craig Peeler was the guitarist who played a wide variety of tunes. I brought along my Larivee and he graciously let me jam with him on stag that night.

Wow, I was at Steve’s Music on Queen St. in Toronto today and I was looking at a Vox ToneLab SE. This thing looks HOT! Unfortunately they did not have this in stock but was getting them in this week.

John Boldt was the rep. that I was talking to and he was very up to date on his pedals. He was saying that 12AX7 dual triode vacuum tube is used at the end/output of the inside mother board of the floor peddle. This has quite the warming effect on the sound. The tube is not used for the power of this system! He said that most pedal companies are using the vacuum tube at the beginning of their process but Vox was using it at the tail end instead. This makes sense because you would always want a warmer tube sound coming out the speakers.

I would recommend this little piece of equipment heaven for anyone’s collection!

Keep on Jammin’

Guitar side ports

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guitarsideport1.jpg The one thing that I see in the evolution of the acoustic guitar today is its link with the past from Canada’s own, Glenn Gould.

He used a unique approach while playing in his later years, around 1983, when he took away part of the piano body to let the sound come out of the instrument in a unorthodox way.

First of all, the guy was way ahead of his time. What he did was to remove the wooden cover section that is used to cover the piano keys. He removed this part entirely. He would also close the piano lid on his concert piano, allowing the sound to be sent through the missing cover section of the piano.

This allowed him to hear the subtle tones while playing his music.

This was best shown in his 1980’s work of the gloomy nature of life. The slowness of some of his canon’s reflect the need for this type of sound exposure that the musician needs to fully understand what the audience hears, but as a very unique approach.

Second of all, the guy went to places that no one probably ever thought of venturing. I wonder if the person who thought of the guitar side ports ever watched Glenn Gould Hereafter? If he did, I bet this is where he may have got the idea, but then again I could be dead wrong.

darksideport.jpg

I have been toying around with the idea of putting in a new state of the art pick up system in my Larrivee. The system is called the LR Baggs iMIX. It captures a lot of the character in my guitar with an active response to it. That means that the pickups pick up the aggressive or passive playing of the strings on the guitar.

Now in order to place it in there, I must have it installed inside the body above the sound hole, closest to my face. That’s fine with me. The next question is what in the world do I do with the hole that the factory installed system sat in? It would look mighty funny just viewing a rectangular opening right there in my face. Do I just leave it there or what should I do with it? Here is my best option, I think.

I have always wanted both of my acoustic guitars to have pick ups so I can have a back-up on stage. So why not put my old pick up from the Larrivee into my old Aspen acoustic guitar. Perfect, I think? Unfortunately if I do this I will have this opening on the side of the body near my chest where the old system was. It would look so odd and out of place that I would be reluctant to let anyone look at my guitar. So while talking about my problem with the guitar tech at the 12th fret, he gave me this fabulous idea of the side port!

lightsideport.jpg

They could change the look of the old hole and create a fancy looking design in it’s place!

This will allow a small portion of the sound to come up directly to me acting like another sound hole or a monitor if you will. This will not effect the tonal qualities of my baby I have been told. The tech had one in this part of the workshop that he made and let me try it out. Not only did it look very cool and original, but it was nice to have some sound coming from a part of the guitar that I have never heard it coming from in the past.

Now all I have to do is convince my wife about this one, wish me and my Larrivee luck will you all?

Keep on Jammin’

A Canadian Amp called Traynor

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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’

Time to overhaul my Gibson RD – Artist?

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This guitar is my baby! I have been through thick and thin with this thing. I now feel and fear that this perfect instrument has to be improved in one area and one area only.

I love the “character marks” on it, that means “wear and tear” for the uninitiated. The oxidization or colour change in the Ivory throughout the guitar, makes it look beautiful and vintage. The neck is perfect. The tuning pegs are still working quite well, stays in tune for ages. The active electronics need some work and I want to have that looked at. Now the only biggest drawback to it is the weight. If you ever had to play this thing for 2 hours while your playing live, you will know what I mean.

This is the only big obstacle that I have to deal with. The way to resolve this will tax my nerves to the limit.

By reading a great site in blog land, I’ve found that I have a little voice in my head pushing me more and more towards confronting this issue. The site is called Building the Ergonomic Guitar.

He says that the way to get the best results are to change to an ergonomic strap called “The Dare Strap“. This idea is the least invasive out there that he’s heard.

So I was just wondering if I should just router some areas on the back of the guitar to lighten up my load. I realize this sounds like some “Hillbilly that just fell off the turnip truck” idea but it may work? I am just asking for ideas here people. I don’t even own a router.

There is this guitar player in Brantford in the early 70 -90’s called Scott Merrit. The man was a god on guitar. He played in the open tuning style that I had only heard of at the time, but have never done anything quite like. I must admit that when he went into the local guitar shop called “Music and Sound”, I would just put down my guitar and pretend that I didn’t play. I know it was a fantastic missed opportunity by a little kid, but could you blame me I was in grade 8.

He was awarded a Juno for the best upcoming artist and vocalist in Canada in the mid 80’s. Scott had the same 1959 Fender Duo-Sonic that I have. The big difference between both of ours was that he had cut a handle hole in the upper right portion of the guitar where you might rest your right forearm on, while I left mine complete. It was the neatest thing to look at. While I was over at his place in high school, he showed it to me.

I guess if Jimmy Page can use this guitar at all of their Knebworth shows for Misty Mountain Hop throughout the 70’s, then it’s good enough for me!

If someone has ever done this type of work on their guitar or is very talented with a router, can you give me some advice on the pro’s and con’s or even alternatives to this procedure?

Keep on Jammin’

Tremolo Bars

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Has anyone ever wondered what the tremolo setup in their guitars look like, but was too afraid to take it apart. I’ve never had a guitar with a tremolo bar but my buddy did and one day he decided to show me.

My buddy in Brantford was a collector of guitars. He was rather talented, but was more into collecting them, then playing them. Nice hobby if you can afford it. I was very fortunate one evening to see a “59 Fender Strat” that he had picked up for his collection.

One night I was invited to bring my HiWatt and Gibson RD to his house with a couple of buddies to jam. I had come in, set up my amp and he gave me a beer. The boys always looked forward to jammin’ with me because I was one of the few guitar players who liked to challenge myself with different playing techniques. Most of the time they just watched and asked questions. That always drives me crazy! Then my buddy went over and brought out a guitar case and placed it in front of me.

When he opened the case, I felt my body shaking inside. It felt like someone had just opened up the “Ark of the Covenant” and was looking at the “10 Commandments” written by God and given to Moses on the mountain, inside!

I had never seen this legendary 59 Strat let alone had the ability to play it.

I just looked at it for a while and then he said “why don’t you plug it in?” I then picked it up and studied it intensely. After 10 minutes of viewing every angle and part of this mythical beast, I plugged it in and played for around 2 hours straight.

After I stopped playing I asked him “What does the Whammy (Tremolo) Bar system look like?”. He drew a quick picture on a pack of smokes and then asked me if I wanted to see this one’s? The guy who he had bought it from then took it from me and started to take off the back to expose the inner workings of it. It looked something like this:

fender-trem-as.jpg

Now to give you a better understanding how it works, I have a video for you.

So if you have one of these on your axe, you now have a better idea of how it works and how to roughly adjust it. I strongly recommend that you take the back cover off it and just take a look around just for an educational experience.

Remember by taking the cover off the back of your guitar to take a look, you won’t blow it up! This will make you more aware of your overall guitar and make you feel more comfortable with it. Knowledge is power and besides, it makes you look like you know what your talking about.

Take pictures and save them. Later on this may become a life saver if you do start adjusting it. This will allow you to see what it looked like before you started. Actually, take pictures of every stage of it. There is nothing worse then having a couple of screws left over when you think your done! It happens to the best of us!

Keep on Jammin’

Fellow Brantford guy does well

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A great friend of the Power family’s son Jessie, is truly the apple of his father’s eye. In a recent article about Jesse from the Brantford Expositor this past Thursday, July 19, 2007, pretty much sums up the bright future ahead for this Brantford Musician. I really wish him the best of luck!

I fondly remember many stories about this man’s son and his guitar playing ability. I recall many stories about him doing the things that kids do over the years but never ever met the guy. He, along with his father, was a player whom I had always wanted to jam with but never had the time to do so. I hope that I can jam with him now that he is a star in the making, LOL!

I just checked out Jesse’s Myspace and LiveVideo and found it quite refreshing. He is just an honest guy doing a honest man’s gig in my home city of Brantford! I hope that this is not his Last Song!

Keep on Jammin’ Jesse

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