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Bass guitar wonderland

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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.

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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’




Nice Finger picking on this guy

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Boy is this guy good. His name is Steven King and I will be watching out to see if he will be playing in Toronto any time soon! Also, check out the positioning of his middle pick up on his guitar, neat huh?

He may come across to some guitar players as the typical technically perfect musician with a lack of feel, but that’s ok, he’s really good at what he does. The best part comes at 1:02 of his performance.

This was the feeling that I got when listening to this type of player when I was 13 – 14 years old. I couldn’t get my thick head around the idea that this was great or, to a greater extent, cool music to play for audiences.

Then again, I was in a Kiss tribute band at the time, see earlier posts from this era of my career. Once again, my best and most influential guitar teacher was looking out for my development without me even realizing it.

He started teaching me little ditties to play that were both cool and technically satisfying for me to play at the time, and also some kids my age thought that it was good to listen to as well. Later on, I started to play “Suite Case” blues by Rik Emmett of Canadian Super Group Triump, from the Just a Game album. This direction of guitar playing has truly stood the test of time with me.

So take a little listen to this style of guitar picking. You might even try to decide if this is a style that you may want to add it to you own repertoire of techniques. Also go to youtube and input his name to find more of his work. You’ll envy this guitar guru!

Keep on Jammin’

The Guitar Resource

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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’

Stevie Ray Vaughan – RIP

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To this day I still remember the moment when I happened to stumble upon the guitar icon just my mistake playing live in 1982.

It was during the summer at the annual music event called Chicago Fest at Soldiers Field. I was there with my brother in law.

The event was both inside and outside of the stadium. Inside I saw “Chicago” and the “Beach Boys” while outside there were beer pavilions that highlighted different styles of music.

My brother in law went to the bathroom and I was told to sit down at the edge of the Budweiser Pavilion. There was the song below playing and I looked up to see this trio playing this song about 150 feet away. They looked like some back woods band playing in the big city for their first time. Their attitude was bluesy and Rock & Roll epitomized to a “T”.

The drummer was on this small set, the bass player looked like the average guy that you might bump into on the street but the guitar player was a hold out from the 60’s. They were very tight and looked quite at home in their element on stage. The guitar player was the one who stood out like nothing that I have ever witnessed live before.

He had this great looking beat up old battered 1959 Fender Strat with a big rimmed hat with these fairly big silver Texas round things on it. His hands were just mesmerizing to look at. The sound was very southern. He even played part of the solo with his teeth. Up to that point in my life, I had never seen anyone play like this except Mr. Hendrix on old video footage.

I just sat there for a short period of time before I went up a little further. I was just in awe of this guy playing guitar. I also couldn’t believe that the crowd was so small for the talent that was in front of us, but what a huge win for the ones who were there.

I later found out who it was and he had just came back from recording the “Let’s Dance” album with David Bowie. He turned down the opportunity to tour with him to pursue his own tour with his band. This must have been a big ballsie move in Bowie’s eye’s to pull something like this off. Imagine the exposure that he would have gotten from touring with Bowie! Anyways, it was a concert that I will forever cherish.

So Mr Stevie Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990), R.I.P.

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Keep on Jammin’ Stevie

Wolfmother

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I was on my morning break at the hospital, when I came across the nurse who I love talking about guitar playing and bands with in the Intensive Care Ward. She came up to me with this excited and enthusiastic look on her face.

She was bursting with her experience of this great band that she saw this past weekend. The band is called Wolfmother. They are an Australian trio that has a huge sound and the endurance of a 6 year old kid on stage. She says their obvious influences are Zeppelin, and Sabbath, and they have lyrics that are out of this world.

I just Googled them and found their site. I am currently listening to the audio part of their site, and I can’t help but also notice the influence of RUSH on a tune called “Women”. It brings me back to the bands Caressive Steel album days of Working Man, boy what a sound they have.

She told me that it was their last show in North America. They did a 3 hour show that kept going like the old “ever ready bunny”! At the end of the show they just started smashing everything they owned on stage. She thinks that if they smash everything into literal tiny pieces then they wouldn’t have to bring it all home with them, makes sense to me.

They spun the crowd into a frenzy like after having a wild episode of doing the wild thing then just lying there in a daze and thinking to yourself, what just happened?

So check out this band’s site, and maybe grab their album so they can afford to ship their equipment home with them next time, ok?

Keep on Jammin’

A Realization that I can play guitar

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I was just surfing while listening to one of my favorite Canadian musicians of all time, Bruce Cockburn (B.C.). I came to the realization that I am finally playing like a great guitar player of the 80’s, Mark Knopfler.

In grade 8, a song came onto the music scene that was really new and refreshing. It was a band called “Dire Straights”. The song that caught my ear was “Sultan of Swing”.

The guitar player was just a jammin’ on this tune. His name is Mark Knopfler. This popular song at the time was a song that I just had to play. I was taking lessons from the best guitar teacher of all time, in my mind, C. Peterson. I had requested that he show me how to play this tune and he said that he had already figured it out.

Mr. P. was just unreal at figuring out anything in on guitar. So off he went and started to show me the song. It was fun and challenging to play, just the way I liked it. After a couple of lessons, I could play the song pretty much inside out, which is the way he taught me.

While playing the song for many years, I decided to re-visit this song to see if there was any other way(s) to improve playing it. Mr. Peterson introduced me to the technique that Mark Knopfler used on the song but I thought that this guy was one of those off beat musicians that would fade after a short success, boy was I wrong.

I had listened to this song repeatedly over the years,and I noticed subtle tones that I had missed while playing. When I played it, it had a crisper sounding to it then what he had. His version almost had a muddled sound. In my younger years listening to the song, I had noticed that, and I thought it was just the recording technique at the time and that was it. So I then tried playing it with just my fingers and wow, it was really hard to play.

Being a classical guitar player, I was use to using my fingers but had to use my nails to attack the strings but, this guy used his thumbs and at a lightning like speed during his solo’s to boot! I tried and tried and tried but I could not get the calluses on the sides of my fingers that I really needed to pull of the song so I went back to the original way of playing the song.

Now fast forward to 2 years ago when I fell in love with the B.C.’s style of finger picking. The attack technique used here was different from my classical training but I loved the sound he got out of his axe. It was just plain fun to listen to.

So today while I was surfing and listening to B.C. at the same time, I was listening to this song called “It’s Going Down Slow” and “Mamma just wants to barrelhouse all night long”, from Waiting for a Miracle (1987). Today I can play these ones not bad and I just enjoy listening to them. It was at that moment that I noticed the similarities between both techniques and it had just dawned on me that, I can play guitar.

Keep on jammin’

My 1980 Fender Lead II

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This is the guitar that I have is to play more Rock and Roll tunes on. It’s a lot lighter then the RD Artist but heavier then the Fender Duo Sonic. The width of the neck is right in between both of the other ones. The intonation is perfect for the Ozzie stuff but it’s not as wide for the Jazz approach. I find is fabulous for playing the electric version of Neon that allows me to use my thumb on the upper E string.

The 1980 Lead II and the 1982 Lead II are both fine guitars. The Lead II Manual, which I wish I had the original, went missing somewhere in my parents house in the 80’s.

Not many scratches (I think that they’re character markings like the colour of the neck being worn down) on the body. The pick guard on the other hand has lotz of character, because of my aggressive NOT THRASHING style of attack in my playing. I use the D’Aaddario True Blue medium strings on this puppy.

My Serial # is E0009736 which makes it made in 1980. The guitar came with a brown shoulder strap bag and that was it, bare bones. I purchased in Hong Kong by a foreign exchange student but, his name eludes me right now. He live at Mr. Zryrini’s house down the street from my parents home in Brantford. I remember him being a great guy who could play the guitar not that bad but, he sure looked like he was having a hell of a lot of fun playing it!

He was a bit strapped for money at the time so I bought it off him. He was always at our house that summer and i showed him tons of stuff. I really felt bad for the guy because he no did not have an axe to jam with at home so I lent him the one he sold, weird eh? I had to because there is nothing worse then stunting the growth of a guitar player!

Upkeep of your finger nails

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I am the type of guitar player who uses a combination of playing with a pick, pick with finger nails and nails exclusively.

My style of playing is that of a aggressive one. This is not to be confused with a THRASHING technique. I also playing with a lot of a dynamics’s. I mean having the ability to play any song very quietly/soft (PPP, triple piano) or very LOUD (FFF, triple forte). I find that being able to do this allows me to change the mood of the piece at any given time.

I love the straight forward playing with a pick style but having the tools to be able to incorporate all the fingers is useful as well. But my new re-found love is to get back to my roots and just use my nails. I played classical guitar for a while and did not play ANY ROCK at all.

I wasn’t a BRUCE COCKBURN fan until 1986, this when I was living in a dorm/frat house in Toronto (Bloor and Spadina). Here I would be able to play acoustic guitar for hours straight, but I sure as hell wasn’t! I started to finally listen to HOW he was playing. I had thought that he was using a pick because the only player in the world at that time, so I thought, that used his fingers was Mark Knopfler, boy was I wrong!

So listening to his music I found this thing called ” Open Tuning “. The first open tuning song I did was “Tokyo” by BRUCE COCKBURN. I played this tune for days on end! It was new, refreshing and something that I had never done before. So, one day I got out the phone book and looked up his name, found his number and called him. Sure enough, it was his number and his wife at the time answered and she told him “that he would not be home for some time.” Well at least I tried! True story.

Anyways, when I first started to take my nails seriously (this was in grade 9 remember),I had used MANY products to strengthen my nails. I had gotten use to shaping them to fit my attack. The long nails held out not bad but I was always pissed when they broke!!! This was just something that I had to get use to. After I had had enough of this style after 2 yrs., I went off to different ones. I loved to try different styles that I could bring to my playing.

So fast forward to July 8th 2005, my birthday. My wife was working as a ER nurse in a Toronto Hospital and I had just dropped her off at work, it takes literally 1 minute, we live just down the street, and I had a finally got up the nerve to try this fake nail thing, YES FAKE NAILS! When I was done I just had to go back to work and show her. She just laughed and laughed, not to mention her buddies as well, I work with them all so that was fine.

I just love them! I can play at any time without having to worry about them braking and not having them when I want to play. The only thing that I don’t like is the fact that when they grow out they look weird. They look like I have jaundice of the finger nails, they have a yellow hue to them. Women are lucky because they can just throw some nail polish on them. If I do first would be divorced or placed on the H6 Ward of our hospital.

The cost is around $10.00 and that’s not bad. Does anyone have any other ideas that they use for their nails other then the fakies that I use and please tell me how durable they are and be honest!

Keep on jammin’

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?

In the begining … part II

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If memory serves me correctly I started off playing guitar in grade 5 @ St. Pius X elementary school in Brantford. I was 9 years old.

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 for us in our music class. She played a classical guitar and at the time I thought she was GREAT! She played and we sang songs for 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 fav of mine, and I think she also played ” Natures way” as well.

We all started off learning the basic 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 like that. I thought nothing about playing without a pick for many years to come. She then taught us the strings that we would be playing.

Now she started out with chords! They were very basic.

She broke the class into 5 groups of 4 or 5 students. Each group had their own guitar and we each got a chance to practice on it. I can’t remember how civilized we were about sharing it, but I do recall that it was a blast.

The one thing that I do know was that, it was as easy as walking is to most people in the world. I remember having my fellow students look at me like I was cheating or something like that. I can see in my mind, a buddy who was having so much trouble in trying to play it that I went over and told him to relax then I broke it down to show him and then he finally got it. To my amazement I recall everyone looking at me and then they followed what I was saying! It got to a point where I was the top of the class in something!!! Mrs. Lord seemed to be so impressed that she eventually let me play guitar with her at our school masses that we had in the gym.

I don’t know if I told you this but, I, supposedly, was a LITTLE BASTARD as a kid! I found out through a cousin of mine that my grandfather, on my mother’s side, use to say Oh no, here comes that LITTLE BASTARD again~!@#$%^&*()_+!!! So, I was a little hyper-active kid. I’m man enough to admit it now! I guess as the old saying goes, we are the people that our parents warned us about. I was a very athletic kid at the time but not always the brightest light on the tree!

Keep on Jammin’

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