The Guitar Face.

Inevitably, when someone finds out that you know how to play guitar, they’re going to ask you to show them. Now admittedly, I’m not what you may call a “showy” person, but I have on occasion played some guitar for a few folks here and there. They may have been placated. They may have been wowed. They may have been underwhelmed. They may even (but not usually) even been jealous. But on most occasions, as their eyes dart from my fingers to the guitar and all about elsewhere, they ask one simple question:

“Why don’t you sing and play guitar at the same time?”

For a while, I didn’t have an answer. Sure some of the stuff I know/write are just simply instrumentals. BUT in most cases they actually do contain lyrics/random beat poetry.

But then a little while ago it hit me. I was watching something along the lines of a Paul Gilbert solo on YouTube: Marvelling at the fast fingerwork and whatnot.. But then I happened to take a gander up at his face.

His GUITAR FACE.

You may actually already be aware of this phenomenon, or you might be blissfully unaware… But here’s the skinny: Guitarists (and probably even any musician) have a delightful array of strange and wacky faces they make when pulling a note of their guitar trick bag. It’s scientific, I’m telling you.. It’s like your eyes autonomously closing whenever you sneeze… If you play guitar, you’re gonna look like a dumb-dumb. Your lips make pucker, your jaw might quiver, your eyes might bulge out of their sockets: no two bozos are the same!

So indeed that is my excuse. I do not (and maybe CANNOT) sing and play guitar at the same time because I am too busy looking silly. Try it yourself: I’ll bet you can look silly just like me!

(A quick google of “Guitar Face” led to this little blog-gallery. While they are not the most shining examples of guitar face, they’ll have you on the right track to musi-facial hilarity in no time. http://blog.wfmu.org/photos/guitar_face/index.html )

Take That, George Harrison! (part 1)

I can remember a little while back, I was laying in bed and listening to Rubber Soul with my eyes closed and I seem to remember thinking to myself that Mr. Harrison’s “If I Needed Someone” was a song that deserved more fanfare than it actually got (I should remind you that this was pre-Beatles Rockband, in which this song is nicely featured ((You should go buy it if you have the facilities.. It even converted my girlfriend to a Bealtes fan)) Now that I think of it, there’s plenty of George all over that game… It’s about time!)

And I must admit, with all the lacklustre Beatles covers floating around recently now’s a good time as any to unleash mine onto the world! This is one of my top five Beatles tunes (But that DOES change frequently.. Heck, I even remember one time when Bungalow Bill was all up in there!). It’s a nice little ditty that is open to a lot of interpretation, so let’s add some weird sounds over top of it!

*WARNING* Boring theory stuff highlighted in green!!

So according to Wikipedia, this song is in the key of A mixolydian for the verse/chorus and B minor for the bridge. What does this mean for the oft confused guitarist (like me)? Well both the A mixolydian mode and the B minor scale share the same notes as the D major scale. I thought I could get a nice strummy sound if I hit the melody notes at the same time as a chord, so I tuned the SSH to open D and gave her a whirl. And BOY did it sound awful! Upon further research Commandant Harrison plays this jingle (alongside with Here Comes The Sun) with a capo on the seventh fret, his parts sounding a perfect fifth above Lennon’s rhythm parts.

Beatles! WOOOO!

So to experiment, I grabbed the ol’ pearly white  SG and slapped a capo on the 7th fret which put the whole thing under a D chord.  And what do you know… Playing the melody with that setup sounded rather impressive! The verse and the chorus rang out nice and pretty, but it left me with a little bit of a pickle…

This post got mighty skint on the black font. On a side note, I once had a chance to buy all the Beatles Yellow Submarine toys mighty mighty cheap, but I passed on it… I kinda wish I bought them, for they might look quite boss above ye olde televisione…

As it turns out, the bridge’s chords don’t fit rather nicely at all with this particular tuning. Kind of a bummer, right? Not to fear as the actual Harrison VOCAL melody fits like the cat’s meow, so I just strum those single note lines alongside the D chord.

So with the rhythm parts written and ready, it’s all about L’AMBIENCE… Or “noise” to the layman. This is actually my favorite part, and the musical swellings can really make a song interesting. If I may, I would direct you to Joe Satriani’s cover of the Santo & Johnny classic “Sleepwalk”. With the aid of Robert Fripp’s “Frippertronics”, it really makes it something different… And that’s totally exciting.

Part Two coming soon!

The Electric Demos are Underway

It's like everything you never dreamed of... Only better.

What if The Flaming Lips and The Beatles had a child that was an utter disappointment? You’re about to find out!

Recording for the Electric Demos is currently underway! Plus I made a little logo for it, so you KNOW it’s gonna be ravishingly underwhelming!

Track-by-track updates to follow, my friends, so stay mildly interested for the time being. Thank you, and good morrow.

A New World Re-chord

(Disclaimer: All my puns are Electric Light Orchestra-related)

And at long last I have enough equipment in my possession to finally begin some rudimentary recording… Which is a good thing because I am pretty sure I was on the verge of forgetting everything I’ve been writing over this past month.

Write it down you say? I’ve never been one to listen to reason. (Melissa’s reasoning as the exception?… In theory.)

Now if I can only overcome my belief that my ears-only instrument tuning skills were actually spot on, I’d be in business!

FX-53: What’s In A Name?

Question: Have you long yearned for that uber special sound in your effects chain? A sound that hearkens back to the times when you’d leave your patch cord unattended on the floor to revel in it’s ungodly hum? My friends, the DOD FX-53 Classic Tube is for you!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

As soon as I got the bloody thing the rubber pad on the bottom fell off, the remaining glue remnants picking up a beautiful menagerie of animal hair and carpet fibers. So currently it’s underside is charmingly reminiscent of a Frenchman’s bathing suit region.

Unfortunately there’s nothing “classic” and/or “tube” about this, I’m afraid… But what’s in a name, indeed? It’s loud and it’s hairy and it’s red, but by golly do I love it. Because no one loves their noise like I do. (Except maybe my upstairs neighbours)

Plus it’s heavy enough to smoosh a spider.