Today, I Blog...

...about everything and nothing.

I met up with Col and the Magic Ship boys for a beer or two last night. Also got to meet and chat with Toby Burton of "Rock Til You Drop". Check out his ever expanding social networking site here). A fun, relaxed time was had by all. The topics of conversation were mostly unrepeatable!

Oh, and coming off a link from the RTYD site, here's Toby's own site. Very neat. Check out his paintings and his band Pocket Rocket's songs!

The subject of blogging came up once or twice and I confessed that really, these days I haven't got much to talk about on here. Oh, admit it, it's true. C'mon! Ever since the end of 2008 and hence the end of 'The Project' I've not had much to say for myself, particularly music-related.

So, what you get today is a series of blurps to give you an insight into what's running around inside my head RIGHT NOW!

First off, before running off to the pub last night I had a go at learning "Thickfreakness" by The Black Keys. It's not a hard song to play by any stretch of the imagination, but it sounds GOOD! There's a link to the tune, here.

For the past few months I've been trying to solidify my 'musical direction' and that-there-song actually gives you a basic idea of what I'm thinking of. It's in A minor and is based around a very simple, but neat bluesy-sounding riff. Moreover, the riff is the rhythm part... not strummed chords... riffing. Okay, you're not getting my point, are you? Take other songs like "Strange Brew" (Cream) and "One Way Out" (Allman Brothers). They don't use a strumming pattern for the rhythm. They use a riff. Let me see if I can find links... hold on...

Here you go: "One Way Out" and "Strange Brew".

"Strange Brew" is probably the better example. It follows a basic blues chord progression but gets the groove going by using riffs. Make sense now? Cool.

That's what both sounds good to my ears and also what gets me off when I'm playing. Bring The Black Keys back in. They're using a similar idea, but with a grungier sound. Me likey-like. Me stealy from them! You wait and see!

What next? Non-music! MY TITS HURT! Why? Well, we've just made it back to the gym for the first couple of times since Mardi Gras (yes, I'm still going on about Mardi Gras! Deal with it!) and it's bloody hard. Just walking down the stairs at work is agony! Going back tonight. Why, why, for Christs sake WHY do we do this to ourselves?

The flip side of getting back to weightlifting is that I'm STARVING all the time. Break body, body needs food to repair! I'm hungry when I wake up. I eat. I'm ravenous again by 11am! What's with that?

This weekend (we've changed subjects again, in case you didn't guess) we have a couple of friends coming in, which probably means we'll be out clubbin' a bit. I don't mind so much. One of the clubs we go to from time to time has The Freemasons dee-jaying. If you like upbeat, big American vocal remixes then you'll love the Freemasons. They basically wrote the soundtrack to not last summer but the summer before and their tracks from 2007 are STILL being played pretty much everywhere. To date I don't think I've heard any new music this year or last that made me run to the dance floor, rip my shirt off and jump on a podium.

Some may say that's a good thing. Like I say, we've not been going to the gym!

Okay, you want links to Freemasons' stuff? Okay, you get the remix of "Beautiful Liar" (Beyonce/Shakira). Picture lasers and a big ol' Boom-Boom room. Fab! You wanna know what that feels like without stepping foot inside a club? Go to Cyberdog in Camden Stables market. I can't go in there on a Saturday afternoon and then not go out dancing.

Anywho, the last time we went to a club where they were guest DJ's it was heaving waaaay before the pubs closed.

Okay, so we've covered music, weighlifting, dance clubs... food... what else? The weather? Forecast says 'light rain'. I think it's going to be SUN, SUN, SUN!!!! It's Easter, after all, the day Jesus ate chocolate and set all the bunnies FREE!

Oh, and that's it! I FORGOT! We got tickets to one of the Placebo warm up gigs before their summer festival run! YYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!

Does that call for a video embed? Huh? Yes, I think you're right, IT DOES!



AND... AND...!!!!

On Saturday night, top-notch youf guitar genius stroke blues boy, Oli Brown, is bringing his own brand of shuffle to the Half Moon pub in Herne Hill on Saturday night. Check out Pete Feenstra's site for details, here.

A Decent Start

I made a good start on getting back into playing.

First off, I restrung my Ovation acoustic with new D'Addario EXP Phosphor Bronze strings. The tone went from dull and boring to crisp and bright. It's amazing the difference new strings make on that puppy. It's now a joy to play and hence much more rewarding.

Secondly, I pulled out Red Dog (the Les Paul), amped up, and started practicing again. I was surprised to find that despite almost a month of not playing, my finger memory was intact. In no time I was back up to speed on scales, modes etc.

I made a conscious effort to use scales as a warm up but then progress to jamming over backing tracks and playing along to Neil Young & Crazy Horse's "Ragged Glory" album. I actually love Neil's approach to recording in that the performance doesn't need to be perfect... It just needs to be "real", which means that the totally basic chord progressions are simple but extremely gratifying to play along to. My favourite jam-along track has to be "Over and Over". Once you've nailed the intro lick, you're there in the land of grunge-rock.

I also scanned through a freebie Blues Lesson DVD that had been gathering dust in bottom of my TV cabinet, more as a distraction than anything else. The DVD briefly looks at the soloing styles of a number of blues/blues-rock greats: the three Kings (B.B., Albert and Freddie), Clapton, SRV, Hendrix etc. Most of the lessons were still beyond my reach as a player, but what I did take away from it was the idea that at times adding major tonality to the minor pentatonic is a great way to break add colour to licks.

What does that mean in practice? The easiest way to add the major feel is to either hammer-on or bend the second note in the pentatonic scale up a semitone (one fret). To my ear you get a kind of delta blues vibe. It doesn't work well over every chord in the standard I-IV-V, but certainly adds interest when turning around.

I guess if you look at the relationship between the major and minor pentatonic box 1 shapes then you could also add interest by half-step sliding into the 2nd, 3rd or fifth notes in the scale. I'll have to try that...

Gee, do I sould like I know what I'm talking about? Music theory is something I was never interested in until I actually learned some. It's fascinating to me that you can construct a detailed framework for understanding and appreciating music, only to realise that most great music is made when you throw the rules away. You have to take a leap of faith and let the music come from your heart instead of your head.

What else did I learn this weekend? Red Dog plays best with a heavy pick. I'm using a Jim Dunlop 1mm (blue) Tortex one now. Back when I was exclusively playing the acoustic, a floppy 0.5mm one felt better as strumming was a major part of what I was doing. On the electric, control and precision are more important to me.

Finally, I discovered that I need to lose weight. Either that or shorten my guitar strap! The way the Les Paul sits on my belly right now means that it faces down towards the floor which ain't good! Maybe I should add 'lose the flab' to Step 1, too.