LucSulla

I look at this room full of boxes and even more yet to be packed, and I wish that I was having coffee with Murkat.

Thought I would make one of these for when it is late and I (or anyone else who has mental diarrhea) decide to post passing thoughts that I am sure everyone is just DYING to see posted. I walked in tonight after having a few drinks out on the town, looked at my hamers quietly resting in their stand, and was totally stoked that I own such instruments. I think I may play myself to sleep on the couch on one of them.

What a cool damned ax!

90 percent lost money. 5 percent broke even. 5 percent made money.

I'm guessing the 78 LPC I own is worth considerably more than the $1100 I paid for it back in 1999. It's a little beat up, has, now that I think of it, none of the original hardware or pickups (though I have the original pots/switches packed away), and seriously needs new, matching screws all the way around, but I'm guessing, depending on time of year, I could get between 2k and 2.5k, judging from EBay. It's funny -- the only thing I bought that went up in value was the one thing I bought without thinking about that at all. A crackhead stole my LP Studio out of our equipment truck. The insurance check I got to replace it was enough to buy that guitar, which I had been lusting after but was also pretty much the only used Les Paul that would have fit the bill around Jackson for that price anyway.

And of course he made his pickups too... I'm going outside to light a couch on fire.

Well, I have no useful skills.

Well played, sir. Well played. Good luck with your hunt, Brent!

Forgot about this at 2 mins. I just think John 5 is fun in general.

I agree with this other than that I was a huge fan when I was in my teens. Not so much anymore. I think there was a time where I just found speed impressive and didn't know enough to know that what he was doing was far more about endurance than creativity. Honestly, I think the solo on "Sweet Jesus" is my favorite thing he ever did, but his singing is... an acquired taste. It's not hard, it just sounds pleasant. http://youtu.be/DHBkLY-0UKo?t=2m22s Nowadays, I would have to say Jake E. Lee was my favorite guitarist Ozzy ever had (I know, I know, Randy). The chorus riff in "Bark at the Moon" remain one of the coolest riffs ever recorded, IMO. As far as PHs, I'm going to have to go with Billy Gibbons and the guitar work on Skynyrd's version of "Call Me the Breeze." For worst PHs, I'm nominating Robbie Robertson's in pretty much all of The Last Waltz. He irritates me to know end on what is otherwise one of my favorite recordings, though I guess some may disagree. An example: http://youtu.be/rP7r12Rg490?t=3m10s

That was pretty much it. The couple of modal things he used to do and the hybrid picking don't seem to show up at all really any more. However, I still stand by saying that was pretty cool when I was 11 even if I even find it boring now. Seeing a guy shredding on an LP was just kinda unique at the time on MTV, and he did sound a bit different as well. When shredders were a dime a dozen, you could at least tell it was him. In fact, now that I'm thinking back, I think part of the appeal at the time was the lack of a lot of extensive tapping, sweeping, etc. It was kind of refreshing seeing a dude just rip without all of the flash, at least for me. Last, I think 9 minute guitar solos are pretty indulgent and usually pretty boring by definition, but it wasn't a rock show without one back then.

I love Satch, but not so much Vai. To me, there is a certain joy that comes through Satch's playing that I don't feel when I listen to Vai, despite his being a monster player.

Well, he was pretty bad ass back in the day. Then well... I think it just got easier to be in the Zakk Wylde business.

Zakk from No Rest through Book of Shadows (which actually had very few if any). After that, I feel like he kind of became a stale, but that first run of stuff through the mid 90s I liked and was what made me learn how to do artificial harmonics. The southern-fried, hybrid stuff he'd throw in here in there along with the clear Randy influence in his early playing was pretty interested I thought. I know BLS became a stable living for him, but I got bored pretty fast with the lightening-quick pentatonic thing he pretty much only does now.

One of the only things about my playing I am proud of is that I pretty much sound like me through whatever I play through. I'm certainly no virtuoso, so that isn't bragging. But for better or worse, I sound like me when I play. I think far too many people chasing others' tone kind of miss that whole thing. Even if you can't play every lick in the world, it's comforting knowing you have something that is yours. Conversely, guys like Hendrix... I'm willing to bet a whole lot of us here can play anything he did note for note if we wanted, and I'd be willing to guarantee it still wouldn't have that "it," even if we were playing it note for note through his rig. ETA: Frigin' doctorate, and I still can't proofread worth a damn.

One touched down near Richland and apparently tracked I-20 more or less damn near to Forest.

Dad's neighborhood got hit by one in Brandon, MS today. Apparently tore a lot of trees down around on his lot, but spared his house. A lot of other houses didn't fare so well, but luckily it seems limited mostly to structural damage there.

That might as well be magic to me. Stunning.

What did/does Guild have to offer, anyway? They did some electrics and semi-acoustics that were kinda like some Gibsons, and kinda like some Gretsches - but none that ever made me say "Oh, yeah, I want that" instead of the real thing. I know taste is individual, but I loved S100s and Starfires, and would take having the S100 I had back in the 90s over any SG. I also preferred their acoustics to Gibsons, particularly their 12-strings. Their jumbo sized 6-strings always sounded lovely to me. I can see an argument about their electrics often being Gibson-ish, but to me, their acoustics were "the real thing."

From the way that sounds, this may be it for Guild as well, at least as far as I'm concerned. I always liked Guilds US stuff, even though I know they moved all over the place for about a decade after being bought out by FMIC.

Thanks for posting all of this. I am really enjoying following along.

Very cool!

I'm drinking and carousing at the moment, but at a glance, I believe you've stumbled across a natural (aeolian) Am scale position.

I learned them pretty early by ear. I learned to play lead by playing with the radio and trying to find notes that sounded right. By doing that, I pretty quickly recognized those five patterns and also learned you could move them around. The nice thing about my local rock station at the time was that there was a mix of styles and keys. You even start figuring out the seemingly weird stuff like Em pentatonic box starting on the 12th fret working over G major and Em but not E major. If the song was in G and I wanted to sound "pretty," I played that box at the 12th. If I wanted it to sound "nasty," I moved that same box to the 15th fret. Not being satisfied with just knowing it worked, I also pretty quickly got into going back and reading why those things worked. I never really learned a lot of licks from tab because I felt like unless you understood why that lick worked over that progression, you weren't really assimilating anything new but just learning how to copy something. When I really wanted to learn a solo, I'd spend a lot of time trying to understand why it worked so if I wanted to screw around with the phrasing and/or playing it in a different key on the fly, I could. It's helpful. For instance, realizing that EVH was really just playing an arpeggio in a different way when he tapped was an epiphany. It helped open up playing improved tapping stuff rather than just learning a part to throw into a solo as kind of a neat trick.

Lord, that's purtty.