glad & sorry

I’m a strat man. But, I also have a ‘57 Gibson ES 125 – and I love the arch top. If you want to learn about Gibson guitars, visit Billy Beck every once in a while. He can write about making music and appreciating an instrument a lot better than I.

But, in the mean time, this is a fantastic documentary about the reproduction of one of the most famous rock & roll guitars ever to have rung out a chord.

Eric Clapton auctioned a pile of his most famous guitars through Christies on June 24, 2004 with proceeds going to his Crossroads Foundation Charity. Among the treasures on the block was the first guitar that EC ever bought new – his 1964 Gibson ES 335. He made unbelievable music for forty years with this guitar.

It’s funny, the estimate on the original Christies gallery had the going price for the guitar at $60,000 to $80,000. It was ultimately purchased by Guitar Center for $847,000!

Together, Guitar Center and Gibson worked to recreate this classic instrument in every detail. Everything from the case to the Hari Krishna sticker on the back of the head were faithfully reproduced.

I can dig the fact that you need to nail the neck profile, the hardware, and pickups to reproduce a guitar. But, I can’t imagine sitting around with your guitar buds comparing specific nicks, nooks, and crannies. But, that’s just me.

This video is a great insight into a world where art and technology meet in true harmony.

And – that’s what this kid has been doing a lot of.

A friend of mine (who’s a WAY better player than me) was down in LA (not Lake Ainsley) a while back. He reports that talent like this can be found in every music store and on every street corner. That’s crazy. Just crazy.

I guess it’s one thing to play a song and another thing to have written it.

Also — strats clearly rock!

Soul, R&B, R&R legend Wilson Pickett died of a heart attack in Virginia on Thursday. He was 64.

His life could have been a movie. A preacher’s grandson, Wilson was youngest of 11 children who were raised by an abusive mother. He started out in gospel music (accompanying Sam Cooke) and eventually joined doo-wop groups before going solo and recording at the legendary Stax studios with Booker T and the MGs.

Many feel that his music inspired the movie The Commitments. His biggest hits, Mustang Sally and In the Midnight Hour were featured prominently in the movie as well as the soundtrack.

Wilson Pickett was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

I’ve been using Iceberg Radio as my on-line listening stream for quite a while. It categorizes “station” by genre and/or time frame. My favourites include: A Classical Bouquet, Blues, Classic Rock, Guitar Heroes, and Jazz Classics. I find myself listening to the rock ones most frequently. After a while, I noticed that the same songs were repeated pretty regularly. You Shook Me All Night Long is probably the most often repeated song on Classic Rock, while Eric Clapton and Jimi are over represented on Guitar Heroes. Hence, the inclusion of some non-Rock stations to get away from the repetitive familiar songs. Anyway, since I’ve been using the Firefox browser exclusively – the Iceber Radio Player window no longer shows the “now playing” information. There are instructions to get an ActiveX plug-in working in Firefox, but this has not worked after a couple of tries. Three emails to Iceberg’s tech support have gone unanswered.

I just learned about a new music service from Colby Cosh. Pandora is a really cool service that creates a personalized “station” based on a song or artist of your choice. I put in the Hendrix song Little Wing, and was presented with song after song that featured “mild rhythmic syncopation, thru composed melodic style, minot key tonality, adn electric guitat solo.” I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of some songs that I wasn’t all that familiar with, like Gypsy Ride by Les Dudek. Putting Count Basie in as an artist brought out no sprprises yet. Lots of his contemporaties like Duke, Stan Kenton, Dizzie, and percussionists Gene K. and Buddy R.

Check it out and let me know if you get any wierd song combinations.