TheGoodRev

Hey man, I'd love nothing more than to sit in on steel with the Spades...but they'd have to ask me first

Kookycanooky and myself are going to try and hit this up. A warning: the back room at the Cameron only legally holds 65, and they absolutely won't allow more people in. Last time I was there I think there were about 45 people or so and it felt packed, so make sure to get there with plenty of time.

Yeah, I figure it's made somewhere cheap. These are cheap guitars we're talking about here. The Ibanez was about $500 and the Casino is about $750, but a lot of that is the Bigby I'm sure. I would imagine the non-Bigsby version is between $600 and $650. I've gotta be making some money in music before I can go find myself a vintage one or the Gibson version... :crazy: The guitar in my picture, by the way, is unrelated to this situation. It was a borrowed Epiphone Sheraton II, with humbuckers. The Casino has those old-style chrome-cover P90's.

I have an Ibanez AF75D. Here's what it looks like. The 'D' is for deep, it's not a thinline guitar; fully hollow, not semi-. It's fun to pound really deep, throaty, resonant chords and pretend I'm Neil Young, or turn way down and chicken-pick some jazz-infused rockabilly and pretend I'm Scotty Moore, or strum a lonesome cha-cha ballad and pretend I'm Roy Orbison. But I have not been digging on the depth, or the general size, shape and colour of the guitar and have contemplated trading it in. I went in a week ago to do just that and, strangely, after a half hour of conversation with an intriguing young lady guitar salesperson, I emerged from the store not only with my guitar still in hand, but also with a receipt for a freshly ordered $2000 Gibson Firebird. No matter, though, as I came to my senses and went in today to cancel the order. While I was there, I met this: I dig that it's a semi-hollow, and with a Bigsby no less. They don't make these with the Bigsby's anymore, the model is discontinued. I'm not a huge fan of the pickups, though, they might need to be swapped. I can walk in tomorrow and trade up with relatively minimal cash on top. Do I want to do this, I ask you?

What are you, a lawyer? By my calculation, you purport to make $150,000 CDN a year.

Yeah, but I can't imagine bringing in Dale Murray to play bass. He's well known as a pedal steel and guitar player, and is currently playing with Cuff the Duke. You'll recall that Brad Conrad, the keyboard player before the new guy, also played steel, so maybe they've brought Dale in on guitar and steel, and maybe they've got Murphy moved over to bass? That seems like a wacky move though. It would mean that Cuff the Duke is without a guitar/steel player though...hmm...

Friends of mine. Played on a bill with them a few times. What they do isn't for everybody, but if you let it grow on you, you'll love it. P.s. I think BA is doing something altogether different, though, man. His tunes are at least coherent, most of the time. More parody than Motem.

Brantford Marsalis just came out with Mule. Cool.

This one time I was sitting, writing out the setlist for that night, casually having a beer with my bandmates, and a whole bunch of our friends marched right in and started gabbing to us like we gave a damn what they were saying. It was annoying.

Bumpin it. Live in the studio this week.

I haven't really noticed that he runs on and on and on...I thought I was the only one who tends to do that. I guess that's because I'm usually stoned when I post. Not trying to hate on the guy, but that phone number...hilarious. It takes a brave dude to post his phone number on the internet.

GOLD

Shit man, I forgot about the hippie quotient in Guelph. Christ, Ari, you must be the king of the goddamn pussy castle up there!

Terribly sorry to hear about this, HM family. My condolences.

You just verbalized my exact thoughts on Zygote. Nice guys, though, and a good little band for a while. I remember going to see the offshoot project, Feebo, once or twice...they were a lot heavier and more modern-sounding. I'd be curious to hear if they're writing anything new...probably not curious enough to go to the show though. Care to play a bit of Jewish geography, Starshine? I was a CHAT kid but knew a bunch of Thornlea kids...Westmount and Thornhill, too. You too...

I read on Mike Daley's blog that he is, in fact, involved. I think it's pretty fucking cool.

Wow, fucking right Brian. Good work.

Like Princess Di on Mo' Teresa, y'all. are in Hamilton tonight, at Underground, along with Maserati and Circuit Breaker. Watch that video.

Hey, I'll do it. I work cheap and I'm the most brilliant motherfucking producer to come out of Hamilton since Lanois. No shit. Seriously though, if you're looking for criticism, Deeps (and can take it from your friends, in a public forum no less), I'll echo the comments about the art. Not terribly enticing for somebody looking at the record cold. Furthermore, regarding the music, let me say this. You know that when I come to see you guys there are two tunes I will incessantly holler for, those being Monsoon and Ring. Those tunes, to me, are the most 'moody' of your catalogue. Monsoon has that incredible off-time vamp with the "Hey"'s in between, and that whole segment is really, what, two whole chords? You literally abandon the complexity of the structure, instead driving the tune with its sheer moodiness, and I think you're highly successful there. Ring has a different mood altogether, but all four instruments and the vocals are all pushing in the same kind of triumphant direction. There are other examples of your successful use of mood on the record; if I had been there to advise doing something differently, I'd tell you to build each song like a pyramid, with equally solid basises in the structure and mood departments, with the two of those coming together to form a successful tune. Finally, regarding the funk. Funk is good and makes people dance sometimes, I understand that. I also know how fun it is to play. I also know that some people only want to come out to see a band they can dance to, so playing funk caters to them. I'm not one of those people, so in all selfishness, I'd like to say that I think you guys as players are too good to be playing the amount of straight funk that you play. For me, it almost cheapens the experience of seeing the band. If you're going to be assigned artistic credibility for playing funk, you're going to have to be Sharon Jones. Otherwise, to most people, you're a party band. Some funk = ok (e.g. that sweet clav solo in Here Kitty); too much funk = you won't be taken seriously. I know that's flawed logic, as funk is a viable music, I'm just trying to tell you how it is. It's like Shain writing about Panic at the Disco on Jambase. Sure, the hippies shouldn't have jumped down his throat in all fairness, but anybody could have predicted that they would. You want people to stop thinking of you guys as a 'Jamband' and start thinking of you as just a band who plays good music, but not everybody is like Shain or you or I, with our wide-open musical tastes and refusal to be bound by genre definitions in our listening and our playing. To most people, music is what they listen to in their cars and maybe what they see on the weekends. They're going to have distinct tastes, and there's no denying that if you wish to progress in this business, you're going to have to cater to certain tastes to a certain extent. The point is: tighten up the idea of what your band is all about. You've got to have some kind of thread that carries through it all, or else the average idiot (upon whom you're counting to come to your shows and buy your merch to keep you going) won't be able to figure out if he likes your band or not. For example: When I think of a band like Jimmy Swift, they can be broken down into two elements: live trance and college-rock. Then, when they're in town, you can say to your friends who have never heard of them, "Hey you want to go see this band? They play, like, really dancey, trancey music, but with real instruments, and they're all shit-hot musicians." What do you want people to be saying when trying to convince their friends to come out to see WTTS? If you're fine with the description of "Uh, they play a bunch of rock, pretty progressive, and a good dose of funk, and some of it is kind-of art-rocky....and well it's all over the map so just come check it out", then you'll have to be cool with the fact that 75% of people will choose the dance bar instead without something solid to latch onto. I think that's about all I've got, for now. Am I still invited to jam on Friday?

It was my second experience. The first was great, but last night blew it away. Fucking incredible.

just slayed Hamilton. I know there are people out there dying for cool new music. If you haven't seen this band, you must do so. Here's a taste - though they are really a band that proves itself at the live show. What intense vibe they project.

'preciate it dude, but I'm headed to see the Constantines tonight.

Didn't make it after all last night. Disappointed I missed a Thelonius Beck, that must have been great. They encored with Cortez at the Danforth Music Hall a couple years ago and pulled out the George Bush line then. Interesting that Gordie Johnson was in town after all, must have been cool to see them do I'm A Ram together (though Mule did it last year at the Kool Haus, too).

Hahaha. I wish. A little smaller-scale than that... ...but related nonetheless. Dale Murray, who plays guitar and pedal steel with Cuff the Duke, was in the Guthries with Mays. He also plays pedal steel on the record by the band I'm talking to, so I'd be playing his parts...