That made me smile, it is something else compared to the crunchy, mad metal of Metallica! That’s just Kirm Hammett goofing around

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A few days ago, I have received an email on behalf of Deep Purple, offering me an open door to Pandora’s box: information about Deep Purple’s Summer Tour 2008 straight from the source.

At first I was thrilled, you know, I don’t receive everyday direct emails from people representing monsters of rock, even if I understand this is part of a marketing campaign oriented to promoting Deep Purple’s Summer Tour 2008. Then, after a bit of thinking and browsing their website, I realized I don’t know what to ask them. What could I possibly ask that hasn’t been asked before so many times in the last 30 years?!

And to be honest, I don’t think I have the heart of an interview journalist…

So, I thought that maybe you could help me here and together we could put up a list of relevant questions regarding the Summer Tour 2008, questions that I will forward directly to Deep Purple.

Come on, how often you have the chance to speak directly to Deep Purple? Free your dirty minds and let it all out, people!!! Let the games begin!!

So, what questions would you ask Deep Purple about their 2008 tour?

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Today it’s 19 again, so it’s one of those days when I share my past month statistics for my dare of 5000 visitors per day. I haven’t had the time to do it properly yesterday or today until now, because I keep on cleaning windows and furniture since yesterday evening. Easter is coming and my wife launched the operation “spring cleaning reloaded” and in such situation there is no much room for negotiations, computer or playing the guitar. Damn!

So, shortly, here is what happened:

I’ve got ’stumbled upon” again!

Via Guitar Mx, I found about a top of “the greatest” guitar riffs of all time, put together by Telegraph.co.uk. I didn’t want to publish again the same top, but I have observed a few songs that didn’t make it on the list, even if they have famous guitar riffs. Among these, Satisfaction (of Rolling Stones). So I shared my thoughts about that top and you know what? It made it on StumbleUpon and that particular post had 1459 page views that day, and 2580 page views by today. It was again one of those days when my traffic was again nice

I had 1350 visitors the first day , then 860 then 460. The most interesting thing is that the traffic after that spike seemed to settle at an average around 250-300 visitors per day, which I consider good. I know I am still far away from my target, but it’s a good step forward, in my opinion.

On 16 I started again to receive visitors and the first moment I thought I am on StumbleUpon again but that was not the (only) reason. That day I had 815 visitors, half of them coming from the fact that an article of mine about Sungha Jung reached the first page of MetaFilter.com and that brought me 400 visitors one day and 566 visits by today which is again good because I wasn’t even aware of the existence of that site. That is if I don’t count the PR7 link from the first page, even if I don’t think it counts because I was there only 2 days.

I had 100 diggs but I was not on Digg’s first page!!!

This was one of the most amazing experiences I had this month. Really, I’m not joking! I found this guy, Rick Renstrom, which was born, I guess, with physical disabilities, which would have stopped anybody from even trying to think about playing an instrument! Well, not him! Rick Renstrom became a great guitar player! I was just amazed about his performance, so I had this article about him that suddenly started to get dugg! And it kept on receiving diggs! When I woke up the next morning after I posted the article, the article had 53 diggs, it was first on the upcoming list in music category on Digg, so far away from the next article, and I was on the upcoming list in Entertainment, in the middle.

I was sure I will get on the first page! 53 diggs in the morning and counting? I have even spoken to the guys hosting my blog, warning them about sudden traffic! By the end of the day I reached 100 diggs, I can tell you my adrenaline was high, I was very nervous, waiting for that big rush of people on my site and…nothing!?!! Nothing at all?! The article has got 100 diggs and didn’t make it on the first page?

Damn! So if I do the math, I can tell you that 100 diggs in 24 hours brought me 98 visitors from Digg. If I also count the 97 visitors from StumbleUpon, I can say that the article could have done much better, I was waiting for the big wave, the 20.000 visitors or more!! That’s what I was waiting for! Well…

If I draw the line and count, I can tell you that this month meant:

• 9993 visits
• 14500 page views
• 1 SU spike of 1350 visitors and about 2 smaller ones that I don’t count
• 100 diggs on one single article (but no front page)
• 9% direct traffic
• 36% search engines
• 55% referrals
• an apparently steady traffic of a 250-300 average per day, traffic observed in the last 10 days.

I have started to work on adapting my blog layout, so in a few days I will change a bit the way my blog looks, so stay close for the upcoming change!

Anyway, just a reminder, if you don’t know already: subscribe to RSS to get the news every day and never miss a post! It’s that easy, you know?!

Anyway, you should also see the first report and the second report of my monthly statistics.

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You can not argue that this guy developed a strange talent…

I can’t help myself asking what actually determined him to learn to play the guitar with that damn spoon?

Now, stumble that and digg!! Thank you!

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I find via PRWeb that Joe Satriani is going to teach guitar on WorkshopLive.com website.

For the moment I couldn’t find this news on WorkshopLive.com site or on Joe Satriani’s website but sounds like a good idea. Sounds to me like a “give back” thing, a man who received so much from life, trying to return something to his fans. I like that.

Ok, Satriani is well known for his guitar teaching history due to the fact that he has such famous students, no need to count them again here, so this choice may have come natural if you think about it, considering he has experience in teaching guitar.

And with his reputation and fan base, I think WorkshopLive.com has done it this time!

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Gary of Thumbrella posted this strange 3 necks guitar on his website.

Two things I have to ask about this guitar:

1) What would you do with the middle neck? How does it sound actually, cause it has no hole under the strings.

2) Why would you put a bass guitar on the same box with a 6 string guitar? What would be the use of this?

Ah, I get it. Actually it is an ergonomic “band guitar”, you have there the solo, the rhythm and the bass guitarists playing all together on the same guitar.

And as usual, the rhythm guitar is squeezed between the solo guitar and the bass guitar and he doesn’t actually need to be heard so that’s the reason they didn’t assign him a hole.

That explains it…

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Starting today I have decided to start a new category, named Romania. The reason is that we promoted our country (we as in politicians, media people, etc) in a bad way.

You see, Romania has always been seen from outside as a poor country in need. While I don’t argue that there are areas where we still need time to reach a certain level of development, I totally disagree with those showing bad things about Romania just to get economical help of some sort from outside. There are economic programs to support infrastructure development and I totally salute this, but in a positive way, as a helping hand from a friend (country) to another friend (country), not as saviors helping the poor little country that can not save herself in any way. NO!

So, to get to the point, this girl here, Linda Teodosiu is Romanian, established in Germany. Well, her mother is German, her father Romanian. She is currently enrolled in the German show DSDS (”Germany seeks the superstar”) and SHE RULES IT!

Not related to guitars, but to music in general. Don’t you dare to miss this, OK?!

And let me hear you!

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At least that’s what this short quiz says!

If you regularly read this blog you know that it doesn’t quite fit my music taste, but I do respect the man and his influence upon guitar music. So I won’t contradict such a result, because it goes well in my guitar playing CV, right?

Now, let’s see who feels like arguing with me on this blog, I will only ask one question:

Who did you say you are?

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Seems that these days I am obsessed with performances that are not in the usual range of an artist. Yesterday we had Joe Satriani playing a Gibson Les Paul, today I have Michael Angelo Batio playing jazz…that’s right, people, Michael Angelo Batio without his 2 hand taping, without speed licks, Michael Angelo Bation playing jazz…

Of, course, again, a professional guitar player has more tricks in the bag, right, Jack?
But how’s that for an unusual performance?

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Speaking of iconic images, everybody is used to see Joe Satriani playing his signature Ibanez electric guitars, right?.

Well, how about this picture with Joe Satriani playing a Gibson Les Paul?

I must confess it came as a surprise to me since I have never thought about this.

Of course, as Jack Pribek(pribek.net) says, professional guitar players have more tricks in the bag, right?

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