This week started quite well! This morning I managed to solve something that was bothering me for a few days and I had a great feeling of things going well!

Then, when less expected, I’ve found I have been honored by Jack Pribek (pribek.net) with the E for excellence! Thanks, Jack! I am happy to know that my blog and everything here can be taken for useful or good or at least funny and relaxing, as for excellent, I couldn’t dare to hope!

So, as the rules of this E game state, I must give this E for excellence to 10 other fellow bloggers. I don’t know if you can pass it back, but even risking to break the rules, I will pass it again to Jack because I read his blog almost every single day with great joy. So, here’s my list:

• Jack Pribek (pribek.net) for making me think, for sharing his over 30 years experience in “applied” music and the cool exchange of ideas we often have by commenting on our blogs
• Dr J (Mixin’ it with Dr. J, jinright.edublogs.org) for the educated view on music business
• IG blog (igblog.wordpress.com) for a particular light on blogging about the music, that “je ne sais quoi” that makes me come back again and again
• Jon of GuitarNoize.com for all those beautiful guitars he continuously manages to find
• Cary of electric-guitar-review.com for the serious approach he takes when reviewing the guitars and guitar accessories
• Jol Dantzig of guitarguru.typepad.com for sharing all those wizardries about how to build a guitar, it is such a nice experience to read anything on this subject!
• Shoemoney of…what else than shoemoney.com for opening a door to me, a world where websites are really marketing instruments, not just a hobby. His website is one of the best schools of marketing I know.
• Yaro Starak of entrepreneurs-journey.com for his down to earth experiences about entrepreneurship, making everything sound easy to reach to everybody
• Brian of copyblogger.com for teaching me that not only the things you say matters but how you say them! Copyrighting rules! PS: I still suck at this!
• John Chow of johnchow.com for teaching me how a website can be turned into a money making machine, for his “money feeling” and for the ideas that I couldn’t have thought of without reading his blog!

So, as you see, not all the blogs there are about music. Half of them are about marketing, internet, blogging. I can’t help it, I am a citizen of the web, so I read this kind of blogs everyday so if it comes to pointing to a few websites, those are my choices. I don’t know if all the above mentioned bloggers will notice me pointing to them, but I hope you will discover them as great and interesting resources, if you don’t know them already!

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I know a lot of people(mostly men) consider Bon Jovi as a band for women, ballads, etc, not my thing…right? Well, at one moment I came across Richie Sambora’s solo albums, and that, my friends, turned me into a a fan!

I don’t know if you have listened “Hard times come easy”. If you haven’t, I suggest you do. I have both his albums at home and I love to listen them with the light off at night. I realized that I don’t know other band to relax me the way his music does.

I guess the reason for this is the beautiful mix between the voice and the guitar, because, you know, on his solo albums, Richie Sambora plays “another” guitar.

He is closer to his blues roots and honestly I have been surprised by what he plays there. I know Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi’s albums, I am used to his playing, but the guitar on his solo album is an other thing…The guitar on his solo albums, is bluesy, he seems calm and relaxed, feeling that he succeeds to transmit to the audience. I guess it also comes from the fact that he doesn’t need to play and sing for a living anymore, right?

I have also listened Jon Bon Jovi’s solo albums, but they didn’t get through. Richie’s albums yes! I have Hard times come easy on a CD in my car and I listen it when in the mood.

Try it for yourself here and share your opinion on this.

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I’ve seen via Guitar MX an interesting list of top 25 greatest guitar riffs of all time! Man, this should have been one of my next posts, now I can’t write it anymore! So, what can I do about it? Well, join it and sustain the post! So, here’s my short thoughts on this:

I think that Metallica patented the dark clean guitar riff. I don’t understand why Enter sandman is there and One is not. I remember about 10 years ago we used to consider One as being the hymn of rock fans. I don’t know if this is something international or not, but, man, that riff identify Metallica and rock music IMO. Enter sandman has a great starting riff but, man, One is better!

Regarding Paradise city (GNR) I can’t tell what’s more easy to recognize: the fast picked/strummed chords in the beginning or the solo part on the same starting part.

Iron Maiden’s Run to the hills…well, I love’em but no! There are far better starting riffs like for ex Metallica’s One (does it start to become annoying, or what?) And if we’re speaking about Maiden. why not Fear of the dark? Man, how about Megadeth and Symphony of destruction, any decent metal head recognizes that part by one single note! Symphony of destruction is a rock hymn too!

No Satisfaction? Man, that song can be recognized by a non-rock fan on spot! I think that those notes are kind of the most famous in the history of rock (maybe I am overreacting, but you get my point). What’s that thing with The white stripes - Seven nation army? Why is that one of the greatest riffs? Don’t blame me, but I didn’t even know the song! Should I worry?! Please tell me if you didn’t know it either so I can chill!

The list has been actually started by The Telegraph and people there contest it also. The fact is that the list is called “greatest” which gives a subjective feeling to it. Greatest is like good, beautiful, something that stays in the eyes(ears in this case) of the judge. Greatest does not actually mean most famous, most recognizable or something similar.

Anyway, let me hear your opinions on this! And stumble me, baby!

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I should start this post by saying I am not one of those persons that love getting their hands dirty. I don’t fix my car. If it stops, well, I just take it to car dealer service and they fix it, that’s why I pay for it, right? I don’t especially like fixing pipes or things that get broken around the house. I call the guy who’s in charge. Let him fix it, he’s better at it. Don’t think I am some kind of a lazy guy, no, because 6 months ago I have purchased a new apart, and for the next 3 months after that, I had to just FIX A LOT OF DAMN THINGS there. And I am just sick of fixing things, installing, making holes in the walls, moving furniture and painting things. That’s it! I don’t want anymore! Let the guy who’s in charge do it properly!

But wait! When it comes to guitars, it’s an other thing, right? I don’t usually open my guitar, maybe just to fix some wire that got loose or to clean the pickup switcher from time to time (it’s kind of bad, I think), so not much to do, actually. I love playing it, not fixing it, right?

But I just love reading on the internet about how to build a guitar. This kind of articles makes my day each time I find one. I have started this article inspired by an article on Guitar Blog (http://guitarz.blogspot.com) about how kids learn to make electric guitars.

So I have thought about pointing you to a few articles I have seen on the net about how to build a guitar, maybe you will enjoy them too, the way I did when reading them. So, here we go:

• Making a Strat
• CrimsonGuitars
• Flat Earth Heresy
• Mike’s guitar project
• Ed’s world of guitars
• Everything you want to read about it on Project Guitar (the roots of all evil)
  

Enjoy them!

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These last days, something keeps on running through my head: the most recognizable guitar sounds/tones (without really trying, I usually think about rock music, because this is my “business”, let’s say). Please keep in mind that I am not considering the style of each guitar player, but his tone only, even if when trying to identify a guitar player both are considered.

1. Brian May (Queen) ,the overdriven tone, has an electric guitar sound that in my opinion can be recognized in an instance. It is somehow a strange sound, and for sure I wouldn’t set my guitar this way, but it really defines him. I don’t think that his clean tone has anything special.
2. Slash (GNR), the overdriven and the clean tone. I am not a big fan of Slash, if you constantly read this blog you may already know this, but I really believe he belongs here. I think that the one thing that helps defining the tone of Slash is the fact that he is tuned one step down, thus using low tensioned guitar strings, which gives some kind of a “loose” and sweet relaxed sound. About the clean tone, I have asked myself what makes it particularly recognizable for ex in Don’t cry or Knocking on heavens door. I have added a delay on my rhythm clean picking tone and I was surprised to see how close I get to it when playing Knocking!
3. Joe Satriani’s overdriven and clean tone. How could you possibly miss Satriani? How could you miss the one that is called the master of tone?! Here I think that his Fred pickup (which gives him that beautiful feedback) helps a lot in getting the almost patented overdriven sound.
4. Metallica’s clean tone. Well, this is kind of funny! Metallica, which became famous for trash rock to be recognizable by the clean tone. Well, but for me, I think that the tone in One, Enter Sandman, Fade to black can never be mistaken!
5. Carlos Santana’s overdriven tone. In such cases it is difficult to say where recognizing the sound starts and where recognizing the licks end.  Santana’s style is unmistakable, but so is his guitar tone, in my opinion. And I know it is not rock, so don’t point your finger at me!

I would have said also Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix but I can’t tell where playing style ends to only speak about the sound. I think I would recognize a new Dire Straits song by the way Mark Knopfler plays, but I don’t know if only the guitar sound would be enough.

So, what’s your take on this?

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I have found a very interesting news today, seems that last week Dunlop released a limited series of guitar picks, “Left Handed Dunlop”, designed as an homage for famous left handed Albert King. Seems that there are only a few thousands such left handed guitar picks and they were only released in USA.

Guitar picks usually tend to get “polished” on one edge after repeatedly playing them. As a design particularity, these left handed guitar picks seem to have a tougher structure on the edge that usually comes in contact with guitar strings when playing left handed.

Due to being a limited edition, they may be quite hard to get. Anybody managed to get one of these?

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Believe it or not, today I need to modify my About page because I am not 30 years old anymore! Starting today, I am 31! For real! No freaking joke! I am born on 1st of April, doh!

On the left you see a part of my identity card, the red spot shows I am not joking: born on 01. April 1977!There!(Usually nobody believes me so I have my papers ready. )

To feel important, here’s “other” famous people born on April Fool’s Day (what do you know? I am born on the same day with Sergei Rachmaninoff!Man!):

1981 Hannah Louise Spearitt - singer (S Club 7)
1980 Bijou Phillips - singer, actress
1967 - Phil Demmel, American musician
1961 Mark White - guitarist (ABC)
1954 Jeff Porcaro - drummer (Toto)
1952 Billy Currie - keyboardist (Ultravox)
1949 Gil Scott-Heron - jazz musician
1948 Jimmy Cliff - Jamaican singer
1947 Norm Van Lier - basketball player
1945 John Barbata - rock drummer (The Turtles; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Jefferson Starship)
1942 Phil Margo - singer (The Tokens)
1942 Alan Blakley - guitarist (Brian Poole and The Tremeloes)
1939 Rudolph Isley - R&B singer (Isley Brothers)
1934 Jim Ed Brown - country singer
1873 Sergei Rachmaninoff - Russian composer

For today, I asked the Beatles to sing a tune for me so…

And yes, I am ready to face your jokes!

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