I was always very intrigued by bands (rock bands) that grow as economical entities, and here I could think here of Iron Maiden which is told to own quite a bit of possessions (lands, investments), the plane that Bruce flies, etc.

Another example is Metallica which took their business very seriously and restricted the usage of their name (which is trademarked, OK, no issue here) in a very aggressive way. Maybe you remember the lipstick issue of 1-2 years ago, with that lipstick manufacturer that named his latest product Metallica. Bad business idea…

The reason I started this post is a news about Robert Trujillio who had a business deal with Fernandes Guitars long before joining Metallica, Fernandes Guitars being allowed to use Trujillo’s image in promotional materials, while providing him a load of custom bass guitars.

I don’t know the exact terms of the contract, but I do know that Metallica has a long going contract with ESP Guitars, which you probably are already aware of (who wouldn’t be!); I remember a large poster I had on my room wall about 10 years ago with Hetfield playing an ESP, moment when I was actually very interested in ESP guitars. Whatever…

Now, coming back to the point, Metallica sent Fernandes Guitars a cease and desist letter demanding them to no longer use Robert Trujillo’s name…

Here in Romania we have a saying: what came first? The egg or the chicken?

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Some time ago in this post here I had a video with Stanley Jordan playing Stairway to heaven in his unmistakable style.

Today I decided to post another video of Stanley Jordan playing Autumn leaves.

I really like that song and I am impressed with his style a lot, from the first second I have seen him playing, however I can not stop asking myself if he really plays guitar there. I guess he had a secret passion for playing the piano…

By the way, I don’t like the suit. Is it a jazz thing or what?

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A few days ago, during a Skype conversation with Danny from GuitarPlayersCenter, he asked me about embedding audio in your WordPress posts. Since we all run guitar or music related blogs, most of them based on WordPress, and I guess everybody wanted at one moment to embed a song in his/her post , I have decided to speak here a bit about how you can do this. The fact is that is not a difficult thing to do, so, in case you are interested to add in-line audio to your posts, read on!

The solution I propose here is based on a WordPress plugin named Audio Player WordPress Plugin. Pretty straight forward, don’t you think? I installed here on this blog the beta version, Audio Player 2.0, which you can find here. For WordPress, download the first one, for everything else, go with the second one.

Being a plugin, it can be easy installed on your blog, I won’t go into installing WordPress plugins, but just in case you don’t know how to do it, it comes as a zip file, unzip it and copy the whole folder (named “audio-player”) into your plugins folder, usually in “BLOG_ADDRESS/wp-content/plugins/” so you should have it like this “BLOG_ADDRESS/wp-content/plugins/audio-player”

Then you need to activate this plugin from your Plugins page in your admin panel in WordPress (usually BLOG_ADDRESS/wp-admin/plugins.php), just click the Activate link near the name of the plugin, and you should be ready to go.

How you can actually embed music into your post? Well, pretty simple, when writing your daily guitar posts and you think you need an mp3 song in there, use the small icon that says “Add audio” when you keep the mouse over it, the 3rd one just about the editor area in your blog, the one looking like musical notes, pick your song, upload it and wait for the progress bar to reach the end.

Then write all the information you want about your song, then press the 4th button on the right, below the information area, where it says “Audio player” and then “Insert into post”.

That’s all it needs to be said. In case you already knew about this, well, no harm has been done, I guess. In case you didn’t know, well, enjoy, comment and…embed more songs into your posts!

Warning: every song you upload on your server will consume space, if an mp3 has abour 3.5M, then 10 songs will have around 35M. You should check to see what’s your available space on the server before running into space problems. Just to be sure…

And to illustrate my point, here’s a song I like from Alice Cooper, Somewhere in the jungle.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Enjoy!

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Today I have decided to step a bit in the land ruled by Jon (GuitarNoize.com), the land of strange and beautiful guitars. I decided to present here a very interesting guitar manufacturer and a very interesting line of guitars, made of, well, aluminum and not of any kind, but the one used to make planes!

As they say, “The Normandy guitar is manufactured and hand-riveted in Salem, Oregon: a product conceived, designed and produced in the U.S.A. The guitar is now available in nine colors and three different and unique finishes: chrome, powder coat and candy apple metal flake finish.”

The company doesn’t have a long history behind it, since it was started in 2007, but Jim Normandy, the owner, has a longer history as bass player in the 90’s.

I watched the videos on their site and I can tell you 2 things I have observed right from the start: the guitar is pretty loud when not plugged and has a good sustain, both thanks to the aluminum being used. By the way, if you expect a metallic sound, well, you’re wrong, the sound is beautiful.

A Normandy guitar costs somewhere between $2000 and $3000, pretty affordable, they say, more than I can spend for a guitar at this moment, I would say, but hey, I might not be part of the target group. However, I would like to try one, seems to be lighter than a Gibson, nice looking, I guess quite hard to break or burn on stage!

For more informations, check their website at www.normandyguitars.com and let me know what you think!

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You know, I just asked myself this question some time ago, after listening some blues on YouTube, not as a blues guitar player, which I am not, by the way, but as a person who loves to play blues and, depending the mood I am in, to also listen blues.

I guess there is not one single guitarist out there who doesn’t enjoy playing blues, is it? Everybody loves blues, probably also because of the popular, accessible and overused chord progression I, IV, V, right? I think it is one of the easiest things you can learn when starting playing the guitar. I think that about 80% (OK, I speculate, I can’t possible know that!) of blues songs follow chords in this very progression or in a similar one, isn’t it?

Think of how many times you probably started jamming with somebody over a bluesy theme and you found yourself playing over the already classic blues pattern. Maybe exactly because of this overused but classic progression it is very difficult to be original when playing blues.

I know that I had this feeling of originality only with a few players, over time. For ex, one of them was Robben Ford, I really had the impression that his approach to blues has some particular flavor that makes his music stand out of the crowd. Not all, but some songs, I guess. And I do love Clapton’s licks when playing the acoustic guitar. I take here as a reference the live unplugged album.

SRV gave me also this feeling (with Lenny, for ex), but not the same way Robben Ford did. SRV has energy, coherence, sound, feeling, but plays 100% blues doesn’t strike me with something I have never heard. Or maybe I’ve got used to his style.

I also had that impression of being original when listening Andy Timmons from the perspective of a rock guitar listener, I found his style so refreshing and enjoyable that I kept on listening his music for a long time. But OK, he doesn’t play blues…

I can’t put the finger on what exactly is there that makes me say something is original or not in blues. Maybe it’s the mixture of styles that starts me? But not only, I mean I have listened some Malmsteen blues improvisation and I can tell you that even if it sounded bluesy and…different, I can’t say it was original in blues. Do you get my point?

Now, if you listen to people playing blues, what do you feel? Is there any room for being original in blues? Is there any other way you could take the most overused progression in the world and turn it into something new?

What do you think?

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Since I have purchased that TonePort recording interface I can tell you I have no time anymore. No time to do anything…but record!! I learn with every day and every second and I love it! I record various pieces, not necessarily complete tracks, but I feel every moment spent this way like a big step forward. You know, I feel like a sponge in a bucket of water, first time after a few good years when I have this feeling.

You know, every new thing I learn on guitar, helps me, I am eager to learn new things, but guitar playing is not a secret anymore, it is something that I do since a while and I don’t have that feeling anymore, but with this home recording, I really feel every second, every note…

While in studio, you learn things just watching the engineer there and I consider I have learned a few things while recording various songs during these past years but really nothing compares to these days in front of my home computer, spending quality time with my blue guitar…

No, really, before making fun, let me tell you that I have just finished a raw version of a cover song that we play since a few years and I was more than happy about the result so far. Of course, there is a raw version and I have so much to add to it, like proper drums(at this moment it only has a “control” track), I need to call my colleagues to record their takes (I recorded everything myself so far but hey, I am not a one man band, you know?)

Spending time recording opened my eyes regarding the guitar possibilities. For the moment, so far I had the impression that the Fender Stratocaster emulation on my Variax guitar doesn’t have personality. Well, I was so wrong, for this song I can tell you that I couldn’t find a better match than the Strat, of course, through a particular setup.

At this moment I can not upload the song here anything since I speak about a cover, a song from a professional touring band here so until I am sure about the copyrights I won’t risk, but I will contact the band since my drummer of 8-9 years ago is with them at the moment, as a keyboard player. If I can only find his phone number…

Here’s the band, not the song, cause I only have one unplugged version of the original song, it hasn’t been released on anything else, as far as I know. By the way the guy I speak about is the keyboard player in the first video.

Enjoy!

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GuitarMx speaks today about “Chickenfoot” project and that is what started me…

If you are not familiar with Chickenfoot, well, let’s say that it’s going to be a 4 stars band, and I don’t mean like 4 out of 5 possible stars. I am referring to the fact that Joe Satriani will be playing the guitar, Sammy Hagar, former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith will complete the band. Of course, each of you may see it from an other angle, but me, I look at it from the point of view of the guitar player: Satriani will be there.

OK, now I ask myself if this project will actually become a real band or it will be just a fun thing to do while on holiday. If I well remember, Red Hot Chili Peppers took a 1 year holiday, by the way…

They say that the sound is close to early Zeppelin, not quite my music, if you know what I mean, but frankly it will be fun to listen Satch and his airspace guitar playing Zeppelin-like music, it’s something totally different than what Satriani used us to listen.

I think it will make a very interesting experiment, considering Satriani never-ending quest for out-of-this-world sound. It will be interesting to put this new record they will produce (seems they will go in the studio now) next to Satriani’s digital Engines of Creation, I guess we won’t even find common grounds for comparing them.

I ask myself, will we recognize Satriani on this record? Satriani has one of the most recognizable guitar sound and way of playing in this world but this is exactly because he adopted this futuristic music. Early Zeppelin music means 68-75(?), let’s say, and this is not an era where Satriani’s music will fit…

But I am sure it will be a great experiment and I am looking forward to listening it, since no matter what it will be close to, the value of these people got together for an album is a guarantee for some good songs.

What’s your opinion on this one?

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Today I am in an acoustic mood again, so after browsing YT for a short while, when I found this video I immediately wanted to share it with you.

I really like this kind of music, relaxes me and makes me think of a quiet evening by the fire, with a glass of red wine, playing my acoustic guitar after a long day at the office. Should be also winter or autumn, I think, but not necessarily…

By the way, did you notice that when it comes to playing the acoustic guitar, there is no moment of the day better than…the night?

And now sit back, relax and let the song flow…

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Following 2 articles on this blog, Jack Pribek’s and IG’s guest posts here’s another statistic chart about acoustic guitars being sold (on eBay this time). It is interesting that Martin and Gibson are on the first 2 positions. If you would have asked me before this chart, I would have said Ovation is doing better, but it may be a subjective view.

The chart is a gadget from TeraPeak and shows you more views, like average price, total sales, etc.

The same for electric guitars, select electric guitars on the above chart. Here Fender seems to be the leader, in front of Gibson. Well, I guess the fact that Fender has a line of cheaper electric guitars comparing to Gibson, may be a reason…

Later edit: I was totally confused by the curvy lines on the website stats(on the small chart there are bars, not curvy lines, so it is obvious), Gibson is doing better. Stupid me…

By the way, stats are based on stats gathered in the past 30 days.

What do you say?

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It’s time for a little fun! I decided to put up an “ideal” rehearsal room. It should look like in the picture here.

Unfortunately there was no “lead singer” position in the software that helped me draw this, but he could be late or out for some beer.

Of course, we will put the beer in the refrigerator on the left, next to the Pinball machine. Also, I think we all understand the need for a pool table and don’t think dirty things, kids are watching!

What do you think?

By the way, I used this software to draw that.

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