Because Christmas time is here, I put up a list of Christmas rock songs/carols or rock icons playing Christmas songs. Let’s see what we’ve got here:

So, we feature Twisted Sister with Heavy metal Christmas,

Then some kind of Guns’N Roses (sound-alike?!) here, even if I can not tell if it’s really them or not, if it’s really them, probably they were drunk, at least Axl must have been if I judge by the screams… We also have Tarja But most of all I smiled when I saw Ozzy singing with Jessica Simpson in this video


Do you have any other rock Christmas songs to show?

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This post is not going to be about electric guitars, but that is one of the funniest videos I have seen lately (seen on on Dr. J’s blog) and I can only say it is 100% true!

All of us running around the internet would love to start the next bubble! I know I would, wouldn’t you?

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I was reading this post about air guitar championship and watched 2003 World Champion “playing the guitar”. I must admit it was a “thrilling” experience, just that I couldn’t see myself doing this. I am not such expansive on stage with a real guitar, he is without any. I must admit he reminds me of Yngwie a bit, but only just a bit…

And also I must admit that he looks less like an idiot if you compare it to me doing the same thing…

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Imagine that, let’s say, Fender or Gibson or Ibanez or whoever you would like would approach you and ask you for a custom electric guitar design because they would like to start a new line featuring John Doe’s design (no offense, I hope, we are all great people but probably compared to those ones putting their names on guitars, we are John Doe). What would you put into it? I know you look up to those custom guitars of some big shot player, but did you ever think about what would you put into you own custom electric guitar?

First of all, who would be the manufacturer? Will it be Fender? Will it be Gibson? Will it be Ibanez? Will it be Danelectro? (I put it here since I had reactions on the post about Danelectro Longhorn)

Second, what would you put on it? This post could also be called build your perfect electric guitar! Let’s see a few people answering that question: Jon of GuitarNoize.com, GuitarMX.com, JP of Strat-O-Blogster (by the way, I don’t think he would chose an Ibanez or a Gibson, I just have a feeling), Lori of Play like a girl, if she finds the time, GLW from guitarz.blogspot.com and everybody else.

By the way, Stumble this please!

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I was thinking about how many of us would be really able to grow old in this music business? You see these guys on stage, 55 years old and you say, man, these guys are great, what a life they had! And probably you are right, not many get to see what they have seen during their long rock and roll life. Booze parties, drugs, sex and a lot of money spent without one regret on their reckless life.
The sex, drugs and rock and roll model was maybe fit for the 70’s but if you look back, just count how many died along the way. I have seen somewhere some numbers, saying that the probability of a rock star to dye before his time is 3 times higher than for a regular person due to drug abuse. It gave me something to think about at that moment…

Did you think about great bands, like Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Metallica, etc. Ask yourself if they still throw parties like they used to do long time ago. You will say that they are not that young anymore now and maybe you are right, that may be the reason. But I am sure it is something else: they took music seriously, they took it as a business. They are business people behind their rock and roll glamor. They all had their share of drugs and alcohol and reckless life, but now they look at the music business in a serious way. They know that in order to resist and beat time, they need to keep a steady pace, without the abuses they were used to while very young.

This is the model and the model is there, in front of our eyes, but how many would be able to follow it and take what’s best of it?

What do you think,am I right or not?

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Did you ever notice that famous guitar players have their own way of producing the vibrato? Take for example Eric Clapton, he has some fast, almost one finger vibrato. Also if you consider the fact that he has also an unique way of keeping the guitar neck in his hands, when soloing, I would say that if I would only see his hands playing the guitar, I would know it is him. Pay attention to his solo here.

OK, let’s take Steve Vai also: when  I have seen Vai vibrating a note, I was confused, he has some large, round way of vibrating a note. His (looooong) finger does at the same time a vertical and an horizontal moving, kind of a circle; I could say that he massage that particular string, like when your head hurts and you press your forehead circularly. See here in order to understand. It may be a show thing, it is more interesting for the camera, but this also gives him a low frequency vibrato that is “sweeter”.

To also consider a third  type, take Malmsteen, which has his violin like vibrato, probably because of his violin backgrounds. If you have never thought about that so far, pay attention next time you listen Malmsteen and also listen a violin player after listening Malmsteen.

Any other examples you could think of?

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You know, I have asked myself if those guys in a punk rock band, or in an alternative rock band, are just that bad guitar players or they just follow the “lousy guitar player” trend in this musical style.

If taken out of their bands, would they still be able to play a decent tune or they would just go na nanan na until you crash the guitar on their heads?

By the way, I used to play alternative rock due to a 1 year contract but before that I was in pop-rock. And before that on hard-rock. Does this count or I have the alternative stamp all over me?

By the way, that’s me with my band playing alternative rock music.

Later edit: since this post generated quite an amount of interest, here’s a link to a post of mine on BandAMP website where I put an approximative translation of the above song lyrics. By the way, the song was ranked 4th for that period contest.

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Personally I consider a musician should be good in what he does from a technical point of view. I mean, if you put an electric guitar in the hand of a guitar player he should know his way around it. This is because I listen to bands that have skilled musicians. I like Joe Satriani, I like Vai and I like bands like Helloween, Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, Vanden Plas, etc and the music they play is sharp, clear, with elaborated musical phrases, with a lot of instruments and a lot of those speedy glitters that we all love.

But this is just a point of view. If you take Kurt Cobain for example and his almost famous out of tune notes and his proverbial lack of technical skills and judge him by this scale, then there would be have no place for him on stage, but if you judge by the fact that he was part of a movement that totally changed the music in only a few years then we should pay him the respect he deserves.

The only observation I could make here is that I am not convinced that Kurt Cobain was aware of his creative process, I just think that he did what he felt and it all probably came naturally to him, without thinking too much about it. I think that this is the essence of the music he made and of the feeling he transmitted. Actually if you think about it, the feeling is what really counts when you consider music such as Nirvana used to play. When you take a band such as Dream Theater there is so much you could appreciate so even if you find that a song doesn’t quite transmit a strong feeling you can always find some technical thing that makes you love it.

So, is Dream Theater better than Nirvana? Is Steve Vai better than Cobain?

I think there is no way to compare musicians. There is one for every one of us. That is what makes the music so beautiful, the fact that you find at any moment something that moves you, depending on your mood. Do you think that Joey DeMaio, the bass player of Manowar, well known for his passion for “true metal” and his disrespect for
”posers” doesn’t listen blues? My personal opinion is that he also has his moments when Steve Ray Vaughan or BB King put him in that state where nothing else counts but blues.

I posted this because I had a discussion with a friend of mine some time ago about a band here, Vama (Veche) is called, and about the lead singer which is an actor before being a singer. Or is he a singer before being an actor? Well, personally I think that exactly this duality gives him the possibility to express himself the best on stage; he has the potential and the training to express a large scale of feelings and this makes it easy to communicate with the public even if sometimes he can not control his voice very well.

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Welcome to GuitarFlame.com, my dear first reader! This post is the first one out of what I plan to be a long and successful collection of posts, articles and miscellaneous thoughts about electric guitars, about acoustic guitars, guitar tabs, about rock music, bands, songs, etc. Generally speaking I will be posting here about rock culture, about what it means to me and about what it means to this big, big world, from my personal point of view.

Of course, you should not take my posts as being nothing more than personal opinions, reflecting my personal taste in music. I don’t know how many of you will like what I will be writing here and how many of you will be coming back for more but I will surely do my best to keep the flame burning here on GuitarFlame.com.

By the way, if you have come that far, please be kind and bookmark this site using the social sites below or just push CTRL + D, even if at this very moment the site may not seem very much (yet). Come back from time to time, you will have what to read!

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