The above video got me thinking… while on the one hand, its of course very cool for avid Hendrix-fan to have yet another “never before heard, recently discovered” song or collection of songs to be released, it makes me think about what Jimi himself would say about all this.
Remember, he was a big perfectionist in the studio, very specific about every detail of a production, every bit of a song and its sound. I wonder whether he would appreciate all those “official” releases of demos, ideas, unfinished or even discarded songs. I mean, he was unhappy with certain aspects of the actual albums released during his lifetime (I think he was quite unhappy with the sound of “Axis: Bold As Love”, for example).
While I of course see how fascinating that is for a Hendrix-fan, imagine this: youre an artist and you really are very specific abotu what you want the FINISHED product to sound. You put a load of work and thought into your albums and songs, the writing, the production, the mix and mastering. Then, you hear how some of your songwriting ideas, demos, and songs you simply discarded cuz you considered them inferior, are made publically available.

I am not only talking about bootlegs, either. Some of those sure sound pretty good and might have some extra-special performances, some breath-taking renditions of a particular song. However, some do not sound very good at all, and I wonder whether Jimi would like to have those for sale. I also am thinking of some of the “official” releases, like the CD of recordings from the Isle Of Wight festival, one of his last performances ever. Jimi was very much under the influence of drugs during the show, and if you see footage, you can tell. During some songs, especially “Machine Gun”, you can hear the security guys talk on their walkie talkies, which was bleeding through the PA and/or guitar amps. I kinda doubt Jimi would want people to hear those performances.
Same goes for some of the demos or unfinished recordings. Maybe he would be ok with the “New Rising Sun” releases, as those songs were, AFAIK, almost done. Then again, who is to decide, other than Jimi? Would it be better to just let this stuff rest in those reel boxes, to not put out what isn’t done, to not put on sale what wasn’t meant to be sold yet? Eddie Kramer got a lot of flak for taking rough takes from the studio and having studio musicians add drum-, bass- even guitar parts that were missing, then having all that officially released.I wonder how Jimi would feel about that… whether he would appreciate that someone finished what he couldn’t finish because he passed away way too early, or whether he would want those demos, outtakes, alternate takes etc. to be kept in storage or even destroyed.

Would he like to be represented by way of those recordings? Imagine some kid wanting to get into Hendrix, getting one of those bootlegs at first, or one of those “never before heard studio recordings” compilations with unfinished ideas… shouldnt an artist be represented by the recordings he decided to be published, instead of stuff thats being dragged out of the studio vaults after he passes away?

So… even though as a Hendrix-fan, one might LOVE to hear some never before heard stuff, but then again… wouldnt it be kind of a question of respect for Jimi to not listen to it? What would you feel like if suddenly, youd find some of your bedroom-recordings or unfinished songs or studio jams with out of tune guitars available at the store?
I dont really have an answer, but I am thinking about those things occasionally, wondering what he would think and whether he would be happy about all this… whether he would appreciate fans going out of their way to hunt down that stuff and his family releasing those things… just my opinion though…

Must have taken quite some research… I wonder whether it’s true bypass though…

The new issue of GUITAR is out. Other than a lot of cool articles, TABs and lessons, it features my review of the new Mesa Boogie Mark V, two LTD guitars and a new episode of my “Talking Hands” series, this time dealing with the mixolydian scale and how to use it. So check it out!

Derek Trucks Band- Already Free

The more I listen to it, the more I get into it. Derek is one of the most interesting players of the current generation of young players, I love his attitude (guitar straight into the amp), his slide-playing and how fresh and unpredictable his lines are. This is a very alive sounding album with lots of great playing, with a serious 70s vibe. Amazon-link

Wilson Hawk – The Road

Wilson Hawk is Richie Kotzen’s new band. Richie seems to focus more on Soul and R´n´B with this band… music he has always loved. I remember old interviews with him where he talked about how much he loved the Stevie Wonder albums from the 70s like “Talking Book”. Also, one of my favorite RK-performance is his singing on the song “I Don’t Wanna Be With Nobody But You” from Stevie Salas’ “Electric Pow Wow” (awesome album!!), very soulful. This album has great songs, great singing and some great guitar-playing. Perfect soundtrack for a nice spring! Amazon

Gov’t Mule – High & Mighty

I just rediscovered this album… great songs and some insanely tasteful playing by Warren Haynes and his band. I remember reading some rave reviews of this when it came out, and I checked it out and enjoyed it a lot. Just started listening to it again, and its just a great album especially for relaxing in spring- or summer weather. Amazon

Joe Bonamassa – You & Me

This is an older album by Joe… I enjoy pretty much every album he did, and I also listen to “Live From Nowhere In Particular” and “The Ballad Of John Henry” a lot too, but right now, I prefer this one. Great songs, and I love Joe’s playing and singing. Amazon

Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know

I was lucky enough to get a promo copy of this, and I find myself listening to it quite often. I didnt know what to expect, but as soon as I heard the opener, I loved it. You can tell its Dio, Iommi, Geezer Butler and Appice from the sound, but then again, they don’t sound outdated or whatever… its a very powerful-sounding production with some very cool, Sabbath-like riffs, not sounding old-fashioned at all… the guys sound as if they have a lot of fun. I think not only Sabbath- or Dio-fans will enjoy this one. Amazon-link

I recently had a chance to read “Off The Rails” by Rudy Sarzo. It was quite a wonderful experience. As you probably know, Rudy was the bassist for Ozzy in the early 90s, starting in between the release of “Blizzard Of Ozz” and “Diary Of A Mad-Man”, and during the time when Randy passed away.
Rudy wrote about this time, starting with how he met Randy and Quiet Riot (Randy was still playing with them back then), to the phone call by Sharon, and then goes on to write about the audition, tour rehearals, the concerts and what the band did in between.
Of course there are some of those “Ozzy shocker stories” in there, told from Rudy’s perspective, but I think the important thing about this book is: not only does it show that Rudy is a really cool person (I hope I get to meet him some day) and its a heart-felt tribute to Randy.

Rudy wrote that it was almost as if Randy was back while he wrote the book, and that he dreaded getting to the chapter about the plane accident that killed Randy, he didnt wanna lose Randy again… very touching, and you can tell how much Rudy admired Randy.
THis is a great read not only for fans of Rudy or Ozzy, its a very special treat for fans of Randy, because it gives you an idea of what he was like off stage, as a person.

So if you are interested, check it out, HERE is a link to the amazon-page… I recommend this book very much

Thanks to Dan, who “adopted” my blog radio and updated it, creating a new playlist, based on the original playlist. He removed all the broken links, added some new tracks based on my recent blog-posts (so you can i.e. hear tracks from the Sfogli-album I wrote about below) etc.
Just click the link to the left to open the player and start listening. I recommend to switch on the “shuffle”-mode, as the list is kinda sorted by artists. Its your choice. I hope you will enjoy listening! And THANK YOU, DAN!

Seems like it will be an exciting summer for rock-fans… on the cover of the most recent issue of Guitar World, you see Chickenfoot (a super-group feat. Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Chad Smith), who are releasing their debut album in early June, and also, according to PaulGilbert.com, Mr. Big has reunited and will tour too!
Awesome, quite exciting, I cant wait to hear the album, and it would be great to see Mr. Big live again, saw them in the mid 90s, and love their classic line-up, especially the “Lean Into It”-era. So there’s a lot of great music headed our way!

“There’s Hope” – Marco Sfogli
I just rediscovered that album, I listened to it a lot about this time last year, too. Marco’s an amazing guitar-player from Italy, and you might have heard his very tasteful playing on the most recent solo-album by Dream Theater’s James LaBrie (I hear Marco will play on the next one too).
This is an all instrumental album with some amazing playing, combining taste, great melodies and amazing chops. Which makes sense, as Marco claims Kee Marcello (formerly the guitarist for Europe, check out the “Out Of This World” album) as a big influence, and Kee too was able to combine those factors as well.
I love Kee as well, so I know exactly what Marco likes about him.
Check out “Still Hurts” and “Sunset Lights”, those are my current two favorites on this album, just beautiful… insanely melodic! Amazon-link

“United States” – Paul Gilbert & Freddie Nelson
There’s no Amazon-link for this one yet, as its not available on Amazon-yet… it was only released in Japan so far, but should be out in other countries soon. Thanks, Marcus, for letting me hear it!

Freddie Nelson is a singer/songwriter/guitarist from Paul’s hometown, so now, they collaborated on an album, with Freddie singing and Paul focussing on the guitar-work, which absolutely rocks (as usual). Great stuff, a lot of fun to listen to!

“Soundscapes, Vol.2: A Blessing Of Tears”- Robert Fripp

This is part 2 in a series that Robert Fripp did a few years ago. As the name suggests, this is a very “soundscapey” album, very dreamy. It has a certain soundtrack-quality to it, like perfect music for a trip through space or something. Very atmospheric, lush, relaxed, mysterious-sounding. The perfect soundtrack to sit outside and look at the stars at night. Amazon link

Kind Of Blue – Miles Davis

Its been 50 years now since this album was released, and of course, its a total classic, probably the most successful jazz-album ever. For good reason too, because the playing on here is amazing, and the use of modes was quite trail-blazing for its time, kinda creating a new trend. I recently read a very good book about the making of the album, and reading that made me listen to it again. Even if you ignore the “theory” side of it, its a wonderful, relaxing album to listen to… I love to do so, closing my eyes, and can almost imagine watching the recordings in NYC back in the late 50s. Amazon-link

Mysterious Mountain – Alan Hovhaness, performed by the Seattle Symphony

I wasnt familiar with this composer before, but heard a bit of the “Mysterious Mountain” on classical radio. It was quite amazing, because the work sounds so mysterious and strange (in a very good way), a bit like a soundtrack, and you can easily imagine a huge, mysterious mountain with all its beauty and danger while listening to this. Amazon link
Well, that’s it for now, I hope you’ll like some of those choices!

Its also very very cool to see Eddie on the cover (I always loved the Frankenstrat), and there’s a long article about him and his playing in this issue, so check it out! Also, there are reviews by yours truly about a Framus guitar and a new Seymour Duncan pedal. And, the mag comes with a free issue of the new magazine by PPV Media, Guitar Dreams!

I posted thoughts on effects before, but today, when I was teaching, some more thoughts came up. I hope some of these will be interesting to you…

I do love effects. Most guitarists do… so many of us constantly change their pedalboard around, new pedals are added, old ones go back into the storing crate (or on Ebay). While that is a quite normal thing (sometimes resembling toys… its almost cute), one thing I always stuck to is: you can spend SO much time constantly changing your rig, time you could invest practicing and playing, so try to stick to something for a while…

Effects really can bring you new ideas, unleash your creativity, enable you to get sounds you couldnt usually get. I am quite glad that the old cliché “Ahh, you dont need any effects, they just cover up bad playing, the less effects, the better” almost disappeared… some players are quite legendary for their use of effects… think of Robert Fripp, David Torn, The Edge… anyway, one thing that I really recommend to try with pretty much any pedal: try all of its options!

For example, there are SO many things you can do with a good delay pedal… whether its Brian May-style layering, Nuno/Albert Lee/Yngwie-type “delay lines” (runs with notes added by a delay), or crazy stuff like the intro to PGs “Get Out Of My Yard”. I remember seeing Vai live during his “Sex & Religion” tour, and he did this whole little song with delays, had several guitars on stage, all hooked up to delays…

Now, other than just using a delay for a slapback-sound or some of that ambience-type delay, try to go extreme. Try to come up with riffs based on what the pedal does. Or, something that works with quite a few pedals like the Boss-delays or the new Satriani Time Machine Delay by Vox: turn up the feedback and then play with the delay time-knob… you can get some insane, crazy, and very inspiring sounds that way.

And that works for other pedals too! Take i.e. the Whammy Pedal. A lot of guys take that and just do the same thing they do with a whammy bar, like doing divebombs. But listen to i.e. the “chorus” of Joe Satriani’s “Searching”, or the chorus of Dave Martone’s “Four Horseman”, Bucketheads “King James” or Steve Vai’s “Touching Tongues”… where the whammy is used on just a few notes of a line, creating huge interval leaps and a crazy sound…very inspiring. You can do so much more with it too.

So whenever you get a new pedal, play around with it, dont stick with the recommendations in the manual, go wild and see what happens!

On the technical side: experiment with the placement of the pedal! Some pedals sound better in certain positions in the signal chain. A compressor is a good example… you wanna put that first into your signal chain. Or a Wah… there has been that age-long discussion on whether to put it before any distortion (thats what I do, too), or put it behind a fuzz/drive-pedal (I think thats what Zakk Wylde does, for example). Matter of taste, but you should try both. Some pedals even require a certain position to work… kinda. There are some fuzz pedals that need to be early in the signal chain, with no compressor or anything in front of it. Then again, some pedals sound even better with a compressor before it. So that is something you should try! There are some quite general guidelines like “compressor first”, or “delay and rvb into the loop”, but you can get some nice results by trying something different. As far as I know, Tom Morello puts (or used to) his Whammy pedal into the loop of his amp… I saw other guys do that too, while I would use it in front of the amp.

Effects are more than toys or little tools to make it sound “more puhrdy”… they can be musical tools that can help you to express yourself, achieve sounds you couldnt get any other way, inspire songs…
Of course, its not mandatory to use them… if you look at Derek Trucks, he plugs his guitar straight into the amp and thats that, but I recommend to try things out, experiment and you might just find something that gets you started on a new tune…