tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-341416792024-03-19T12:53:04.932-07:00I KNOW HOW THAT RABBIT FEELS...This space originally started as my mostly music-oriented blog, and so far it has been that, although I will post about other topics too. Me? I am an awesome, normal, regular working-guy-in-a-cubicle during the day and currently nighttime superhero, bassist extraordinaire for the Janeen Leah band! I'm also playing rhythm guitar for Rock band Cold Planet. Hear all about it from the rhythm guy's perspective! Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-40048848079104370222015-02-02T13:13:00.001-08:002015-02-02T13:13:09.601-08:00It's been fun!Hi all and welcome to 2015! It's really a shame that I haven't posted in a while. No worries though as I am still around! I should say that the period between August of 2012 and October/November 2014 was super fun. I got to play a lot of shows with both the Janeen Leah Band and Cold Planet. I grew as a musician and player, played many cool places with and for a lot of people, and forged many friendships. <br />
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As you may know, Janeen (of Janeen Leah Band - duh!), and Michael of *both* JLB and Cold Planet are a married couple. In December 2014, they moved to a great home in Grass Valley, CA. Great move, but making practice and playing Bay Area gigs a little bit harder than before! Both bands are still going with mostly no lineup changes, but gigs going forward will be less frequent.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Janeen Leah Band soundchecking at Blackbird Tavern in San Jose, CA on August 20, 2014</td></tr>
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<br />I miss playing with all my bandmates, but despair not my legions of fans! There will be a Janeen Leah Band show this coming Friday, February 6 at our "home base" The Bistro in Hayward. We haven't played together since October 2014, so it's really exciting. We have a brand new set list and I'm pretty excited to play. I still haven't' made up my mind as to which one of my main beauties I will play:<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1eHFZBO8WrMfX7IPnAmIv_KJX5iLIGGelo9roElm4NfxtuCcUsXspRPNMK7ZkCqtc-hQXJ-LqxZzPsEindhQqib3rimG_ucpfRHdX7_BFAMEOXj5yO0bEVFboiW_OWquUt5Cjw/s1600/AI_basses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1eHFZBO8WrMfX7IPnAmIv_KJX5iLIGGelo9roElm4NfxtuCcUsXspRPNMK7ZkCqtc-hQXJ-LqxZzPsEindhQqib3rimG_ucpfRHdX7_BFAMEOXj5yO0bEVFboiW_OWquUt5Cjw/s1600/AI_basses.jpg" height="200" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ibanez Roadstar II, or Fender Precision Lyte?</td></tr>
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<br />I'm leaning towards the Precision. I like the way the active pickups sound. I hope to see you Friday!<div>
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On the Cold Planet front, we are figuring out how to bring our high energy shows back very soon. Stay tuned!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cold Planet at The Bistro in Hayward, October 10, 2014</td></tr>
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<br />Pretty cool guitar I'm playing there, huh?</div>
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In the meantime, if anyone's up for a jam, let me know! :)<br /><div>
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Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-54309658430968028682014-06-01T23:56:00.001-07:002014-06-01T23:56:33.763-07:00I'm still alive!It's amazing how time flies! It dawned on me that it's almost been a year since I last posted! Not good, particularly since the lat months of 2013 were pretty active as far as playing gigs, etc.<br />
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I'll try to catch up as best as I can in the coming days. Topics may include: more live gigs, new friends, recording in the studio, "new" instruments/equipment and my usual musings about music, etc.<br />
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Needless to say, things are still going with the Janeen Leah Band and Cold Planet. Stay tuned for upcoming dates since I'm hoping for another amazing summer of playing for y'all. For now, this is my short update.<br />
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Stand by! :)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was taken yesterday (May 31, 2014) in San Lorenzo</td></tr>
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<br />Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-59353239851549231902013-08-08T13:52:00.001-07:002013-08-09T14:56:39.539-07:00Summer 2013 Sort Of Musical Update (Janeen Leah Band & Cold Planet)Hi all groovy guys, groovy girls! Here's a quick update of my musical endeavors of the past couple of months.<br />
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As I had hoped, I got to play several shows this summer, not only with the Janeen Leah Band, but also with rockers Cold Planet! I officially joined Cold Planet as rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist after the <a href="http://therushfan.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-janeen-leah-band-live-at-san.html" target="_blank">April 20, 2013</a> show at the Red Devil Lounge.</div>
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As a bit of background, I sort of joined an earlier version of Cold Planet a few years back as, get this... keyboard player and backup vocalist just as that particular project was being put on hold. Fast forward a couple of years later, the project was brought to life again and was asked to be a part of it. The revamp was major since only Michael Burke (guitar) and J.D. Chilton (bass) remained from the original band (former drummer Scott Acridge was on board earlier on, but decided to bow out shortly after the "relaunch" but not before playing a blistering set with the guys at the Red Devil Lounge!). The lineup was completed by lead vocalist Chris Zundel, Art Williams on drums and yours truly on guitar and backing vocals. Michael also sings backup. Yes, your keen sense of observation is correct! 3/5 of the Janeen Leah Band also make up 3/5 of Cold Planet; which works out great when we're both on the same bill!. After very little in the way of practice time, we took it to the road and such road has taken us to several Bay Area cities such as Hayward, Oakland, San Francisco, Alameda and Danville to name a few. I hope as many of my loyal readers (ha!) can come see the band at one of our upcoming shows. The band's website is <a href="http://www.coldplanetmusic.com/">www.coldplanetmusic.com</a> . And there is also a fun <a href="https://www.facebook.com/coldplanetmusic" target="_blank">Facebook</a> page!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cold Planet Rocking it at The Stork Club in Oakland on July 17, 2013</td></tr>
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For your viewing and listening pleasure, here's a video of Cold Planet performing a scorching version of the blazing original "Mercy Me" at <a href="http://www.storkcluboakland.com/" target="_blank">The Stork Club</a> in Oakland on July 17, 2013. Of note is that as awesome as this performance was, the occasion marked <b><u>the very first time</u></b> that this lineup took the stage! Can you believe that?! You can't see me too well, but I'm there! :)<br />
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The <a href="http://www.janeenleah.com/" target="_blank">Janeen Leah</a> Band has also been tearing it down all over the place this summer! We've played a variety of shows including acoustic solo Janeen, almost-acoustic shows with Janeen, Michael, Mike and me, partial band shows and full band shows. We have added new songs to our repertoire including originals and covers and sound tighter than ever!<br />
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We were part of a California tour with excellent Scottish artist <a href="http://www.scottcowie.com/" target="_blank">Scott Cowie</a>. The tour also took Janeen and Scott to Southern California for a series of successful shows. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/scowiemusic?ref=nf" target="_blank">Scott</a> is an excellent guitarist/singer/songwriter and it was great to meet him and share the bill with him (btw, there was no hidden track on my CD Scott! :)<br />
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By the way, if you want to see a whole bunch of pictures and videos of the tour, plus pictures and videos of most shows be it solo, full band or collaborations, be sure to "LIKE" <a href="https://www.facebook.com/janeenleah" target="_blank">Janeen Leah in Facebook</a>!</div>
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In addition to Scott, we have also made more new friends including San Jose band <a href="http://sweethayah.com/" target="_blank">Sweet HayaH</a> with whom we've played a number of shows. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sweethayah" target="_blank">Sweet HayaH</a> is made up of four wonderful, talented musicians and human beings: Nehal Abuelata (vocals & keyboards), Aaron Marquez (super massive bassist), Devin Moreno (lefty guitarist dude & vocals), and Josh Gardner (drums, gongs and vocals). <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/sweethayah" target="_blank">Sweet HayaH</a> are well on their way to making it big and I so totally encourage you to check them out!</div>
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Last Friday night (8/2), we played another gig at the venerable <a href="http://www.the-bistro.com/" target="_blank">Bistro in Hayward</a>. This was the first time we played with no other band(s) on the bill, and it made for an exciting evening. Janeen and Art kicked things off with a short acoustic set, and then we brought the house down with the whole band. Many friends (including Eric, Kelly, Yasmine, and many more!) came to see us and the crowd was hot! Here's a picture from that night:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Janeen Leah Band at The Bistro in Hayward, Friday August 2, 2013</td></tr>
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I will leave you with a video of the Janeen Leah Band playing fan favorite "Like A Fool" at Alameda's High Street Station Cafe during the Janeen/Scott Cowie tour. Mike could not make it to this particular show, so we went at it as a four-piece. To me this was very interesting because almost one year ago, we played the same venue for the first time as a band. It was an early band gig and Mike had not joined yet. It was also my second or third time playing in public since my decade and a half break from playing music. There is video of us playing this song back then also (<a href="http://youtu.be/FLF2pEs2tqc" target="_blank">I'm sure you can find it if you want to watch it</a>! :) ).<br />
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So now I'm a bassist AND guitarist! Go figure! It's been a fun, great, interesting ride so far to say the least!</div>
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Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-56105146032936007492013-05-02T13:25:00.000-07:002013-05-02T13:30:30.744-07:00More Videos and Pictures from Janeen Leah Band's show at Red Devil Lounge, San Francisco, April 20, 2013!Not much to add to the title, here is another picture of the band in action:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU8YpEXeWvpBdJ41GlSrVo4NFbO0pahiiLeDAZ5q7lqKJNZJ_V9g3uEkle_WBAtvNpekmJe_oOJFUmcagw2wS6P7CsTWfURO_VP_dzm276yacND8iNEIcSc64wOBEMU9sjCfIniA/s1600/Janeen_Leah_Band_Apr2013_SF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU8YpEXeWvpBdJ41GlSrVo4NFbO0pahiiLeDAZ5q7lqKJNZJ_V9g3uEkle_WBAtvNpekmJe_oOJFUmcagw2wS6P7CsTWfURO_VP_dzm276yacND8iNEIcSc64wOBEMU9sjCfIniA/s400/Janeen_Leah_Band_Apr2013_SF.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Left to right: Me, Mike Garza, Janeen, Art, Michael Burke</td></tr>
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Man! My rare short-sleeve appearances are becoming less rare!</div>
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Here are a couple more videos. This next one is the great quasi-Waltz-like tune "Like A Fool":</div>
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And here is the tour de force "Rainy Day". I really love it how Art Williams kills it on drums, particularly around the 3:43 mark!</div>
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Next stop: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/165265346968048/" target="_blank">May 24th, 2013 at the High Street Station</a> in Alameda, CA. Sharing the bill will be Cold Planet with an acoustic set (watch out since I may sit with the band!), and none other than acoustic bluesman <a href="https://www.facebook.com/13enjamin13rown" target="_blank">Ben Brown</a>! My old jamming buddy from the Plough And Stars Irish Pub! Come for a nice evening full of great folks, food and music!</div>
<br />Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-64975526417063733042013-04-21T23:35:00.001-07:002013-04-22T00:05:30.935-07:00The Janeen Leah Band Live at San Francisco's Red Devil Lounge, April 20, 2013The <a href="http://www.janeenleah.com/" target="_blank">Janeen Leah</a> band made its triumphant return to San Francisco's legendary and esteemed club <a href="http://www.reddevillounge.com/the-venue/" target="_blank">Red Devil Lounge</a> on Saturday, April 20, 2013! Last time we played there was back in November 2012 shortly after Thanksgiving.<br />
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Bay Bridge traffic was horrible, so we were a little late for set up, but early enough where we got the equipment set up just fine. This show also marked the debut of <a href="http://coldplanetmusic.com/home.html" target="_blank">Cold Planet</a>'s new singer Chris (after an acoustic teaser at The Bistro in Hayward a few weeks ago). Cold Planet is Michael Burke's high energy Rock band. Michael plays in Janeen's band as well. Since Cold Planet went first and Janeen second, we were able to share some of the equipment, including my trusty old Peavy TKO bass amp:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My old, trusty Peavey TKO, who sleeps no longer!</td></tr>
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One thing that was different this time than in November is that Jacob, the Red Devil Lounge's sound guy miked the amps instead of cabling them directly to the PA system. I think, at least in my case, the bass sounded better in November than this time around.</div>
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Cold Planet played a blistering opening set. Here's a picture I took of the band in action (Videos from this performance can be found <a href="http://coldplanetmusic.com/home.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>):</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6dk0X0bggieP5uzp4THN6NzxBhsEpHc9ksxgUCXZ2bwIY014JdvJFRBfwWD99plnZG-XDZc3x8jDmsXgG0ZAMcHajM9WvxanOfKZX0hbcNbngKiv5Ag2T8rRT1JFgMaD_AwWZRA/s1600/Cold_Planet_20Apr13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6dk0X0bggieP5uzp4THN6NzxBhsEpHc9ksxgUCXZ2bwIY014JdvJFRBfwWD99plnZG-XDZc3x8jDmsXgG0ZAMcHajM9WvxanOfKZX0hbcNbngKiv5Ag2T8rRT1JFgMaD_AwWZRA/s400/Cold_Planet_20Apr13.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L-R: JD (bs), Chris (voice), Scott (dr) & Michael (gtr)</td></tr>
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After the opening set, Janeen and band took the stage. My fingers were cold! I should have warmed up a little while waiting for the set to begin. We played a great, fun set, if a little too short. My fingers were beginning to warm up when the set was over! The crowd was great and some got up to dance! This show marked the San Francisco debut of an unreleased Janeen song called "If You Love Someone". I really enjoy playing this song since I came up with a really cool bass line for it. Here's a video of the performance. Too bad the bass is pretty much inaudible, but it's a great song. I hope I get to properly record it someday:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JMYsHWZ6Ytw" width="420"></iframe></div>
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The show also marked the San Francisco debut of the full band performance of Muse's "Super Massive Black Hole". Again, I think I have a pretty cool bass run at one point during the song, but you can't really hear it:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/b5XIfEeSChI" width="420"></iframe></div>
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I think I speak for all - Janeen, Michael, Art, Mike and yours truly - when I say that we had a blast performing at The Red Devil Lounge. The weather is getting warmer and summertime is looming. We hope that along with the great weather, summer brings many opportunities to play for as many people as possible! </div>
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Have you been at a <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/janeenleah" target="_blank">Janeen Leah</a> band performance? Where else would you like us to play?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJ8meu7d5CtxweShw77emtqFmRJyDaYwUTvRLPYs6XrdJoA6V7Eu5_EzEVV4y_oGY_cBRXNTCQna5AjUrhufn_x31mtyXLKdI_YeSTRGAK271qh77ORivzcpmzFwt_8rtrYBWmw/s1600/387254_10151452162099302_1126730027_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNJ8meu7d5CtxweShw77emtqFmRJyDaYwUTvRLPYs6XrdJoA6V7Eu5_EzEVV4y_oGY_cBRXNTCQna5AjUrhufn_x31mtyXLKdI_YeSTRGAK271qh77ORivzcpmzFwt_8rtrYBWmw/s400/387254_10151452162099302_1126730027_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L-R: Alfredo (bs), Mike (gtr), Janeen (voice), Art (dr) & Michael (gtr)</td></tr>
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<br />Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-51301142150918298702013-04-14T23:22:00.001-07:002013-04-21T20:20:20.211-07:00Adventures of a 1968 lefty Fender Stratocaster Reissue (Part 3 - Epilogue)Last time I wrote about about my lefty Strat, I had decided to leave it as is and sell it. That was my intent and came really close one time, but unfortunately, the guy had to back out of the sale (nice guy). I looked into a couple of ways of selling it, but didn't go beyond that and the guitar stayed in its case all these months.<br />
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About a month ago, I finally decided to get rid of it, so I took it out to clean it up and see how the strings were holding up. I plugged it in, and man! What a sweet sound it has! I hooked up my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uni-Vibe" target="_blank">Uni-Vibe</a> pedal and started noodling with it, not really playing anything because I am not ambidextrous! At that point I changed my mind. I had to keep it and play it! There is a place close to where I work called <a href="http://sjrockshop.com/" target="_blank">San Jose Rock Shop</a>, which is really a cool place, so I took it there to see about the bridge, nut and strings. They did a great job. Very thorough and uber professional for a very reasonable price! When I brought it back home... wow! It played like a dream. Very smooth, like buttah!<br />
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The positioning of the cable and knobs is taking a little getting used to, but it's not so bad since I don't move around a lot when I play. It sounds great.<br />
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Back in December, I got me an Ibanez GRG120BDX for Christmas. It is a really awesome guitar that feels and sounds great and is really easy to play (Wizard neck?)! I may have joined a band as a rhythm guitarist, so if that happens, the Ibanez will be the one I take with me to gigs and use as my workhorse, but last week I took the Strat to practice and it sounded really great!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuM8n1hcG1bffRlJAXVRMsiYk0iinFphyphenhyphenGifLjPGeoIcPcKmhKYzlmBtHvdARgxC32tJGQBTuPKnhOVW2SaU3KJpOaDWTlCI_AC-Po01UeS-Ou0cW5NOHMxrPN-Q2pw8bQW3KxdA/s1600/09Apr13_Lefty_and_Wrath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuM8n1hcG1bffRlJAXVRMsiYk0iinFphyphenhyphenGifLjPGeoIcPcKmhKYzlmBtHvdARgxC32tJGQBTuPKnhOVW2SaU3KJpOaDWTlCI_AC-Po01UeS-Ou0cW5NOHMxrPN-Q2pw8bQW3KxdA/s640/09Apr13_Lefty_and_Wrath.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Lefty" and "Wrath"</td></tr>
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I've been playing the Strat a lot (considering the very little free time I have) and subjecting my poor family to interesting versions of Robin Trower songs!<br />
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Here's me taking a break from doing taxes on Saturday, April 13. In order to just not post an old boring picture, I used a Photoshop 5.0 preset to touch it up!<br />
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So there it is! Right or wrong I followed my muse and now have a very nice looking and sounding 1968 replica Fender Stratocaster! Yay!Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-2419551056379323422013-04-09T13:10:00.000-07:002013-04-09T13:24:33.740-07:00Back to The Bistro – GREAT Gig, But Boy! What a Trip to Get There!<br />
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I suppose it all started as far back as Thursday afternoon, March 28. The <a href="http://janeenleah.com/" target="_blank">Janeen Leah</a> Band was all set and ready to play a show in Modesto on Friday, March 29 at Theater 417. I was excited since I’d never been to Modesto before (and it seems everyone else has). I was as excited about going as I was way back in the day when my friend Vic and I finally made it to Alviso one day! (inside joke). To make a sort of long story short, there was no gig and it was postponed. There is still hope, so fret not Modesto fans! We'll be there before you know it!<br />
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After the bad news of not playing in Modesto, our efforts were fully focused on our next gig – a return engagement at <a href="http://www.the-bistro.com/" target="_blank">The Bistro</a> in Hayward on Saturday April 6. We played there back in November 2012 and it was a very enjoyable show. For me, it was all planned out. I was going to have a little practice of my own on Friday night to tighten up some bass parts, and then on Saturday I was going to buy a shirt for the gig (decided not to wear the Van Halen t-shirt again!). The gig was a double-header with Michael’s band <a href="http://coldplanetmusic.com/home.html" target="_blank">Cold Planet</a>, featuring Chris, their brand new singer.<br />
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We found out on Thursday afternoon (4/5) that due to a scheduling hiccup, the show was going to take place on Friday and not Saturday. Consequently Mike was not going to be able to make it, and none of the Cold Planet guys (with the exception of Michael) were going to be there either. Michael, Art and I decided to resurrect “The Art Williams Experience” (he still doesn’t like the name, but he won’t read this, so it’s OK) and do a set. After our regularly scheduled practice on Thursday evening (minus Mike since he wasn’t going to be able to make it to the show), the three of us quickly ran through a quickly made-up set of 3 originals and 3 standards.<br />
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So Friday came. I took the bus home from work and it took me a while in Friday night traffic since I work in San Jose. I had just enough time to have a quick dinner, load up the equipment in the car, get ready a bit and head over to the gig. The <a href="http://www.ci.hayward.ca.us/" target="_blank">City of Hayward</a> has recently changed the direction of some of its <a href="http://www.haywardloop.org/" target="_blank">downtown streets</a>, and I think it’s an improvement, but can get a bit confusing. I drove aimlessly for a few minutes trying to find a good spot but ended up parking two blocks away, which is no big deal, just that I had to carry my amp, bass, cords, etc. uphill for two blocks. Janeen, Michael and Art were already there. Looks like Michael had a scary choking incident as they were getting ready to leave. Fortunately, he was all better and ready to go, if a bit shaken up. They almost went the wrong way on a busy downtown street, and although they found a good parking spot, there was some police/fire activity going on near the entrance.<br />
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We had also found out that Mike was going to make it after all, which was some awesome news. Also, Chris, Cold Planet’s new singer, was there also. "The Art Williams Experience" took the stage at the scheduled time and we went through our six-song set. It was pretty good considering the amount of preparation we had (none). There wasn't a lot of people, but it was funny (to me at least) when about a third of the folks there got up and left in the middle of our set. It looked like they were all together and had to go, so I’m sure it wasn't because we sucked or anything; it just looked funny. I decided to explore with varying degrees of success some different bass runs for future reference.<br />
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After The Art Williams Experience, Michael and Chris took the stage for an acoustic preview of the rebirth of Cold Planet, Mark III (see if you get that reference!). They played a cool three-song set. I’m looking forward to Cold Planet’s upcoming show on April 20.<br />
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Then it was showtime baby! Mike got there with basically no time to spare. Janeen and Art warmed up the crowd by playing a song as Mike set up. Since I was standing up there already, I very quietly noodled on the bass since I hadn't played the song before. We got things started strong as always with Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”. In the middle of the song, this guy stands at the doorway of The Bistro and starts screaming “THAT IS NOT YOUR SONG!!!! <b>THAT IS <u>NOT</u> YOUR SONG!!!!</b>” Dude was pretty upset about it. We kept on playing like the seasoned, grizzled road dogs that we are, and the bartender quickly got him the heck out anyway. I think he thinks he wrote the song or something. We saw him later having a great time outside!<br />
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After this it was all smooth sailing. We hadn't played together in over a week, but it was all good. I even broke out some backing vocals to the delight of the audience – well, at least to the delight of two people in the audience (who told me so) – since the extra mike was there from Cold Planet’s acoustic set. The downtown Hayward Friday night wanderers came in after seeing/listening to the band from outside, and we packed the place up. As the show progressed, people were dancing, smiling, having a good time and the band was having a blast as well. After our closing number (a world premiere!) we got some very generous, enthusiastic applause and “ENCORE! ENCORE!!” calls.<br />
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We were all happy, and it was the perfect ending to a couple of difficult days.<br />
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Chris was nice enough to take pictures and record some video. When Janeen went to upload it, <b>THE COMPUTER WIPED OUT ALL THE FILES!!!</b> Unbelievable!<br />
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This short clip, uploaded by Janeen, is the only existing footage of that awesome evening!<br />
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<a href="https://vine.co/v/bTvUTA0MXHg">https://vine.co/v/bTvUTA0MXHg</a><br />
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Janeen Leah's next show: Saturday April 20, 2013 at the Red Devil Lounge, San Francisco. Get your tickets early here: <a href="https://tickets.aftonshows.com/janeenleah">https://tickets.aftonshows.com/janeenleah</a><br />
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Now that the weather is getting nicer, where would you like to see us play?Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-88630496328498354192013-02-07T13:08:00.000-08:002013-04-21T20:22:56.205-07:00Playing music now? This is how it all began… again!<br />
Here’s to a happy and prosperous 2013! In many ways, 2012 sucked, but some really cool things happened too. One of them was that now, in my old age, I started playing music again, and the fact that I’m playing bass (my instrument of choice) makes it even better! So far it has been great and I’m having a blast.<br />
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So, it all started last summer when I decided to bring my electric guitar and bass out of the garage and into my house after many years. Shortly after that, singer/guitarist/composer <a href="http://www.janeenleah.com/" target="_blank">Janeen Leah</a> put out the word through a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/janeenleah" target="_blank">Facebook</a> ad that she needed a bass player to complete her performing band line-up along with a VERY enthusiastic announcement that she had found a lead guitar player and a drummer. I've known Janeen and her family for a few years and was already a fan of her music. Her family is great people too. I thought it was pretty cool that she had a CD out, and had also gone to India to record another one. I replied to the ad and after a brief, written interview, she graciously invited me to audition by jamming with the rest of her band at the time – guitarist Michael Burke and drummer Art Williams.<br />
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I was definitely rusty. After all, the last time I had played with any sort of regularity had been in the mid 1990’s. Maybe I was just self-conscious, but I felt that my first forays into non-Heavy Rock bass-dom with the band during rehearsal were less than stellar, but was at least getting things going rhythmically speaking. I also kept waiting for another enthusiastic announcement “hey! I found my bass player!”, but it wasn't coming.<br />
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It wasn't long after those first rehearsals that the first band gig was announced. August 11, 2012 at <a href="http://www.theploughandstars.com/" target="_blank">The Plough and Stars Irish Pub</a> in San Francisco sharing the bill with Acoustic Blues singer/guitarist <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/benjaminbrown" target="_blank">Ben Brown</a> (check his stuff out, it’s great!). The day came and I was excited baby! Janeen played an acoustic set first since the band only had like 4 songs at the time. The time came to go onstage and WHOA!! I was totally thrown off in many levels. Let me explain: During rehearsal, musicians and equipment are placed in a certain way in the rehearsal room. After my long musical lay off, that environment during rehearsals is what I clung to – the sound, the cues, “the smells”, etc. – and suddenly it wasn't like that. Although the feedback I got was that overall, the set sounded good (maybe folks were just being nice to me), I played bum notes and missed cues. Not that I was really nervous or freaking out, just thrown off. After Ben’s set, the band went onstage with him and we played a Blues jam. The familiarity with Blues chord progressions put me more at ease and I had a great time jamming with Ben, Michael and Art. I think at that particular point as my fingers began to intuitively move around the bass neck again during the jam session, was when I felt that I started to get my mojo back!<br />
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The next gig came very soon: August 17, 2012 at the <a href="http://www.highstreetstationcafe.com/" target="_blank">High Street Station Café</a> in Alameda, CA. On the bill were <a href="http://www.brianmcginty.com/fr_home.cfm" target="_blank">Brian McGinty</a> (an old bandmate of Michael) and a James Taylor-sound alike guy named Steve Krause. I was better rehearsed and thought the songs the band played sounded great. I was still a tiny bit spooked by the memory of being musically thrown off during that first gig, but soldiered through it. A few days later, on August 26, we played a set in the benefit festival <a href="http://www.musicdaybythebay.org/" target="_blank">Music Day by the Bay</a> (my first outdoor festival! Now I know how the Woodstock participants must have felt - minus the brown acid of course), and I think the band sounded even better than in Alameda!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laying down the bass in Alameda</td></tr>
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Shortly after these gigs, after one of the rehearsals, I asked Janeen if I had passed the audition, and she said yes, definitely! Hey, I had to know, right!<br />
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After those early gigs, guitarist Michael Garza joined the band, and keyboardist <a href="http://www.numberonemusic.com/robertscottstanton/" target="_blank">Robert Scott Stanton</a> joined for a couple of San Francisco gigs at <a href="http://50masonsocialhouse.com/" target="_blank">50 Mason Social House</a> and <a href="http://www.reddevillounge.com/" target="_blank">The Red Devil Lounge</a>. We’ve been bringing down the house it during live performances and I am having the time of my life playing with the Janeen Leah Band! I think the band sounds great and has great chemistry. Janeen, Mike, Art and Michael are superb musicians. I am very fortunate to be playing with and learning from them. I am a big fan of them all. It's really a treat to hear them play every week.<br />
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So, that’s how it got started again. I am meeting great people and other great musicians as well. I feel like I continue to get my chops back and enjoy coming up with cool bass lines to complement Janeen’s compositions plus other tunes we play. So thank you Janeen for letting me do something I am passionate about and allowing me to contribute!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rocking it out at Hayward's The Bistro on January 4, 2013</td></tr>
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Next time I’ll hopefully write about another project that is starting to get off the ground, The Art Williams Experience!! Actually it’s not what it’s called and Art would have a fit if he found out I called it that, but hey! He has no computer so; we’ll call it that for now!<br />
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What do you think? We'd love to come out and play for you! Your help finding gigs would be awesome.<br />
<br />Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-51557906920119255262012-08-09T18:47:00.000-07:002012-08-09T20:28:06.208-07:00Adventures of a 1968 lefty Fender Stratocaster Reissue (Part 2 - the final chapter!?)Well, it took me long enough! :) Well, to the point. <a href="http://therushfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/music-store-repair-shop-adventures-of.html" target="_blank">After my last post</a>, I spoke to several people whom I consider experts in the matter, including a luthier, a guitar manufacturing guy, a guitar sales guy and someone from another shop. A good friend of mine also helped me with the research and was basically told the same thing by the folks he spoke to: that the guitar should be left untouched.<br />
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I really tried to find reasons to keep it, but unless I learn to play left handed, it's probably best that the guitar goes to someone who will play it and enjoy it (and who can play left-handed as well!).<br />
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I still think the two guys I spoke to originally were pretty sneaky and dismissive. True, they didn't have to be helpful since they're in the business of making money, but I think there's more to being a business person than that. A few days after my original experience, I talked to a very reputable luthier in the area, and he in essence told me the same thing as the other guys. The difference was that he actually took the time (about 20 minutes of his time) to explain to me why the modifications I wanted to make were more complicated than what I had thought, and he also went into detail on what it would take to make it work (at a significant expense) but basically, unless one's making a living playing in a Hendrix tribute band or something, in the end it's best just to leave the guitars as they are. He explained things to me very clearly and in terms I could understand. He didn't get any business from me at the time, but who do you think I will think of when I have guitar repair needs or when I am in the position of recommending someone? There were other people to whom I spoke who were very nice and respectful. They offered their respective services and depending on how this goes, I will definitely take them up on it. However, I still won't be going to that original shop anymore!<br />
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There were some happy things that came out of this experience. First, since I was itching to play, I went to the dark depths of my garage to retrieve an old Ibanez Electric I got back in the early 90's and that had sat, neglected for years! I cleaned it up as best as I could, got new strings and now I have a wonderful-sounding electric guitar again! Very soon, I will be taking it in for a nice guitar tune-up, and guess where I'll take it? I also went and retrieved my old bass from a closet, wiped it clean, got new strings and got into playing it again! I also have a nice Ibanez acoustic guitar that needs some repairs, so I'll be dealing with that, hopefully very soon. <br />
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Even though I'm still a little rusty, my bass playing apparently was good enough where I think I may have <a href="https://www.facebook.com/janeenleah" target="_blank">joined</a> a <a href="http://www.janeenleah.com/" target="_blank">band</a>! (we've been rehearsing once a week for about a month, and I * think * I got the job).<br />
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So all's well and I hope the lefty Strat finds a good home. In the meantime, it'll be here, safe with me! :)<br />
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Pics of my axes will be coming up soon.<br />
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So, what do you think? Do you think I'm doing the right thing? Any further advice? Also, check out the band links and tell me what you think (it's not me in the recordings obviously), but we'll be playing some shows soon <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/261491373960879/" target="_blank">starting this coming Saturday</a>. Pretty exciting!<br />
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<br />Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-42698436923235836912012-06-05T13:04:00.000-07:002012-06-05T13:04:20.626-07:00Music Store / Repair Shop Adventures of a 1968 lefty Fender Stratocaster Reissue (Part 1)A short while ago, I got this beautiful 1968 Strat reissue (made in Japan, 1993). Very nice lefty guitar. Thing is, I'm a right-handed player. No matter though. I can just restring it, flip it and play upside down. I'm certainly no Hendrix, but Hendrix did it (well, he played right-handed guitars upside down). I'm perfectly aware about design issues, pickups, necks, knobs, pickguard etc. Being mainly a finger-style bass player and acoustic guitar player, it actually quite works (playing a lefty upside down) given the way I play. I just need a couple of adjustments made to the bridge and the nut. I don't need any high precision adjustments, just enough to make the guitar more comfortable and playable. I'm not gigging or anything, and just play casually at home. Slam dunk, right?<br />
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I've been a customer of Music Unlimited in San Leandro in the past and had been very happy with their service. They were very helpful the times I visited, so it was the first place I considered going to. I went in and showed it to one of the guys there. This guy at first feigned ignorance about my guitar and suggested that it might be a fake even after I told him exactly what it was. He gave the impression at first that they just didn't want to do the work as he was presenting obstacle after obstacle to try and talk me out of it. He then said to wait for another other guy. After the other guy said my guitar was "a real Fender" and after I told him what I wanted done, he, instead of working with me, started asking me how much I had paid for it, what kind of investment I had on the guitar, and if it had any sentimental value to me. Then both of them mercilessly tried to get me to instead trade it in for another guitar (any guitar! even the low-end Squiers and unknown brand guitars!) on the spot while offering me a ridiculously and insultingly low trade-in price. When I finally asked them if they could just do what I originally asked, they were very dismissive and not encouraging at all. It was clear to me that they didn't want my business. They just ignored me after I told them I didn't want to trade my guitar in. I didn't even feel like returning to buy strings!<br />
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It was a very unfortunate experience because one wants to support small / independent business, but those guys just made me want to stick to the Guitar Center instead (not a knock on Guitar Center mind you).<br />
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So now I'm actively looking for a local place where I can take my guitar. Hopefully "Part 2" is going to be the happy ending of the saga of the bridge and nut!<br />
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Have you ever been treated like that before? Have you been in a similar situation to mine? Any advice?<br />
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Here's a not-so-good picture of a great guitar:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh21MFE_b1mzXaGpI0Djfv6wVFwJcYhkJPGLTt8FUxbzAFLk9akIdCzv1aLTFebw_HN7Vhz9vYiV3I3v4T0UdejFNuPuXr-8IzNVpl_9ttSmDUTft7hVcnTcJUbTAn8XxthZXEAGw/s1600/1968_fender_strat_reissue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh21MFE_b1mzXaGpI0Djfv6wVFwJcYhkJPGLTt8FUxbzAFLk9akIdCzv1aLTFebw_HN7Vhz9vYiV3I3v4T0UdejFNuPuXr-8IzNVpl_9ttSmDUTft7hVcnTcJUbTAn8XxthZXEAGw/s320/1968_fender_strat_reissue.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-13079821581677275762012-04-27T13:08:00.000-07:002013-02-07T22:30:07.149-08:00Why I like (what I like of) Bob Dylan<br />
News just came out that <a href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/bob-dylan-and-toni-morrison-to-receive-presidential-medal-of-freedom/" target="_blank">Bob Dyan will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom</a> - The Nation's highest civilian honor, along with Shimon Peres, Toni Morrison, John Glenn, Madeline Albright and eight others. it's quite an honor, and Bob's musical longevity and influence are certainly deserving of such an honor.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GeLyIKBrkmGukDrktQ31sPNgl1nmTiEJYT2bB1ylYn3rIJCeHsczebz5WnVoxyRSbK4-d53cLOgisI71czjD_sFzgzRggsY6IclLbo_GI4VyZwq2DrmSBZMMf9y3iC8N_BL6Jg/s1600/Bob-Dylan-music.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GeLyIKBrkmGukDrktQ31sPNgl1nmTiEJYT2bB1ylYn3rIJCeHsczebz5WnVoxyRSbK4-d53cLOgisI71czjD_sFzgzRggsY6IclLbo_GI4VyZwq2DrmSBZMMf9y3iC8N_BL6Jg/s320/Bob-Dylan-music.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
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I really, thoroughly enjoy a portion of Bob Dylan's catalogue, so I thought I'd write how I "discovered" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan" target="_blank">Bob Dylan</a>, and about why I think I like what I like of Bob Dylan. I've known about Bob since I was about 12 because I read that The Beatles were anxious to meet him and that were jealous that his audiences were silent while he performed so they could listen to his every word, while The Beatles couldn't even hear themselves from all the screaming. At that point I guess I made a mental note that I should seek out his recordings, but it would take another couple of years.<br />
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At about 14 years of age, I checked out <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bringing_It_All_Back_Home" target="_blank">Bringing It All Back Home</a></i> and <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Side_of_Bob_Dylan" target="_blank">Another Side of Bob Dylan</a></i> from the <a href="http://www.sjpl.org/pearlavenue" target="_blank">local library</a>. Since I've always been more drawn to sparser musical arrangments, I liked Another Side a little better, but what called my attention more than anything at first were the liner notes to <i>Bringing It All Back Home</i>. I realized then that this guy was a serious wordsmith and became a fan. As a 14-year old who was learning English, listening to Bob's tunes and trying to learn and make sense of the lyrics was a frustrating and rewarding experience at the same time! No one in my family could stand his voice and repetiveness, and my dad would ask me why was Bob angry and who he was scolding! :) <br />
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When I was about 16, I had a job, and a little money to spend. Near the bus stop near my work, there was a used bookstore called Recycle Bookstore, and in addition to used books, they sold used records. I would go there after work to browse books, read a little and check out the records. I bought the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan%27s_Greatest_Hits" target="_blank">Greatest Hits</a> album and loved it! Shortly afterwards, I got the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan%27s_Greatest_Hits_Vol._II" target="_blank">second Greatest Hits</a> double LP, and loved it as well!<br />
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As an aside, I should say that most of the records I got as a teen, I got from Recycle Bookstore and cost between $1 and $3. My parents still think that I must have spent a fortune there, but I actually didn't!<br />
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Anyway, I then saw the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Flood" target="_blank">Before The Flood</a></i> live double LP Bob did with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Band" target="_blank">The Band</a>. I was a much bigger fan of live recordings back then, so I bought it and was looking very much forward to be amazed by his live renditions. Well, I didn't really like it that much. I enjoyed his acoustic tunes more than the others, but overall, I was somewhat disappointed with that album. At least I had my greatest hits albums, and the tapes I'd made with the albums I checked out from the library. I never really got The Band, but that's another story. <br />
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Shortly after that, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_Wilburys" target="_blank">The Traveling Wilburys</a> came out and enjoyed their recordings very much. I subsequently got <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan#Highway_61_Revisited_and_Blonde_on_Blonde" target="_blank"><i>Blonde on Blonde</i> and <i>Highway 61 Revisited</i></a>. I also got a tape of the album <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidels" target="_blank">Infidels</a> </i>(for free), but couldn't get into it for some reason at that time (maybe it's time to revisit it!). Whenever I listened to Bob, I always ended up going to the Greatest Hits and his early acoustic stuff.<br />
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Fast forward to many, many years later. In 2010, it was announced that an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Original_Mono_Recordings" target="_blank">8-CD mono recordings box set</a> would come out. When I found out, my interest was rekindled. The box had his first eight albums in mono (self-titled through <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Harding_(album)" target="_blank">John Wesley Harding</a></i>). I was happy that the box set definitely included the albums I liked and was familiar with. I got the CD version that came with a live bonus disc that had some songs from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Concert_-_Brandeis_University_1963" target="_blank">1963 concert</a>! Right up my alley! The biggest revelation for me was listening to <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freewheelin%27_Bob_Dylan" target="_blank">The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan</a></i> complete for the first time. I was mesmerized, particularly by the first half. I listened to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan_(album)" target="_blank">self-titled album</a> and <i>John Wesley Harding</i> for the first time as well. The fact that the set came with a complimetary download of the whole thing in MP3, made it even easier to listen to this on the go! Freewheelin' is one of my favorite albums ever!<br />
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I also managed to get a few other CDs with live tunes from the early '60s, AND in one fell swoop, I got (very cheaply I should add!) <u>all</u> the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bootleg_Series" target="_blank">Bootleg Series</a> volumes. Now, as of now, for the Bootleg Series, the only ones I've really listened to are the concerts from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bootleg_Series_Vol._6:_Bob_Dylan_Live_1964,_Concert_at_Philharmonic_Hall" target="_blank">1964</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bootleg_Series_Vol._4:_Bob_Dylan_Live_1966,_The_%22Royal_Albert_Hall%22_Concert" target="_blank">1966</a>. I'm hoping to listen to the rest and hopefully enjoy other eras of Bob's long musical history at some point in the future.<br />
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To wrap things up, I was really wondering why I like the early acoustic stuff so much. Maybe it's because Dylan was not much older than I was when he wrote those songs and I could relate to them to an extent? Also, maybe it was because his lyrics were a big part in my development as I learned the English language, and also because of my affinity, as I mentioned before, to sparser musical arrangments (it can't get much more sparse than guitar, vocals and harmonica).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjspnJxQbE-WwUeprwnH59kLjYqF2baxQxl2Pmllcl9Gc9TqDvNH6pSYpvUanNSSRFhoMOHMdSFDh5XmQ4EQEPzg2PNZ21ygAC5Y3pzPGulPzR0W2ycfknz3tcbA5CyfASW5Q6G5A/s1600/dylan_cant_sing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjspnJxQbE-WwUeprwnH59kLjYqF2baxQxl2Pmllcl9Gc9TqDvNH6pSYpvUanNSSRFhoMOHMdSFDh5XmQ4EQEPzg2PNZ21ygAC5Y3pzPGulPzR0W2ycfknz3tcbA5CyfASW5Q6G5A/s1600/dylan_cant_sing.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Indeed!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yay! Zimmie!</span></div>
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What do you think? Do you like/dislike Bob Dylan's music? What do you like/dislike about his music? What other albums of his do you recommend? What do you think are highlights from The Bootleg Series?<br />
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See you next time!Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-31064601556828752772012-03-31T23:53:00.006-07:002012-04-03T11:58:48.624-07:00Your music secrets - Do you want others to know or not?The first time I heard U2 was around early 1984 when I was a little kid. The song was "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Day_(song)" target="_blank">New Year's Day</a>" from the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(U2_album)" target="_blank">War</a></i> album. It is a great tune and not only did I think the bass line was awesome, it was easy enough for me to play. I don't exactly remember where I heard the song for the first time, or who introduced the band to me, but I had a 90 minute tape with <i>War</i> on one side and the earlier album <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_(album)" target="_blank">October</a></i> on the other. The sparse instrumentation in those two albums was simple, awesome and easy to break down. I liked U2 and I told all my friends about them. Nowadays you say "U2" and everyone pretty much knows you're talking about the band, but back then, the word "U2" wasn't part of world vernacular, none of my friends had heard of them and would give me really annoying and predictable responses when I mentioned the band's name:<br />
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Me: "Hey, there's this band called U2, they're really cool!"<br />
Other kid: "What's the name of the band?"<br />
Me: "U2"<br />
Other kid: "U2? Me too! Hahahaha!"<br />
Me: (sigh)<br />
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I liked U2 a lot and was really happy that, among my circles at least, no one had heard of them, but I did know about them, and felt really good about knowing about a band that I felt was going places, when no one else did. It was a fun feeling and I would have loved for things to stay that way.<br />
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In a matter of months, the album <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unforgettable_Fire" target="_blank">The Unforgettable Fire</a></i> came out and the band started to get mainstream notoriety with the song "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_(In_the_Name_of_Love)" target="_blank">Pride (In The Name Of Love)</a>". Everybody started jumping in the U2 bandwagon, including many of those to whom I had told about the band before. I didn't think <i>The Unforgettable Fire</i> was as good as <i>War</i>, and since <i>everybody</i> was listening to U2 and gushing about them, I just kind of moved on. I was a little bummed out that U2 wasn't my "secret" anymore so to speak, and now, well, I read that Bono is worth about $900 million!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/U2_October.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/U2_October.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Right now, the singer Adele is all the rage. I carpool to and from work often and the friend with whom I carpool likes to listen to top 40 radio stations. Adele is played a lot. She has a distinctive voice and has catchy tunes. I understand she writes her own songs as well. To me that's really commendable, however, I'm already getting somewhat tired of the three songs that are getting played a lot so far. Nothing against Adele, and I'm sure she has a great future ahead, but right now I could do without listening to another one of those tunes again.<br />
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There is a 22 year-old singer named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renee_Olstead" target="_blank">Renee Olstead</a>. She was a child actress who was in a sticom called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_Standing_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Still Standing</a>". Renee is an outstanding singer. Her style is pretty jazzy and not dissimilar to Adele's. I prefer Renee's voice and songs to Adele's. I think that if she were given a record label push she could be very successful, but she's been releasing albums since about 2004, and no one I've asked knows about her. My wife and I enjoy <a href="http://www.reneeolstead.com/" target="_blank">Renee Olstead</a>'s music a lot and feel like it's our cool secret, but as opposed to my U2 experience, I would love for the whole world to know about Renee Olstead and that her songs got played everywhere.<br />
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Why is that? Why did I want U2 to stay "indie", and why do I want the entire world to know about Renee Olstead? Weird, huh?<br />
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How about you? Are there any artists whose work only you and a few others know about? Do you want this artist to become famous, or to stay not so famous?<br />
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Ah! And I managed to get a post in before March was over! :)Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-73173099422175342302012-02-11T19:51:00.001-08:002012-04-01T13:53:30.957-07:00Cliff Burton: 50 years of Cliff!Yesterday (February 10) would have been Cliff Burton's 50th birthday. Imagine that! Cliff's tragic death happened at age 24. He has been gone longer than he was around.<br />
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I bought Metallica's album <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning">Ride The Lightning</a></i> shortly after it came out solely based on the cover being mostly of my favorite color back then (dark blue). I was also intrigued by the picture of the bass player, who was playing an old-school Rickenbacker and bending the strings! I was blown away by the album. I had never heard anything so heavy and fast. I dubbed the album onto a cassette and listened to it a lot over the next few weeks. As I listened to it more, I was very blown away by the bass playing. Although low in the mix, I could still tell this was no ordinary bassist. Some time later I managed to get Metallica's debut album, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_%27Em_All">Kill 'Em All</a></i>, and I was blown away even more particularly after listening to his bass solo! Playing like a lead guitarist, with distortion and a wah-wah pedal? Wow!<br />
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I became a devoted fan. I didn't have a bass yet, so I learned to play Cliff's bass lines on the top four strings of my acoustic guitar!<br />
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With a lot of anticipation, I got <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Puppets">Master Of Puppets</a></i> once it became available. I was a bit disappointed that the bass still seemed to be low on the mix, but was again blown away by the whole thing, particularly by the track "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjdLMzPnN70&feature=related&noredirect=1">Orion</a>". I managed to catch the band at one of those "Day on the Green" concerts, but honestly I couldn't really see or hear them very well.<br />
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Now, when all of this happened, I was between the ages of 14 and 17. There were no personal computers or internet, and the only information I got was from Circus or Hit Parader magazine whenever I could go to the record store or bookstore to read them. I didn't find out about Cliff's death until about a month after it happened. When I learned about it, I was pretty devastated. By now I had a very cheap bass and (due to Cliff's influence), a distortion pedal. To mourn, I guess I played a lot. A few weeks later I taped myself playing Anesthesia, The Four Horsemen and Jump in the fire, and sent my tape to the address in the back of one of the albums. I can't imagine it ever got to anyone's hands! :D<br />
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So, as a bassist, Cliff was one of my main influences. His style cemented my decision to remain a finger player and to not play over the song, but try and do amazing things in the background instead. Can't say I became an awesome player, but I think I'm OK, even though I haven't played in a very loooong time!<br />
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I've read up about Cliff and apparently he was a guy who was very dedicated to his music. He studied theory and composition at Chabot College (just down the road from where I live), and was very influential in Metallica's development as a band. There isn't a lot out there in the way of all things Cliff, but the DVD <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_%27Em_All">Cliff 'Em All</a></i> is just right. It's a must have in any collection! Sometimes I wonder what would have happened with Metallica had Cliff lived, but they did just fine. Still those first three albums still get heavy rotation in my portable player. My go-to versions are the early 90's release of <i>Kill 'Em All</i> with the two bonus tracks, and the DCC versions of <i>Ride The Lightning</i> and <i>Master Of Puppets</i> (yes, I finally got both!)<br />
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All Hail Cliif!!<br />
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As I write this, the death of Whitney Houston at age 48 is being reported. I always appreciated her huge singing talent. 48 is way too young. Rest in peace Whitney.Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-22281647354696515062012-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:002012-02-03T12:34:33.051-08:00Resurrecting the blog?<div style="text-align: left;">I have not posted anything for about a year and a half. Since then, I've had some ideas about things to write about, but obviously nothing's come to fruition.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I was having lunch with a friend a couple of days ago, and we started talking about Thin Lizzy. Back in 2006 I wrote a review of the Gary Moore tribute to Phil Lynott DVD and I directed him to it for a chuckle. He encouraged me to bring the blog back from the depths of neglect, so I am considering a comeback.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">2012 is still young enough that I can add this blog to my pile of New Year's Resolutions! Stay tuned.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://www.julien.org/RoyZ/halford.jpg" border="0" alt="" style="text-align: center; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 299px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div>Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-88256067121612800662010-07-09T13:42:00.000-07:002010-07-09T13:56:17.171-07:00RIP Ronnie James DioHow fitting that my last entry was right after going to see Ronnie James Dio with Heaven & Hell. As I stated before, it was an awesome show. Nobody could have imagined that less than a year later the amazing RJD would no longer be with us. I was pretty surprised at how hard Dio's death hit me. The thing is that his music has been part of my life since I was 14 years old, and that's quite a while.<br /><br />I moved to the US a month shy of my 14th birthday. On my first day of school, I noticed that a whole bunch of kids were wearing t-shirts that said "DIO" on them (a few others had Y&T t-shirts). It turns out there had been a concert the night before, and I found out in short order that Dio was a band. A few months later, I bought the cassette tape that would shape my music direction forever" K-Tel's compilation <span style="font-style: italic;">Masters Of Metal</span>! Besides Rush and Maiden, it had a Dio tune; it was either Rainbow In The Dark or Holy Diver (there was a second Masters Of Metal tape!), but that's a story for a different day!<br /><br />A short time later I got both <span style="font-style: italic;">Holy Diver</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Last In Line</span> and those albums have regularly been in my playlist pretty much ever since. I saw Dio in concert a short while later, dragon slaying antics and all. I also saw him in 2000, 2004 and 2009.<br /><br />As far as his musical output, I'm basically a pretty big fan of his stuff from Rainbow on, but his recording career goes way back to 1959! His first recordings were doo-wop tunes, and even at that stage you could totally tell it was him! I think Dio's long, constant recording/performing artist career is unparalleled in Rock. In addition, he was part of three legendary, must-have albums: Rainbow's <span style="font-style: italic;">Rainbow Rising</span>, Sabbath's <span style="font-style: italic;">Heaven And Hell</span>, and his own <span style="font-style: italic;">Holy Diver</span>. I hope his wife, Wendy, goes to the archives and release it all!<br /><br />I never met him, but he seemed to be a pretty decent guy, a good businessman and very appreciative of his fans. His philosophy in life seemed to be basically "be a good person", and it certainly came out in many of his songs when he wasn't singing about dragons and rainbows and Magica!<br /><br />So the Rock world lost a true giant and legend. I'll close with a few lines of his Rainbow song A Light In The Black:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Something's calling me back,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">There's a light in the black,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">am I ready to go?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'm coming home.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ZEUnQHp9tjyUUJFDz-p_DvpNGBXQ3dHxSiBb_hyzTh4ESnMze-AUypZeXcF1M9R8raRyAQXqbb_bEhyphenhyphennB8nB5iPMNJLjgDpsgbJFcBFouEQLeb2JLZrqHyNqzQYgBb0UWVaGQA/s1600/DioMemorial-R.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ZEUnQHp9tjyUUJFDz-p_DvpNGBXQ3dHxSiBb_hyzTh4ESnMze-AUypZeXcF1M9R8raRyAQXqbb_bEhyphenhyphennB8nB5iPMNJLjgDpsgbJFcBFouEQLeb2JLZrqHyNqzQYgBb0UWVaGQA/s400/DioMemorial-R.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492011591120015618" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />The image above is credited to SHF's RTurner who worked the projection booth for Ronnie's memorial service in L.A.</span>Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-79875484371567827812009-08-19T09:26:00.001-07:002009-08-19T09:38:48.323-07:00Two more Heaven & Hell clipsHere are two more clips from the Heaven & Hell show at the Warfield in San Francisco on Monday, August 10, 2009. The first one is the song <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Young"><span style="font-style: italic;">Die Young</span></a>. I had problems with the camera's zoom, so there are no closeups. Still a smoking performance. This one includes most of Tony Iommi's unaccompanied guitar solo at the beginning.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VwtapHZB8N4&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VwtapHZB8N4&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />The second one is for the song <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Knights"><span style="font-style: italic;">Neon Knights</span></a>. The band actually plays a bit of the song Country Girl, but I basically missed all of that. Good thing because I got to Neon Knights right when it started pretty much. The tragedy of this clip is that I ran out of memory right after Iommi's second guitar solo. Here it is:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/b5K4w1OBr98&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/b5K4w1OBr98&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I like my little Nikon Coolpix camera, but the lesson I learned is that I need to get on with the times and get a newer, better camera.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9fIXw67dqNx1p6SgdR4nkxYsEaKJZd8yHqjj8Wl33IKk2VhVYGXAFAnBUgA_vvfenW0rQxYQvH4Lnv_MZW4EDRVo9KOF3Mw9XAqW3MKEQNX47jO5tehws2y03byyoQ8zXxRFsQ/s1600-h/pic_001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 294px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9fIXw67dqNx1p6SgdR4nkxYsEaKJZd8yHqjj8Wl33IKk2VhVYGXAFAnBUgA_vvfenW0rQxYQvH4Lnv_MZW4EDRVo9KOF3Mw9XAqW3MKEQNX47jO5tehws2y03byyoQ8zXxRFsQ/s320/pic_001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5371714992680292098" border="0" /></a>Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-74373927765940805282009-08-13T14:47:00.000-07:002009-08-13T15:13:19.277-07:00Heaven & Hell! :DI really let the switching venues from San Jose to San Francisco almost make me not go, but I did and I'm really glad I did. I took BART to the Powell Station in San Francisco and only had to walk a couple of blocks to get to the line. I went all by myself and I really wanted to join in the conversation of the group that was behind me. I texted a couple of my good friends, including Baeleron who lives in Irvine and is my Metal concerts partner too, even though we haven't been to one since like 2005 (the Irvine Maiden show).<br /><br />They let us in shortly after 7:00. I kind of wanted to see if I could upgrade my ticket, but decided against it seeing the way they were herding people in like sheep. When I went in, I remembered that I had been to the Warfield already back in 2002. Bael and I had tickets for the Judas Priest / Iced Earth show in September 2001, and well, everyone knows what happened then so the bands couldn't travel and the show got postponed. It got rescheduled for like February 2002, but by this time Anthrax had taken Iced Earth's opening spot and Bael had moved to Southern CA. Nothing against Anthrax, but I really wanted to see Iced Earth. Anyway, I had an extra ticket and I almost didn't go because no one wanted to go with me. Finally I convinced my Bryan Adams-loving friend and roomate to come with me, so we got there just as Anthrax had ended their set and were literally walking away from the stage. I really liked the show with Ripper... but anyway, back to H&H.<br /><br />I went into the general admission area and took a spot in the third section from the stage right in front of a barricade over on the right (if you're looking at the stage). It was a good spot and that's where I stayed for the whole thing.<br /><br />First off was Coheed and Cambria. Their set started at 8:00 sharp! They were pretty good and there were a few songs that I enjoyed a lot. I'm not very familiar with their work although I do have one of their CD's. It's clearly Claudio Sanchez's band and he's really good. They played a shortened version of maiden's The Trooper. I had my ancient Nikon Coolpix camera handy so I took some video:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PGtwxlpsOnc&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PGtwxlpsOnc&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I thought the second guitarist was going to take the second solo and you can see I went his direction, but didn't play it. Some peopple in various forums complained about the opening act, but I thought C&C were great and enjoyed their set very much.<br /><br />Heaven & Hell came on about a half hour after C&C, and their set smoked! I'm not going to go into detail since I took some video! I was there mostly to see Tony Iommi, but Dio, Geezer and Vinny were all great. It was cool to see Geezer in his element (I had seen his metal core band open for Bruce Dickinson back in '97). It's hard to believe Dio is 67 years old. The set was 90 minutes long and, in my opinion, just right. Here is some video I took.<br /><br />My camera is old and crappy, but for me this is a nice way of keeping memories of some of the shows I've gone to.<br /><br />The Mob Rules (opening song):<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FVVDLkY1pgU&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FVVDLkY1pgU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Time Machine (including part of Vinny's drum solo):<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VUf0nRbopas&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VUf0nRbopas&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Falling Off The Edge Of The World:<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KfuYZASClwI&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KfuYZASClwI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I have a couple more that I haven't uploaded, but I had problems with those. For Die Young I had probelms with the camera's zoom, and for Neon Knights I ran out of memory before the song ended. Maybe I'll upload them anyway. No one looks at my stuff anyway! :)<br /><br />By the way, I've been in a pretty sour mood since last night, but listening to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Under_Pressure_%28Rush_album%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">Grace Under Pressure</span></a> this afternoon put me back in a good mood!Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-33690432715142896712009-07-31T13:34:00.000-07:002009-07-31T14:01:53.090-07:00Heaven &... Hell! >:(August 10! The date I've been waiting for a while now. This is the date of the Heaven & Hell's (or "Black Sabbath with Dio" - <span style="font-size:78%;">TM Yngwie Malmsteen</span>) concert. I bought my ticket way in advance during the so-called "pre-sale". If I go to a concert by myself, I don't really like general admission anymore, so I get assigned seats instead. I got a pretty sweet seat over at the San Jose State University Events Center. I like that venue. I've seen a few concerts at the Events Center, and I work not far from there. I had planned on going to grab a bite to eat after work and then walk over to the venue.<br /><br />Good plan, right? All I had to do was patiently wait... But of course everything had to go to... hell. The band's official site announced that the concert had been moved from the SJSU Events Center to... The Warfield in San Francisco. I couldn't believe it. I strongly, strongly dislike driving to San Francisco. I always get lost, there's never any parking and I don't really like being out there late at night. My dislike of going to SF is so great that I have skipped shows where I would have very liked to have gone, only because it's San Francisco. I have nothing against the city or those who live there, please don't get me wrong. I don't mind going if someone else drives and keeps me out of the whole trying to find the address and/or a place to park. I just don't like driving over there. Why oh why, if it was a low ticket sales issue couldn't they have moved the concert to, let's say, the newly remodeled San Jose Civic Auditorium (across the street from work pretty much!)? I really want to go to this show, so to freakin' San Francisco it is.<br /><br />But wait! That's not all! A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Ticketmaster saying among other (stupid) things that those with $60 tickets had the choice of 1) getting an assigned seat, or 2) get general admission entrance and be able to get in 1/2 hour before everyone else. Those with $50 tickets would just get general admission and be let in at the regular time. Since I got my ticket a long time ago, I went back to check the e-mail receipt. $67 total. Surely I must have a $60 ticket, so I'll just take the assigned seat option, right? Wrong! I have a $50 ticket, just that I was charged <span style="font-weight: bold;">ALMOST $20 IN FEES!!!</span><br /><br />So I'll be going to a concert that I really want to see, except that everything surrounding it is what, in my own personal case, is WRONG about going to concerts.<br /><br />I found out BART stops fairly close to the Warfield, so I'll be going that route more than likely. I'd still rather walk in San Francisco at midnight back to the BART station with my legs hurting from standing for hours and hours and having to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready to go to work, than driving there. Hopefully the talks between BART and the union will have been resolved by the 10th.<br /><br />The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams indeed.<br /><br />And yes, no one's holding a gun to my head to go!Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-11391438690026731232009-05-18T16:15:00.000-07:002013-12-26T19:24:24.587-08:00er... Happy New Year everybody!It's like the middle of the year pretty much and in a way it doesn't feel like it! As far as this blog is concerned, it has felt like this: "I guess it's not so bad if I post a couple of months after the new year." Yeah, more like six months! Anyway, it's not that big of a deal. It's not like anyone reads this. :)<br />
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So, what's new? Ah! I'm finally going to a concert! It takes place on August 10 at the San Jose State Events Center and is none other than Metal's favorite senior citizens Heaven & Hell! This is exciting because I always wanted to see Sabbath (this is the Mob Rules, Live Evil, Dehumanizer and almost the Heaven And Hell lineup of Sabbath). I'm going by myself because no one wants to go with me. My two good friends who would go live pretty far away. I'm going to stay healthy so I actually make it to the concert unlike last year's Iron Maiden show. I'm more excited about this one because it's close to work and I have a good seat. The SJSU Events Center is a good venue too. I saw the Gypsy Kings there once, and maybe one more concert. In 1999 Maiden was set to play there for their Ed Hunter Tour, and they went as far as setting up the equipment, but it got canceled because Dave Murray broke his pinky the night before in L.A. We had press passes too. Oh well... but yeah! I'm excited. Coheed & Cambria will open. I have one of their CD's and sound like a pretty good progressive rock band. The singer sounds like Geddy Lee!<br />
<br />Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-84036848261657977562008-12-01T12:42:00.000-08:002008-12-02T10:45:49.216-08:00My first DCC CD's!DCC Audio Classics is the other company that produced audiophile CD's other than <a href="http://www.mofi.com/productcart/pc/home.asp">MFSL</a> that I know of. I first became aware of these when I started visiting the <a href="http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/index.php">Steve Hoffman Forums</a> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Hoffman">Steve</a> was the remastering engineer for DCC), and noticed that people would, for example, recommend the DCC for the best sounding <span style="font-style: italic;">McCartney</span> CD. "What the heck is DCC?" I would ask myself, until I realized they were out of print, hard to find expensive gold CD's (of course). My experience has been that these are harder to find (and more expensive) than the MFSL discs. As with the MFSL's, I'm not looking to build a collection or anything, and there are a few DCC CD's that I would definitely like to have. There are tons more that I would like to have, but don't need to (like Deep Purple's <span style="font-style: italic;">Made In Japan</span>). In the past few days, I've managed to get three DCC discs. Two were unexpected surprises and I got them for cheap, and one I sought out and was not really cheap (but not a bad deal).<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2azF4_QpYDzwlGX0vF0Kne7vH133QrYfTzB6xEqvaIxl432bB03Ktug8UCgHLvQ9zLIFBxIj-3e7ciXmX2alWjzctEgBgh53HKfevry5d7Vhyphenhyphen3frtyVJBx_l4BLJkuMBTewpC1A/s1600-h/bob_dylan_hwy61_dcc.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2azF4_QpYDzwlGX0vF0Kne7vH133QrYfTzB6xEqvaIxl432bB03Ktug8UCgHLvQ9zLIFBxIj-3e7ciXmX2alWjzctEgBgh53HKfevry5d7Vhyphenhyphen3frtyVJBx_l4BLJkuMBTewpC1A/s400/bob_dylan_hwy61_dcc.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274927978702863570" border="0" /></a><br />The first one is <a href="http://www.bobdylan.com/">Bob Dylan</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_61_Revisited"><span style="font-style: italic;">Highway 61 Revisited</span></a>. Way back then I had the cassette <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan%27s_Greatest_Hits"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits</span></a> and pretty much liked all the songs. I got it because I knew The Beatles were fans, so I figured I should give him a try. I got a couple of his earlier albums and liked them even more (when it's just him and his guitar). For a kid learning English, listening to his early songs was a hoot! I later got a live album with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Flood">Dylan and The Band</a> but I didn't like it so much. I discovered that my preference for Bob Dylan is his stuff prior to his motorcycle accident. I had never had this album before, so when I got a chance to get it cheap, I jumped at it and here it is! It does sound good, but then again, I don't have another CD with these songs that I can compare it too, so I'm satisified that I have the best sounding CD version.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBX_52PhSmPqhKVfBbnLmQPd-0wN7rYXQbHI7eyf65eSd3ZEibTCJwlOUlk2MKtEJOpFjz6Elj3q9Yda-D5OXQCGTXwmJ0_2qHfCbWhXBBimkfW0CL4iee9qexrGTd-7X0EKz-Gg/s1600-h/macca_botr_dcc.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 397px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBX_52PhSmPqhKVfBbnLmQPd-0wN7rYXQbHI7eyf65eSd3ZEibTCJwlOUlk2MKtEJOpFjz6Elj3q9Yda-D5OXQCGTXwmJ0_2qHfCbWhXBBimkfW0CL4iee9qexrGTd-7X0EKz-Gg/s400/macca_botr_dcc.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274930754128703058" border="0" /></a><br />The second one is Paul McCartney's classic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_on_the_Run"><span style="font-style: italic;">Band On The Run</span></a>. If you know me, you know I'm a big Beatles / McCartney fan. In 2002 I went to five of his concerts, including the Los Angeles show which was videotaped for the DVD release. I had seats close to some celebrities who made it to the film, but was my arm even in the DVD? Of course not! Anyway, I have all of Paul's official albums and then some. Since I've liked his music since I was little basically, I had a lot of his discography in mostly LP's and some tapes. When I finally decided to get CD's, I got all of his 1993 remasters. These remasters are not well-liked by a lot of people who frequent the SH Forums. They always recommend getting the DCC's or the Fame pressings, or first pressing Japanese CD's or something, and of course, not only are they impossible to find, they're expensive too, so 1993 remasters for me it is! DCC released several of McCartney/Wings CD's and I would like to have them, but I'm not going to spend a lot of money getting them. As you can imagine, I was pretty happy when I saw this one in the used bin at the price of any other used CD, so I didn't think twice about getting it! This one came with everything! The slipcase, the poster and the lift-lock case! I haven't gotten a chance to give it a spin yet, but I have high hopes for it. As for other McCartney DCC discs, if I see them and the price is good, then I'll get them, otherwise I'll have to live with what I have! One of this days I'll write a Beatles / McCartney post.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht9GV0-545fFeHUC6KaHpt9o0tD9ywWWDuNwFractFsHvA4V4lbVbFrp2dAiFqq8GOFWzQg-YU_GANXhpQEqtfU1G5gHxnK3AWKFReh6z-hU-a2AkwgnTi4ThgKRVp9HZ2CYQlUw/s1600-h/metallica_mop_dcc.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht9GV0-545fFeHUC6KaHpt9o0tD9ywWWDuNwFractFsHvA4V4lbVbFrp2dAiFqq8GOFWzQg-YU_GANXhpQEqtfU1G5gHxnK3AWKFReh6z-hU-a2AkwgnTi4ThgKRVp9HZ2CYQlUw/s400/metallica_mop_dcc.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274933411236772098" border="0" /></a><br />Now, this is one that I definitely wanted and actually put a little money aside so I could get it. It wasn't cheap, but the price wasn't back breaking either. Definitely for a lot, lot less than what they go for on E-Bay. What can I say about <span style="font-style: italic;">Master Of Puppets</span> that hasn't been said already? Must have classic. This one is a good representation of the Metallica I grew up with (Cliff Burton era). The other one I want is <span style="font-style: italic;">Ride The Lightning</span>, and I shall patiently wait until one pops up at a reasonable price. I don't know why, but in my opinion, Metallica never got their bass recorded right, even up to the present day. This one puts it a little bit more upfront (but just a little).<br /><br />So there it is. My first DCC discs. There is one more I would like to have and it is Van Halen's first album. My only issue is that the inserts are glossy and it's easy for them to get soiled with prints. As my discs are used, there is not much I can do about that. When I tried to use a CD cleaning cloth to wipe the label side, it got streaks, so if you know of a good way to clean these discs, let me know.Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-60237563695789625642007-12-27T10:07:00.000-08:002007-12-27T12:54:05.701-08:00My first MFSL (MoFi) CD's!The <a href="http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/index.php">Steve Hoffman Forums</a> are a cool place. I had been "lurking" there for about a year and a half, and finally joined a couple of months ago. It's a great resource with tons of very knowledgeable people. It is a place to discuss sound quality issues. I won't go as far as saying that it is a place for audiophiles because I am not one and I'm there and haven't been kicked out or anything. I don't want to generalize, but it appears that some prevalent opinions are:<br /><br /><ul><li>Mono is better than stereo</li><li>Vinyl is the way to go</li><li>Original issues of CD's are better than remasters</li><li>Japanese pressings sound better</li><li>Discs made in West Germany sound better</li><li>"Target" CD's sound better</li><li><a href="http://www.mofi.com/history.htm">MFSL</a> and DCC gold discs sound better</li></ul><br />I don't necessarily agree with all of the above (particularly the first three with which I am somewhat familiar), but I recognize I've had some of those tendencies, even as a kid, for example, I just totally loved the sound of my records (vinyl LP's) played on my old Fisher stereo through my big Koss headphones. I loved the warm, full sound and perhaps the imaginary drone of the needle going through the surface. I never really liked cassette tapes and didn't start getting CD's until the early 90's. I didn't jump on the MP3 bandwagon until fairly recently. I had been a pretty big fan of <a href="http://www.minidisc.org/index.php">Mini Disc</a>, and I liked the way my vinyl and cassette transfers sounded in it. I knew there was compression, but I figured the format was specifically created for music, so I was happy. Too bad Sony ruined the format's chances for success here. Anytime I mentioned MD to my friends, they would just come back with the argument that CD's were cheap, CD-R's were cheap and nothing would take the place of CD's. I never thought MD's were designed to take the place of CD's, but were a digital answer to cassette tapes, except much cooler and better. Anyway... I finally embraced MP3's and even got an iPod.<br /><br />I could write extensively on my audio preferences, and perhaps I will when I don't feel so lazy! One of the results of reading the posts in the forums is that now I look for all sorts of "better sounding" versions of stuff I like. Most of the time, the stuff is super hard to find and/or super expensive. I don't have a lot of extra income to indulge in seeking this stuff out (none, as a matter of fact!), so whatever I get is by pure luck really.<br /><br />Two CD's I like and had never owned on CD are <a href="http://www.defleppard.com/">Def Leppard's</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyromania_%28album%29">Pyromania</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteria_%28album%29">Hysteria</a>. Because I'm cheap, I had always looked for used copies under, say $7.00, but those two, particularly Pyromania, hold up their value really well. One day I spotted a copy of Hysteria for like $3.95. I debated for a minute because I had been thinking about getting the deluxe version with a bonus disc, but hey, the price was right, so I bought it. When I got to my car, I opened the case and to my surpirse, the disc inside was a gold, Mobile Fidelity Sounds Lab one! The Steve Hoffman Forums have taught me that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Fidelity_Sound_Lab">MFSL</a> discs sound better, so I was happy. I played it at home and it sounds pretty good... It has to, since I have nothing to compare it too! I went to the forums to share the good fortune, and was told that the one to really have was the Pyromania one because it was significantly better sounding than any other version. I put the information in the brain for future reference, and there it stayed.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRtXG8IocKsXESD432vqLzrjCZBHjiu8d4LVPNVPu67jsfwpKOZoVCWpqNnk_S4HrWwvgU8jwb4Kpy_bl_mPQanUW97fr434m2ymPV4VJr9mvvWkuB7a8U3EsxW-Q4UxSGZa5eJA/s1600-h/def_leppard_hysteria_MFSL(1).jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRtXG8IocKsXESD432vqLzrjCZBHjiu8d4LVPNVPu67jsfwpKOZoVCWpqNnk_S4HrWwvgU8jwb4Kpy_bl_mPQanUW97fr434m2ymPV4VJr9mvvWkuB7a8U3EsxW-Q4UxSGZa5eJA/s400/def_leppard_hysteria_MFSL(1).jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148757641058946050" border="0" /></a><br /><br />On one of my other forays into the <a href="http://www.rasputinmusic.com/">used bins</a>, I came across a copy of Pyromania, at the right price of $6.99. To my surprise it was one of the aforementioned made in West Germany discs! I picked it up and was very happy to finally have this favorite of mine (I like it better than Hysteria) on CD, and a good sounding one (according to some).<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBh_0yXGek6EKrP7YMnn1t3NJg36jKO3pqCgsZftNlz9epCEp8ppsss1h-LTm25gZbWfqhJs3924um0cCFRBUsjJXk4X7WsZrlUYnV9YnIZIP9g51Ec8nk8_CSPutQX6JmCnRJJA/s1600-h/def_leppard_pyromania_vertigo(1).jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBh_0yXGek6EKrP7YMnn1t3NJg36jKO3pqCgsZftNlz9epCEp8ppsss1h-LTm25gZbWfqhJs3924um0cCFRBUsjJXk4X7WsZrlUYnV9YnIZIP9g51Ec8nk8_CSPutQX6JmCnRJJA/s400/def_leppard_pyromania_vertigo(1).jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148758212289596450" border="0" /></a><br />Then came the moment of weakness. There was a mint condition MFSL Pyromania, made in Japan up for auction, and I ended up winning it. It wasn't cheap, but I've seen others pay more for "lesser" copies. It looks great, and it comes in the original packaging (some weird CD holding arm inside the jewel case. Sometime between now and going back to work, I will do a sound comparison between the MFSL and the West Germany discs.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-NTlYnt68rZUCLj6i6bEbkHwaOU76csWm2SOfe-je-G8cP7Tdezs6a47_dAAV3yIcncjEpPeb6cEG5MX605lzdsCdNaVh4vKSzRfTMgjqqVZZZY1TxXUhxs16ulq3VKxgqaRJrQ/s1600-h/def_leppard_promania_MFSL(1).jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-NTlYnt68rZUCLj6i6bEbkHwaOU76csWm2SOfe-je-G8cP7Tdezs6a47_dAAV3yIcncjEpPeb6cEG5MX605lzdsCdNaVh4vKSzRfTMgjqqVZZZY1TxXUhxs16ulq3VKxgqaRJrQ/s400/def_leppard_promania_MFSL(1).jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148757911641885714" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsWwC0A2uOaXYlNjrUFL_JzKqQBylir6us6Qe5NeXmMCceiRSNR5T1lEexzmV84lZhFFRwVL2GiGNC24xZeXhhflSx-T0Ekqyj3xtOTN8HWFBCuToRe-Vh6cLmgDjF2OKbnNWzjg/s1600-h/def_leppard_pyromania_MFSL(2).jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsWwC0A2uOaXYlNjrUFL_JzKqQBylir6us6Qe5NeXmMCceiRSNR5T1lEexzmV84lZhFFRwVL2GiGNC24xZeXhhflSx-T0Ekqyj3xtOTN8HWFBCuToRe-Vh6cLmgDjF2OKbnNWzjg/s400/def_leppard_pyromania_MFSL(2).jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148758469987634226" border="0" /></a><br />All in all, I think I managed to get some pretty cool items and not pay an arm and a leg for them. The <a href="http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/index.php">Steve Hoffman Forums</a> are a great place for information and reference, but join at your own wallet's risk!<span style="font-size:78%;"> (for those devoid of a sense of humor, I do like the forums a lot)</span>.Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-22527779164755670082007-10-06T16:09:00.000-07:002007-10-06T16:30:00.983-07:00Old posts below!Last summer I decided to finally put together a "music-stuff" blog and put it up. It was originally designed to be some sort of music stuff review thing, and I actually started it but soon realized that it wasn't a really original idea and that as a reviewer I am, frankly, not that good. I had actually envisioned "great" things for the other blog, going as far as signing up with adsense (HAHA!). Anyway, I started this blog and just kind of continued on with it, and pretty much abandoned the other one. For some reason. I saw it today, and decided to consolidate postings here, so I went ahead and moved the posts. I had actually started a post about Uli Jon Roth, so I may just finish it up and post it here.<br /><br />I also decided to change the blog layout and go with the one I had in the original blog (they're all pre-set, so it's not like I'm having to do something big!). I think the text space is too narrow, so I may just switch back. Who knows? Why don't you, my gentle reader (!!??) tell me what you think? hehe.<br /><br />Below are three "reviews", one of the Phil Lynnot tribute Gary Moore DVD, the other one of Paul Di'Anno's limited edition CD where he did what else? Maiden songs, and the other one is of the then-recently-released Replay X3 DVD by Rush. In retrospect, they're not that bad as far as commentaries go, so here they are!<br /><br />I still don't get why Rush has to release everything in digipak! It's such a hassle. Anyway...Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-79042919196928913942007-10-06T16:06:00.000-07:002007-10-06T16:08:17.242-07:00RUSH!! Replay X3This is from July 25, 2006.<br />----------------------------<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/1600/replay_x3_box001.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/320/replay_x3_box001.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rush: Replay X3</span><br /><br />Finally... Rush released some of their long out-of-print videos on DVD in the massive <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Replay X-3!</span> The videos are: <span style="font-style: italic;">Exit... Stage Left</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Grace Under Pressure Tour</span> (or whatever the name is) and <span style="font-style: italic;">A Show Of Hands</span>! The package comes with a bonus audio CD with the soundtrack of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Grace Under Pressure</span> DVD. It's cool to finally have the stuff officially released. I own / have owned those videos in some form or another pretty much for years though. I plunked down good money to buy <span style="font-style: italic;">Exit... Stage Left</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">A Show Of Hands</span> when they were available to purchase in stores back in the 80's. Those videos were not cheap either. They cost me like $30 each, and when I bought them, the prices of music videos had gone down already! I remember a friend of mine buying the Scorpions' <span style="font-style: italic;">World Wide Live</span> video for like $50 when it came out (somehow, I ended up with that video, and I still have it, so Ernie, wherever you are, if you want it back, I have it!). The <span style="font-style: italic;">Grace Under Pressure</span> video I never could find. My only memories of it were from a video a friend of mine taped off the TV. They had a show in one channel where they played concerts at midnight on Saturdays.<br /><br />Then came the DVD era, but of course those weren't available. Demand was there, so it didn't take long for a Brazilian company to put them out on DVD. The GuP show was not available though. The Brazilian DVD's had a lot of useless extra stuff on them, and the video transfer wasn't that good. It gave my VHS tapes a rest though. I later got a supposedly official release of ESL on DVD from Singapore. It was professionally packaged, and the video transfer, while still not up to snuff, was a vast improvement over the Brazilian version. The Singapore ESL DVD was my copy of choice. it wasn't bad really.<br /><br />One day a couple of years ago, I talked to this guy via e-mail. He happened to have made some transfers from the original laserdiscs on to DVD of the GuP, and ASoH videos, so I got some copies from him. The transfers are excellent, and the ASoH DVD has the song Lock And Key, which was only released in the laserdisc version! (not even the current Replay X3 has it). So, yeah, the videos have been out there on DVD for some time if one really wanted to get a copy!<br /><br />If you buy the set at Best Buy, the audio CD has four unlisted, extra tracks tagged at the end; Limelight and Closer To The Heart (again!) from ESL, and The Spirit Of Radio and Tom Sawyer from ASoH. As far as a review goes, they're all great. I can't be objective with Rush. I've read a lot of comments here and there from people complaining about the anamorphic screen, about Lock And Key, about complete shows, blah blah blah boo hoo hoo. All I can say is "Shadduup!" Be grateful it's out officially on DVD.<br /><br />My personal favorite is the Grace Under Pressure concert. It's my favorite album and is very sentimental for me I guess. That was the first new tape I got of Rush, and although I didn't like it that much at the beginning, it's gotten to be one of my favorites!<br /><br />Oh, the pictures are on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FDFOX0/102-4255802-4656127?v=glance&n=130">Amazon</a> site by the way.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/1600/replay_x3_inside.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/320/replay_x3_inside.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-57407138856361668292007-10-06T16:02:00.000-07:002007-10-06T16:04:49.625-07:00Paul Di'Anno does more Iron Maiden!This one is from June 25, 2006.<br />---------------------------------<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/1600/classics.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/320/classics.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The folks over at <a href="http://www.pauldianno.com/">Paul Di'Anno official website</a> are selling a very limited edition (150) CD titled <span style="font-style: italic;">THE CLASSICS: The Maiden Years.</span> I ordered my copy and got it in the mail a few days later (very quick delivery!) in an envelope adressed by Lea Hart himself!<br /><br />Paul's voice has really held up well throughout the years and I enjoyed listening to the CD for the most part. As his voice has matured, it gives a new depth to some songs when he adds a very deep growl, so that sounds cool. Wasn't he like 20 when they recorded the first album? I liked all of the songs, except the new version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Strange World</span>. The guitar work is annoying on that one.<br /><br />These new versions by Paul are really good, but not necessarily better than the original ones. Out of all the Maiden singers, I think he's the one whose voice whose range has remained very much the same as always, and even has added depth to it by virtue of the passage of time. Bruce Dickinson is great, but his range is (of course!) not the same as 1982, and Blaze, although in my opinion has found his voice on is solo work and sounds awesome, does not sound the same as he did during his Wolfsbane days.<br /><br />According to the site, only 150 copies were pressed. I doubt that very much. Supposedly, one can only get one copy. If you're a fan, it would make for a great collectible, but I doubt it will set the Iron Maiden collectors' market on fire.<br /><br />I know he gets ripped on because he still does Iron Maiden songs, and even participates in Iron Maiden tributes. I say let him do all the Maiden he wants and cash in if he can. He's Paul freakin' Di'Anno! As far as I'm concerned he could tour every year and do <span style="font-style: italic;">Iron Maiden</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Killers</span>! He's entitled to it. With the exception of the song <span style="font-style: italic;">Transylvania</span> (an instrumental), all the songs from the first album are here, plus <span style="font-style: italic;">Wrathchild</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Murders In The Rue Morgue</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Killers</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Women In Uniform</span>. I wonder what the economic incentive is though. My understanding is that Maiden bought him out for a lump sum andthe result is that he does not get any royalties when he releases Maiden tunes. He still does release them though because that is his legacy I suppose.<br /><br />Too bad he doesn't tour the United States! I think the immigration department won't give him a visa or something. That's too bad. I bet he would have pretty successful tours here.<br /><br />So, this is a good one to have. It's nice to have a disc of new recordings of Maiden tunes sung by Di'Anno instead of having to get one of those tribute CD's with a whole bunch of different singers only to hear one or two tunes sung by Paul. I'd get one of those tribute CD's if they had Paul do a Bruce or Blaze era song!<br /><br />I read in the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden/browse_thread/thread/34b6b519258f1fac/462d5b4781687c47?hl=en#462d5b4781687c47">Maiden newsgroup</a> that someone read an interview where Steve says Iron Maiden will do 15 studio albums and call it quits. After the new one comes out, there will be one left. I say it's time to start making memorable shows and bringing in Paul and/or Blaze to sing a couple of songs with the band, and maybe Dennis Stratton to play too. That would be something!Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34141679.post-43377855505477837982007-10-06T15:56:00.000-07:002007-10-06T16:01:23.370-07:00Gary Moore still rules! (the video, not quite)This one is from May 29, 2006.<br />---------------------------------<br /><br />Last week I watched the <span style="font-style: italic;">Gary Moo</span><span style="font-style: italic;">re and Friends: One Night in Dubli</span><span style="font-style: italic;">n - Tribute to Phil Lynott</span> DVD. Basically, a Phil Lynott statue was unveiled in Dublin on the 20th anniversary of his death, and Gary Moore played a concert where he paid tribute to Phil. There were some special guests who had played in Thin Lizzy and they played some Lizzy songs. This is what I thought of the musicians:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Gary Moore</span>: Well, he's Gary Moore and he rules. He's one of the last two or three musicians I'd like to see in concert. I'm not a big fan of his blues trip though, but I'm sure that's what's paid the bills for him, so keep bluesin' Gary. Me? I'm stuck in his Hard Rock era, particularly from <span style="font-style: italic;">Corridors of Power</span> through <span style="font-style: italic;">After The War</span>. I'd really love to have some video from this era, but none is really available anymore. I e-mailed this guy one who has this huge l<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/1600/moore_gorham001.1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/320/moore_gorham001.1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>ist of videos to see if he wanted to trade or something, but he never replied. He played a local show in '87 I think, but I couldn't go because it was an over 21 place and I wasn't 21. Anyway, the show! His band consists of Brian Downey (who also rules) on drums, and some guy on bass. His guitar playing is awesome, but a big complain I have is that during <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Rose</span>, when he was playing his awesome kick-ass solo, the cameras were everywhere but the fretboard! I mean, I love the guy, but I don't really want to see Scott Gorham hitting a power chord while Gary is turning over the world on its axis with his solo!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Brian Downey</span>: Believe it or not, this is the first footage I've seen of Downey (I have the Lizzy show from Sydney, but that one has another drummer). Maybe he displayed more energy when he was younger, but now he looks very, veeerry relaxed when he plays. It sounds great though. He's bald too.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The bass player</span>: He was good and stayed in the background (plays for Jethro Tull or something?). Looks like me a little. They should have just called me and I would have gladly played bass and looked better on this!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Brian Robertson</span>: This guy has always been sort of an enigma for me. I've always read praises for the guy; <span style="font-style: italic;">the fiery young guitar player</span> and stuff like that, but my reaction to his playing for Lizzy has always been kind of "meh". Maybe because he was 17 when he joined Lizzy and he was playing concerts, and THAT'S remarkable. At 17 I was trying to play in my bedroom like Chris Squire or something. Also he was a druggie, I believe, and some people praise that as being a characteristic of musical geniuses or something. I've never seen a shot of the guy's face either! He's always had his hair over his face, and here he was wearing sunglasses as well. His playing was the worst of the show. While they were playing Emerald, it seemed as if Gary was trying to motivate him to play better during their duel. I still don't see what the big deal is about this guy. He sucks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/1600/moore_gorham002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/320/moore_gorham002.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Scott Gorham</span>: Pretty cool California guy. His playing was always pretty competent, and his posing skills have gotten better with age. He's a Rock Star and you can't help it but crack up seeing him when he's up on stage. The camera shows him posing instead of Gary paying his heart out during <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Rose</span> as I mentioned before! His interview is the one I enjoyed the most on the DVD extras. During the show, he never stops posing for the camera!<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Eric Bell</span>: His claim to fame, as far as I'm concerned, is that he payed guitar with Lizzy, and the two well-known songs from his time with the band are <span style="font-style: italic;">Whiskey in the Jar</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Rocker</span>, and his playing rules in both songs. Beyond that, I don't know much about him. He handles some of the vocals during <span style="font-style: italic;">Whiskey in the Jar</span>, and he sounds worse than Gary!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Show</span>: I'll have to go with the assumption that this was not the complete show. The DVD show is very short. I was thinking that Robertson and Gorham should have gotten to play together, all the guitar players should have taken solos at the end, etc. but the truth of the matter is that it was a Gary Moore show, and he's a better guitar player than all of those guys anyway. It starts with a blues song (boo!) and it ends with <span style="font-style: italic;">Parisienne Walkways</span> (yay!). After the blues song, Gary plays <span style="font-style: italic;">Jailbreak</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Don't Believe a Word</span> before bringing in Robertson. He sticks around for a couple of songs and then Gorham comes in. To me, the tunes Gary did with Gorham were the most enjoyable part of the DVD. They played <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Rose</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Cowboy Song</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Boys Are Back in Town</span>. Eric Bell played on and sang part of <span style="font-style: italic;">Whiskey in the Jar</span>. Then Gary closes. Gary handled vocal duties and did a really good job considering that, in my opinion, Phil songs are pretty hard to sing.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/1600/moore_gorham003.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/885/3043/320/moore_gorham003.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Extras</span>: There was like a 25-minute long interview segment where all the guys get air time. Scott Gorham was the highlight of the interview segments because he seems to be a pretty laid back and open person.<br /><br />I was able to extract the sound and make me an audio CD of the show (fits in one CD), and that's been getting a lot of airplay in my stereo/computer. As a matter of fact I'm listening to it right now. It's a good one to have.<br /><br />I like Thin Lizzy a lot, but prefer <span style="font-style: italic;">Live and Dangerous</span> and subsequent releases (<span style="font-style: italic;">Black Rose, Chinatown, Renegade, Thunder and Lightning, Life/Live</span>), and that makes me an unusual fan I guess because everyone seems to prefer the "classic" line-up with Gorham/Robertson. In addition to those, I have Dedication and Jailbreak. I admire Phil Lynott a lot. He was a great songwriter, bass player and singer with a lot of soul in his singing and songwriting. I think that even though he doesn't admit it, someone like Bruce Springsteen was heavily influenced by Phil.<br /><br />So, my gripes:<br /><br /><ul><li>DVD concert too short.</li><li>Where was John Sykes (doesn't he front Lizzy now?)?</li><li>Needed more jamming by all musicians at the same time.</li><li>No close-ups of Moore's fretboard during <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Rose</span>.<br /></li><li>Brian Robertson.</li></ul>Other than that, it's a good one to have.Alfredo (The Rush Fan)http://www.blogger.com/profile/02840898522966497514noreply@blogger.com1