The Toy Zone has twenty album covers that have been recreated using lego parts. Some are just legos superimposed into backgrounds and some are the real deal and just use legos. I've included my favorites below. And while we're at it, why not just take another look at the White Stripe's awesome lego video for "Fell in Love with A Girl".
- Somone in Atlanta posts a Craig's List guitar lesson ad with a twist. The lessons are free for women who agree to be topless during the lesson. But not just any women: "Also, the free/topless offer only goes for attractive, not overly fat females. Seeing fat girls topless does not make my day better. Fat girls are welcome to take guitar lessons, but you have to pay just like any dudes." I'm assuming he doesn't get much of a response.
A few cool links from Gibson:
- Video lesson on learning how to play the guitar riff from Green Onions. You may not recognize the name of the song but you'll recognize the tune of this instrumental from the 60's.
- A gear guide on recreating Wilco's live sound. If you haven't been keeping up with Wilco, there music has taken a guitar heavy turn with the addition of Nels Cline. Their last album "Sky Blue Sky" has at times a Grateful Dead/Phish type jam band sound. But with fuzzier guitars. Check the performance of "You Are My Face" below. It's starts off mellow and then kicks it up a notch.
Jeff Beck has started posting blog entries on his site. He started April 1st and has posted three thus far. So 1-2 posts a month should be about what to expect. I haven't watched a ton of Jeff Beck interviews so I'm not familiar enough with his personality to figure out how to interpret some of the statements. I'm assuming they are jokes but you never know.
"In Cleveland we met up with a group of FBI people who showed us around. In return we invited them to the concert. They seemed to have a really good time but ended up putting my manager in handcuffs!!"
Below is Jody Worrell's free lesson on some Jeff Beck style bending techniques. Jody also has a lesson on learning a Jeff Beck style solo
College Humor's video guide to playing guitar just well enough to impress the ladies. (semi-adult content). I normally embed this stuff, but the video was in widescreen and wouldn't fit.
Someone has uploaded the first ten minutes of Joe Pass' "The Blue Side of Jazz" instruction video to Youtube. It's pretty informal. Joe's speech is as off the cuff as his playing. To learn some specific Joe Pass style licks check out Billy Wilkie's Classic Jazz Licks (Lesson One and Two) and More Joe Pass Style.
I've been reading recently about the influences of John Coltrane on Duane Allman. Specifically Duane using pull offs to recreate some of the sounds Coltrane made with his sax. In fact Duane grabbed a lot of ideas from Coltrane and Miles Davis. From 10 Things You Gotta Do to Play Like Duane Allman:
"Whether it’s a ten-minute solo during “Elizabeth Reed,” or one of the Brothers’ trademark extended cadenzas, you’ve gotta get fluent with the kind of extended modal jamming that permeated the band’s live performances. The emphasis on Am7’s upper extensions—the 9 (B), 11 (D), and 13 (F#)—played over the Im7-IV Dorian-based vamp in Ex. 5a reveals Allman’s professed admiration for the modal jazz of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Ex. 5b is derived from three successive motifs that Allman regularly reprised during his extended closing improvisations in the Allman Brothers staple “You Don’t Love Me”: sliding parallel fifths reminiscent of his work on Clapton’s arrangement of “Little Wing,” a legato reading of the melody to “Joy to the World,” and a flashy display of upper-register A major-based thirty-second-note triplets."
Then I also stumbled across this Premier Guitar article with Ten Mile Davis Tips for Guitarists. These ideas are adapted from a panel of Miles' friends discussing Kind of Blue's 50th anniversary.
"No one utilized non-notes for musical effect like Miles did. For some reason, when we play guitar we are conditioned to put 99.9% of our focus on the notes we’re playing. The spaces without notes in Kind of Blue are a big part of that record. It gives listeners time to absorb and process, both between passages and within phrases.
“The powerful thing with Kind of Blue is the space and information. There’s a lot of air in that record in the sense you don’t feel overloaded and you can take in each note. You don’t feel confronted with the music. You feel as if you’ve been invited into something very special.” -David Fricke"
I've heard Dave Matthews mention that he feels like a drummer who plays guitar and he focuses more on the percussion of the instrument. Dave Rawlings at times seems to produce a mandolin like tone from his archtop acoustic. We all know about Jimmy Page's experiments with bowing a guitar. It's not always an easy thing to do, but looking to other instruments as an influence for your playing can help you create a unique sound. Whether it's technique, rhythm, or note choices.
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed - Live from the Fillmore East 1970
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has an article on moms singing for their guitarist sons. Guitar Center is hosting a series of competitions that allow Karaoke moms the chance to win their children a free week at Camp Jam. For their trouble the winning mom also got a gift certificate to Spa Sydell.
“I don’t think she’s ever sung into a microphone before,” marveled Mark Porch, as he watched his wife Kellie brazen her way through the Guns N’ Roses tune, backed by Tyler making like Slash on the high overtones."
I watched VH1's "100 One Hit Wonders of the 80's" last week and they mentioned that Edie Brickell and her stepson Harper Simon perform together in the band The Heavy Circles. So here's the question, assuming your mother had enough talent, could you perform with her? Would she tell you to tuck your shirt in while on stage?
