Search options (Page 259 of 279)

I've been using some pretty stiff picks but happened across some real soft picks the other day.  I decided that I like those now. 

Mostly I play fingerstyle though.  Some songs both ways, some just one or the other.  None well.  All fun.

- Zurf

We have one of those in my town bootlegger.  One of the fellows owns the place and the other fellow looks like he works for picks or something.  When folks are in there test driving, they're jamming and jamming well!  We have a fairly large population of South and Middle American immigrants.  There were a couple of guys in there one afternoon who spoke very fractured English, but they spoke Flamenco extremely well!!!  I've heard Classical and some real slow and easy jazz that was good enough to make George Benson blush.  But go into a big box store and it's all garbage and cacophony.

- Zurf

If you've got it to play, it's GREAT!! 

I don't know anything about the guitar and whether or not I'd buy it, but none of that matters.  Once you've got it and you're playing that's all that matters.

- Zurf

Well I admit it looked a little funny. 

Nah.  We used a plain old spring loaded capo out of the lead guitarists kit bag.  We were about to ditch the song when he said, "Well too bad you can't capo a bass."  "You can't?", I asked.   I don't know much, and not knowing that it can't be done we figured to give it a try.  It worked out just fine.

I'm not going to Vegas.  I'll look at the pictures people post. 

I'll e-mail you a couple events I know about where a guitar player/songwriter will be welcome.  There will be plenty of opportunity to sit and wait and drink beer if you don't fish.

- Zurf

Hey, I lost 60 pounds a few years ago (and found thirty of it again).  Will Russell's brother pay for me to go to Vegas?  Will he cover my losses? 

Seriously, though, have a campground near a river in the mid-Atlantic and I will make an effort to be there. 

Jets-60, if you're into fishing, there are a couple of terrific fishing/camping/music weekends I can recommend to you not far from us.  Assuming your definition of "not far" includes West Virginia and Kentucky.  It's closer than Belgium or Ireland or Scotland anyway.  Tough paddle to Scotland.

- Zurf

Shoot, if I'm playing bluegras in F, I'm pulling out my bass! 

You know, I actually have capoed my bass.  It was pretty cool.  The lead guitarist has some chord charts he pulled out 15 minutes before the start of the gig.  We all thought the song was cool and wanted to give it a go.  Unfortunately, the chords were all written for capo on 3.  I'm not good enough with transposing on the fly to put together a line raw and play well enough for being on stage.  So we decided to capo the bass and give it a go backstage.  Worked like a charm.  I play a fretless, so I used a tuner to get the capo in just the right spot, but it worked just dandy.   We had the rhythm guitarist do a little stage banter while I diddled with the tuner and the capo and when I 'accidentally' bumped a note while she was speaking, we started. 

- Zurf

Jets,

Back in 1984 I worked as a canoe instructor within the mailing address of your home town.  My girlfriend (now my wife) lived at the edge of the suburbs.  You'd leave her place going west and in under ten miles get to dirt road.  You'd stay on that dirt road for about fifteen miles until getting to the main road, which was a narrow, paved two lane and take it a while until the turn off for the camp.

Well, that dirt road (Braddock Road) is now four lane divided road with a 50 mph speed limit the whole way to the former paved two lane.  That road is now four or six lanes of divided highway (Route 29). 

Back then, the traffic was so light and the woods so thick that wildlife sightings were common.  My wife hit a turtle one time on the dirt road.  She felt awful because it was a big turtle and she knew it had to have been real old.  Now, the wetlands that turtle lived in have been turned into a series of "wet sinks" to allow the remaining land to be drained.  There are at least two different golf courses and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 homes on it as a conservative estimate.  There are no woods to speak of the entire twentysome mile trek.  Back then with dirt roads and wildlife dodging, it took 45 minutes door to door.  I could ride my bike.  Now even with the enormously improved roads with the amount of traffic the same trip could take two hours (assuming it's dry weather, the sun isn't setting, and there have been no accidents).   Bike riding that stretch would be akin to suicide and is actually illegal on some stretches. 

Your home town is sure enough dealing with rapid and massive change.  Too bad.  I used to like it the old way when it was just two grocery stores, a gas station, and a lot of woods. 

- Zurf

Guaranteed!! 

Most times, guys nicknamed "Doc" who hang out with musicians are known for their pharmacopia rather than being a real honest-to-goodness Doc.  How lucky are we?!

- Zurf

Seems to me children aren't conceived only by those with uteruses, or is it uteri.  Anyway, the less fair sex is involved and does have a stake in the issue. 

Changing subjects, in my rant above I forgot to mention something.  If one of these scared young girls does choose to have an abortion, they now have another situation to deal with.  Eventually they will come to recognize what has happened, what's been done.  Recently, I was sitting and having coffee with five men.  Rough men.  Bikers, construction workers, outdoorsmen.  Guys with scars.  We were talking and things turned spiritual.  And things turned to children and wives, and eventually to abortion.  Of the six men (five plus me) at the table, three of them had paid for abortions for their girlfriends when they were in high school.  All three of them were in tears, saying that a day didn't go by when they didn't wonder what would have become of that child.  They mourned the child's loss every day.  Some of these men were in their fifties.  The youngest was in his upper 30's.  That's more than twenty year's daily remorse for each of them.  Hard to fathom.  Hard to understand.  It only seems natural that women are more in tune and attached in an emotional sense as well as the physical to the child.  If tough fifty-some year old bikers are reduced to tears in a public place more than thirty years after the fact, I cannot fathom the emotional pain for women. 

The point of that story is that when these young women I spoke about above do choose to have an abortion even after the caring and attention I mention, they will still require counselling, support, and love.  I did not mean to represent that only women who choose as I would have them choose deserve loving care and attention.  It also demonstrates that the thought that only women have a voice in the matter is false.  It is a life altering decision for the involved men as well.   I guess it wasn't such a change of topic after all.

- Zurf

It that 250 refers to American dollars, I'd be looking at Stagg for new or at trade ins of Takemines or Ibanezes or Yamahas. 

You'd do well to find a shop that does trades and keep checking in with them.  Let them know what you're looking for and if you're lucky you might get a call when something good comes in.  But don't count on it.  Keep dropping by to look over their stock. 

- Zurf