The Well LIX: Well_Half_Empty

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Re: The Well LIX: Well_Half_Empty

What are your biggest influences, musical or otherwise, and what convinced you to get the guitars that you have?

Musical... first and foremost i gotta go with Jimmy Page. He's the king of the riff, can throw down the greasiest rock & roll solos of all time, and understanding what he was doing is kind of an ongoing thing to me, it seems like every time i learn a new technique or scale or chord or something, I eventually find myself going "oh, that's what JP was doing here..."

Also gotta give props to brian setzer, i spent a couple years worshiping the dude and IMO it was time well spent, I learned a lot. I have a feeling after he dies everyone will finally realize how phenomenal he is

Isis is a big one, that music is pure emotion and is way more deserving of the term "Neo Classical" IMO, all the extrapolating rhythms & stuff, I don't know, it's like a modern symphony, especially the Panopticon album. No verses or choruses... a lot can be learned from these guys

Nicke Andersson from the hellacopters has taught me lots of riffs & leads & stuff, a little about using bar chords in rock & roll (god forbid). This guy really knows how to keep the Chuck Berry riffs fresh & is great with a wah pedal.

Slash... I hate axel but learning some GnR solos and leads helped my lead playing quite a bit back when I learned it

Learning some early smashing pumpkins got me real comfortable with octave chords (really octaves in general) and how to kind of... sway them around I guess, I still do that a lot

Buddy Guy is probably my #1 blues influence, though i did learn a lot of SRV at one point so people would shut up about it


other than that.. I dunno man I play A LOT so pretty much every day i'll be hangin out on the couch, find a new riff I like & figure out how to play it. Lately though I've been stuck on Joe Pass and Chet Atkins, and their stuff is not so easy to just sit down and figure out. I'm working on it though, learning all the jazz and fingerstyle I can get my hands on


My main motivation for learning to play music was actually local shows, it's funny but it didn't dawn on me until i started going to them that music outside of the radio could be any good, after all, if it was good i assumed i'd hear about it. There was this post punk band I really liked & went to more or less every single show they did, and the lead player had a HH tele I liked. I saw the blackout and was like "yep, that's my guitar."

The strat is actually the 3rd one i've owned and the only one I've liked. That was just one of those things where I needed a strat and finally bought the one that sounded the best instead of looking for a white one or a sunburst one & buying sight unseen. Glad I did, sounds and plays awesome

5120 was just kind of meant to be, I was drooling over pro line Gretsches for years without the means to get one, and the only cheaper hollowbody they had had single coils and i wanted TV classics. Then they introduced the 5120 and I bought one almost immediately. It's funny I originally bought it for twangy stuff but now that i'm trying to learn jazz & stuff i'm realizing it has amazing tone for that, too. I'm so impressed with the quality of this thing at the price i got it for that I don't know that I'll ever buy a full hollowbody that's not a Gretsch, even my idea of the holy grail of jazz guitars is an old sunburst anni with TV jones pickups and a rocking bar bridge

I bought the tempest when I wanted a LP-ish guitar and realized every epiphone in that price that I had access to was more or less complete trash in comparison. IMO it's the best LP you can get for $500

The jet I got because, well, it was just kind of a long time comin, it's the rock guitar with That Great Gretsch Sound. I got a really, really good deal on it I couldn't pass up and now I can say even if I had money for a LP standard I'd probably buy a power jet instead. I mean I need both, but these FMIC gretsches are consistently blowing me away; after a few upgrades that any cheaper guitar needs they're just amazing. This is by far the most comfortable guitar to play & resonates way better than it should for the price tag. I can't put the friggin thing down!

I dunno man, I just got a thing for Gretsch. Unbelievable clarity and note separation, outstanding quality, practically play themselves (bends are a dream), the best twang when you want it, the best blue when you want it, the best cleans when you want em... I dunno man, just a flavor all their own. If I had to play one guitar forever it would be a Gretsch.
 
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Re: The Well LIX: Well_Half_Empty

...wichita lineman is a really beautiful song ... not about football at all ... the chords and melody of that song are just perfect ... very chill tune ...

It is. Almost anything Jimmy Webb has written is a beautiful song. Consider "Galveston", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "MacArthur Park", "The Highwayman", he's just got a gorgeous sense of melody.
 
Re: The Well LIX: Well_Half_Empty

man i wish i would'a gone with a tempest instead of my SG now but that's besides the point...
you play live right? what was your favorite moment live, and what was your worst? if not disreguard this i guess...:D
 
Re: The Well LIX: Well_Half_Empty

man i wish i would'a gone with a tempest instead of my SG now but that's besides the point...
you play live right? what was your favorite moment live, and what was your worst? if not disreguard this i guess...:D

yeah I play live

Favorite moment... back when i was about 17 I was in a punk band, and before our first show we busted our asses for weeks passing out flyers, and by the time the show finally came around the place was PACKED, and it seemed like everyone was there to see us, it was great.

Worst... a couple months ago we played some outside party thing for a bunch of douchey small town alcoholic teenies and they talked through every band's entire set, only 10 of 80 or so people actually payed attention to the bands. Solution - crank the amps, piss everyone off, drink their beer and leave
 
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