Re: WELLXV: Cat's foot, Iron Claw...Mincer's well is open for all
-Ever worked with a Chapman stick player or played one?
-Ever hurt yourself going after a Holdsworth chord?
-Does the Blue Angel still get use? can't remember if yours is the head or not. If so, what speakers do you like for it?
-give us your top five 70's fusion records...
-do you scallop all your necks?
-As a Sabbath fan, what do you reckon is the silliest Sabbath lyric?, and what era/albums do you prefer regarding Tony's tone?
-What is the strangest bill you've ever played on?
-As a teacher, are there any specific approaches you work on with your students? do you try and guide players towards certain ways of approaching the instrument, or do you just supply them with what they are after? both maybe?
- As far as a Stick player, no, not yet, but I have tried to play a 12 string Grand Midi Stick. Made of Purpleheart. I sucked at it, although it sounded beautiful, just not when I played it.
-Playing Holdsworth's 'Three Sheets to the Wind' will hurt anyone's hand. My old band used to play Bruford's Hells Bells, but there aren't crazy chords in that one.
- I use the Blue Angel 1x12 with the jazzy blues band I play with. Usually on the 6v6 setting. I love that amp. I use the stock Mesa Black Shadow in it.
-Favorite Fusion records..(in no order)
1. Mahavishnu Orchestra: The Inner Mounting Flame
2. Jeff Beck: Blow by Blow
3. Dixie Dregs: Dregs of the Earth
4. Jean Luc Ponty: Enigmatic Ocean
5. Shakti
- I don't scallop all the necks, just the Ernie Ball/Music Man. For me, it works well with that guitar but it isn't something I need to have on every guitar.
- silly Sabbath lyric? Just read the lyrics to 'Iron Man'. Some of the later Sabbath albums like TYR or Forbidden have absolutely hysterical lyrics.
Tony's tone hit its peak with Heaven and Hell and the Live Evil albums. He started getting this weird midrange thing going on with later albums. Although I love his sound on Born Again, the production is so awful it covers a lot of what he does up. The Ozzy era is all over the map tonally. I have to go with the live album 'Live at Last' from 74-75 as his best tone. Again, the weird production on a lot of the mid-70s Sabbath albums really obscured his sound then.
- strange bill? Oh my...one happened this year. I played a solo acoustic show (all instrumental, with looping) for a Scientology-sponsored Holiday toy drive. Before me was a local dance school who did these stripper routines. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with it, except the girls were 12-14 years old. Funny, the parents were beaming from the audience. It was really uncomfortable. Strange, when the front of the stage consisted of 40+ year old guys watching them very closely. I heard a parent say 'oh look, they really like my daughter...she trained so hard for this!'. Part of my pay was a hardcover copy of Battlefield Earth. No lie.
-As far as teaching, I try to have each student as their own entity. I don't give them one path- everyone has different goals. Not everyone wants to be a pro guitarist. They do learn what they like, but I make them work. We learn technique excercises, reading music, songs they like, creativity and improvisation. It is really important to me to let them be creative. You don't have to be a certain level to write songs, or improvise. The hardest part is allowing yourself to play something badly, and be ok with it. Our first improvisations are not the best. But they get better. But you have to go through them sucking to get better. For adults mostly, this is hard to overcome.
and how you do that!
