TuesdayAugust31,2010 SHOW: Rush kicked off the grandstand performances at the 2010 Great Allentown Fair. And we were there. I purchased a couple of good seats in the reserved seating section on the “track”. I had a good view. Even DD had a good view ‘cause there were smaller females in front of us and the track slopes down toward the stage.
Before we went into the show we got a few tacos from the Take-a-Taco stand. They make some good tacos. Unfortunately you can only get them during summer festivals and fairs. Apparently tonight all of the proceeds from their sales would be donated towards breast cancer research. That was kinda cool. Unfortunately they put onions in our tacos even through we asked them not to. But it was for a good cause.
We took a lap around the fair, headed into the grandstand area and found our seats. Rush came on a little late but it was worth the extra waiting time ‘cause that band is amazing. They named their current tour the “Time Machine” tour. That’s a pretty appropriate name ‘cause they really hopped around all of the material that they have to cover from the past 40 years. They even hopped into the future by playing 2 tracks from their forthcoming CD. Those songs were pretty good. I’ll look forward to buying the new disc when it gets released.
Rush has been touring without a supporting act for many years now. They play about a three hour set with a 15 minute intermission. They opened the show (and after the intermission) with a short film starring the members of the band. They also ran film during the songs. In a lot of the animated sequences the characters moved across the scenes from left to right. D thought that they should change that up a little more and have the characters walk from right to left. The first half of the set was packed full of great songs spanning a career’s worth of material. It was cool to hear some songs that I haven’t heard them play in quite a few tours. They also mixed in a lot of “newer” songs.
After the intermission, they played the Moving Pictures album front-to-back. Although it may seem daunting for a band to play a pack of songs like that, some that they haven’t performed in a long time if ever, they made it look and sound easy. It was great to hear them play The Camera Eye , Witch Hunt, and Vital Signs.
As usual, Neil Peart played a magnificently composed solo drum performance. He always has so much cool percussion stuff goin’ on at once. It sounds like there are multiple drummers playing up there. Not that this has anything to do with anything but, I noticed that he gained a little weight. I was surprised because he was an avid bicyclist at one time. But then, he’s been through so much tragedy in recent years with the death of his wife and daughter. Experiences like that can affect you mentally as well as physically. Or maybe he’s just enjoying more sandwiches backstage than he used to. Ay any rate; there are no better drummers in the world of rock than Neil Peart.
They ended the show with a couple of revamped renditions of some older songs. They played The Trees and Working Man adding different feels to parts of the songs. For example, they started Working Man with a reggae feel but then halfway through the song they kicked it back into its original rock form. It was cool and interesting to hear the contrast in that. It was a fun way to end the show.
Overall, this performance was just as amazing as any other performance that I’ve seen from them. Rush are friendly, professional, consummate performers with a good sense of humor. They always give you a great show.
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SaturdayAugust28,2010 Since I haven’t built my guitar instruction site yet (soon, dude!) I figure that I’ll make a note about any new guitar sites that I add to the “Guitar” menu on my “Sites” page.
I just found a new site called Shred Academy. There’s over a hundred free lessons available there. And, based on a couple that I’ve looked at, it seems like it’s a pretty good resource. For example, I’ll highlight this lesson on there called Hopscotch. The lesson gives you a neat way to memorize all of the pentatonic scale shapes that you can play in one position. He supplies a downloadable PDF with the scale patterns and explains the logic of it all in the 2 accompanying videos from his Youtube channel.
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FridayAugust27,2010 IN MEMORY OF: On August 27th, 1990 I started my first day of college. It was a weird day. I remember that it was kinda hot. I was nervous about starting something new. I was running late for my first class so I pulled into the first parking spot that I found. It turned out to be a private parking lot. I found a parking ticket on my windshield after I came outta classes. Of course, I never did finish that Engineering program.
On august 27th, 1990 Stevie Ray Vaughan died. I didn’t find out until later that day. We didn’t have the Internet back then and I never watched much television. But I eventually heard the news somehow. He was one of my favorite guitar players. Still is. Hell, just about anyone who knows anything about the guitar or just heard him play would most likely consider him a favorite.
So here I am, 20 years later, back at that same school and still playing his music. I miss that guy. And I never even really knew him. I wish that he and Hendrix were still with us.
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FridayAugust13,2010 COLD SHOT: My favorite magazine is Guitar World. I dig reading the articles and columns and I like to watch the features that they have on the companion CD ROM each month. Like other magazines, they have a “letters to the editor” section at the beginning of each issue called “Sounding Board”. One letter in the September issue caught my attention. The author wrote:
Stevie Ray Vaughan was an average guitar player. Other blues-rock guitarists play better and more stylishly. Do other guitarists have to die before they receive the adulation Stevie Ray Vaughan now has? It’s not fair that you wasted time and paper on so much mediocrity. SRV was the Sylvester Stallone of the electric guitar: loved by millions for his comfortable predictability ~ Adam Kaplan
I remember reading a similar letter in a GW issue a long time ago. And I’ve read other things from time to time that had the same sentiment. This recent letter was a little harsh. Knowing SRV’s music as I know it, I hafta wonder if this person has ever even listened to his music or seen him play. Of course, it’s all opinions. But, seriously, saying that SRV was an average player or implying that he didn’t play as well or with as much flair as other guitar players in the genre is a bit absurd. All you have to do is watch an SRV performance and then not only do know that he was something special… you FEEL it…
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ThursdayAugust12,2010 YOUTUBE: Best comment I ever got on Youtube. Copied word-for-word:
just some helpfull advise cut some about a inch of hair off the to of your head you will look more cool ~ jksnow500
Based on how it was written, I figured that it was posted by a 12-year-old dude because of the nature of the comment as well as the misspellings, bad grammar usage, and such. I visited this user’s channel just to see if he had any videos of himself and to see whether he looked “cool” and I discovered that this person is 46 years old.
Gosh, I hope that I won’t be posting comments like this on Youtube when I’m 46. I won’t even reply to this comment because the comment itself knocks the author down further than I’d want to. Plus, I really don’t care. I just think that it’s funny. The thing about it is that he posted this on a video that I made over a year and a half ago. My hair is much longer now. Does this mean that I’m even less cool?
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MondayAugust09,2010 CAMP: D and I made our annual visit to Eagles training camp at Lehigh. I think they first flew in last Thursday or something like that. As usual, I packed us some super peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some tasty beverages. We also had a pack of Sport Beans. Those things are pretty effective. D brought a towel to lie on the bleachers so that we wouldn’t get our pants wet. The bleachers are always wet early in the morning for some reason. We sat in the bleachers facing the morning sun ‘cause most of the action was gonna happen on that side of the field. It was hot.
Talkin’ about “hot”, there’s a new wide receiver named Riley Cooper who we got to see. He’s a new recruit. He’s good. He’s expected to make the team this season. We may see him in action this year. They have a “young” team now. It’s gonna be an interesting season. Kolb looked good. He’s got quite a job to do this year. We got to see him play against the Saints when we went down to the Linc last season. He looked good that day too even though they got destroyed.
There’s a lot of new players around now who have plenty of potential to help the Eagles win games. Leonard Weaver is one of them. He was lookin’ good. He was chatting with the fans at one point as he was standing on the sidelines. I thought that was pretty cool. We saw some good stuff from Buckley, Celek, Maclin, and Jackson. D took a lot of pictures. She caught some really good action shots.
There’s another new wide receiver recruit named Chad Hall. He looks kinda small though. Especially when he was standing next to our favorite “benchwarmer”, King Dunlap, who’s probably the biggest dude in the NFL. D got some pictures of the two of them standing together. It looks funny.
After the morning session was over, Merrill Reese (the voice of the Eagles) was in the VIP tent kickin' off a meet & greet. It was pretty cool to see him as well as hear him. He talked about some of the new prospects including a new safety named Nate Allen who could add some talent to special teams. After that, we headed out and took a tour through D’s alma mater. I’ve never really been through the Lehigh campus before. It’s built like, on a hill. There are lookout points along the way. D snapped a shot of me at one of those lookout points. I thought that it was a cool picture so I figured that I’d add it to this note.
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SaturdayAugust7,2010 TABLE #6: My old friend Jeremy got married today. I’ve known him for many years. Like, we were just kids when we first got to know each other. Since then he’s become one of my favorite people. So, when he invited me to his wedding there was no question about whether I would attend or not. He lives in Colorado now. But he and his new wife flew back to the east to have their wedding at his Mother’s home in southern New Jersey. D and I are very familiar with southern New Jersey due to the fact that we have ridden 150 miles across that area. Parts of the area are very woody and there’s just a hint of sand on the ground since you’re close to the beaches. That’s the type of area that his Mother lives in.
So, we took the Parkway to get there. Well, we eventually took the Parkway. We missed it going down as well as coming home. I joked about the fact that it’s one of the biggest roads going through Jersey and yet it’s the hardest one for us to find, it seems. After we got off the Parkway we sat in a jam for about 40 minutes. We just made it in time to witness the ceremony. I’m glad that we didn’t miss it ‘cause I really wanted to be there for that. The weather was beautiful all day and the ceremony was really nice. They held the entire event outside on his Mother’s property. It was a small gathering.
There were quite a lot of old “heads” there from Jeremy’s past. From my past as well, since we hung around some of the same people. The coolest thing (other than getting to talk to Jeremy) was that I was seated at the same table as another old friend of mine whom I haven’t really got a chance to talk to for about 15 years or something like that. His name is Mike Sprigle. There was a point in time when he and I were inseparable. We skated and played guitar for countless hours and days back when we were teenagers. We sat down at the table during the reception and started talking as if we were continuing a conversation that we had sometime back in the mid-nineties. It was cool. We exchanged phone numbers. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to play some guitar sometime.
At the end of the event we talked with Jeremy and his wife and made some loose plans to meet up sometime in the next week. If that doesn’t happen then I’ll look forward to possibly flying out to Colorado some season and doing some snowboarding with them.
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WednesdayAugust04,2010 Well, it's the birthday of the man whom I once called "Dad". But does a soul have a birthday? I don't know, but, Happy Birthday, Dad.
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TuesdayAugust03,2010 Happy Birthday to DD!
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TuesdayJuly27,2010 PHILANTHROPY: For those of you who are philanthropic individuals I wanted to remind you to sponsor me in the Bike MS: City to Shore Ride in 2010. My girl and I will be riding our tandem bike 150 miles between Cherry Hill and Ocean City, NJ on September 25th & 26th. You can sponsor me at any time of the year through my MS Sponsor page but, right now, I’m focused on the fundraising effort since the tour will be coming up soon. I’ve already raised $360 but my goal is to raise over $1000. You can sponsor me and/or my girl through the following links. Thanks for your support!
