Category: Music

Next Generation To Take A Pass On Aerosmith

“We are aware the classic American band has, since their rise to fame in the 1970s, repeatedly come out of nowhere to penetrate popular culture…but we are respectfully declining. No Aerosmith for us, thanks.”

Several months ago, I purchased 2 Floyd Rose Discovery guitars with Floyd Rose’s newSpeedloader locking tremolo. The first thing you’ll notice about the guitars is that they have no tuning pegs. The tuners are eliminated because the strings are precisely cut to length and pre-stretched so that tuning the guitar doesn’t require any winding. (ie: around a tuner peg.)

While I bought these guitars for their tuning stability and ease of string changes, deep down in my techie soul I didn’t really believe the Floyd Rose marketing-speak claiming that string changes can be done in only a few minutes. My Discovery DST-1 was in serious need of a string change, so today I went to Sam Ash , bought a pack of SpeedLoader strings, and embarked on my first journey through a SpeedLoader string change.

Let me just say, WOW. Changing strings IS as easy as Floyd Rose claims. No tools are needed. No winding is required. You simply unclip the string at the tremolo end, and remove the other end from the nut. To put a string on, you simply reverse the procedure. It took me about 5 minutes to do all the strings. Floyd Rose has really made a great tremolo. It has all the advantages of the Original Floyd Rose tremolo in regard to tuning stability, but none of the restringing headaches. I’ve got to say that I’m really impressed.

The only drawback to the SpeedLoader system is that it uses proprietary strings. Guitar Center doesn’t carry them, but to my amazement, Sam Ash does, and at a good price. So props to Sam Ash for not abandoning us SpeedLoader users.

I own 2 of the Speedloader Tremolo versions of this guitar, and got each of them on clearance for $150 because they just never became popular. I believe them to be the best Made in China guitars you can buy.

The Van Halen website recently announced that Van Halen will be kicking off a reunion tour with David Lee Roth in September. The first 2 shows on the tour schedule are Charlotte, NC and Greensboro, NC. Even though I’ve never really liked Greensboro Coliseum, I think I’m going to try and get tickets to that show since Greensboro is only about 1:15 from from Raleigh. Mike Anthony is still not in the band, which is a real shame, but Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang will be playing bass. Hopefully, next year, we’ll see another Van Halen tour with Sammy and Mike back in the band.

I’m really looking forward to this show. I’m too young to have seen Van Halen during the Roth years, but love the VH, Diver Down, Fair Warning, Women and Children First, and 1984 albums. So, here’s my chance to see Dave in action. (Even if he is a goofy bastard. 😉 )

I have a subscription to Guitar One magazine, and this month, instead of receiving this month’s Guitar One issue, I received a Guitar World issue. On the front page of the mag was a letter stating “We’re sorry to say that Guitar One has ceased publication…instead you’ll receive Guitar World.”

I’m now convinced that I am a jinx to guitar magazines. Back in “the day” (which was aTuesday by the way) there were pretty much 2 popular guitar magazines, “Guitar for the Practicing Musician” and “Guitar World.” I was an avid reader of “Guitar for the Practicing Musician.” It was a great Guitar magazine covering a plethora of guitar subjects. It also had a great variety of songs transcribed. Well, several years ago, that guitar magazine went out of publication so I didn’t have a guitar magazine to read. Then Guitar One came along, and had a similar format as GftPM. So, I subscibed to that. As you know from my title, that magazine is now gone as well.

It seems that Guitar World REALLY wants me to read it. It’s willing to slay its competitors (or in the case of Guitar One, its bretheren) to get me to read it. The problem is that Guitar World has always catered to the young testosterone filled guitar player, so their articles and ads are pretty much metal, metal, and more metal. The only story that sometimes doesn’t have the “shred” label attached to it is the cover story. (In this month’s issue, it’s the new Whitestripes album.) Since I’ve already paid for this subscription, I guess I’ll read Guitar World and hope they do some articles and guitar lessons that interest me. If not, I’ll just let the subscription expire and go it alone. Again.

I recorded a video of my band, High Fidelity at its last show at Chubby’s Lounge and have been editing the footage using iMovie. It’s been a while since I used iMovie (pre-iMovie HD) and I really dig it’s newest effects and features. So far, I’ve released 2 videos to YouTube. The first is us doing a cover of Cream’s version of “Crossroads”, and the other is us doing a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb.” With the latter I made it look like old 60’s film footage. It looks pretty cool. Check out the videos HERE.

Well, Van Halen has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Eddie Van Halen has checked himself into rehab. When asked about a “full-blown” Van Halen reunion at the RaRHoF ceremony, Sammy stated (and I’m paraphrasing) that if Van Halen (meaning everyone in the band) would grow up, they could all get together and do a reunion tour right. He also stated that he hopes Eddie comes though okay. (Meaning, Eddie’s rehabilitation.)

Well, I hope Eddie get’s himself straight, and I hope that Van Halen “grows up.” I’d love to see a reunion tour “done right.” 😉