Pull Your Damn Guitars Up!

WHY YOU LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE WHEN YOUR GUITAR STRAP IS TOO LOW

  I view these kids who play with their guitars too low in much the same way I view these kids who walk around with their pants hanging around their God damn ankles.

 

 It doesn't make you look cool, it just makes you look like an ignorant, uneducated piece of trash.

You kids pull your god damn guitars back up!

I'm almost 40 now. Since life expectancy these days is roughly 78 years, that technically puts me in middle age. My beef with douchebags who wear their guitars too low makes me the musical version of the angry old man who's always yelling at the neighborhood kids to 'get the hell off my lawn!' 

I believe in first impressions. For example, when I see someone wearing their pants around their ankles I get the impression that this is someone who mistakenly believes they look good when they really don't and are willing to stick to this erroneous belief even at risk of ridicule, unemployment and profiling by law enforcement. 

When I see someone wearing their guitar too low I get the impression that this too is someone who mistakenly believes they look good when they really don't, and that "looking good with the guitar" is ultimately more important than anything you actually play on the guitar. 

   And as a lifelong guitar player, I hold the instrument in a much higher regard. Yes the way you play is important because playing a certain way is better for your technique. 

 I also believe that if you wanna play great music then you need to look like you're playing great music. 

But I think its disrepecting to the guitar and to all the great guitarists in history to view your guitar as nothing more than simply a fashion accessory. 

Wearing your guitar too low also hinders the rest of your band as it doesn't present the music very well. If you truly did care about image then you would never wear your guitar like that.

  What do you think presents the music better?

  someone who wears their guitar this?

or 

someone who wears their guitar this?

 

 Besides, the lower your guitar hangs, the harder it is on your fret hand wrist, and your technique will suffer as a result. 

  In the photo above, Prince, shows how its done. You should have the guitar no higher or lower than belt level. This length looks best and is easy on the wrist, unless you have short alligator arms which in that case you may need to stop reading this and seriously consider changing hobbies.

 CORRECT. One again take note of the fret hand wrist and how it is resting in a natural, un-inverted position.

 Incorrect. Playing like this will also make you an alcoholic and will eventually kill you as Steve Clark has already so masterfully shown us. 

 

Correct

Incorrect 

A NOTE ON JIMMY PAGE

Techically, I would call this too low, but Jimmy Page is an exception to the rule. His arms are so damn long that he can comfortably play this low. Note how his fret hand wrist is still in a natural, unbent position. 

  Also, he's not calling attention to the fact he's playing low. 

He's doing it with class unlike the following douches below...

   

HOWEVER

  

If you're wearing pants and you wear 'em too low you look like an asshole but if you wear them too high you also look like an asshole. 

Don't rest the guitar on your belly, it looks lazy. Also note how wearing the guitar too high also leads to the un-natural position of the fret hand wrist.

Besides, wearing your guitar that high does not give the impression of confidence. It just makes it look like you're trying too hard, and you have not yet reached the level where you can just let it rip without a care in the world

like this...

Who do you think looks like the more confident, able guitarist? 

 

 someone who plays like this

  

someone who plays like this?

or 

 like this?

The first two DOUCHEBAGS just look like they're playing guitar. 

Hendrix and Gilmour look like THE GUITAR IS PLAYING THEM.

And that right there is the next level I want you to reach. 

please also follow me on facebook and twitter.

like me on facebook. http://www.facebook.com/guitardedblogg

Follow me on twitter @guitardedblog

Don't Look at Your Damn Guitar When You Play.

   One of the biggest things that get on my nerves with guitar players is when a guitarist is performing in public and they can't take their eyes off the damn guitar.

Watch the Video

   
   Do you think The Beatles ever would've conquered the world if Paul McCartney was staring at his bass trying to make sure he didn't fuck up instead of smiling so big that every teenage girl in the America wanted to fuck his brains out?


  If you said yes stop reading right now and go pawn your guitar then use the money to buy new guitar strings so you can hang yourself.

  Don't look at your guitar when you play! If you can't play without keeping your eyes fixated on the neck of your guitar then you need to keep practicing. 

  Who do you think is going to have the better performing career?

Someone Who Plays Guitar Like This?

Or Someone Who Plays Guitar Like This?

 Turn the lights off when you play, it'll help you get used to not looking at your guitar. And in the extremely unlikely event that your lame ass band that plays the Yorgurtini to a crowd of zero, ever made it big, you're going to be playing in big arenas and when there will be little or no lighting at times. 

  I'm suggesting to you that its not so much what you're playing as much as how you're playing it, look at your audience. The majority of the music listening public isn't interested in the finer points of guitar playing. Shit the majority of people don't even play guitar. Your audience wants to be entertained. 

  

please also follow me on facebook and twitter.

like me on facebook. http://www.facebook.com/guitardedblogg

Follow me on twitter @guitardedblog

The Five Stages of Rock N Roll: Stage 1

Stage 1: 'F*CK YEAH MOTHERF*CKER!!'

   I was an angry, hateful teenager. I hated school, teachers, the students, their parents, my parents, organized religion...messy religion (haha) the good looking girls that shunned me, the ugly girls that thought they were good looking and who also shunned me as well as the jocks, preppies, math nerds, science nerds. art fags, drama fags, cowboys, rappers, goths, punk rockers, skin heads, cholos, and those guys that all they ever talked about were muscle cars, or guns. I was a stoner, metalhead, rocker, hessian (I never understood hessian, how are headbangers and german mercenaries from the 18th century alike?) and I even hated most of the other stoner-metalheads. 

   So I listened to angry music. Metallica (until they put out the Black Album) Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, among many others. Grew my hair long and wore black, experimented with drugs, got into some trouble with the law, never got laid, never had a girlfriend, never had a date, never went to a dance, didn't go to prom, never showed up at school for picture day. 

Highlights of Stage 1

• Age 13: I had drank before but at 13 was the first time I got really drunk
•  
• Age 14: started smoking cigarettes
•  
• Age 14: Smoked weed
•  
• Age 14: First time I was allowed to go with my cousins to the bars in Mexico. 
• 
  
• Age 15: First concert, Metallica w/Queensryche
•  
• Age 15: Tried LSD, which became somewhat of a semi-regular habit.
• 
  
• Age 16: Was hanging out with a group of 20-something homeless drug addicts. I would often disappear for days at a time, sleeping under bridges or on church rooftops.
• 
  
•  Ran away from home at age 16/17 (can't remember now) to Santa Barbara , CA where I lived in a car with three people I didn't know.  While we were there we broke into a car, stole some dudes weed stash, went shopping while I watched the people I was with bounce an $800 check for groceries, and went to one of the dudes girlfriends house where, while he was talking to her in the house, I was "drafted" to sneak into the guest house to take the "money machine" - one of those big crystal water jugs full of change and bills. This financed our trip back to Phoenix.
•  

My first DUI at age 17


    I was a rotten kid. I hated myself, and everyone around me. I was impossible to keep control of. There was nothing you could do or say to me. You couldn't take away my shit, because I didn't have anything. You couldn't ground me, I would sneak out. 

   You could try knocking me around, but I would knock you right back. I never minded getting hurt or beat up a little, bruises and wounds heal. So the threat of physical punishment meant nothing to me. 
 
   The Way I saw it, everybody takes a beating sometime. - Henry Hill, from Goodfellas.


  Besides a certain amount of pain is good. It lets you know you're still alive. Sometimes you can be so helplessly depressed, that you'll believe that THE ONLY way to feel anything else is to experience pain. At least thats how I used to see it. I spent my fair share of time carving anarchy symbols and pentagrams on my forearms.
 _____________________________________________________


   By the time I was 21, I had long been using alcohol and drugs to self medicate myself. When I was in hyperactive mode, alcohol or weed helped calm me down. When I was depressed or having the usual racing thoughts then alcohol killed all thought in my brain, like 'liquid meditation,' if you know what I mean. And if you know what I mean, then congrats because that means you are f*cking cool as hell. You're the Kitties Titties!

   But the thing with weed was that I never had any money because I could never hold down a job. Besides, I hate always having to 'score' all the time, and in the days before cell phones scoring weed could be a major pain in the ass. I tried growing it on a few occassions but that never worked. So if it was around I would smoke it, if I had money and the opportunity came along, I would buy. If a friend had some and was busting out with everyone else, count me in, but I never went out of my way for it, and alcohol is so much easier to take.  


   And of course there is the music....

  Back in the 80's my world revolved around Metallica. 'I celebrated their entire catalog.' For my money there was just no other band that was as hard, and fast, while still managing to remain melodic. "Master of Puppets" is a masterpiece. I loved the progressive tone of the album, 8 minute+ songs with three main riffs and at least two guitar solos. This was all lost with the Black Album, but we'll get to that in stage 2. Metal, and headbanging, moshing, thrashing on my guitar was the only way I could let out all the anger I was feeling.

   But why the hell are you so angry in Stage 1, When the Music is so F*kkin Cool?

   I was angry for a lot of reasons but besides the fact that your hormones are in overdrive, most of my anger had to do with being ostracized, left out, hunted, despised...

Home, I have no home, hunted, despised, living like an Animal!

   Years before I entered high school and my teenage years, my social fate was sealed as the oddball, the weird dude, the one who doesn't say much. The, "yeah he's alright but he's just a little..off, you know" 

   Stage 1 is where you really begin to realize this, but you are in denial of it. You still haven't accepted your fate by removing yourself of all labels and "types"... and by types, I mean that you no longer feel the need to have to be either a rocker or a jock, or a preppy, or a theater geek, whatever... 

   All you know is that your situation sucks and you don't how to fix it. The anger is a byproduct of this resistance to the way things are. And since it seems that the harder you try to fit in, the more you just stand out, there is only one thing to do...Smoke cigarettes, get drunk on cheap beer, get stoned on bad weed, and turn the music up louder than you secretly admit is reasonable, just so you can get a kick out of telling whoever asks you to turn it down, to f*ck off.

   I got kicked out of many public buses for not turning my walkman down. And I'm talking about the old ass walkmans, the ones that used 4 AA batteries instead of two. Now those f*kkers were noisy.

________________________________________________________

Ok I've Covered A lot, So Let me Explain...

 

  The Five Stages of Rock

Stage 1: F*ck Yeah Motherf*cker!

• Raging Hormones
• Misplaced Aggression
• Realization that the teenage social status boundaries have already been drawn
• Accompanied by the realization that, that means you're pretty much screwed.
• Cheap beer, bad sex (if you're lucky) good drugs. (if you're real lucky)

• Kick ass tunes. 

Next Time: The Five Stages of Rock, Stage 2

 

 

 

 

Silvertone SS10 Guitar & Amp Package, Black - Guitars

 

The Over-Falsity of Confidence

 Some people think that to find a great sounding guitar, that you have to spend money. The kind of money that people put down to buy a car.  

Jimmy Page and his Gibson 12 string/6 string double neck.

There is a listing for that Gibson on Ebay right now for $9,999.99. 

Jimi Hendrix 1968 Fender Stratocaster was reportedly sold in 1998 to Paul Allen of Microsoft for 2 million dollars. 

David Gilmour's custom Fender Stratocaster is listed on Musiciansfriend.com for $4280.00

_______________________________________________

Never wanted to play guitar. Ever. Everyone plays guitar. What's the point.- Jack White

  On the other end of the spectrum you have someone like

Jack White who builds a god damn guitar out of string and a soda bottle.

Who said you needed to buy a guitar? - Jack White

“For example, the idea behind using the Ward’s Airline in the White Stripes was to prove that you don’t need a brand new guitar to have character, to have tone, and to be able to play what you want to play.” - Jack White

 

  I love the fact that the main guitar that Jack White used in The White Stripes is an old $125 Montgomery Wards Airline electric. 

   Jack White isn't the only one with a fondness for cheap guitars. Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys also prefers going lo-tech with some cheap pawn shop style guitars in his arsenal.

  

  Thats Dan Auerbach rockin a harmony which nowadays you can get for around $600-$800. The sound of The Black Keys is so rich and full. The first time I heard them I found it hard to believe it was just two people.

 The Black Keys performing "I Got Mine" at Abbey Road Studios

 ___________________________________________________________________________

OK we've covered alot so far. Lemme explain... 

 

   There are differences between cheap and expensive electrics. These differences lie mainly in the woods used and the electronics/hard ware. More expensive guitars have more expensive woods, paint, finishes etc...More expensive guitars will also have different quality pickups, and bridges.

   

   But when all is said and done, I'm of the opinion that a guitar should be judged by its sound, and its feel. I would never be judgmental of a friend just because they didn't drive an expensive car or have an extremely high paying job, and I would never judge a guitar just because of it's price.

 The toilet seat guitar at my local music store. The perfect gift for the sh*tty guitarist.

   Some people will say that people like Jack White just make it cool for the broke asses of the world to get street cred as a struggling artist that plays on crap equipment. I'm sure they would  probably also say that you can't make awesome music without an awesome guitar, and the only way to get an awesome guitar is to spend the money for one, and I think they're just as right as every other opinion out there.

   If you feel that the only way you can express yourself musically is to cough up 10 grand, then that is what works for you, and thats cool, but its not the only way to go about doing it. There are plenty of people out there today playing all sorts of different equipment.

   The only guitar I have left now is an electric. It's an Alvarez strat copy. I paid $90 bucks for it, and its one of the best guitars I've ever owned. The minute I picked it up, I knew this was my guitar. It aint much to brag about, it looks like its been through some wars, but this guitar has personality. I've never seen an Alvarez electric before, and I haven't seen one since. It's unique, just like myself. 

   

 And frankly, I find it much more satisfying and rewarding to unexpectedly find a good guitar somewhere like a thrift store, pawn shop, garage sale, or online. The way I see it, when that happens, the guitar basically finds you. There's no magic in it when you just walk into the guitar center or some other store, with a shitload of cash and just pay buy a guitar much like you would buy your lunch, or a pair of shoes. At least thats my take on it, and I'm not hating on anybody or invalidating their point of view. There are no absolutes in this. Everyone is right, and wrong, its all relative...

Right Rock and Roll Einstein?!

Ja!

   I don't know how to end this, so I'm just going to go now.

Time for go to Bed

A Collection of Great Guitar Solos: David Gilmour

   My first attempt at making a music/photo collage thing. Just figured I'd do something different. This list is not all inclusive, so just  because something isn't on this list doesn't mean anything so don't read into it. This is just a list of some of my favorite David Gilmour solos. thats all.


ok bye.

Gibsons Robot Guitar

Gibson's Robot Guitar

   The first time I ever played a guitar was sometime around 1982. I was 9 years old. I'm almost 40 now and I still have a hard time believing sometimes that a guitar can actually tune itself.

   The price range is from $1000-$3000. It comes with seven factory preset tunings.

• Standard: E,A,D,G,B,E,
• E flat: Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Bb,Eb
• Drop D: D, A,D,G,B,E
• Double Drop D: D,A,D,G,B,D
• D Modal: D,A,D,G,A,D
• Open G: D,G,D,G,B,D,
• Open E:  E,B,E,G#,B,E 

   I've never played one, and I'm not a very technically saavy person, so that's about as technically in-depth as I'm going to get into with the robot guitar. 

   Some people say that this leap in technology is taking something away from today's musicians, or that this is only for lazy guitar players.
  
   I have to disagree. Just because it tunes it for you doesn't mean that it's playing itself, or thinking of what to do any of the time. That's still up to the player. I'm going to use an old reference here but just because someone may be a writer, doesn't mean they have to know how to fix a typewriter when it breaks down. I've been playing for over 25 years now and I'm a fairly descent player, but even I have trouble changing strings, and I have to rely on either my snark tuner, or the app on my I-Phone to stay in tune. I rely on electronics to stay in tune anyways.

   I can understand that some people are purists and like the old ways better, but sometimes just because something is older doesn't mean its better.

   I love writing and the process of writing, but I'm not about to trade in Microsoft Word and my laptop for an old dusty typewriter any time soon. The less time I spend messing with typewriters and correcting tape, and ribbons and crap, the more time I can spend actually writing, and creating, thats whats important.

   This is a timesaver. Especially if you play live and make a living playing guitar. From what I understand, the guitar tunes pretty accurately and it only takes a few seconds. If you play live, and have to rely on multiple guitars for songs in different tunings then this guitar is a lifesaver.

   It is expensive and there are no replacement parts for it and I understand in case your guitar needs repairs or replacement parts that there are only four authorized Gibson Robot Guitar dealers in the U.S. to send your guitar to.

   A self-tuning guitar is impressive and this guitar is an important first step. Now that we know that it can be done, the next few years will be spent refining the technology, and making it more affordable.