This week's gig is cool!

Well, I have fallen behind in my postings yet again, and plan to do so for the remainder of the week, with the exception to this one. I found out today that I will be playing here tomorrow through Saturday night. The scheduled act cancelled, and our agent called us to replace the gig we previously had. Pretty cool! Driving to school will be a drag, but you're only young once, right? Well, until next time...

Playing at Turtle Creek Saloon this weekend

Thought it was about time to post a shameless plug for my band, The Players Club. We are playing at the Turtle Creek Saloon tonight, north of Bemidji in Turtle River. For any Bemidjians looking for something to do, come check us out! We'll be there from 9pm to 1am today and tomorrow. If I know you, I'll buy you a drink for coming out. Heck, even if I don't know you, I'll buy you one for coming out. See you there...

My sweet newly completed guitar project

Well, I haven't posted any random bloggery for a while, so I figured it was time to get on that. With all of the blogging guitar-related blogs, I decided it was time to tell you about my guitar project. I modified my Fender telecaster, beginning with a custom-installed B-bender from Charlie McVay.
Great for steel-guitar sounds, and other crazy note bending effects. I then added Fender custom shop pickups, which I custom wired with a 4-way switch to achieve series and parallel configuration (basically, to get 4 different tones instead of the standard 3). I also installed a custom neck from here. I bolted up the neck yesterday (with the help of a friend) and it is SMOKIN'. You may not be interested, but that's a chance I'm willing to take.

Truth in Shredding

Check this out if you like hearing guitar players tear it up. A blog of with lots of videos (YouTube) of guitarists "shredding" (or ripping your face off, if you prefer that terminology.) The blog contains video posts, with some short commentary. The commentary generally outlines the guitarist appearing in the video, their credentials, and a brief discription of thier performance.

This blog is a personal blog, in that all entries that I witnessed were posted by the same author. It is a filter-type, with links to news and other guitarist-related happenings (record deals, new albums, performances, etc.)

Informing guitar music lovers of the great players featured is the intended purpose of the blog. This could be portrayed as informative, from the standpoint of the blog viewer, or as reputation building, from the standpoint of the guitarist featured. Obviously, there is also a self-expression element contained in the choice of who to feature, as well as musical style choices.

This is a guitar blog focused solely on great guitarists, and what they are doing. It provides good background information on the individual artists featured, who they've worked with, and things of that nature.

Interestingly, while it is focused on chops (technical ability, speed, etc) it does cover a wide variety of genres. Most often, insanely fast guitar playing is associated with metal, but you can find traditional jazz, fusion, and even flamenco styles within this blog. Definitely a must for those who appreciate skilled guitarists.

Strat-O-Blogster Guitar Blog

Okay, so I'm going to blog another guitar blog. I like guitars. I can't help myself. The Strat-O-Blogster guitar blog (named after the Fender Stratocaster, for those not so guitar-literate), is self-proclaimed as the worlds most ridiculous guitar blog. It is a filter blog linking to "ridiculous" guitars and "ridiculous" guitarists. However, some of the entries take on a more journal-like character. There is also an emphasis on videos, with links to youtube videos and the like.

The sidebars of the blog are full of links to guitar-related material, and there is an extensive guitar-driven blogroll as well.

This blog seems to be mostly of the informative nature, although both self-expression and reputation building attributes are there as well. This blog seems more focused on the guitar as an instrument, rather than the people who play it. The blog author's intentions appear to be to provide information and generally cool stuff for guitar enthusiasts to drool over. Worked for me. Check out the guitar security vault featured in Wed. Feb. 7th's post. Very cool.

The content is largely gear driven, in that it is focused on equipment for guitar players. The author usually provides some commentary, which is sometimes quite extensive. This blog seems to be of the personal nature as well, maintained by one individual. It is consistent with its posts, posting daily on most occasions.

All in all, a very cool guitar blog, at least for my tastes. I am more interested in guitars and gear. I already am familiar with many great guitar players that are featured by bloggers. However, I can't get enough gear talk, and can always learn more about what other guitarists are using or what's new.

Guitar Blog

If you are even remotely as obsessed with the guitar as I am, you need to check out the Guitar Blog. It is a filter-type blog saturated with links to all things guitar related. It links to articles on guitars and guitarists, as well as other guitar-related equipment, reviews, and news.

The blog has been around since August of 2002 (according to the archive) and has an interesting blogroll of other guitar and guitar-music blogs.

The author of the blog also provides information on his own guitars and guitar projects. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to have been a posting since November. I would imagine that this is the end of the road for this blog, but I may be wrong. Nevertheless, the links still lead to interesting tidbits, at least as far as guitar addicts such as myself are concerned.

The blog author's description presents the blog as being focused on the guitar, but it seems to be more focused on famous guitarists and news about them. This blog serves the purposes of information giving and reputation building. The links to news and new products are to provide information, and the info on the author's personal projects provide both information, and credibility in the guitar community, by showcasing skills in guitar building/modification. I would also venture to say that the site serves as self-expression as well, as guitar playing is a form of self-expression, as is writing about it and building/modifying guitars.

The blog appears to be of the personal nature, maintained by an individual. Many posts resulted in comments, so it appeared to have been a somewhat active place when it was used. However, the site seems focused on mostly news within the guitar community, an emphasis somewhat different that what I believe the author intended originally.

Ambition

Ever have one of those days in which the mass of things that you should really be doing outweights the mass of ambition you have for doing them? This is one of those days for me. In fact, this blog entry falls into that mass of things I should be doing, of which I have little ambition for. But that didn't stop me. So HA!

I think I need more coffee.

Cold

I admire automobiles for holding firm in their protest against working in cold weather. I am thinking of starting a similar campaign myself.

Comments on "The Weblog Handbook," and an attempt to justify having one of these blog things

As a new blogger, I have (as you can probably tell) a rather weak sense of what a blog actually consists of, and am still somewhat unsure why someone like me would have one. (If you do not know already, this blog is a requirement for a class I am taking at Bemidji State University.) In Rebecca Blood's "The Weblog Handbook," she makes a statement that I found rather interesting. It is as follows:

"One of the strengths of the weblog is its ability to contextualize information by juxtaposing complementary or oppositional documents and information. The Web allows easy access to numerous documents from a single source. When highlighting an interesting article, the weblogger can attach a primary source, a related news story, or a contrasting interpretation simply by adding a link."

"Too often, mass media represent only the views of the powerful, ignore important context, or even misunderstand crucial facts."

A blog, accompanied with the power of the Internet, equips the average intellectual, (or the less-than-average intellectual, as the case may be) with the tools needed to publicly support or attack almost any claim or position, with decent credibility. As a student of journalism, I find this quite interesting. With the terrible homogenization of news that has come about due to media consolidation, this kind of tool is invaluable. The news community could use a system of "checks and balances" if you will, and blogs could definitely provide some accountability in that arena.

Well, with that said, maybe I shall use by blogging powers for good rather than evil, to battle poor and inaccurate journalism. I could take on the world with one of these things! Or I could continue to post whatever random thought that happens to pop into my head while I am staring at the "create post" screen, with absolutely no direction in mind. Hmmm.... I'll have to get back to you on that one.

This weekend's gig

Just thought I would use this space to let the world know I'm playing here this weekend. Great place to go on the coldest weekend of the year!

Nothing

Well, in staring at my blog which is overdue for a posting, it occurred to me that I have nothing to write about. So that's what I'm doing. Writing about nothing. Punching away at these lettered keys in a fashion that yields nothing. It seems to be working. I now have a post that looks like something, from a distance anyway.

Oh, and if you're still reading this post at this point, I apologize. You'll never get those 30 seconds back. Sorry!

Delayed Reaction

Well, I missed the opportunity to reply to my first comment on my first blog!

Anyway, WETOOTWAAG, I played at the Turtle Creek Saloon last night, knowledge of which does you no good now. Sorry.

I will be back there the 16 and 17 of February with my usual group, come check it out if you get a chance. That invitation goes out to anyone else interested as well.

Random Bloggage

Time for today's random bloggage.

It's freakin' cold out! Have the weekend off, and am sitting in with my old band tonight. Should be fun, except for the fact that it's freakin' cold out!

Still starving for ideas as to what to write on one of these blog thing-a-ma-jig's, so bear with me.

I have a blog!

This is my first post on my first blog! I have no idea what I am doing.

I guess this makes me a blogger. I can now use the word "blog" in my conversations. I'm sure there are other advantages to having one of these. I'll find them later.