Tag Archives: Music

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Can Method Acting increase your musicianship?

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So, when I was a child, in elementary school, my gym teacher decided she needed to enact her facism tendencies on the whole of the 5th grade class with an atrocious Christmas play. She was never overly fond of me and unlucky for her, I ended up with the student of the month write up from it.

However, I done acting very few times in my life, I’ve come to appreciate some things about acting that I couldn’t really appreciate in my youth and that is a form of method acting, albeit slightly lesser in scale because I don’t go about getting acting gigs or forcing your fellow thespians to only refer to said person as said character to their utter annoyance.

So it started in 2008, when I was looking for ways to get deeper into the headspace of things I didn’t particularly understand, specifically crime. This was to help with cultivating my “book”, Pre-Crime. However, I used it to help create characters in my novel ideas, or screenplays. Whatever I was writing at the time. I then turned to using it to get better at guitar and I find it works very well.

So what I normally do is I will shave my beard or facial hair similar to the artist in question if they have any.

Jimi Hendrix style mustache

Next thing I do is go to Amazon and look at clothing styles similar to the ones said artists have and cultivate a look that is closer to them in the time frame and then try to modernize it, as if they were walking around today, assuming they’re still alive or not.

I go back to Amazon as often as I need to in order to get my minds eye in direction of the “character” so to speak.

This is a new touch, but I used to photoshop if need be, however thanks to the AI I can create images that help me better interpret the artist in question.

I listen to their music as much as possible and attempt to get into that headspace. I may try and create similar riffs or something as well, in order to get a deeper understanding.

I try to visualize how a movie or biopic could look, starting said individual musician. This helps to get a better feel for how said person is interpreted via different mediums like interviews.

I may buy myself a new guitar that is similar to said individual, because sometimes having said style guitar can help you facilitate a deeper connection to the musicians you like.

If you can get pedals to work on a tone, that is helpful too.

You don’t have to restrict yourself to just people that play your instrument. I improved my bass line playing on guitar by doing that same with Lemmy as I did with Hendrix.

I’ve done this about 4 or so times over the years and I personally think it helps.

At worst, it’s a fun waste of time, trying to better put yourself into the shoes of another human that’s deeper than just understanding where they’re coming from. It’s black like me, that documentary from the 1970s but without the benefit of it helping others integrate into society.

If anyone decides to try this, let me know if it works for you.

Stay Metal

🤘

Writing

Gen X vs Millennial: The Proof is in the pudding

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I may not be that old, however, I’m still old enough to have seen come pretty cool shit in my lifetime. One of which was seeing Gen X in their attempt at fame. Gen Z should take notes,, because your parents generation did it right when it came to fame.

Never has this song probably been more accurate

So I didn’t grow up where the conditions to aspire to being worthless like most people in my age range apparently. I mean, acting sucked and I found that out the hard way because my lesbian gym teacher had to force her play down our throats at school. No one in my age range could play and instrument, so even trying a band was out of the question. Short of porn and what teenage male wouldn’t have thought of it, Hollywood desires were really lame.

Then along came YouTube in my 20s, which gave way to a whole bunch of autistic nobodies that craved social acceptance and well, entertainment hasn’t been right or worthwhile in decades.

However, while I’ve always been the anti-celebrity guy, even in my youth, there was a time when I found myself impressed with relative unknowns making an attempt at being part of the privacy challenged brigade and that was Gen X.

I know most people have confused me for a Gen X’er 99% of my life and never really got why, however, I don’t make the criteria for more than just being an Xenial at best. So we can rule out relatable aspects making me more accepting here. As a general rule, I don’t have to relate to someone or something to appreciate it or them. It can happen from time to time, but not necessarily the a big factor.

So the internet was in its infancy back in the 90s and analog equipment still ruled. This is important to understand, since a vacuous imbecile couldn’t just share an ignorant opinion and get dozens of likes for it. You had to want it and you had to mean it.

I appreciate their hustle, a drive which I could never relate to back then. I still can’t relate to it, because it is a far better work ethic than my own, as I go for low hanging fruit and prefer it. If you ever seen my sex life, you’d be like “oh he ain’t kidding.”

Live footage of me with anything that I think is beneath me /sarcasm

That’s young 20 somethings, at the time, knew how to take what was historically 30k or more in 1970s equipment and in the 1990s turn it into better than a Misfits recording. They still weren’t perfect, but had I been a boomer executive in Hollywood, I would have been flabbergasted at how people so young with no professional experience could exhibit such a high degree of learning. Remember, this is how Insane Clown Posse and Eminem made their way on to the scene.

Even upwards of 2005, right as YouTube started, I found myself hanging out and listening to the Celtic punk sound of possible flogging mollys or drop kick murphies that could become huge. Too bad that’s when Gen X dropped everything and became family men. While there is nothing wrong with that, I’ve been plagued by the idea that had Gen X managed to figure out social media, the landscape of music would be so much better than it became, which is the complete opposite of how I thought on the 90s of how many Stephen kings could exist if there was a better set up or even better bands than the Beatles.

You have some decent millennial YouTubers out there, still though, nothing out there is quite right, as it should be. Maybe it has to do with being so young and everything was new. Going out late at night and getting home late or other things that helped to increase the times in which I would be exposed to this, which is a small part of it. However, I don’t think it’s the sole reason for all of it.

I wish I still had access to those mix tapes some random Gen X band handed out in the parking lot of Ozzfest, promoting a potential promising rookie band.

Now that Gen Z has had some time and are producing some promising things, it’s kinda changing, but not drastically enough. Maybe some of them need to get their parents to break out their old analog gear and teach them how to utilize it. I know I learned a bit from them, that part of the reason I can mix sounds pretty well, taking an Interest in what they were doing. Could give Gen Z an edge over the talking heads of idiot millennials that failed school, but still need to ADHD clip their way to an opinion that offers nothing. it’s not too late to take it back and move away from the idiocracy that entrainment has become. Threads is filled with some of this, so I know it’s true. Just up to Gen Z to figure out how to do it better.

Stay metal 🤘

Writing

Experience Hendrix: The Hendrix Tone

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So it’s no secret that I’m. Jimi Hendrix guy. It’s kinda a family thing. My dad loves Jimi too! it’s almost impossible to not enjoy Jimi, unless you had the unfortunate accident of being born to be a peer of his, like Eric Clapton.

So I posted a video on my facebook about working on this rig and trying to find the right things for it.

So let’s get the most important part out of the way, the guitar. I’m using a Strat Squier, that’s been superficially modified only. This should not drastically alter everything. So my dad grew up around tech, so I’ve read his books and have a good understanding of tech of the time. My hypothesis here is that a modern Squier is on par with a Fender custom of the 60s. That because as tech improves, the old physical cap starts to become the “inferior” tech. So $119 gets you something that’s on par with an old 60s fender. At least for non giging guitarist like myself. I can’t promise this will work on stage.

Jimi Hendrix’s Fender had 5 springs in the back, common for the time. Modern Fender’s have 3. Altering this is irrelevant. I have three. You will have to float the trem by about a half inch.

I also modded the tuners to cheap tuners from chia. The stock ones were decent, but I wanted to emulate the era. So my logic was, cheap tuners, plus whammy=60s era tuning problems. I was fairly accurate on this. It helps to understand Jimi on a deeper level.

I’ve also tested this on a non modded fender affinity and it works.

Cost to far: $119

Next is the amp. Jimi used Marshall’s. Any amp should technically do. I don’t have a bunch of amps to test this out on, but that’s not the point. The point of this whole experiment was to establish competency in guitar, so much like a P.H.D I expect most people to put the rig together and shred it apart, aka “peer review”. Let’s see if it holds up to muster.

Cost so far: $180+$119= $299

Next up is the Vox. Jimi used it and I’m no exception. His was the silver version, but the basic 805 will do.

Next up is the fuzz box. I’ve listened to a plethora of YouTube videos and this was the best sounding one. Berhinger orange fuzz.

Next up is the univibe. Much like the fuzz, this one sounded truest to the tone. It’s the 69’ vibe by Berhinger. It’s sold out everywhere but Europe.

The last peice of the puzzle is the Roger Mayer Octavia. The white one. I don’t have this yet, but it sits on Amazon for a bit over 300. It’s the only one that sounds true to tone. The rest don’t work, but my Marshall GFX has an Octavia setting that works well enough.

$563 dollars for all pedals accounted for.

So for about $862 dollars you can become Jimi Hendrix himself: This rig is really versatile. You can even play every Sabbath song very well. So the Marshall and the guitar pay for itself.

It’s probably the closest to a modern rig of his you’re going to get.

So the set up is as follows

Vox, Fuzz, 69 vibe, Mayer Octavia.

There is a pic online that shows the jimmy rig with a splitter. This is probably accurate and he had it as two individual rigs. I haven’t done this, but I can confirm it’s true, because Jimi didn’t have his univibe unit on all the time. He used it in select songs to accent certain areas. Since the 69 vibe only has true bypass, you’re going to have to separate them so so can essentially turn it off. Its biggest contribution to Jimi was probably making all his music in sound rounded and in stereo. This would probably have been important because most music was recorded in monophonic. If a basic Strat sounded too frail, this worked.

If you can’t afford the whole rig, you can get by with just the fuzz and the Vox. so once you get it set up, there is two important variables in this.

Key of E standard

It’s often said Jimi played in E flat or C. This is untrue. There could be many reasons for this. Such as recording in monophonic made E standard sound like E flat. However, here’s two ways to confirm he was in E.

First his cover of the Trogs Wild Thing is best sounding in E. Second is the riff to Burning the midnight lamp is only correct in E standard.

The melody to the riff is

E ———————————————

B———————————————

On B, 2, 4 open, repeat.

G———————————————

D———————————————

A———————————————

E———————————————

To further prove my point, you can replicate this on the acoustic without fuzz and it sounds the same. I’ll post a tik tok later to prove my point and link later.

EDIT: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT64wdvqy/

The other mistake people make with Jimi is that they buy the fuzz face. From my understanding, Roger Mayer, Jimi’s technical guy, modded the fuzz face so it was basically the casing only.

So back to facts, if you want to be more accurate in Jimi Hendrix.

Turn the gain to 10.

Dime the Strats volume and two tone knobs

Put the Stratocaster style guitar into lead mode. Last single coil only.

Hook up the Vox, then fuzz and set it to 10 on all settings. when you get them, the 69 vibe and the Mayer Octavia.

We will go through the settings in the 69 vibe and Octavia at a later date.

Now you can start playing Jimi Hendrix more accurately.

The next time I write a peice on Jimi this long, we’re going to be looking at techniques to sound more accurate. I’m going to be buying some things to make it more 60s accurate.

Once you try it, I think you realize that my Squier, definitely deserves the new neck plate I bought it.

SOURCES:

https://share.google/Y4xumOxTZpwU7gwRO

https://stringjoy.com/guitars-of-jimi-hendrix/

Scuse me while I kiss the sky a Jimi Biography

https://www.musicradar.com/news/fx-guru-roger-mayer-on-hendrix-anybody-can-buy-a-wah-and-just-make-it-go-wah-wah-wah-but-making-it-talk-is-something-else

Writing

Behringer 69 vibe

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This was going to be a review, but instead it’s going to be a rant. So I bought an item that was €41 plus shipping from the UK. About 18€ extra. Then on top of that, it was supposed to be duty free.

It went up since August 4, 2025 when I got it for $41

So I check my card a few days later after

Not sure why they charged me $83

So they at least told me that they could be a duty so to look it up before I buy. Obviously, government lies and clearly even though there’s not supposed to be a duty based on the HSS code. However, I got hit. DHL basically extorted me to deliver my package. Which is bullshit! However

I finally got me the pedal that has been sold out for months. Normally I would not give in to trendy items. However, this is the only pedal I’ve heard on YouTube that genuinely has the retro sound I’m going for on my Hendrix kick. Maybe a lawyer out there can start a class action lawsuit against customs for this flagrant behavior of lying about bs, but where would government be if they told the truth? All in all, I basically paid full price for a pedal with too much shipping and handling. I will review this in the future.

———————

Review Here:

Already this thing has proven to be worth the hassle that it became. It’s sturdy casing, excellent buttons and does exactly what it is supposed to. Already attached to my rig and my sounds emanating from it are very old school. It’s easy to set up and get going and would probably be even better if I got a pedal for it. The downside to it is that, it’s going to be a pain in the ass if you’re a gig’er and you make different songs using different dials to really direct a sound. So if you fall into that camp, make a playlist of your music that you can keep the controls the same all night. If you’re like me and just love playing the guitar and don’t gig, you’re going to love this little puppy. It’s the right tone and price to play your favor to songs and is filled with ao much versatility in styles, it will be months before you exhaust a quarter of its settings. It’s the perfect thing for me. Not to mention, unlike other products, this one’s dials go to 11. Nice!

Spinal Tap reference is win!

4 out of 5 stars

Stay metal 🤘

Writing

Ozzy Osbourne, dead.

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Massive coincidence, but this happened right as I was learning some Randy Rhodes on guitar and re-evaluating 13 as an album.

So my dad was a kid/teen in the 70s. He was there for the creation of SNL, Sabbath and a lot of other things that pop culture would produce but not piticularly be favorites of the older generations. Now many have stood that test of time, sabbath and Ozzy included. The first time I heard Sabbath was Iron Man at some point in the 90s. My family went to OzzFest 99 for my 13th birthday and seeing Sabbath live was amazing. So Sabbath and Ozzy had been a large part of my life in some way.

“Fun” fact, my grandfather lost his finger tips like Immoi did, in a landscaping accident.

However, given who Ozzy is, the event isn’t shocking, like John Lennon dying, rather more impactful to the landscape of the entire history of music.

Even if you’re younger than I am, you probably know who Ozzy is. He’s the Satanic Santa Claus that, if you’re extra, leaves you booger sugar in your stockings, instead of lame ass toys. /sarcasm

Obviously this is a devastating blow to his family and friends and that’s one of the most interesting take aways in all this. Normally a musician dies and people are left scratching their heads as to how the band will continue, ala Bon Scott and Ac/Dc. This isn’t one of those cases. Instead, especially given that Ozzy tended to estrange his band mates, it’s more, how will his legacy continue to grow? It’s closer to Hendrix dying than a band, in that regard.

Either way, only time will tell what Ozzy and by proxy, Sabbath’s lasting legacy will be.

Stay metal!🤘

Writing

Old Dude thinks about youth, gives unsolicited advice to people younger than himself at same time.

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This article is aimed mostly at the youth. It’s a time, long ago, in a Galaxy far, far away, known as 2008. Back then I was 22 and unemployed as a majority of you guys seem to be, according to the internet. I did my job as a student and got the As, took the SATs, would have been pretty much garuntee ivy leagues in my age range. However, much like Obama’s change, the economy was going to tank and change everything. It was bad enough as is seeing jobs hire people with felony wraps being hired, while you worked hard, did your due diligence, flew the straight and narrow and worked towards your goals. Life’s unfair, or so I heard from people in my age all the time, bitching about the position they put themselves into. Where’s my commercial as the old saying goes? Nowhere. They drank, they drugged, they had failed relationships, they got pregnant and spit out a kid with a random and kept bemoaning their life. It’s hard to find a position that you put yourself into as something I’m supposed to understand 100. The other side, sat their ass on the couch and looked for attention on YouTube.

Now, I equally had access to YouTube as everyone did, but I saw no value past hosting on it. Sitting around in my room all day was something I mostly did as a teenager, didn’t sound like a great way to spend my 20s. So for me, I went with EBay. Back in the 80s, the Reganite was recalibrating from a late 1970s recession. 1992 would have as well and I can remember vividly how often my father would talk about the price of gas then vs the price of gas in 1992. He had a job and he would flip things on the side sometimes for extra cash. Maybe it would pan out for me as well? Well around this time, 2008, he was running a non profit that was gifted to him by a clergyman around here, because he had the experience and business acumen. That happened a few years before 2008, but he still kept it up. So since couldn’t find a god damn job, I asked if I could take the mini cola fridge from him. I took it home, cleaned it. Spent a dollar on my debit card, opened a EBay account, and put up my Nintendo DS game collection along with D&D and Whitewolf RPG collection to kickstart this thing. Two positive reviews later and boom, we sold the mini fridge next and it snowballed from there.

I was working on several other things at the time, writing being one of them. However EBay played way better than the writing was. Hence why this website came 3rd after EBay. After was college then Bestinyourgirl.,com. However I was setting things up for that back then.

I worked two hours a week on EBay and enjoyed it. Some days I woke up to $100 dollars. Nice given that it stretched pretty well in a recession world. Remember, recession and inflation are two different things.

I was definitely doing better than my peers and while it wasn’t going to make me rich, at least being able to get what I needed to do was good. I was given near perfect conditions for this too. I was young, not married, no girlfriend, no college debt, no kids, no car, no Obama care payments or other bullshit in my way. This was pretty much the best it was going to get at that point in my life.

My recession was way easier than most others. Money flowed well enough. While there could still be tough times here or there, at least I wasn’t wasting away a druggie that cared about how they had to choose their kids diapers or their next fix and I know you know that trope well, since TikTok used to be filled with the people my age that had “narcolepsy” passed out with a fellow peer of yours in the backseat. horrible things. At this point I was very thankful for the lot I was given in life. I barely spent any of my money on fun things, albeit I did redo my Freddy costume from the 90s in the modern world and bought myself a nice bit of pipe tobacco and maybe the odd cigar.

And I may or may not have listened to this a bit one too many times.

Here comes the money!

For the most part, I was happy in that. Now a days I have nothing to show for it, cause it didn’t allow for a lavishly decadent lifestyle, but it afforded me the things that truly mattered, such as time with my best friend, time with my family and plenty of guitar playing.

The conditions now, for you, are kind of similar, except for the pesky bullshit of WW3. Too be fair, we both had the war on terror looming back then as well. However you have the negative aspect of inflation, which makes the dollar stretch less. This sucks, but is manageable. You face druggies now using internet sites to fund their fix, while You get yourself ahead for the more important things in life. Fact of the matter I been there, done that and got myself in a decent positioning. While there are things I would do better, life through us all a curveball. I chose not to have kids, given the horrible pool of eligibles. You guys have some good peers and can maybe make something of that with a family. In my middle age, I’m finding the Gen Z family TikTok’s to be cute. At least I’m not a pathetic old man, so I got that going for me.

The moral of the story though, life gives you trials by fire and men and woman who walk the path are forever forged in steel. So keep rocking and don’t let this bullshit get ya down.

Here’s another song I listened too one too many times. Maybe it will serve you well too!

It’s about make a little music every day til you die, it’s a beautiful ride.