Guitar Amp Quotes

Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you?

Music is never about music. If it was, we'd be writing songs about guitars. But we don't. We write songs about women. Women will crush you, you know? I suppose everybody hurts everybody, but women always seem to get back up, you ever notice that? Women are always still standing.

Everybody is a stranger, but that's the danger in going my own way.

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall Lend me your eyes I can change what you see But your soul you must keep, totally free

But I will hold on hope And I won't let you choke On the noose around your neck And I'll find strength in pain And I will change my ways I'll know my name as it's called again

We were both young when I first saw you. I close my eyes and the flashback starts. I'm standin' there on a balcony in summer air.

Well, I’ve been a musician my whole life. When I was two, I would sing the theme from Star Wars in my crib; my mom taped it for proof. Then, when I was five, I asked for a violin. No one knew why I would want one, but my wish was granted and I ended up a classically trained fiddler by age 12. The only problem with that was, when you’re a classical violinist, everybody expects you to be satisfied with playing Tchaikovsky for the rest of your life, and saying you want to play jazz, rock, write songs, sing your songs, hook up your fiddle to a guitar amp, sleep with your 4-track recorder, mess around with synths, dress like Tinkerbell in combat boots, AND play Tchaikovsky is equivalent to spitting on the Pope.

Bad taste is real taste, of course, and good taste is the residue of someone else's privilege.

We rarely think about change this way because everyone is consumed by the end goal. But one push-up is better than not exercising. One minute of guitar practice is better than none at all. One minute of reading is better than never picking up a book. It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all.

Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a woman too perfect to be really true? Do I want you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream, or are you really as beautiful as you seem?

And oh my God, who brought that goddamn guitar? I want to kill them. Do you know how you can tell who the douche bag is at the party? It’s the guy who starts playing the acoustic guitar.

You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors. It's the morning of your very first day. You say hi to your friends you ain't seen in a while, try and stay out of everybody's way. It's your freshman year and your gonna be here for the next four years in this town. Hopin' one of those senior boys will wink at you and say, "You know I haven't seen you around before." 'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them. And when you're fifteen, feelin' like there's nothin' to figure out, but, count to ten, take it in. This is life before you know who you're gonna be. Fifteen.

when the cities are gone and all the ruckus has died away. when sunflowers push up through the concrete and asphalt of the forgotten interstate freeways. when the Kremlin & the Pentagon are turned into nursing homes for generals, presidents, & other such shit heads. when the glass-aluminum sky scraper tombs of Phoenix, AZ barely show above the sand dunes. why then, by God, maybe free men & wild women on horses can roam the sagebrush canyonlands in freedom...and dance all night to the music of fiddles! banjos! steel guitars! by the light of a reborn moon!

I'm packing my life in a bag again, saying goodbye and writing the last letters. It's been a long journey, back and forth, hide and seek, but this time it's different. This time I am different. I'm not sure where I want to end up but I know how to get there, or at least the first direction, the first turn, the first sunset. I'm longing for peace. I'm longing for borrowed guitars and detachment. Horizons, cheap whiskey straight from the bottle and your hands in mine.

The feedback from the speakers changes and begins blasting death metal music so loudly into the sky that I swear the bridge suspensions are vibrating. The twins were in charge of the music selection. I catch sight of them on the side of the bridge, each with an arm raised, holding up their forefingers and pinkies in a devil sign, head-banging to the beat. They’re mouthing the words to the garbled voice screaming over the intense electric guitar and drums blasting out of the speakers. They might look pretty badass if it weren’t for their hobo clown outfits. It’s the loudest party the Bay Area has ever heard.

India is constipated with a lot of humbug. Take modern Indian music of the films. It is all tango & rhumba or samba played on Hawaiian guitars, violins, accordions & clarinets. It is ugly. It must be scrapped like the rest.

I'm not givin' in an inch to fear.

His determined face, guitar at his hips, legs shoulder-width apart, his black hair & dark eyes, the emotion in his voice...

Bashing out the last note, she turned the guitar to the amp and let the feedback murder everyone’s eardrums.

The guitar and your soul are one hell of a combination. Trust in it. When everything else seems dark, you trust in it.

Graham: Rod told me I needed to cut out half of my solos. Said they were interesting for people that loved technical guitar work but boring for everyone else. I said, "Why would I play to people who don't care about good guitar?" He said, "If you want to be huge, you gotta be for everybody.

I palmed his face and mushed him away from me before I got too angry and started really wailing on him. “Grab Alex’s guitar then and see if you can even remember how to hold it.”We all watched in horror as Tucker drunkenly tried to strap Alex’s precious guitar on,banging it into the speakers and amps, stumbling and struggling with it as he tried to stand up straight. “You have got you be kidding me,” Ethan growled when Tucker finally got the guitar strapped to him. Backwards. Then his legs seemed to buckle under him and he dropped heavily to his knees on the floor. Alex’s eyes widened and his jaw flew open. “Get my guitar! Get it away from him! Get it! Geeeeet Ittttttttt!” he yelled.

I cannot tell you how many quiet mornings I have spent sitting around hotel rooms and furnished apartments in the United States and Mexico, smoking cigarettes, plunking the guitar, and watching Perry Mason--telling myself, "Well, at least I don't have a day job. And there is nothing wrong with that. I am not guilty of anything. Perry would see that in a minute.

We ate, did our homework, got good grades, kissed our parents goodnight and always had the secret door and shared experiences to go to. It was truly remarkable, and doing it as a group made us feel invulnerable. As soon as the drums and amps were set up and Jean and Kathie hit it, I tell you there was nothing more to say. Conversation stopped, and the magic carpet ride took off. I’ve never felt anything more powerful in my life.

Many were starting to use computerized synthesizers & drum machines to produce an entirely new style of music. It was being punted by the critics that the guitar was old hat; I was reminded of the way my father & his clarinets were written off in the late Fifties.

Claire’s Summer Survival Playlist Janis Joplin—“Piece of My Heart” We Are The Fallen—“Bury Me Alive” Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers—“Runnin’ Down a Dream” Indigo Girls—“Least Complicated” The Doors—“Light My Fire” Mumford & Sons—“Little Lion Man” Girlyman—“Joyful Sign” Matt Nathanson—“Love Comes Tumbling Down” Natasha’s Ghost—“Falling Up” The Beatles—“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” Nemesea—“Afterlife” Dar Williams—“The Ocean

...The efficacy of psychedelics with regard to art has to do with their ability to render language weightless, as fluid and ephemeral as those famous "bubble letters" of the sixties. Psychedelics, I think, disconnect both the signifier and the signified from their purported referents in the phenomenal world - simultaneously bestowing upon us a visceral insight into the cultural mechanics of language, and a terrifying inference of the tumultuous nature that swirls beyond it. In my own experience, it always seemed as if language were a tablecloth positioned neatly upon the table until some celestial busboy suddenly shook it out, fluttering and floating it, and letting it fall back upon the world in not quite the same position as before - thereby giving me a vertiginous glimpse into the abyss that divides the world from our knowing of it. And it is into this abyss that the horror vacui of psychedelic art deploys itself like an incandescent bridge. Because it is one thing to believe, on theoretical evidence, that we live in a prison-house of language. It is quite another to know it, to actually peek into the slippery emptiness as the Bastille explodes around you. Yet psychedelic art takes this apparent occasion for despair and celebrates our escape from linguistic control by flowing out, filling that rippling void with meaningful light, laughter, and a gorgeous profusion.

When I first started, I wanted to play the electric guitar. And my dad got me piano lessons instead. He didn't mean anything by it--he just thought that keys are what girls play.

Listening to them, I imagine myself a gorgeous stubborn singer, traveling the world with hope and a guitar, turning as rough and piney as a Laurentian forest.

If Heaven was a summer sky and a TV left on mute, then the Underworld was a starry night and an electric guitar with amps.

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate. I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship. I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things. Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone, and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him. I do not know which of us has written this page.

The next day I picked up my electric guitar and amp at a tag sale. Grandma Dotty loves tag sales, and somehow she managed to bargain with the guy who was selling them, until we paid just three dollars

Warmth fell over her like a soft rainstorm. They were in a tropical bubble. The frozen ground had turned to warm, yielding sand, and above, a hot, beautiful sun shone. There was no wind here, but—did Ari imagine it?—there seemed to be music. A classical guitar strumming somewhere nearby. There was even a damn palm tree next to Lam. “What the hell is this?” Kay blustered. “Bermuda,” Merlin said with a small shrug that made him stumble. “My happy place.

Jazz presumes that it would be nice if the four of us--simpatico dudes that we are--while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically, this never quite works out. At best, we can only be free one or two at a time--while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have, and sometimes it works--but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectic, beyond our social concerns. Rock-and-roll, on the other hand, presumes that the four of us--as damaged and anti-social as we are--might possibly get it to-fucking-gether, man, and play this simple song. And play it right, okay? Just this once, in tune and on the beat. But we can't. The song's too simple, and we're too complicated and too excited. We try like hell, but the guitars distort, the intonation bends, and the beat just moves, imperceptibly, against our formal expectations, whetehr we want it to or not. Just because we're breathing, man. Thus, in the process of trying to play this very simple song together, we create this hurricane of noise, this infinitely complicated, fractal filigree of delicate distinctions. And you can thank the wanking eighties, if you wish, and digital sequencers, too, for proving to everyone that technologically "perfect" rock--like "free" jazz--sucks rockets. Because order sucks. I mean, look at the Stones. Keith Richards is always on top of the beat, and Bill Wyman, until he quit, was always behind it, because Richards is leading the band and Charlie Watts is listening to him and Wyman is listening to Watts. So the beat is sliding on those tiny neural lapses, not so you can tell, of course, but so you can feel it in your stomach. And the intonation is wavering, too, with the pulse in the finger on the amplified string. This is the delicacy of rock-and-roll, the bodily rhetoric of tiny increments, necessary imperfections, and contingent community. And it has its virtues, because jazz only works if we're trying to be free and are, in fact, together. Rock-and-roll works because we're all a bunch of flakes. That's something you can depend on, and a good thing too, because in the twentieth century, that's all there is: jazz and rock-and-roll. The rest is term papers and advertising.

But music is never about music. If it was, we'd be writing songs about guitars. But we don't. We write songs about women. Women will crush you, you know? I suppose everybody hurts everybody, but women always seem to get back up, you ever notice that? Women are always still standing.

In a cacophony of shouting and kicking and pelvic-thrusting and flashing lights, the song blasts into the guitar solo, and there’s not a single person in the bar in their seat, not when a Prince of England is knee-sliding across the stage, playing passionate and somewhat erotic air guitar.

(This is from a tribute poem to Ronnie James Dio: Former lead vocalist of the band Rainbow, Black Sabbath. This is written with all the titles of the hit songs of DIO. The titles are all in upper case) You can “CATCH THE RAINBOW” – “A RAINBOW IN THE DARK” Through “ROCK & ROLL CHILDREN” “HOLY DIVER” will lurk “BEFORE THE FALL” of “ELECTRA” “ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY” “JESUS,MARY AND THE HOLY GHOST”- “LORD OF THE LAST DAY” “MASTER OF THE MOON” you are When my “ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE” With our “BLACK”, “COLD FEET”, “MYSTERY” of “PAIN” you crave You’re “CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE”, “BETWEEN TWO HEARTS” When “HUNGRY FOR HEAVEN” “HUNTER OF THE HEART” hurts “FALLEN ANGELS” “FEED MY HEART” “FEVER DREAMS” “FEED MY HEAD” “I AM” “ANOTHER LIE” “AFTER ALL (THE DEAD)” Not “GUILTY” if you “HIDE IN THE RAINBOW’’ With your perfect “GUITAR SOLO” “DON’T TELL THE KIDS” to “DREAM EVIL” Don’t “GIVE HER THE GUN” to follow “DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS” Those “EVIL EYES” can see “LORD OF THE NIGHT” “MISTREATED”; “MY EYES” hate to fancy “SHAME ON THE NIGHT” “TURN UP THE NIGHT” Now it’s “TIME TO BURN” “TWISTED” “VOODOO” does “WALK ON WATER” And today its our turn “BLOOD FROM A STONE” “BORN ON THE SUN” I’m “BETTER IN THE DARK” “BREATHLESS” The “PRISONER OF PARADISE” you are! Forever you are deathless “SACRED HEART” “SHIVERS” Laying “NAKED IN THE RAIN” “THIS IS YOUR LIFE”- “ WILD ONE”! Your “GOLDEN RULES” we gain “IN DREAMS” “I SPEED AT NIGHT” I’m “LOSING MY INSANITY” “ANOTHER LIE”: “COMPUTER GOD” Your “HEAVEN AND HELL”- my vanity! By “KILLING THE DRAGON” “I COULD HAVE BEEN A DREAMER” I’m “THE LAST IN LINE” To “SCREAM” Like an “INVISIBLE” screamer Now that you are gone “THE END OF THE WORLD” is here “STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART” “PUSH” “JUST ANOTHER DAY” in fear “CHILDREN OF THE SEA” “ DYING IN AMERICA” Is it “DEATH BY LOVE”? “FACES IN THE WINDOW” looking for A “GYPSY” from above Dear “STARGAZER” from “STRANGE HIGHWAYS” Our love “HERE’S TO YOU” “WE ROCK” “ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD” The “OTHER WORLD” anew “ONE NIGHT IN THE CITY” with “NEON KNIGHTS” “THE EYES” “STAY OUT OF MY MIND” The “STARSTRUCK” “SUNSET SUPERMAN” Is what we long to find “THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING” Is the “INSTITUTIONAL MAN” “SHOOT SHOOT” to “TURN TO STONE” “WHEN A WOMAN CRIES” to plan To “STAND UP AND SHOUT” before “ THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL” Though “GOD HATES HEAVY METAL” “EAT YOUR HEART OUT” to reach the goal. From the poem- Holy Dio: the Diver (A tribute to Ronnie James Dio)

His arms tightened around my back. His mouth and nose pressed against the crown of my head, and inside, a mournful Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover picked up, guitar twanging like its strings were crying. Gus rocked me side to side. “I want to know you,” I told him. “I want that,” he murmured into my hair.

Eddie: I smashed my guitar and walked off. I instantly regretted it. It was a ’sixty-eight Les Paul. Warren: The neck broke off of it and Eddie just swung it and let it land on the ground and he walked off. I thought about kicking my snare just to join the fun but it was a Ludwig. You don’t go kicking a Ludwig.

The Irish essayist has us close our eyes and listen to the words she says without trying to control our thoughts. I keep mine open a crack, to scan the packed room. He’s not here. ‘A rainy day,’ she says. My mother and me running from the Mustang to the house. ‘The sound of a musical instrument.’ Caleb playing the guitar. ‘An act of love.’ My father cleaning my golf clubs in the kitchen sink. She has us write about one of these moments that come up unbidden, unforced.

But back then I thought music was just about music. But music is never about music. If it was, we'd be writing songs about guitars. But we don't. We write songs about women. Women will crush you, you know? I suppose everybody hurts everybody, but women always seem to get back up, you ever notice that? Women are always still standing.

But back then I thought music was just about music. But music is never about music. If it was, we’d be writing songs about guitars. But we don’t. We write songs about women.

He also got two black sweaters he might actually wear, some Avon cologne in a bottle shaped like an electric guitar, and an empty key ring—which his dad made sure everybody noticed.

As my friend Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe has argued persuasively, there is an element of positivity in the visible world, and in color particularly, that totally eludes the historicity of language, with its protocols of absence and polarity. The color red, as an attribute of the world, is always there. It is something other than the absence of yellow and blue--and, thus, when that red becomes less red, it becomes more one or the other. It never exists in a linguistic condition of degradation or excess that must necessarily derive from our expectations.

Billy: Teddy told me once, “What your sound is, is a feeling. That’s it. And that’s a world above everything else.” I remember saying, “What’s the feeling?” I was writing about love. I was singing with a little bit of a growl. We were rockin’ hard on the guitars with some real blues bass lines. So I was thinking Teddy might say, you know, “taking a girl home from a bar” or “speeding with the top down,” or something like that. Something fun, maybe, and a little dangerous. But he just said, “It’s ineffable. If I could define it, I wouldn’t have any use for it.” That really stuck with me.

He has one hand over her mound and works his fingers as if he was playing guitar, making beautiful music with her tiny button. He serenades her with a love song that only his fingers know how to pick- a tune that no man can duplicate.

He works fast," Alan commented as he lifted his wine. "David?" Shelby sent him a puzzled look. "Actually his fastest sped is crawl unless he's got a guitar in his hands." "Really?" Alan's eyes met hers as he sipped, but she didn't understand the amusement in them. "You only stood him up tonight, and already he's planning his wedding to someone else." "Stood him-" she began on a laugh, then remembered. "Oh." Torn between annoyance and her own sense of te ridiculous, Shelby toyed with the stem of her glass. "Men are fickle creatures," she decided. "Apparently." Reaching over, he lifted her chin with a fingertip. "You're holding up well." "I don't like to wear my heart on my sleeve" Exasperated, amused, she muffled a laugh. "Dammit, he would have to pick tonight to show up here." "Of all the gin joints in all the towns..." This time the laugh escaped fully. "Well done," Shelby told him. "I should've thought of that line myself; I heard the movie not long ago." "Heard it?" "Mmm-hmmm. Well..." She lifted her glass in a toast. "To broken hearts?" "Or foolish lies?" Alan countered. Shelby wrinkled her nose as she tapped her glass against his. "I usually tell very good ones. Besides, I did date David.Once.Tree years ago." She finished off her wine. "Maybe four.You can stop grinning in that smug, masculine way any time, Senator." "Was I?" Rising, he offered Shelby her damp jacket. "How rude of me." "It would've been more polite not to acknowledge that you'd caught me in a lie," she commented as they worked their way through the crowd and back into the rain. "Which you wouldn't have done if you hadn't made me so mad that I couldn't think of a handier name to give you in the first place." "If I work my way through the morass of that sentence it seems to be my fault." Alan slipped an arm around her shoulders in so casually friendly a manner she didn't protest. "Suppose I apologize for not giving you time to think of a lie that would hold up?" "It seems fair.

Young has a personal relationship with electricity. In Europe, where the electrical current is sixty cycles, not fifty, he can pinpoint the fluctuation --- by degrees. It dumbfounded Cragg. "He'll say, 'Larry, there's a hundred volts coming out of the wall, isn't there?' I'll go measure it, and yeah, sure --- he can hear the difference." Shakey's innovations are everywhere. Intent on controlling amp volume from his guitar instead of the amp, Young had a remote device designed called the Whizzer. Guitarists marvel at the stomp box that lies onstage at Young's feet: a byzantine gang of effects that can be utilized without any degradation to the original signal. Just constructing the box's angular red wooden housing to Young's extreme specifications had craftsmen pulling their hair out. Cradled in a stand in front of the amps is the fuse for the dynamite, Young's trademark ax--Old Black, a '53 Gold Top Les Paul some knot-head daubed with black paint eons ago. Old Black's features include a Bigsby wang bar, which pulls strings and bends notes, and Firebird picking so sensitive you can talk through it. It's a demonic instrument. "Old black doesn't sound like any other guitar," said Cragg, shaking his head. For Cragg, Old Black is a nightmare. Young won't permit the ancient frets to be changed, likes his strings old and used, and the Bigsby causes the guitar to go out of tune constantly. "At Sound check, everything will work great. Neil picks up the guitar, and for some reason that's when things go wrong.

BILLY: I finally tapped Eddie on the shoulder, right before the finale, I said, 'Thanks, man. I just wanted to really give ’em a good show since Rolling Stone is out there.' "EDDIE: He said he’d normally let me play but since it was Rolling Stone, he wanted to really do it right.

But music is never about music. If it was, we’d be writing songs about guitars. But we don’t. We write songs about women. Women will crush you, you know? I suppose everybody hurts everybody, but women always seem to get back up, you ever notice that? Women are always still standing.

The feedback from the speakers changes and begins blasting death metal music so loudly into the sky that I swear the bridge suspensions are vibrating. The twins were in charge of the music selection. I catch sight of them on the side of the bridge, each with an arm raised, holding up their forefingers and pinkies in a devil sign, head-banging to the beat. They’re mouthing the words to the garbled voice screaming over the intense electric guitar and drums blasting out of the speakers. They might look pretty badass if it weren’t for their hobo clown outfits. It’s the loudest party the Bay Area has ever heard.

When you listen to early Black Sabbath, you know that the main difference between them & you is that somebody bought them guitars and microphones. They're not smarter than you; they're not deeper than you; they're a fuck of a lot richer than you, but other than that, it's like listening to the inside of your own mind. So when they write songs, they sing about wizards. And witches. And robots.

She sits next to me for hours in the garage, talking nonstop, while I work on my motorcycle. She’ll sit and massage my feet while I practice guitar. I straighten her hair for her with the flat iron because she always misses that one spot in the back of her head. When we’re apart we text and video chat as much as possible. She’s my best friend, and I love her at her best and her worst and everything that falls in the middle.

Carl Franzoni perhaps summed it up best when he declared rather bluntly that, “the Byrds’ records were manufactured.” The first album in particular was an entirely engineered affair created by taking a collection of songs by outside songwriters and having them performed by a group of nameless studio musicians (for the record, the actual musicians were Glen Campbell on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, Larry Knechtel on bass, Leon Russell on electric piano, and Jerry Cole on rhythm guitar), after which the band’s trademark vocal harmonies, entirely a studio creation, were added to the mix. As would be expected, the Byrds’ live performances, according to Barney Hoskyns’ Waiting for the Sun, “weren’t terribly good.” But that didn’t matter much; the band got a lot of assistance from the media, with Time being among the first to champion the new band. And they also got a tremendous assist from Vito and the Freaks and from the Young Turks, as previously discussed.

I’m Nancy Wilson. I’m with a band called Heart. We, uh, we’re from Seattle.” There was no recognition on these guys' faces. I might as well have told them we were the Von Trapps. But they had some pot. “Hey, little lady, want some?” one old guy asked. “Okay, if you insist, just a tiny bit,” I said. I hadn’t had pot for ages, and this was some mellow stuff, like sixties pot. It was exactly the right kind. Suddenly, I was loose and free. I went into the house, and there were a slew of guitars in the center of the room. Our road manager Bill Cracknell told me later that Tony Brown always wanted his parties to turn into jam sessions, but they rarely did. I’ve never seen a guitar I didn’t want to play. I picked one up, and started into Elton John’s “Country Comfort.” My pot-smoking friends joined in, and so did my sister. I started walking with the guitar, and gesturing to everyone to “come on.” Sheryl Crow grabbed a guitar; George Strait, too. Soon enough it was a superstar jam session with Vince Gill, Clint Black, Michelle Branch, Reba McIntire, and many more. I love hootenannies, but this was one of the best.

I step up to a podium and speak to the audience as if I were addressing a rally. But just as I begin, a tall figure in the fifth row stands up and says, "Excuse me, Jesus..." I lean forward to search the blackness for the voice. The figure raises a pistol and fires a shot that echoes all over the auditorium. The place goes nuts. People scream. I smash the blood pack under my shirt and collapse on the floor as the figure dashes out the nearest exit. A couple of audience members actually run after him like it's real. The stage goes to red and the electric guitars start to wail. It's fucking brilliant. There's no time for the audience to recover. Onstage it's chaos: fifty teenagers keen and scream, choristers dressed as cops, paramedics, and reporters dash on trying to restore order, but only complicating things. And in the middle of it all is me, lying in a pool of blood. This, this, this is what being an actor is about. To be able to elicit such a strong reaction from hundreds of people at once - that power is awesome and irresistible and humbling. If you want to think I'm needy because I love applause, go ahead. But I know that the reason I perform is for moments like these, moments when you connect with an audience and take them somewhere.

Both C.K. and Bieber are extremely gifted performers. Both climbed to the top of their industry, and in fact, both ultimately used the Internet to get big. But somehow Bieber “made it” in one-fifteenth of the time. How did he climb so much faster than the guy Rolling Stone calls the funniest man in America—and what does this have to do with Jimmy Fallon? The answer begins with a story from Homer’s Odyssey. When the Greek adventurer Odysseus embarked for war with Troy, he entrusted his son, Telemachus, to the care of a wise old friend named Mentor. Mentor raised and coached Telemachus in his father’s absence. But it was really the goddess Athena disguised as Mentor who counseled the young man through various important situations. Through Athena’s training and wisdom, Telemachus soon became a great hero. “Mentor” helped Telemachus shorten his ladder of success. The simple answer to the Bieber question is that the young singer shot to the top of pop with the help of two music industry mentors. And not just any run-of-the-mill coach, but R& B giant Usher Raymond and rising-star manager Scooter Braun. They reached from the top of the ladder where they were and pulled Bieber up, where his talent could be recognized by a wide audience. They helped him polish his performing skills, and in four years Bieber had sold 15 million records and been named by Forbes as the third most powerful celebrity in the world. Without Raymond’s and Braun’s mentorship, Biebs would probably still be playing acoustic guitar back home in Canada. He’d be hustling on his own just like Louis C.K., begging for attention amid a throng of hopeful entertainers. Mentorship is the secret of many of the highest-profile achievers throughout history. Socrates mentored young Plato, who in turn mentored Aristotle. Aristotle mentored a boy named Alexander, who went on to conquer the known world as Alexander the Great. From The Karate Kid to Star Wars to The Matrix, adventure stories often adhere to a template in which a protagonist forsakes humble beginnings and embarks on a great quest. Before the quest heats up, however, he or she receives training from a master: Obi Wan Kenobi. Mr. Miyagi. Mickey Goldmill. Haymitch. Morpheus. Quickly, the hero is ready to face overwhelming challenges. Much more quickly than if he’d gone to light-saber school. The mentor story is so common because it seems to work—especially when the mentor is not just a teacher, but someone who’s traveled the road herself. “A master can help you accelerate things,” explains Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and career coach behind the bestseller The Success Principles. He says that, like C.K., we can spend thousands of hours practicing until we master a skill, or we can convince a world-class practitioner to guide our practice and cut the time to mastery significantly.

If it sounds good, it is good.

That’s my friend, Jasmine,” he said, leaning closer to me. His breath tickled my cheek. “Your friend?” I asked curiously. “Yeah,” he said. “She plays here all the time. Looks like she’s doing well tonight. She has a heap of money in her guitar case.” I wondered how well he knew her? Did he bring me here knowing this is where she’d be? She was such a pretty girl and he probably knew her a lot better than he knew me. “She has a great voice,” I said, trying to stifle my envy. “Yeah, she does,” Zye replied, his eyes still locked on hers. “She’s amazing.” As I stood beside him, I found myself just as taken by her voice as Zye was. Her fingers flicked over the guitar strings as if she were playing a harp. The movements were smooth and gentle, creating a steady rhythm that put me at ease. I didn’t recognize the music or the lyrics. But it didn’t matter that it wasn’t familiar and I began to understand Zye’s fascination with her. As her song continued, I wondered about her.

Always think first, respond second, and react never. Reacting means you didn’t think first, that someone can pick your insecurities like a guitar and have you dance to their music anytime they want. To be the master of your fate and the captain of your soul, you must practice thoroughly thinking matters through.

MacKaye never varied his equipment: a Gibson SG guitar and a Marshall amplifier. “Even though I know that there’s a lot of options, I’m not interested in options,” he says. “I’m interested in how far I can take this simple equation, which is an amp, a cord, and a guitar, and how much I can do with it.

My insides vibrate all the time, like a guitar string so tight it’s about to break. I can hardly sleep because I’m afraid he’ll die in my arms. I can’t wait to get away from him so I can think about something else for a while and I can’t wait to get back to him because I can’t think about anything else when we’re apart,

What did you contribute to the next Fleetwood Mac album? I have three songs as it stands now, but I think we may replace one of them with another song. I wrote one of the songs a long, long time ago, even before Lindsey and I moved to LA. It’s called “It’s Alright.” It’s very simple; Lindsey just plays some really nice guitar behind me. There’s another song called “If You Were My Love” that I wrote about a year ago after I’d recorded “Outside the Rain” with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. I spent a week recording with them and I had so much fun that I was really bummed out when it was over. That’s when I wrote that song. There was also a song called “Smile at You” that I don’t think we’ll put on. I think Lindsey wants me to record another one and so do I. It’s kind of a bitter song and that’s really not where any of us are at right now, even though it’s a wonderful song. My songs don’t take long to record, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Dan had brought a Casio CZ series portable and an amp to play it through. Carla had a kobassa. “It’s the only hand percussion in the house,” she said ruefully. She gave it a quick slap-and-slide, rattle-and-hiss, across her hand. “I could have brought the snare, I guess, but that just makes me wish for the whole kit.” Eddi shook her head. “Violent Femmes used to use a washtub.” “I don’t have a washtub. Maybe I’ll bear on your head, instead.” “It’s a thought. I’m not using it for anything.” Carla looked curious, but Eddi turned quickly to unpack her guitar. Dan gave her an E to tune to. Now why did I say that? she wondered v I didn’t mean it. Did I? She remembered suddenly, unbidden, the phouka saying love made mortals stupid. Damn phouka.

Of course, marriage in one sense changes who you are in certain ways, but it also simply amplifies what you are. Many people think that when they got married, they turned into selfish people. What actually happened is they plugged the guitar into the amp and turned it up to eleven, and the selfish tune they had been playing the whole time suddenly became audible.

But here was Paul, holding on to his Rickenbacker, shouting “You’ll fucking do this,” and Henry finally reached his limit. He looked Paul in the eye, unstrapped his Les Paul, and said, “We’ll see about that, you cunt.”61 The band looked on in stunned silence as Henry angrily packed his guitar, unplugged his amp, threw them both into the back seat of his car, and drove off. Even Paul felt things had gone too far, though he also knew this moment was inevitable. “We all got a bit choked about it,” Paul remembered.62 Romeo said that “Everyone cried when Henry left, including Henry.

Paul’s bass line and a wiry guitar solo from Denny finished Wings’ contributions to the track. Also polished off that day was ‘Let Me Roll It,’ which had in common with ‘Piano Thing’ a repeating instrumental riff—in this case, a bluesy, slightly distorted guitar figure—as its spine. Something like the figure that runs through Lennon’s ‘Cold Turkey,’ the ‘Let Me Roll It’ riff called for a distinctive atmosphere, which Paul and Emerick created by putting the guitar through a PA system rather than a guitar amp, giving it a bright, high-power sound.

From the Balance sheet of humanity, to the Profit & Loss account of emotions, I am all in good books. I am a Chartered Accountant.

Any other female guitar players in the world know what I'm talking about, when you get ur nails did & they get shot to shit in a day #FUCKit

I didn’t want to stop listening. That one song—is it ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’?” “Yeah, Joy Division.” “Oh my God, that’s the best beginning to a song ever.” He imitated the guitar and the drums. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said. “I just wanted to listen to those three seconds over and over.

LUNG CANCER is linked to cigarette smoking - but L&M still plug their cigarettes as “just what the doctor ordered.

May your P&L account of deeds for humanity be in profits; for you have to present the your Balance Sheet on the Judgment Day.

A man's a man who looks a man right between the eyes.

When a thing happened that had not happened before, a confusion often descended upon people, a fog that fuddled the clearest minds; and often the consequence of such confusion was rejection, and even anger. A fish crawled out of a swamp onto dry land and the other fish were bewildered, perhaps even annoyed that a forbidden frontier had been crossed. A meteorite struck the earth and the dust blocked out the sun but the dinosaurs went on fighting and eating, not understanding that they had been rendered extinct. The birth of language angered the dumb. The shah of Persia, facing the Ottoman guns, refused to accept the end of the age of the sword and sent his calvary to gallop suicidally against the blazing cannons of the Turk. A scientist observed tortoises and mockingbirds and wrote about "random mutation" and "natural selection" and the adherents of the Book of Genesis cursed his name. A revolution in painting was derided and dismissed as mere "Impressionism." A folksinger plugged his guitar into an amp and a voice in the crowd shouted "Judas!

Abovitz is a technology entrepreneur with a background in biomedical engineering. He previously founded Mako Surgical, a company in Fort Lauderdale that makes a robotic arm equipped with haptic technology, which imparts a sense of touch so that orthopedic surgeons have the sensation of actually working on bones as they trigger the robot’s actions. Mako was sold to a medical technology company, Stryker, for nearly $1.7 billion in 2013. By night, Abovitz likes to rock out. He sings and plays guitar and bass in a pop-rock band called Sparkydog & Friends. And as he tells it, Magic Leap has its origins in both the robotic-surgery company and his life as a musician.

Pink electricity snakes out from her fingertips, jumping from the guitar and sending rainbow-hued sparks floating to the ceiling. She leans her hand to the strings and feels the chunky, percussive roar of the palm mute rumble through the amps. It gnaws at her bones, shakes her blood in her veins like some kind of fantastic, terrible cocktail of sound and iron, and she is so desperately happy.

At certain times I read a lot of poetry. My favorite poets are Shelley and Keats. Rimbaud is so identifiable, Lord Byron, I don’t know. Lately if I read poems, it’s like I can always hear the guitar. Even with Shakespeare’s sonnets I can hear a melody because its all broken up into timed phrases so I hear it. I always keep thinking, what kind of song would this be?”15

The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath" About the Song: The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath delves into the dark and haunting theme of a lover poisoned by a sinister concoction found in the medieval Grand Grimoire. The song narrates the tragic tale of love tainted by the cruel hand of death, where a forbidden potion is meticulously prepared with arcane ingredients. The song's lyrics evoke a gothic atmosphere, intertwining elements of medieval alchemy and romantic tragedy. The potion's ingredients—Red Copper, Nitric Acid, Verdigris, Arsenic, Oak Bark, Rose Water, and Black Soot—are transformed into metaphors for the slow, inevitable demise of the lover. This deadly recipe becomes a symbol of both the destructive power and the twisted beauty of forbidden love. The music captures the essence of gothic black metal with its somber melodies, eerie harmonies, and intense, brooding instrumentals. Each note and lyric serve to illustrate the dark journey of love poisoned by betrayal and malice. The song's atmosphere is thick with melancholy and dread, inviting listeners into a world where passion and death intertwine in a tragic dance. Copyright Notice: The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath © 2024 Umbrae Sortilegium. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, or distribution of this song or its lyrics is prohibited. The Composition of Death Upon Your Breath. (Verse 1) In an ancient tome of shadowed lore, A secret poison to settle the score, A lover’s whisper, a deadly art, The composition to tear us apart. (Pre-Chorus) Red copper gleaming, nitric acid's burn, Verdigris and arsenic, from which there’s no return, Oak bark and rose water, a fatal serenade, Black soot to bind it, in darkness, it’s made. (Chorus) The composition of death upon your breath, A kiss that leads to the silent depths, In your arms, I fall to eternal rest, Poisoned by the love that you professed. (Verse 2) A new, glazed pot, the spell's design, A potion brewed, in shadows confined, Your lips, a chalice of cold despair, In each embrace, a whispered prayer. (Pre-Chorus) Red copper gleaming, nitric acid's burn, Verdigris and arsenic, from which there’s no return, Oak bark and rose water, a fatal serenade, Black soot to bind it, in darkness, it’s made. (Chorus) The composition of death upon your breath, A kiss that leads to the silent depths, In your arms, I fall to eternal rest, Poisoned by the love that you professed. (Bridge) In your gaze, the twilight's fall, A lover's kiss, the end of all, The Grand Grimoire, its secrets told, In every kiss, the poison’s cold. (Breakdown) A potion brewed from darkest sin, Your breath the gateway, let death begin, A recipe of doom, our fates entwined, In your arms, I lose my mind. (Chorus) The composition of death upon your breath, A kiss that leads to the silent depths, In your arms, I fall to eternal rest, Poisoned by the love that you professed. (Outro) The final breath, a lover's sigh, In your arms, I’m doomed to die, The composition, a lover’s theft, Death upon your breath, my final bequest. Lyrics and ALL Vocals yours truly. Lead Guitar & Symphonics Raz Wolfgang Drums Alexander Novichkov Bass Auron Nightshade Guitarist Kael Thornfield

As a final example of what we can know amid the speculation, claims and counter claims, we can note Dylan’s comments in his Rolling Stone interview, in 2012, when he said: “These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.” Despite the distinct lack of Christian forgiveness on show, that “our” is surely crucial.

larynx (pp. 352–354), and (2) smaller intrinsic muscles that control tension in the glottal vocal folds or that open and close the glottis. These smaller muscles insert on the thyroid, arytenoid, and corniculate cartilages. The opening or closing of the glottis involves rotational movements of the arytenoid cartilages. When you swallow, both sets of muscles work together to prevent food or drink from entering the glottis. Food is crushed and chewed into a pasty mass, known as a bolus, before being swallowed. Muscles of the neck and pharynx then elevate the larynx, bending the epiglottis over the glottis, so that the bolus can glide across the epiglottis rather than falling into the larynx. While this movement is under way, the glottis is closed. Foods or liquids that touch the vestibular folds or glottis trigger the coughing reflex. In a cough, the glottis is kept closed while the chest and abdominal muscles contract, compressing the lungs. When the glottis is opened suddenly, a blast of air from the trachea ejects material that blocks the entrance to the glottis. Sound Production How do you produce sounds? Air passing through your open glottis vibrates its vocal folds and produces sound waves. The pitch of the sound depends on the diameter, length, and tension in your vocal folds. The diameter and length are directly related to the size of your larynx. You control the tension by contracting voluntary muscles that reposition the arytenoid cartilages relative to the thyroid cartilage. When the distance increases, your vocal folds tense and the pitch rises. When the distance decreases, your vocal folds relax and the pitch falls. Children have slender, short vocal folds, so their voices tend to be high pitched. At puberty, the larynx of males enlarges much more than that of females. The vocal cords of an adult male are thicker and longer, so they produce lower tones than those of an adult female. Sound production at the larynx is called phonation (fo.-NA .-shun; phone, voice). Phonation is one part of speech production. Clear speech also requires articulation, the modification of those sounds by voluntary movements of other structures, such as the tongue, teeth, and lips to form words. In a stringed instrument, such as a guitar, the quality of the sound produced does not depend solely on the nature of the vibrating string. Rather, the entire instrument becomes involved as the walls vibrate and the composite sound echoes within the hollow body. Similar amplification and resonance take place within your pharynx, oral cavity, nasal cavity, and paranasal sinuses. The combination gives you the particular and distinctive sound of your voice. That sound changes when you have a sinus infection and your nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses are filled with mucus rather than air.

Singapore Why should I book a live band for my wedding? Merry Bees Merry Bees have serenaded dignitaries at the Istana. Merry bees provide services to their customers like Solo Live Music, Virtual live band, Solo Musician, Solo Wedding Singer, Instrumental live band, Corporate Live Band, wedding livestream etc. their all the services are quite good. Merry bees also performed at TV programmes and other high profile events including APEC, F1 Singapore Grand Prix, Young NTUC Celebrates NDP, DBS, Prudential, Maersk, Singapore Sports Awards, etc. Merry Bees have produced and performed to over 2,000 successful events. When COVID-19 hit us in 2020, Merry Bees was one of the first few events companies in Singapore who adapted quickly to virtual. Merry bees have produced and live streamed to over 250 events and performances by Dec 2020. Apart from that merry bees also provide Content creation, Videography, livestream production, Corporate Videography Merry bees are emotionally attached with their each client. ShiLi & Adi TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE It is no surprise that ShiLi & Adi are a highly sought after duo in the wedding live bands and corporate events circuit due to their fresh piano arrangements and smooth vocal harmony. From duets and their ability to medley any songs dedicated by the audience, their chemistry is unmistakable. John Lye Live Looping Singer Guitarist, Bilingual Emcee & Host, Production & Technical Director John Lye is one of the most versatile performers we know with 12 years of performing experience under his belt. As part of our core team and co-founder of Merry Bees, John wears many hats but his biggest hat would be charming audiences with a wide vocal range and solid guitar live looping skills, as he switches effortlessly from heavy old school rock ballads of Journey and Bon Jovi to classics from Sinatra and Nat King Cole in various languages. Merry bees have many live offers you can book merry bees to make your special day wonderful.

(The unique echo sound of the Sun studio was achieved through the use of a tape-loop delay and a 7½-ips, instead of the more advanced 15-ips, two-track recorder. The added echo effect heard in Scotty Moore’s guitar relied on a custom-built amplifier, made in Cairo, Illinois, by a man named Ray Butts. Moore got the second amp that Butts built; the first went to Chet Atkins, the third to Carl Perkins, and the fourth to Roy Orbison. When he ceased working with Elvis in September 1957, Moore put the amp in a closet. Several closets later he withdrew it at Carl Perkins’s request and plugged it in for one of Carl’s Mercury sessions early in 1975.)

The Blasters proved to be the most prominent and popular of these acts by far. Originally a quartet, the band was bred in Downey, just down the freeway from East L.A. In their teens, brothers Phil and Dave Alvin were bitten by the blues bug; they became habitués of the L.A. club the Ash Grove, where many of the best-known folk and electric blues performers played, and they sought out the local musicians who could teach them their craft, learning firsthand from such icons as Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, and Little Richard’s saxophonist Lee Allen (who would ultimately join the band in the ’80s). But the Blasters’ style was multidimensional: they could play R&B, they loved country music, and they were also dyed-in-the-wool rockabilly fans who were initially embraced by the music’s fervent L.A. cultists. Their debut album, 1980’s American Music, was recorded in a Van Nuys garage by the Milan, Italy–born rockabilly fanatic Rockin’ Ronnie Weiser, and released on his indie label Rollin’ Rock Records, which also issued LPs by such first-generation rockabilly elders as Gene Vincent, Mac Curtis, Jackie Waukeen Cochran, and Ray Campi. By virtue of Phil Alvin’s powerful, unmannered singing and Dave Alvin’s adept guitar playing and original songwriting, the Blasters swiftly rose to the top of a pack of greasy local bands that also included Levi and the Rockats (a unit fronted by English singer Levi Dexter) and the Rockabilly Rebels (who frequently backed Ray Campi). Los Lobos were early Blasters fans, and often listened to American Music in their van on the way to their own (still acoustic) gigs. Rosas says, “We loved their first record, man. We used to play the shit out of that record. Dave [Hidalgo] was the one who got a copy of it, and he put it on cassette.

I just find music to be one of the great creations of humankind. It breaks boundaries, it brings people together, and it seems to transcend differences. It bonds us to each other. It does all of that without regard for whether it’s jazz, or rocka- billy, or blues, or rock, or folk, or R&B, or soul, or gospel, or country, or classical, or whatever your genre of choice might be. It does all of that, whether it’s Vivaldi’s violins, or Paul Desmond’s haunting alto sax, or James Burton’s twangy guitar. It’s important stuff to us humans, and it’s important stuff to me.

A dusty little town, the longing twang of a guitar chord, and the desolate landscape of Wyoming were all it took for me to know that Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist’s relationship was doomed from the start. When it ended, one dirty, bloodstained shirt lovingly folded into the other, it ended me too. It felt shameful to watch that video, like I was watching porn, but perhaps even more sinful, because shame made gay love feel more pornographic than actual porn.

And to top it off, my years of sexual escapades have earned me the hashtag of #Cockstar on social media. I kind of wish my guitar-playing skills were more notable than my dick skills. Pitiful.

Then we went into “Nobody’s Fault.” This was one of the highlights of my creative career. If you listen really close to the front of “Nobody’s Fault,” there isn’t an intro to the song. I suggested to Joe that he turn his amp volume to 12 and the volume on his guitar off. Since the key of the song was an E, I suggested he start by fingering a D chord, and then turn the volume knob all the way up slowly. I told Brad to play an A chord, same dealio as Joe. Then Joe played a C, did the same thing—Brad played a G, Joe played a B-flat, Brad played an F, Joe played an A-flat, Brad played an E-flat, and then Joe and Brad both played a D chord. And when they played that D together, rolling the volume knob up with their pinkies—and holding it for a second—then the band came in on a crashing E chord like Hitler was at the door. I looked over and Jack Douglas was internally hemorrhaging with bliss. I was in the middle of the room with my headphones on (which we called “cans”) and a live mic in front of me, because I loved singing live vocals as the band tracked. It always seemed to incite a little riot inside of everyone. Right before the band came in on the downbeat, the union engineer from Columbia marked his presence for all time by opening the door right in the middle of that sweet silence. He had a clarinet in his hand that wound up on the front of “Pandora’s Box,” but that’s another story. You can actually hear the door opening in “Nobody’s Fault” to this day and it somehow seems to get louder and louder with each play, only ’cause you know it’s there now.

HALF AN hour later, Richey James sits alone in the dressing room, smoking a cigarette and staring straight ahead. He’s not saying anything. Is it because he treasures his guitars, that he never smashes them? “No, I dislike my guitar intensely,” he sighs. “I can’t even be bothered to smash the fucking thing. It doesn’t deserve death...

I walked down Broadway. Stepped onto the Pearl Street Mall, with its humming bars and teens eating ice cream and men playing guitar for tips, and into the glittering storefront of the Boulder Book Store. I bought a copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and another of The Alchemist. I read them. In this way, I lived until morning.

Child is born With a heart of gold Way of the world Makes his heart so cold

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten? Nigel Tufnel: Exactly. Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Marty DiBergi: I don't know. Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven. Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

Carnival Cruise Lines has its own successful way of doing things, which in this case involved creating a musical group called “The Hot Shots!” The word “Fantastic” comes to mind when thinking of this musical group! Each member auditioned separately at the Carnival rehearsal facility in Miami and then rehearsed as a group until they were ready for the big leagues aboard ship. Fortunately for me and my team, which includes Jorge Fernandez, a former guitar player from Cuba and now a top flight structural engineer in the Tampa Bay area, who helps me with much of my technical work; Lucy Shaw, Chief Copy Editor; Ursula Bracker, Proofer, and lucky me Captain Hank Bracker, award winning author (including multiple gold medals), were aboard the Carnival Legend and were privileged to listen to and enjoy, quite by chance, music that covered everything from Classical Rock, to Disco, to Mo Town and the years in between. Talented Judith Mullally, Carnival’s Entertainment Director, was on hand to encourage and partake in the music with her outstanding voice and, not to be left out, were members of the ship’s repertory cast, as well as the ship’s Cruise Director. The popular Red Frog lounge on the Carnival Legend was packed to the point that one of the performances had to be held on the expansive Lido deck. However, for the rest of the nights, the lounge was packed with young and old, singing and dancing to “The Hot Shots!” - a musical group that would totally pack any venue in Florida. Pheona Baranda, from the Philippines, is cute as a button and is the lead female singer, with a pitch-perfect soprano voice. Lucas Pedreira, from Argentina, is the lead male singer and guitar player who displayed endless energy and the ability to keep the audience hopping! Paulo Baranda, Pheona’s younger brother, plays the lead guitar to perfection and behind the scenes is the band’s musical director and of course is also from the Philippines. Ygor, from Israel, is the “on the money” drummer who puts so much into what he is doing, that at one point he hurt his hand, but refused to slow down. Nick is the bass guitar player, from down under New Zealand, and Marina, the piano and keyboard player, hails from the Ukraine. As a disclaimer I admit that I hold shares in Carnival stock but there is nothing in it for me other than the pleasure of listening to this ultra-talented group which cannot and should not be denied. They were and still are the very best! However, I am sorry that just as a “Super Nova” they unfortunately can’t last. Their bright shining light is presently flaring, but this will only be for a fleeting moment and then will permanently go to black next year on January 2, 2020. That’s just the way it is, but my crew and I, as well as the many guests aboard the Carnival Legend, experienced music seldom heard anywhere, any longer…. It was a treat we will remember for years to come and we hope to see them again, as individual musical artists, or as perhaps with a new group sometime in the near future!

Hours, packaged as “Bowie’s R&B album,” went equally deep. “Seven,” “Survive,” and “Thursday’s Child” felt like Babyface and Toni Braxton doing Young Americans. The major flaw of these records, one that many listeners understandably found (and still find) impossible to get past, was the butt-ugly guitar sound of Tin Machine leftover Reeves Gabrels, which was even more irritating than the techno effects. It would have been great to hear Bowie redo these songs with a better band and better production. I played them a lot anyway.

Whatever music you were into, it was exploding in the Nineties. Guitar bands, hip-hop, R&B, techno, country, Britpop, trip-hop, blip-hop, ambient, illbient, jungle, ska, swing, Belgian jam bands, Welsh gangsta rap—every music genre you could name (or couldn’t)—(and a few that probably didn’t really exist) was on a roll that made the Sixties look picayune and provincial. We can argue all day whether Nineties music holds up, but fans devoured—and paid for—more music than ever before or since. The average citizen purchased CDs in numbers that look shocking now, and even shocking then. Every week, thousands of people bought new copies of the Grease soundtrack, from 1978, and nobody knew why. Even critics had trouble finding things to complain about (though we sure tried).

What I would do was use the bridge pickup with all of the bass turned up, so the sound was very thick and on the edge of distortion. I also always used amps that would overload. I would have the amp on full, with the volume on the guitar also turned up full, so everything was on full volume and overloading. I would hit a note, hold it, and give it some vibrato with my fingers, until it sustained, and then the distortion would turn into feedback. It was all of these things, plus the distortion, that created what I suppose you could call my sound.

It ain't my idea to leave before dawn. My ole lady decided to visit Nana, that's why the house stinks of hairspray. You know why she's leaving early: so nobody sees her scurry through town on foot. All she wants is for them to see her arrived, all hunky-dory. Not scurrying. It's a learning I made since the car went. 'Well I just can't believe there isn't a pair of Tumbledowns around town, I mean, I'll have to try down by Nana's.' She gives off breathy noises, and flicks her fingertips through my hair. Then she takes a step back and frowns. It means goodbye. 'Promise me you won't miss your therapy.' An electric purple sky spills stars behind the pumpjack, calling home the last moths for the night. It reminds me of the morning when ole Mrs Lechuga was out here, all devastated. I try not to think about it. Instead I look ahead to today. Going to Keeter's is a smart idea; if anybody sees me out there, they'll say, 'We saw Vernon out by Keeter's,' and nobody will know if they mean the auto shop, or the piece of land. See? Vernon Gray-matter Little. In return, I've asked Fate to help me solve the cash thing. It's become clear that cash is the only way to deal with problems in life. I even scraped up a few things to pawn in town, if it comes to that. I know it'll come to that, so I have them with me in my pack – my clarinet, my skateboard, and fourteen music discs. They're in the pack with my lunchbox, which contains my sandwich, the two joints, and a piece of paper with some internet addresses on it. As for the joints and the piece of paper, I heard the voice of Jesus last night. He advised me to get wasted, fast. If at first you don't succeed, he said, get wasted off your fucken ass. My plan is to sit out at Keeter's and get some new ideas, ideas borne out of the bravery of wastedness. I ride down empty roads of frosted silver, trees overhead swish cool hints of warm panties in bedclothes. Liberty Drive is naked, save for droppings of hay, and Bar-B-Chew Barn wrappers. In this light you can't see the stains on the sidewalk by the school. As the gym building passes by, all hulky and black, I look the other way, and think of other things. Music's a crazy thing, when you think about it. Interesting how I decided which discs not to pawn. I could've kept some party music, but that would've just tried to boost me up, all this thin kind of 'Tss-tss-tss,' music. You get all boosted up, convinced you're going to win in life, then the song's over and you discover you fucken lost. That's why you end up playing those songs over and over, in case you didn't know. Cream pie, boy. I could've kept back some heavy metal too, but that's likely to drive me to fucken suicide. What I need is some Eminem, some angry poetry, but you can't buy that stuff in Martirio. Like it was an animal sex doll or something, you can't buy angry poetry. When you say gangsta around here, they still think of Bonnie & fucken Clyde. Nah, guess what: I ended up keeping my ole Country albums. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck – even my daddy's ole Hank Williams compilation. I kept them because those boys have seen some shit – hell, all they sing about is the shit they've seen; you just know they woke up plenty of times on a wooden floor somewhere, with ninety flavors of trouble riding on their ass. The slide-guitar understands your trouble. Then all you need is the beer.

I’ll give it a year. I’ll go out and play these clubs and then I’ll go on to college.’ But after a year, I was so far in debt from trying to buy amps and guitars and everything else, that I had to do another year.