My First Live Performance in a Loooonnnnngggg Time

     Back in December I saw a wall post on Facebook from the Student Program Board (SPB) asking for any UH students who play acoustic music to hit them up for a performance opportunity. I did, and I was accepted immediately. I guess my enthusiasm gave them confidence in my abilities.
     Over the next 2 months I had to practice and figure out what to play. I really wanted to debut a new song, but I wasn't able to come up with anything I considered satisfactory. The next challenge was to decide if what covers to do, and if I should maybe learn some new ones. I learned a Dave Matthews Band song,"So Much To Say"

and worked on "Collide" by Howie Day

 and "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash.

     My next order of business was looking at looping pedals for my guitar. What a loop pedal does is record a riff or whatever you want to be looped, or played over again, and repeats it until you tell it to stop. This would have been helpful so I could show off my soloing capabilities. Alas, I wasn't able to find one I liked in time to get used to using it. Oh well. I didn't NEED the loop pedal, though I really wanted it. 


     The big day came up. February 24th, 2011. I was feeling pretty nervous. The only live stuff I had done in the last 5 years was some open mics around Houston. The open mic crowd is pretty forgiving, so not much of a gauge as to how I'm actually sounding or performing. This show would be my first time playing for regular ass people since my cousin Keith and I played as Morning Wood in 2004.
     My nerves and anxiety were pretty high as the first performer went on. When I came on the stage and set up I realized I was drawing a blank; thankfully, I had my set list typed up. I played through Dave Matthews' "So Much to Say" with a minor hiccup I don't think anyone noticed but me. Before moving on to "Don't Cry" by Guns n Roses my wife, Gabby, asked if I turned on the video camera. I had not, so she turned it on for me. I felt pretty good about Don't Cry so I thought I was losing my nerves. I was wrong. I had to skip over Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" because I forgot the words all of a sudden. I literally remembered them right after my set was over and I was leaving the stage. The rest of the set went pretty well. I did well enough to not be mad with myself, which isn't easy. I tend to be so critical of my mistakes that I overlook the good stuff.

     So, to conclude my story, I got decent recordings of the rest of set which included: "Don't Cry", "Drive" by Incubus, an original song called "Upon Goodbye", "Wonderwall" by Oasis, "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down, an original called "Trust You", "Times Like These" by Foo Fighters, and an original, "Overload".  I have placed a link to youtube where all these videos of my performance can be seen.

To Loop our Not to Loop

I have been pondering purchasing a pedal to loop a guitar rythm so I can practice my lead over it, and also because I would like to be able to layer my parts and/or solo live. I asked my boy Stuart, of Skepticynic, what he used for layering. His stompbox of choice is the ibanez de7 delay/echo pedal, if I'm not mistaken. Now,i have been impressed with his layering work and am not opposed to trying one out, but this Guitar Center employee showed me a couple loop pedals. The difference between a delay/echo and a loop is that the delay is mainly designed for short term delays, or repeating of licks and riffs, while the loop pedal is used for extended looping, or repeating of multiple layers of sound. I wanted a legit link to the specs on the Ibanez DE 7, but apparently it has been discontinued. I did, however, find a link for the Jamman Solo specs. http://www.digitech.com/products/Pedals/JamManSolo.php since I'm doing this on my phone I don't know if that will show up as a link, or if you'll have to paste the url. A decision isn't necessary yet, but I would love to be able to layer myself for my upsoming 30 min spot. Going completely solo without any effects is gonna be tense for me after all this time since I've played live.

The Feel of Taylor

Taylor.  Doesn’t it have  a nice ring to it?  A very nice name, eh?  Of course, I’m talking about a guitar.  I used to go over to my best friend, Gabe’s, parents’ pad and drool over all the guitars his dad had hanging on the walls.  No matter how many times I went up there I was always in awe.  I recall only being allowed to play like 1 or 2 of them.  Those guitars were all very special to “Dad”.  I mean, most likely, he hand-made each and every one for all I know. (These aren’t the guitars that are David’s Secret, but they are a sample of Taylor Guitars.)  I do know that, in the den, he was always working on something that I “wouldn’t understand”.  In retrospect, he was right.  I wouldn’t have understood any of the jive he was speaking about the intricacies of sounds.  Acoustics were, and still are, a very big mystery to me.  Don’t get me wrong, I know how to manipulate the acoustics in a given room where I am controlling the live sound of a performance, or performing myself.  Anyway, enough about this.  Gabe just sparked an interest in blogging about my favorite guitars. Taylor Guitars.  Thanks Gabe, and thanks “Dad” for introducing me to that part of life.
Amen

Semper Fidelis! Out here.