Lunch Report Fri Aug 06

Morning GbL fans. Making an early post as I've got a busy day ahead of
me. Lunch is undetermined at this time and will be some semblance of
food-like substance to get me thru the afternoon. And in response to Sam's probing
question about yesterday's pizza - It was left over from a local pizza joint the night before.
And yes I had it cold. Some folks (like my wife) think cold leftover pizza is dreadful,
but I like it. The pizza itself was decent stuff, not great. Sadly the pizza situation around
town here leaves a lot to be desired.


Still looking for a lunch reporter for next week. A couple of people I
approached directly had to decline due to schedules.
So c'mon, what are you waiting for. It looks good on a resume!

I first saw the moog guitar in Popular Science magazine.
It seems interesting and looks to have some cool features. But personally I just can't see
too many people taking the plunge. I can see folks like Adrian Belew (or
perhaps Zappa RIP) doing some interesting work with it. Being the Belew
fan that I am I have his Guitar As Orchestra cd that he did with some
sort of guitar synth. Not something you want to listen to all the time
but it was cool to hear him take the guitar in a different direction. I
don't think there are any "guitar" sounds on the entire record. Most of
it is emulating piano and orchestral instruments. I was kinda intrigued
with the Variax guitar. Again not something I would probably get much
use out of but I suppose it would be great for certain songwriters,
demos etc. I did see Steve Howe of Yes tour with it a couple of times.
He used it for his sitar and some of his acoustic parts. I certainly
don't expect *all* guitar going to go that way, but I think eventually
we'll be seeing more and more of these gizmos gaining acceptance. Look
at the PODs and modeling amps. It wasn't that long ago that most people
would scoff at the idea of that catching on. Anyone ever played a variax
or similar, what were you thoughts on it? Would you ever consider the
Moog or Variax?

Back To The Future?
So you and your buddies are partying in the Hot Tube Time Machine (or if
you're so inclined, Peabody and Sherman's Wayback machine).
Where, or rather, "when" do you go? The only rule is you gotta keep it a
musically related trip. So no going back to buy Apple stock or to dump
your Enron stock. So many choices, but I'd probably go back to December
1980 and kick Mark David Chapman in the `nads before he could do any
harm.

I ordered pizza last night. When I got it , it was cut in little squares like at Chucky Cheeze! If I'm eating pizza like that, there had better be crappy games too...

As for synths, I have an Alesis and a few MoogerFoogers. I loves me King Crimson, Yes, Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe.

If I could travel back I'd just want to get a head start on music and spend some time in London.

As far as synth guitars go. I don't like em. To me a lot of it is just hodge podging other instruments (poorly at that). I know there are wind controllers, attack converters ,etc to mimic winds and whatnot better. But I still cannot get into it. Some of the worst I heard were synth replications of bag pipes, nothing near, notes cannot stop on pipes. The Moog guitar is neat in the sense it has a sustainer, and the opposite of a sustainer built in. For the price tag I don't even thing about them. Expanding guitar is one thing, but trying to replace other instruments with it is like ignoring an elephant in the room. For gigs with small bands that need the sound to add atmosphere, useful I guess, however still not me.


As for the time machine dealy. Maybe go back in time and make sure Rhoads didn't get on that plane to screw around. Guitar might be a bit more interesting with him still around.

I do not have any synths, moog guitars or any of that. I don't play keyboards but I would think a synth might be fun to play around with. Then again, I would probably rather have a Hammond B3 in the house. I ain't much though for that Prog Rock kinda stuff.

A musical trip back in time. Gotta agree that kickin' Chapman in the nads is a pretty good choice. But by the same token you could go back to that airport in Iowa and stop Buddy Holly from getting on the plane or to 1937 and keep Bessie Smith from getting into the car in which she would die, or to 1970 and keep Hendrix occupied and away from the Notting Hill flat.

Here is what I would do. I would head back to the time I was first starting out in the early 1960s. Before I left, I would gather up a whole lot of early 1960s dollars. I would immediately buy up a bunch of late 1950s burst Lesters, Blackguard Teles and what have you and write a letter to my future self saying don't sell them this time.

Anyone ever played a variax or similar, what were you thoughts on it? Would you ever consider the Moog or Variax?
As much as I like prog and tinkering with p-ups, switches etc., I have never put my hands on a Moog, Variax or similar. My fear is I would make more racket than music!

Back To The Future?
Where, or rather, "when" do you go?
Ditto on kicking that guy in the 'nads.

After that .... oh, if I could have been in my 20's in mid to late 1940's and living in Fullerton CA, and strike up a friendship with a guy named Leo Fender, who knows what I would be doing now.

Back to the present...thanks for a fun week Jeff - TGIF

Synth guitars aint my cuppa... think they're cool and all but i'm pretty old school when it comes to gear.
My former boss bought a variax and I checked it out a bit. It was pretty strange to play it - you could set it so you're playing in standard tuning and have it come out in another key, tuning or as a piano, sax, violin etc...

Re time travel situ - so many options - can't really just pick one... tho I've always wished I could've heard Hendrix for the first time back in the day before having hearing anything like that prior... I'm sure some of the folks here have had that actual experience (pun intended).
I have a friend who did - he said he was simply stunned... his mouth dropped, the whole bit... Imagine never hearing feedback, distortion, whammy bar antics, etc before and having your ears bent that way.... closest things I can relate to that is hearing VH's Eruption for the first time and seeing the back of the Cars' first album. Re the former - it was pretty impressive but not too shocking in that i'd heard hard rock, distortion etc before but definately different & unique sounding.
Re the latter, I just remember really being taken aback by how strange they looked... like Space Aliens

Nice Job Jeff!

Cheers,

JBo