Thanks again for all your contributions yesterday. I have been looking in a friendly way for an LR for next week and have gotten 4 declines so far. Too new, too busy, away,... I have heard it all. I am a friendly guy and could have easily shifted the onus to any of my potential candidates to find a suitable LR reporter and will keep looking myself. If anybody would like to volunteer, that would be my preferred method. But I will but the hammer down if necessary

Now back to our regularly scheduled program. Today for ...
Lunch
... we go to the Hurricane. This is a true institution in Seattle. Close to Bell Town and Denny Way, open 24 hours, and breakfast all day. Usually I take some vegetable/egg scramble and add ham with hash browns and wheat toast. But today I intend to order the cheese melt on sourdough with a cup of their pretty darn good meat chili with cheese and onions. My mouth is salivating already.
Non-G&L
Which guitar solos stopped you in your tracks?
I have a couple of solos which completely blew me away when I heard them first:
First one is Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones doing his best Carlos Santana on the solo of 'Time Waits For No One' from 'It's Only Rock 'n Roll'. I remember playing with my Lego's one Sunday evening when I was in my early teens. As usual I was building stages since I had a lot of Lego light set. Especially stages build in/on a trailer with all sorts of parts folding and sliding out (very similar to many RV's I discovered 2 decades later!). And on the radio they played this tune by the Stones. I recognized them as such but had never heard this song. And then the solo kicked in and I stopped whatever I was doing and just listened. In my memory, it seemed to last forever. Which led to quite a letdown when I purchased the album because the song only lasts 6:38! But the experience was apparently so intense that time seemed to have had slowed down.
Second is Pat Metheny on 'Are you Going With Me' from 'Travels'. On this live track, the group just kicks ass and the whole rendition is so much better than the studio version on 'Offramp'. 'Travels' had gotten a 6 out of 5 stars in a review in a Dutch musical instruments magazine (think 'Guitar Player'). Undoubtedly a misprint but it piqued my interest enough to buy the album. The local store, called 'North End' (yes English names for stores and things are rather prevalent in the Netherlands), did not carry any ECM albums but they could order it. So 2 weeks later I returned and the store owner was interested why a young kid like me buys an album like that. He wanted to know what's on it too. So we played the whole album in the store. Still getting goosebumps thinking back to that moment I heard the Roland guitar synthesizer used with so much ... well everything.
Third is the first time I heard John Mayer's solo on 'Covered in Rain' watching a YouTube video. I have no recollection how me and my wife ever ended up on that post but there we were. When it was over, we were awestruck. Oh there were plenty of references to other greats but this young fellow but together a might fine piece of music. Still my favorite song on 'Any Given Thursday' with John going wild over a signature maj7 chord progression.
Last one didn't really turn out to be a solo. I replayed Trey Anastasio's solo on 'Billy Breaths' from the same album by Phish over and over again. Until I discovered that in the piano part just before, the same 'solo' is played on what sounds like a banjo! But still a very tasty lick!
G&L related
For those of you who love the ASAT body shape, what is your take on the addition of body contours?
Two of mine have a rear body contour: the 25th Anniversary model and a Bluesboy w/spalted maple top.




In all honesty, it does add some comfort, but I'm so in love with the 'raw' shape of the ASAT that whenever I would want to get me a Classic 'S', I would try my hardest to find me a 2007 series (in Butterscotch if possible) which does not have the front and rear contours like the modern 'S'. The body just looks a little to much like a single-horn Legacy to me.
Talk to you later,
- Jos
Edit: fix image link after album was lost.