Sammy Hagar

Joe Satriani

Michael Anthony

Chad Smith

Preview (and then buy) the album http://www.chickenfoot.us/listeningparty/

Watch the 12 days of Chickenfoot video podcast where the band explains each song in the album http://www.chickenfoot.us/12days

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I regrettably haven't recorded any music lately. In fact I've barely given myself time to play, but way back when I was like 16 I did take the time. Honestly I never really put a lot of effort into outlining the song, it was more of a play random stuff until I like the way it sounds, do some minor editing and convert it to .mp3. I guess people liked it back then, I put them up on my Myspace band profile and somehow ended up with 900+ fans/friends/whatever. After that I felt Myspace turning into the marketing frenzy born of the faceless soul draining vortex of the web it is today and deleted the account. I just happened upon some of those tracks in my iTunes right after some Frank Zappa, which may have influenced the way I feel about my own music.

Anyway, this track is called Invisible Jungle, I name it that cause I'm an idiot. The inspiration for it came one day when I broke, I believe, the 3rd string on my guitar. It wasn't my awesome brazillian guitar or one of my electrics, no it was my first guitar--the $30 acoustic from Sears that buzzed horribly. Since at the time I didn't mind breaking it I decided it was a good opportunity to try a 4th string where the 3rd should go. This resulted in a tuning of E-A-A-G-B-E, which sounded interesting to me and I hit record.

I should also note that the lone ride cymbal smack near the beginning was an example of lazy editing, if it wasn't there you would perceive a skip, jerk, or something to that effect which instead of simply splicing it out, I thought hitting a cymbal would be better practise. Clearly idiocy is my strong suit.

Click the link below to play, right click+save as to keep.

invisible-jungle

This has been talked about by many people before me, but music videos caused the sully of the music industry. Sure the idea is fresh enough, using another medium such as video to enhance and drive home the point of a song. But since most people aren't artists, most people don't think of music as art. They see music as a consumable item that fulfils a need, and as such are not bothered and even drawn toward what's become the typical music video. Tits, ass, drugs, jewellery, cars, big houses, private jets are all consumable items as well and so suits decided that that's what should be in music videos, and that's what their contracted(grossly untalented) talent should be singing/rapping about. Your typical music videos, the ones that flood the airways and by some commercial force the ones that drive their accompanying audio diarrhoea to the top of the charts are designed to sell products, in fact the bodies that run those charts that they manage to climb are themselves managed by the same fuckers selling ad space in the songs. Lyrics to these puddles of poo are comprised of the dirtiest things they can think of, which in terms of the music industry are poorly strung together half-sentences and repeating the same misplaced vulgar words and catch phrases again and again. I'm all for talking dirty but this is a half-dressed attempt at best. Most of it anyway lends to a 7th grade outlook on dirty which makes it all to clear it was placed for the cheap thrill that resonates the mainstream when hearing such words through a set of speakers to a shitty beat.

Art is when something tangible, like a paint brush or a guitar string, can be used to portray something abstract, like an emotion or a cultural folly. When people are poisoned by infomercials injected into what should be an aggregate of art, and to the point where they are convinced what they are watching is in fact art, it's sad. It's sad to think that not only do these people live on the verge of a human experience–in a significant way, but also that they remain chained in the dark because someone else wants to make a buck. Manipulating someone else's reality and truth  for your own gain is a dirty trick to play.

I leave you with some art.

Support these artists and others like them or soon there won't be any left.

Metallica - Turn the Page Directed by: Jonas Akerlund

Killer Mike featureing Ice Cube - Pressure Directed by: Giovanni Hidalgo

Radiohead - Just Directed by: Jamie Thravest

One song that really has my attention at the moment is Crying my heart out for you by Ella Fitzgerald. It's been done by a bunch of people,  but for some reason the only version available on youtube is by this guy... so here it is :).

It says he transcribed the guitar part from listening to the original, maybe I can get him to put it on paper and send me a copy.

Music video for John Mellencamp's My Sweet Love. A pictures worth a thousand words but the video shows a thousand pictures for each word. awesome.

The first video is a live performance of Kashmir, the second Moby Dick live with one of my favorite Bonham solos.