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Guitar Making Books
Easy Tips For Learning Guitar
There are numerous online resources that say they can help you learn a simple way to learn to play guitar. The reality is there’s actually no easy way to learn how to play guitar, it needs practice and a great teaching method to become a superb musician and there is not any simple way around this.
Basics
When learning to play the guitar it is important to learn the basics first. There is an easy way to learn guitar basics that is to research as much as you can online and in guitar instruction books, then attempt it yourself. Once you have learn the basic guitar skills you will find that more advanced riffs and chords will come easily to you.
Practice makes perfect
An simple way to study guitar is to practice and perfect something and then move on to the next thing. Practice definitely makes perfect! When you practice you may move thru chords with simple and be in a position to make a smooth transition from basic chords to more sophisticated riffs.
Selecting an instrument
When you first find a simple way to learn how to play guitar it is critical to choose the right guitar. Choosing a guitar is a fragile and long process and will be done with a professional guitar sales person. It is usually a good idea to hold the instrument and play a bit of music on it. This could help you to get a feeling for the way in which the instrument will feel when you start a straightforward way to learn how to play guitar.
Movement
Movement is how your body relates to your instrument. An easy way to learn guitar is to treat your instrument like another body part. Move fluidly with your instrument and make all movements clear and precise and not sharp or short.
Making the most out of a lesson
Making the most out of your lesson is important and will make it an easy way to study guitar. Try videotaping your session so you can watch and rewind anything you may want to touch on later. Writing notes in a book is an alternate way to make the most out of your lesson. The book can be opened at anytime and you can refer to prior notes.
Finding an easy way to learn guitar is possible and can be very rewarding. Make the most out of your lessons, whether they be online or with a teacher. Take notes and don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as you need until you get the answer that helps you understand the problem. Most of all have fun, don’t take it too seriously as you will lose interest very quickly! Enjoy!
Everything they never told you about Learn and Master Guitar Reviews revealed! For more insider tips and information be sure and check out Learn Guitar In A Easy Way.
Jarvis D. Burris
Guitar Making Books
How To Play Guitar Book
The reason most of us learn to play the guitar is for playing songs and enjoying making music with other people. The best way to learn to play the guitar is by practicing and learning how to play the most important guitar chords one step at a time using a good How to Play Guitar Book.
One of the first things you will have to do when you decide to learn to play the guitar is buy a guitar. Then you’ll need to find a good How to Play Guitar Book or chose an online program which can come in the form of eBooks to learn how to play the guitar, or videos to learn how to play the guitar or even webinars to learn how to play the guitar.
Teaching guitar lessons for beginners is a specialty. If you choose a good How to Play Guitar Book wisely how you will pursue finding the right Play Guitar Book and/or teacher you’re going to find it surprising at how quickly you can play guitar but also experience the joy of learning how to play the guitar.
One advantage to learning guitar by watching DVD video is you can see what the instructor is doing and repeat as necessary.You’ll be able to review the lesson as many times as you need to in order to feel confident enough to move to the next level. You’ll get step by step video instructions that show you the secrets of how to hold the guitar, tune the guitar, finger chord positions and strumming techniques.These online courses can take potential guitar players from simple basics to complex chords, advanced techniques and various playing styles.
Incorrect hand placement, failure to arch the fingers the right way, or simply holding the guitar the wrong way can lead to frustration and possible failure. Just make sure you press those fingers hard on the strings or else the note won’t play through.It’s easy to grasp where to put your fingers and place your hands to form guitar chords.
Basic guitar chords for beginners involve learning simple major chords, a few minor chords and a few relevant chord combinations.
Start with basic chords such as: A, Am, E, Em, C, D, D7, and F7.Then practice going between one chord to another chord. You’ll be surprised at how many songs you can play once you master these few chords and when you are easily able to transition from one chord to the other.
Remember, that when you have mastered the learn to play guitar for beginners lessons, you’ll still have to contine to learn new techniques. Fortunately, lessons on the internet often combine the learning styles of books and videos, and provide background information on how to play guitar while demonstrating techniques with videos and sound files.
There are also many membership sights where, for a small monthly fee, you can learn most any style of guitar playing you choose. When you take guitar lessons online there is no room for excuses, you can choose from some great programs that fit your style and your learning speed, and you will build your confidence when you see exactly how easy it is to learn how to play with guitar lessons online.You can have the adjustability to choose what you learn, and when you want to learn it, rather than in a one-to -one situation where you often find that you can only learn what the instructor wants to teach you.
Another important thing to remember as you learn to play the guitar is that there is no shame in seeking help. The quickest way to learn to play the guitar is for someone to show you how by using a simple step-by-step process.
Guitar Making Books
Learn And Master Guitar Essentials
There are some very basic elements that need to be aware of before you take the path of learning play guitar. To begin with, get an acoustic or electric guitar. Borrowing a guitar will definitely lead to a great deal of angst, taking into account the fact you can damage or ruin someone else's guitar.
So, you need to buy a guitar. In case the purchase price method beyond your means, choose something cheaper. Better yet, buy a slightly used guitar. You can save quite a lot from taking a guitar second hand.
Furthermore, you need to reserve some research time to decide on a good guitar to learn with. It will obviously be guided by your own personal analysis. Use common sense. How do you see yourself playing? Are you the sensitive type or the hard core of personality type?
Even a whole lot of guitarists who started out by playing the acoustic, decide for yourself what kind of guitar is best fit your needs in terms of types of music you want to play. Besides its sporadic availability, an acoustic guitar is more versatile than the electric guitar. Why? Because you can play them anytime and anywhere you want.
Guitar Instruction Software
Handling over your guitar for the first time, you should see to it that it can be put in a narrow position. When you arrive you right down to it, the sitting posture is most desirable. Rest the base of your guitar with your right leg, your left hand should hold up the other end the guitar's neck and is responsible for making tuning pegs with fingering the notes. The right fingers are used for strumming and picking. This translates to the right body posture. Do not forget to maintain good posture and prevent muscle straining.
For rookies, choose a song that only four or five repeated uncomplicated chord sequences. A good case in point is Ryan Adam's "When the Stars Go Blue". This is just a repetition of 4 chords namely, A-minor age, C, G, and D. Sing while you strum. This will help an awful lot by helping you to keep in rhythm with the appropriate time.
Singing along can also reinforce that you are playing the right chords or if you are out of tune. Be patient! By no means give up on yourself. You should durable even if you left the threshold. Once you get blisters, it is a sign of excellent, dedicated rehearsing. Be the master of these principles. Choosing up a guitar is not difficult for those with the appropriate attitude.
Learn Electric Guitar Online
Finally. Have someone listen to you play. Of course, you can study on your own and you can get a variety of guides that will help you to start playing, even having someone stand by you and discuss how well-trained or ill you can be is often a necessity. Sure that your observer is an accomplished guitarist to ensure that when you make an error, that person is able to correct you. Additionally, he or she can explain to you approaches coursebooks and web based tutorials may not give. After you have all the fundamentals together, now you can start training significantly.
About the Author
Hey there. My name is Charlemagne. I’ve been a guitar player for over 25 years and have taken all kinds of formal, informal, and online guitar lessons. I guitar play live and in the recording studio. With the advent of high speed internet access, learning to play guitar online is one of the best ways to take guitar lessons. If you are thinking about taking guitar lessons, I hope this article will help you get started.
Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons
Should I install a whammy bar on my Talluride or wait until I upgrade to a new guitar in one of them. "
Is it cheaper to get install a whammy bar on my guitar Telluride, [which is pretty much my learning guitar] or wait until I get a new guitar and make sure it has one [plus any suggestions you have for someone learning the guitar from the book will be helpful in] I want to know what the best idea money wise, to long run is a whammy bar now cost less and be more efficient or wait and get a better guitar in the future
I'd wait until I got a new guitar. a whammy bar it is common that most guitars will drop you a tune. I would save my money and get a floyd rose trem lock before I got a whammy bar. I learned pretty much from books and tabs and playing with others online. I did not have any formal lessons at all true that I only hear a song the radio and learn how to play it. Check out Guitar Method Mel Bay 1-3 from
Ervin Somogyi: The Responsive Guitar – Featuring Guitarist Steve Erquiaga
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#1 Smooth Jazz Radio Hits $18.98 The title is self-explanatory: guitarist Chuck Loeb has scored no less than a dozen number one hits on radio charts for smooth jazz. He’s also played on literally hundreds of records, making him the Tommy Tedesco of the genre. None of that matters very much to his fans, and this collection is clearly assembled for them. While fans of smooth jazz (and what is in the 21st century now called “contemporary jazz”) will have enjoyed Loeb’s music and may even be familiar with it, it’s not so much the individual tracks that matter as the consistent sound and vibe. Early on, Loeb embraced the feel of smooth jazz and became one of its great ambassadors, displaying a knack for writing and producing music custom-tailored to the radio format that was so successful in the 1980s and 1990s (and continues in mutated form in the 2000s). His name has become synonymous with the genre, and the most memorable of his hits have their own timeless quality: “Blue Kiss,” “Sarao,” “Just Us,” and of course, “The Music Inside.” Other tracks will be not be especially well known by name but are easily identifiable by sound, including “Tropical,” “High Five,”and “Cruzin’ South.” The slippery, silky backbeat funk Loeb employs as a canvas in his tunes comes across as immediately welcoming and accessible; his guitar lines are always fluid; and his soloing is cut into short, tight pockets. Many of his collaborators are well known in the world of jazz at large as well: John Pattitucci, Jason Miles, Jim Beard, Will Lee, and Nestor Torres are all here, as well as many more. This set is a welcome addition to Loeb’s catalog and will likely deeply satisfy any listener who enjoys smooth jazz. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi |
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(MIA): The Complete Anthology $13.96 Another hot punk nostalgia artifact. When this L.A. quartet’s lone LP, the Joan Jett-produced (GI), was released in 1979, no one could conceive a Germs anthology, but history has proven the vitality of the maligned West Coast late-’70s punk explosion. “Copying the English” was the putdown du jour, but after similar retrospectives on the Weirdos, Dils, Avengers, Zeros, Crime, and so on, (MIA) answers that fraud again. On their first two singles (one the very first Slash record!), these crazy, inept juveniles had no clue. But when “No God” (with its anti-Yes “Roundabout” intro) and (GI)’s vicious, scorching “What Do We Do Is Secret” crash in, the effect is still startling. These heretofore churlish, charming vagrants and louts had suddenly lassoed the beast. Darby Crash snarls like the Screamers’ Tomato Du Plenty over Pat Smear’s lashing guitar and Don Bolles’ hyper power-drums — his voice is primal, raw, and animalistic grunting, yet the lyrics reveal a brutal social critic hiding amid the total mess, chaos, drugs, and 1980 suicide-at-22 that characterized his “too fast, too soon” life. No “beat on the brat” here. “Communist Eyes,” “Land of Treason,” and “Media Blitz” are testaments to disaffection, wild desire, and disdain in words and sound, desperate calls to arms that still resonate years later. And (MIA) — which tacks on other rare tracks, including some from the long-lost Cruising film soundtrack, making this CD 30 songs in all! — has no “cool” pose. They were just having fun, but they were the real thing, and it burns. ~ Jack Rabid, Rovi |
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1,000 Kisses $9.99 Patty Griffin’s third album, her first material to be released since 1998 (the absorption of her former label, A&M, in the Polygram-Universal merger left an album Griffin cut in 2000 in the vault, where it’s sadly likely to stay), strikes a stylistic middle ground between the stark voice-and-guitar approach of her debut, Living with Ghosts, and the eclectic textures of Flaming Red. 1,000 Kisses was mostly recorded live in the studio with a small acoustic band, including Doug Lancio on guitar and mandolin, Brian Standefer on cello, Giles Reeves on vibraphone and percussion, and Michael Ramos on accordion; the feel of the performances is close and intimate, with the occasional cough or footfall audible in the background, and these sessions capture more than a bit of the cin? ma v? rit? mood of Living with Ghosts. But if the album’s production style is subtle, it’s also a superb match for the material, and without forcing their hand, Griffin and the musicians can sway from the life-on-the-street swagger of “Chief” to the Latin romanticism of “Mil Besos” to the torchy late-night blues of “Tomorrow Night” without missing a step, finding a broad emotional spectrum in these low-key sessions. And while 1,000 Kisses finds Griffin blending covers in with her own compositions for the first time, she proves to be a first-rate interpretive singer (her version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Stolen Car” actually improves on “the Boss”‘ original), and her own songs are splendid, especially the moving widow’s lament “Making Pies” and the moody lead-off track “Rain.” And regardless of who wrote the material, Griffin’s voice — a tower of strength capable of expressing remarkable emotional vulnerability — remains a wonder to behold. 1,000 Kisses finds Patty Griffin at the top of her game, and one can only hope we don’t have to wait four years for the follow-up. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi |
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100 Days, 100 Nights [Promo Version] $19.98 Sharon Jones, the big-voiced lead singer of the Dap-Kings — a band that recently began making its name known outside those enthusiasts of the Daptone label and the reaches of the soul community thanks to appearances with Amy Winehouse and work for Mark Ronson, including a version of Dylan’s “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” — is no music-world neophyte. 100 Days, 100 Nights is just her third full-length with the Dap-Kings, but Jones has been singing on and off since the 1970s, without much of a break until she began working with her current label. Meaning, she’s certainly paid her dues, and she has enough life experience behind her voice to make the words she sings sound that much truer. Because soul music — and this isn’t neo-soul, or contemporary R&B, but straight-up Stax and Motown brassy soul — is so much more than the actual lyrics themselves; it’s about the inflection and emotion that the vocalist is able to exude, and Jones proves herself to be master of that, moving from coy to romantic to defiant easily and believably. The album is much smoother, even gentler, than her previous releases, and though the Dap-Kings still power their way through the ten songs with bright horn licks, inspired drumming, and staccato guitar lines, there’s a deeper, bluesier edge to the record, heard in “Let Them Knock” or the slower “Humble Me.” “Don’t let me forget who I am,” Jones croons in the latter, her voice rising to a sweet falsetto at the end of the phrase. It’s a very clean record, not over-produced but well produced, with a lot of great pop moments tucked in between the brassier, funkier bits. The title track relies on a sultry organ and a minor vamp to make its point, while “Something’s Changed” uses strings and punctuated sax and bass as the singer drops a bit of her lungs out, bringing a kind of immediacy to her words, as if the actuality of the situation around her hasn’t quite set in enough for her to wail about it, as if she’s just … |
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12 Crass Songs $15.98 While in the minds of many punk rock was supposed to be about upending the rules and assumptions that had come to govern rock & roll in the mid-’70s, punk also helped revive the ranting spirit that had informed the best political music and art through the 20th century, from the Situationalists to the Fugs. Among the first wave of British punks, none ranted with greater ferocity and sense of purpose than Crass, who actually were the anarchist firebrands the Sex Pistols pretended to be, though the brutal report of their music was rarely as impressive or as intelligent as their lyrics. Crass were massively influential during their 1977-1984 lifespan and beyond, both as musicians and as activists, and Jeffrey Lewis’ 12 Crass Songs is a surprising example of just how far their ideas have reached. Best known for his witty anti-folk tunes, musician and cartoonist Lewis first heard Crass while he was a college freshman in 1993, and the blunt wit and angry idealism of their songs made a powerful impression on him. As he began performing, Lewis began looking for ways to merge the fury of Crass’ broadsides with his acoustic-based music and he recorded some lo-fi interpretations of some of their tunes in his bedroom. A few years later, Lewis’ efforts have grown into 12 Crass Songs, in which Lewis and a handful of friends (most notably vocalist Helen Schreiner) have taken a dozen tunes by Crass and married them to arrangements that give them a far more melodic spin than they revealed in their original form. While electric guitars pop up here and there (and take center stage on “Big A, Little A”), most of 12 Crass Songs is dominated by acoustic guitar and Lewis’ sweet, slightly nasal vocals, but while he has succeeded in making these songs sound pretty and playful in a way they never were before, he’s also managed to carry forth their message with a surprising accuracy. It was often difficult to understand what Crass were bellowing about on The Feeding of the 5000 or Station… |
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1984 $35.99 At the time of its release, much of the fuss surrounding 1984 involved Van Halen’s adoption of synthesizers on this, their sixth album — a hoopla that was a bit of a red herring since the band had been layering in synths since their third album, Women and Children First. Those synths were either buried beneath guitars or used as texture, even on instrumentals where they were the main instrument, but here they were pushed to the forefront on “Jump,” the album’s first single and one of the chief reasons this became a blockbuster, crossing over to pop audiences Van Halen had flirted with before but had never quite won over. Of course, the mere addition of a synth wasn’t enough to rope in fair-weather fans — they needed pop hooks and pop songs, which 1984 had, most gloriously on the exuberant, timeless “Jump.” There, the synths played a circular riff that wouldn’t have sounded as overpowering on guitar, but the band didn’t dispense with their signature monolithic, pulsating rock. Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony grounded the song, keeping it from floating to pop, and David Lee Roth simply exploded with boundless energy, making this seem rock & roll no matter how close it got to pop. And “Jump” was about as close as 1984 got to pop, as the other seven songs — with the exception of “I’ll Wait,” which rides along on a synth riff as chilly as “Jump” is warm — are heavy rock, capturing the same fiery band that’s been performing with a brutal intensity since Women and Children First. But where those albums placed an emphasis on the band’s attack, this places an emphasis on the songs, and they’re uniformly terrific, the best set of original tunes Van Halen ever had. Surely, the anthems “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” grab center stage — how could they not, when the former is the band’s signature sound elevated to performance art, with the latter being as lean and giddy, their one anthem that could be credibly covered by garage rockers? — but “Top Jimmy… |
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30-Day Bass Workout (DVD) $18.95 This enjoyable and challenging exercise routine will prepare you for the rigors of contemporary bass playing and sharpen your technique. The strategy focuses on warm-ups and stretching, exercises for strength, agility and stamina, and specific techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs. Jam-packed with tried-and-true “bassrobic” exercises from the National Guitar Workshop curriculum, this video will build your technique, no matter what style of music you play. Don’t let another day go by without making this a perfect new addition to your bass library. |
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4th & Wall $14.98 For the uninitiated, West Indian Girl are not a reggae band, and for those who haven’t been paying attention, they aren’t an electro-studio duo anymore, either. With 4th & Wall the twosome has expanded to a sextet with the addition of live bass, drums, percussion, and guitar, further swelled by a host of guest musicians, greatly extending WIG’s aural vistas and influences — which now span the musical spectrum from synth pop to classic rock, from new wave to techno. A Keith Richards-ish guitar lick enlivens the infectious “Get Up,” echoes of “Free Bird” soar in the finale of “Sofia,” the Soup Dragons’ spirit swirls around “Lost Children,” and Echo & the Bunnymen’s moody atmospheres pool around “To Die in LA” and “All My Friends.” On the irresistible “Solar Eyes,” the group juxtaposes bubbly synth pop against a lusher new romantic style and a four-on-the-floor disco beat, then stirs in spacy effects and a funky feel. Sadly, though, the set’s sequencing is a bit slack, occasionally making for jarring shifts in styles between tracks, which is a shame, because in reality 4th & Wall is actually a quite coherent album. This is particularly evident in the songs’ themes, which revolve around the lure of L.A. and its nearby beaches, as well as more universal interpersonal subjects. It’s equally true of the music, even as the band drifts from gentle soft pop through Boston-styled keyboard rockers, the hefty space rocker “Rise from the Dead,” and upbeat dance tunes. The styles may change and the atmospheres alter from languorous to driving, but what remains constant are the lilting vocals, strong melodies, and psychedelic keyboards that remain the core of WIG’s sound. The pumping “Blue Wave” was the first number selected as a sound clip, but the new wave-ish “To Die in LA” and the breezy “All My Friends” would have worked just as well, while “Solar” should tear up the dancefloor. Like West Indian Girl’s California home, the band’s music is an exhila… |
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A New Tune a Day for Electric Guitar, Book 1 $6.45 New – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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A New Tune a Day for Electric Guitar, Book 1 $4.27 New – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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A New Tune a Day for Electric Guitar, Book 1 $6.45 Used – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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A New Tune a Day for Electric Guitar, Book 1 $4.27 Used – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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A Night with Lou Reed $13.98 Lou Reed took a sabbatical from touring in the early ’80s, as he adjusted to married life and broke free of a longstanding drug and alcohol addiction. But the release of one of the finest albums of his entire career, 1982′s The Blue Mask, had whet Reed’s appetite to play in front of crowds again. Just prior to his ’83 follow-up Legendary Hearts, Reed reassembled his fantastic studio band (consisting of guitarist Robert Quine, bassist Fernando Saunders, and drummer Fred Maher) for the concert stage, and played shows at one of his favorite venues, the intimate Bottom Line in New York City. The 1983 home video (and eventual DVD) A Night With Lou Reed chronicles an outstanding set that perfectly captures the feel and energy of this great quartet. The time off the road had obviously recharged Reed’s creative batteries, as he played guitar once again on stage (something he’d taken a break from) and rocked with a passion and focus not seen since his Velvet Underground days. A consistent highlight from beginning to end, individual standouts include such Velvets nuggets as “Sweet Jane,” “White Light/White Heat,” and a gorgeous reading of “New Age,” as well as the then-recent compositions “Women,” “Waves of Fear,” and “Turn Out the Lights.” Also featured are such early solo Reed gems as “Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love,” and “Kill Your Sons” (the latter containing some ferocious guitar work courtesy of Reed), making A Night With Lou Reed an essential addition to any serious Lou Reed fan’s collection. ~ Greg Prato, Rovi |
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A Wizard, A True Star-Todd Rundgren in the Studio $18.95 Few record producers possess the musical facility to back up such a bold promise, but in over 40 years behind the glass, Todd Rundgren has willed himself into becoming a not only a rock guitar virtuoso, an accomplished lead vocalist, and a serviceable drummer, vocal arranger and keyboard player, but also a master of perhaps his greatest instrument of all, the recording studio.Throughout his career, Rundgren has ping-ponged between the worlds of producer and recording artist with varying degrees of critical and commercial success. After learning his craft as a songwriter and arranger, with Nazz, Rundgren gained attention by engineering recordings by The Band. His reputation was cemented by a string of noteworthy productions beginning in 1971 with Sparks, and continuing with classic albums for Grand Funk, The New York Dolls, Badfinger, Hall & Oates, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith Group, Psychedelic Furs and XTC. All of this alongside his own solo albums including Something/Anything; A Wizard, A True Star; and Hermit of Mink Hollow on which he played and sang virtually everything, and a series of albums by his band, Utopia.Researched and written with the cooperation of Rundgren himself, A Wizard, A True Star is a fascinating, authoritative account of four decades of making magic in the recording studio. |
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A’s, B’s & EP’s $10.98 The Animals’ output on EMI has been so heavily reissued and recompiled so many times that none of it is especially rare, or notable for that reason — it just stands up as music, especially the singles, which are what we have represented here. The compilation CD A’s B’s & EP’s is a handy way of taking a tour of the group’s early sound, up through the middle of 1965, boiling down their singles, B-sides, and EP’s in excellent sound. It took the group a few tries to really master the art of making a strong album from start to finish, but — as we’re reminded here — their 45s were beyond reproach, exciting, bold, and daring, and all memorable. Hearing Hilton Valentine’s guitar crunching and chiming away on “I’m Crying,” or John Steel’s drums up close and personal on “Boom Boom,” supporting Eric Burdon’s voice and juxtaposed with Alan Price’s organ, is still a bracing experience 40 years later — and on this master, Valentine’s trip down the fret board and Price’s keyboard flourishes exude rippling energy and a bracing presence — even on cheap speakers, Steel’s snare is distinguishable from the rest of the rhythm section; and on “It’s My Life” you can practically hear the action on his kit. And this disc is also a good opportunity for low-level fans to discover obscurities such “I’m Gonna Change the World” which, with its ambitious lyric and form, sort of anticipates the later compositions that Burdon would cut, on his own and away from virtually all help. The annotation is nothing special, the packaging has its weaknesses (in terms of the original releases of the songs), and EMI’s Complete Animals still runs circles around this CD, but it’s an okay piece to have and easier to find than that double-disc set, as of 2004. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi |
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Acoustic Blues Guitar DVD $28.45 If you know how to hold the more common chords you know enough to play Acoustic Blues. This DVD demonstrates the various techniques required to play fingerstyle blues, such as monotonic and alternating bass, slides, hammer-ons, pull offs, and more. There are also five instrumentals to learn, each based on a different style of blues, including: ragtime, West Coast, and bottleneck. Each piece is played at performance speed, and then broken down into individual sections, providing clear yet detailed explanations of exactly what is happening. Mel Reeves was born in London, England into a non-musical family. When, at 16, he heard the guitar playing of Bert Jansch for the first time he knew immediately that he wanted to become a guitarist. Two years later he began a career as a guitar teacher and has been involved in guitar teaching ever since. He has played in rock bands, jazz bands, folk bands and, for many years, performed solo. In the 1980′s Mel founded the famous Guitar Studio and, with Peter Lincoln, wrote more than a dozen book/cassette tuition packages. Video seemed the next logical step and after making the self-funded Play Guitar Now! Mel signed with Fifth Avenue Films and has since made a further 15 programmes. Mel’s clear and friendly approach has helped thousands of guitarists, bassists and keyboard players and continues to win praise from the music press. He has been described as “the Mr. Nice of video tuition” (Total Guitar) – which he likes – and “layed back to the point of geography teacher” (The Little Picture Show) – which he isn’t sure about. Mel lives in the country with his wife,Jill, and is currently working on more programmes for DVD release. |
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Acoustic Guitar: [Book 1] $46.34 New – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling “A Tune A Day” series has revolutionised music-making in the classroom and the home. C Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrumental technique for a new generation of musicians. The series has the same logical, gentle pace and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations! The DVD and audio CD – with performances and backing tracks - |
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Africa $16.98 In the early ’70s, the Southern African nation of Zambia was mired in political instability and dire poverty with little if any outside assistance, so the mere fact that the country had a rock music scene is remarkable, let alone that any recordings have survived of Zambian rock bands of the era. Amanaz were a five-piece combo from Lusaka who traveled to Chingola (one of Zambia’s biggest cities) and recorded an album titled Africa in 1973; almost 40 years after the fact, their sole album has finally made its way to the West. On first listen, what’s most surprising about Africa is that most of it doesn’t sound especially “African”; this music is based in deep, bluesy grooves (anchored by bassist Jerry Mausala) with a strong psychedelic undercurrent and thick layers of fuzz guitar from Isaac Mpofu and John Kanyepa, and though flashes of traditional influences can be heard in Watson Lungu’s drumming and Keith Kabwe’s vocals, it’s clear that American and British rock of the late ’60s and early ’70s was what fueled Amanaz’s imagination. (Three songs are performed in the African language of Bemba, but the rest are in English.) If the flaws in the recording and mix tend to send the guitars into the distance and flatten out the sound of the rhythm section, Africa does confirm that Amanaz were a talented band with a unique and powerful style; “Amanaz,” “Making the Scene,” and “Big Enough” are tough, primal rock tunes full of raw and fuzzy lead guitar, “Khala My Friend” recalls Jimi Hendrix’s more introspective moments, and “Sunday Morning” and the title cut turn down the tempo without sacrificing the emotional force of the music. Amanaz were a group that eagerly embraced the music of the West, but just enough of their own sound and perspective comes through to make Africa compelling listening as well as a fascinating artifact of an almost unknown rock scene. It’s good enough to make the band’s short lifespan seem like a sad, almost tragic waste of talent and p… |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method $16.1 Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and quicker to learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock music styles, plus more pop songs! New DVDs with iPod-compatible video have been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure that youll get everything you need from one complete method. Learning to play has never been easier or more fun than with Alfreds Basic Guitar Methodthe first and best choice for todays beginning guitar students. Book 1 covers how to hold your guitar, tuning your guitar, basics of reading music, notes on all six strings, chords, scales and songs, bass-chord accompaniments, duets, photos and diagrams, and use with acoustic or electric guitars. Songs include Singin in the Rain Take Me Home Country Roads Over the Rainbow Annies Song When the Saints Go Marching In. |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $46.94 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $39.31 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $40.47 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $54.68 New – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $54.68 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $39.31 New – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $35 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $35.36 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $46.94 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $55.95 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $34.89 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $40.27 New – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD $67.51 New – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD (Browsable) $16.28 New – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD (Browsable) $14.84 New – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD (Browsable) $14.84 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Bk 1: The Most Popular Method for Learning How to Play, Book, DVD & Enhanced CD (Browsable) $16.28 Used – Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure |
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Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Book 1 (Book/CD/DVD) $23.74 Recognized for over 50 years as the best-paced and most comprehensive guitar method available, Alfred's Basic Guitar Method has introduced over 3 million beginners to the joy of playing guitar. This updated and expanded edition features a new layout, making it easier to read and learn. Now included are blues, country, folk, jazz, and rock styles, plus more pop songs! A DVD with iPod-compatible video has been added for the visual learner, and correlating theory, chord, and pop books ensure that you'll get everything you need from one complete method. Learning to play has never been easier or more fun than with Alfred's Basic Guitar Method—the first and best choice for today's beginning guitar students. Book 1 can be used for acoustic or electric guitar and covers how to hold your guitar, tuning, the basics of reading music, the notes on all six strings, chords, scales, songs, bass-chord accompaniments, and duets. Titles: Singin' in the Rain * Take Me Home Country Roads * Over the Rainbow * Annie's Song * When the Saints Go Marching In. |
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Alt-CTRL-Sleep $18.98 Most new-century boy-girl duos seem intent on making as loud a racket as possible, if the White Stripes, Quasi, Viva Voce, et al, are any yardstick. Not so North Carolina husband-and-wife team Joe & April Diaco, who lull listeners into a state of ecstatic bliss via their debut’s lush, stately paced dream pop. Evoking the sensuous sounds and introspective lyrics of 4AD or Projekt forebears like Mazzy Star and Love Spirals Downward, the Diacos’ Myspace demos were also unique enough to attract the interest of dream pop guru Mark Kramer (Shimmy Disc), who publicly raved about Alt-Ctrl-Sleep and offered to produce the band’s debut. Logistics kept that from happening and the band produced it themselves, though the internet demos resulted in their signing to Lakeshore Records. It’s easy to hear what attracted Kramer and Lakeshore — gently undulating melodies cocooned in layers of reverbed guitar, keys, and Joe’s pleasantly processed vocals, augmented at seemingly all the right moments by organic instrumentation (particularly glockenspiel) or various synth layers, and pushed along by April’s subtle brush strokes and cymbal crashes. The melodies tend to enter and slowly add volume and texture, patiently building to a crescendo before unwinding one layer at a time into swirls of synth buzz, simple narratives of love and longing slipping past like half-remembered dreams. Despite the record’s holistic feel, there are variations enough to keep the songs sounding fresh throughout: the spacy “You Alone” or “Satellites (Venus to Mars)” could have come across the pond with Spiritualized; “Kandy” has the spot-on accoutrements typically associated with the studio tinkering of Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous, and when the duo synch their voices together on “Nothing” it suggests Summer Sun Yo La Tengo. One or two tracks could have been lopped off without much anguish, but the Diacos’ create such a blissed-out vibe you’re far more likely to just get lost in it than worry about th… |
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Amazing Phrasing for Tenor Sax Book and CD $16.1 Amazing Phrasing is for any tenor saxophone player interested in learning how to improvise and how to improve their creative phrasing. The ideas are divided into three main sections: Harmony – explores scales, arpeggios, chord substitutions, harmonic embellishments, and other harmonic phrasing ideas; Rhythm – covers legato tonguing, swing feel, rhythmic displacement, how to manipulate time and other aspects of rhythmic phrasing; Melody – discusses contour lines, making patterns musical, developing a motif, building a solo, and many other melodic phrasing ideas. The companion CD includes 26 full-band tracks in various musical styles for listening and play along. Also available for guitar, keyboard and trumpet. |
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Amazing Phrasing for Trumpet Book and CD $16.14 Amazing Phrasing is for any trumpet player interested in learning how to improvise and how to improve their creative phrasing. The 50 ideas are divided into three main sections: Harmony – explores scales, arpeggios, chord substitutions, harmonic embellishments, and other harmonic phrasing ideas; Rhythm – covers legato tonguing, swing feel, rhythmic displacement, how to manipulate time, and other aspects of rhythmic phrasing; Melody – discusses contour lines, making patterns musical, developing a motif, building a solo, and many other melodic phrasing ideas. The companion CD contains 26 demo tracks for listening, as well as many play-along examples so you can practice improvising over various musical styles and progressions. Also available for guitar, keyboard, and tenor saxophone. |
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American Idiot $30.99 It’s a bit tempting to peg Green Day’s sprawling, ambitious, brilliant seventh album, American Idiot, as their version of a Who album, the next logical step forward from the Kinks-inspired popcraft of their underrated 2000 effort, Warning, but things aren’t quite that simple. American Idiot is an unapologetic, unabashed rock opera, a form that Pete Townshend pioneered with Tommy, but Green Day doesn’t use that for a blueprint as much as they use the Who’s mini-opera “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” whose whirlwind succession of 90-second songs isn’t only emulated on two song suites here, but provides the template for the larger 13-song cycle. But the Who are only one of many inspirations on this audacious, immensely entertaining album. The story of St. Jimmy has an arc similar to H? sker D? ‘s landmark punk-opera Zen Arcade, while the music has grandiose flourishes straight out of both Queen and Rocky Horror Picture Show (the ’50s pastiche “Rock and Roll Girlfriend” is punk rock Meat Loaf), all tied together with a nervy urgency and a political passion reminiscent of the Clash, or all the anti-Reagan American hardcore bands of the ’80s. These are just the clearest touchstones for American Idiot, but reducing the album to its influences gives the inaccurate impression that this is no more than a patchwork quilt of familiar sounds, when it’s an idiosyncratic, visionary work in its own right. First of all, part of Green Day’s appeal is how they have personalized the sounds of the past, making time-honored guitar rock traditions seem fresh, even vital. With their first albums, they styled themselves after first-generation punk they were too young to hear firsthand, and as their career progressed, the group not only synthesized these influences into something distinctive, but chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong turned into a muscular, versatile songwriter in his own right. Warning illustrated their growing musical acumen quite impressively, but here, the music is… |
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American Idiot $23.99 It’s a bit tempting to peg Green Day’s sprawling, ambitious, brilliant seventh album, American Idiot, as their version of a Who album, the next logical step forward from the Kinks-inspired popcraft of their underrated 2000 effort, Warning, but things aren’t quite that simple. American Idiot is an unapologetic, unabashed rock opera, a form that Pete Townshend pioneered with Tommy, but Green Day doesn’t use that for a blueprint as much as they use the Who’s mini-opera “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” whose whirlwind succession of 90-second songs isn’t only emulated on two song suites here, but provides the template for the larger 13-song cycle. But the Who are only one of many inspirations on this audacious, immensely entertaining album. The story of St. Jimmy has an arc similar to H? sker D? ‘s landmark punk-opera Zen Arcade, while the music has grandiose flourishes straight out of both Queen and Rocky Horror Picture Show (the ’50s pastiche “Rock and Roll Girlfriend” is punk rock Meat Loaf), all tied together with a nervy urgency and a political passion reminiscent of the Clash, or all the anti-Reagan American hardcore bands of the ’80s. These are just the clearest touchstones for American Idiot, but reducing the album to its influences gives the inaccurate impression that this is no more than a patchwork quilt of familiar sounds, when it’s an idiosyncratic, visionary work in its own right. First of all, part of Green Day’s appeal is how they have personalized the sounds of the past, making time-honored guitar rock traditions seem fresh, even vital. With their first albums, they styled themselves after first-generation punk they were too young to hear firsthand, and as their career progressed, the group not only synthesized these influences into something distinctive, but chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong turned into a muscular, versatile songwriter in his own right. Warning illustrated their growing musical acumen quite impressively, but here, the music is… |
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American Roulette $13.98 Released in 1977, two years after the brilliant So Long Harry Truman, American Roulette goes another step in developing Danny O’Keefe’s mature pop style — displayed on the previous record by the amazing “Quits” and the title track — though there are still some roots tunes in the set as well. O’Keefe employed the cream-of-the-crop of session players in his systematic and gradual recording process. “Runaway,” the opener, is a mirror image of “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues,” written about a 14-year-old girl who leaves home after being beaten by her father. The observing narrator is not jaded this time, simply sad and bewildered. Driven by Reggie McBride’s fretless bass, a slew of strings, and O’Keefe’s guitar, the track is aesthetically beautiful and haunting, to contrast its dark subject matter. “Islands” is a hunted love song, with beautifully subtle guitar work by O’Keefe and Vince Melamed’s electric piano. “On Discovering a Missing Person” is the next chapter of the saga that began with “Quits.” Here, love emerges only to fail in the heated middle. “Hereafter” rocks it up with a stripped-down band playing an extended urban blues style. But what’s illustrated in tunes like this one and “Plastic Saddle” is how far O’Keefe’s come from executing these roots-derived songs with any real fire. It’s like “you can’t go home again.” The dreamy, multi-part swirl of the title track has gorgeously layered strings (? la Gil Evans), electric and grand pianos, a bassline that instructs the band, and a casual backbeat making it all seem effortless; the silvery wisp that is “You Look Just Like a Girl Again,” and the lamentable pop of “All My Friends” (with Mike Melvoin on piano) all point to the fact that O’Keefe’s crossed into another land in his writing and in his singing. It’s sophisticated — perhaps too much so for the time — soulful and precise. These songs have nothing whatsoever to do with country, rock, or any other of their derivations, and… |
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At the Mall: Remixes $14.98 Recorded by college friends between 1988 and 1992, Baron Zen’s At the Mall sounds, well, a lot like something some music-loving kids would record between 1988 and 1992. The Joy Division, Black Flag, and Dead Milkmen influences are all there, as are the early hip-hop, pop, and even disco ones. It’s clearly music made by people who liked a lot of different styles (one of Baron Zen’s members, Chris Manak, aka DJ Peanut Butter Wolf, though he doesn’t show up on every song on the album — only Sweet Steve, the band’s songwriter and main performer, has that honor — went on to form the Stones Throw record label), and who have some fun toys (a four-track and drum machine, as well as a keyboard and some guitars) and a lot of free time. The covers of Joy Division’s “Walked in Line” and Debbie Deb’s “When I Hear Music” (which takes an almost industrial spin, and is actually pretty cool) are unpretentious and catchy, and the original pieces, albeit a little purposeless and messy, are guiltily enjoyable. Which means that although At the Mall isn’t a great record, it’s still a fun record; it’s about having a good time, not taking yourself seriously, hanging out with friends, and simple, fuzzy guitar riffs. No, the musicianship is not mind-blowing, the lyrics are not particularly inventive (an exception being “Shoes,” which has Sweet Steve rapping about how he loves the accessory “more than the behind of a female”), and the raw attitude and anger that often define the work of young male artists and make it exciting even when it’s lacking in other areas is instead replaced by a more suburban apathetic — or at least bored — view of the world, but somehow this renders it all the more charming. It’s a glimpse into the life of some college students having fun and making a little fun of themselves and things around them in the process, and it’s worth checking out. [Stones Throw issued a version of the album in 2007 that contained an extra disc of remixes.] ~ Marisa Brown, … |
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Audit in Progress $14.98 Audit in Progress is Hot Snakes’ third outing, and the first to include ex-Sea of Tombs drummer Mario Rubalcaba. It’s a much more focused album, too, bottling up the energy created by rapid-fire drums and two chaotic guitars, only to unleash it in the explosive moments not dominated by Rick Froberg’s captivating yelp. After two relentless openers, the Snakes downshift into the dynamic stops and starts of “Retrofit.” There could be some influence from guitarist John Reis’ Rocket from the Crypt here, in the way the song winds punk tight only to let go of the top. But it’s he and Froberg’s Drive Like Jehu that comes most often to mind on Audit in Progress, from the crosshatched guitars to the explosive rhythm section in Rubalcaba and bassist Gar Wood. Hot Snakes’ previous albums sported these elements, too, but they also had patches of howling noise and a generally manic quality that was addicting for some, but too insanely driven for most. Audit doesn’t take any breaks, either. But it uncovers melody in the strangest places, and sweats with an addicting fury. “I pay nothin’ for nothin’,” Froberg sneers over the title track’s choking power chords. “Audit me/Audit me/I don’t give a sh*t.” Not everything here pounds you over the head. “This Mystic Decade” is relatively more subdued at first, that is until its rhythm section comes to life, drowning out the dulled-down guitars as Froberg screams the chorus like an anthem. And “Lovebirds” unleashes a gritty organ effect that plays off wrangled and tense spy guitar fills. Audit in Progress ends strong with three stamping machine rockers, their stuttering drum pound and devastatingly effective guitars rising to snap and hiss in between the yelping cool vocals of Froberg. Overall, it’s a record with a lot to offer for the indie rock purists still spinning their Jehu records a decade later. But it’s also an example of making a cleanly focused rock album in the 21st century that doesn’t need a hyphenated term to des… |
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August and Everything After $11.99 When the prevailing guitar jingle of “Mr. Jones” cascaded over radio in the early ’90s, it was a sure sign that the Counting Crows were a musical force to be reckoned with. Their debut album, August and Everything After, burst at the seams with both dominant pop harmonies and rich, hearty ballads, all thanks to lead singer Adam Duritz. The lone guitar work of “Mr. Jones” coupled with the sweet, in-front pull of Duritz’s voice kicked off the album in full force. The starkly beautiful and lonely sounding “Round Here” captured the band’s honest yet subtle talent for singing ballads, while “Omaha” is lyrically reminiscent of a Springsteen tune. The fusion of hauntingly smooth vocals with such instruments as the Hammond B-3 organ and the accordion pumped new life into the music scene, and their brisk sound catapulted them into stardom. On “Rain King,” the piano takes over as its aloof flair dances behind Duritz with elegant crispness. The slower-paced “Raining in Baltimore” paints a perfectly gray picture and illustrates the band’s ease at conveying mood by eliminating the tempo. Most of the songs here engage in overly contagious hooks that won’t go away, making for a solid bunch of tunes. Containing the perfect portions of instrumental and vocal conglomeration, the Counting Crows showed off their appealing sound to its full extent with their very first album. ~ Mike DeGagne, Rovi |
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BBC Sessions [Deluxe Edition] [2CD/1DVD] $22.99 These are the recordings that Jimi Hendrix made for BBC radio in the late ’60s. As such, they’re loose, informal, and off-the-top-of-his-head improvisational fun. These versions of the hits “Foxey Lady,” “Fire,” two versions of “Purple Haze,” and “Hey Joe” stay surprisingly close to the studio versions, but the tone of Hendrix’s guitar on these is positively blistering and worth the price of admission alone. There’s also a lot of blues on this two-disc collection, and Hendrix’s versions of “Hoochie Coochie Man” (with Alexis Korner on slide guitar), “Catfish Blues,” “Killing Floor,” and “Hear My Train a Comin’” find him in excellent form. But perhaps the best example of how loosely conceived these sessions were are the oddball covers that Hendrix tackles, including Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her” (featuring Wonder on drums), Dylan’s “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?,” the Beatles’ “Day Tripper,” and, in recognition of his immediate competition, Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” No lo-fi bootleg tapes here (everything’s from the original masters and gone over by Eddie Kramer), the music and sound are class-A all the way, making a worthwhile addition to anyone’s Hendrix collection. [The 2010 version contains another version of "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" from Top of the Pops as a bonus track as well as a DVD that tells the story of the BBC sessions featuring interviews with some of the original BBC producers and engineers. There is also a live version of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" and his legendary appearance on The Lulu Show.] ~ Cub Koda & Sean Westergaard, Rovi |
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Barnyard Dance: Jug Band Music for Kids $13.98 As Maria Muldaur puts it in her liner notes, jug band music is, by its very nature, a “happy, snappy, lighthearted, humorous, goofy, wacky, high-spirited” sound, which certainly would appeal to any child. Why this now-marginalized genre — born in the ’20s and popularized in the ’60s via acts such as the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and the Even Dozen Jug Band (of which Muldaur was a member) — was never marketed with kids in mind is a good question, but Muldaur hits the perfect note with this collection. Played on washboards, spoons, kazoo, and other fun instruments — as well as guitar, banjo, bass, fiddle, et. al. — these old songs, with titles like “I Love to Ride My Camel” (wonder if it’s the same camel Muldaur sent to bed on her ’70s hit “Midnight at the Oasis”), “Under the Chicken Tree,” and “Singing in the Bathtub” are whimsical and silly, yet never condescending as so much children’s music tends to be. Muldaur’s voice is huskier than it was back when she was making her popular albums in the ’70s, but it’s well-suited to these tunes. This is what she started out doing half-a-century ago, and adults with a soft spot for the jug band-folk style, and for Muldaur’s output in recent years, will undoubtedly enjoy this music — much of it from the traditional folk canon — as much as their little ones. ~ Jeff Tamarkin, Rovi |
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Baroque Guitar, Sellas, 5-course, Taylor $899 This 5-course guitar designed by Zachary Taylor is based on the instruments made by Giorgio Sellas. One in particular, which may be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was made in 1627. It was examined and measured for the purpose of producing this representation of this exquisite instrument. Several other great luthiers are associated with this type of instrument including Tielke and Voboam. Sellas was chosen not only as an excellent maker of this class of instrument but that his designs lent themselves well to relatively low-cost production. Some modifications were made to the original design including the reduction of inlaid decoration, the inclusion of which, if any, made no contribution to the function of the guitar and it might even have been detrimental to the tone and volume it produced. Attention was paid to the basic construction and materials to bring about a faithful representation of this beautiful guitar. The scale length is 660mm. There are 9 nylon and 3 wooden frets. This instrument features an ebony nut and fingerboard, and a spruce soundboard. A hard case is include. Zachary Taylor is a designer and maker of early stringed instruments. Early in his career as a performer on classical guitar and lute he began to study the creation of representations of early instruments. In his relentless research he endeavours to acquire sufficient information for the construction of examples in the likeness of original instruments. For more than a quarter of a century he has taught the subject of lutherie in the Universities of Suffolk, England and Vigo, Spain and in Colleges including West Dean and Missenden Abbey in England. Major projects include the re-construction of instruments that form the entrance arch to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. is authorship includes many books, including `Make and Play a Lute’ and `Making early stringed instruments. It is Zachary Taylor’s mission to design authentic examples of ancient instruments, accessible to enthu |
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Batten the Hatches [Nettwerk] $11.99 Jenny Owen Youngs looks like she might be another typical, long-haired hippie waif with guitar — then she opens her mouth, and your jaw drops. Youngs’ voice has that delicate, childlike quality that plagues many a folksinging female, but when she digs into a song, the dissonance between her sweet alto and the acidic images she uses to paint her bittersweet portraits of life and love is startling. “Porchrail” opens the album with a backing band that sounds like the Violent Femmes. It’s a simple acoustic rocker, with a swing feel that conveys the nervous energy that floods the body when you see someone you really want and probably can’t have. The jittery beat and Youngs’ pleading vocal create a mood of panting desire held in check by shyness and insecurity. Meanwhile, “Fuck Was I” is a self-flagellating tale about being in thrall to a lover who can never do you any good, and yet the love abides. Her matter-of-fact vocal and the song’s lilting beat make her use of the F word actually sound shocking, something that’s increasingly hard to do in the 21st century. On “P.S.,” Youngs plays the banjo in an arrangement with French horn, cello, bass clarinet, and foot stomps. The result sounds kinda like a Tom Waits song, dripping with irony and full of unexpected musical touches. Every song here uses the same basic formula — dark thoughts set to uplifting music — but it’s a formula that works amazingly well. Youngs has an uncanny insight into the pains and insecurities that plague us all when we’re in that vulnerable, confused position of wanting love and feeling unworthy, or wanting out of a relationship and being unable to cut loose from the obsession that makes the pain hurt so good. She also has an original voice and an ability to find light even in the darkest situations, making this a very polished and cohesive first album. ~ j. poet, Rovi |
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Bayou Country [40th Anniversary Bonus Tracks] $11.99 Opening slowly with the dark, swampy “Born on the Bayou,” Bayou Country reveals an assured Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band that has found its voice between their first and second album. It’s not just that “Born on the Bayou” announces that CCR has discovered its sound — it reveals the extent of John Fogerty’s myth-making. With this song, he sketches out his persona; it makes him sound as if he crawled out of the backwoods of Louisiana instead of being a native San Franciscan. He carries this illusion throughout the record, through the ominous meanderings of “Graveyard Train” through the stoked cover of “Good Golly Miss Molly” to “Keep on Chooglin’,” which rides out a southern-fried groove for nearly eight minutes. At the heart of Bayou Country, as well as Fogerty’s myth and Creedence’s entire career, is “Proud Mary.” A riverboat tale where the narrator leaves a good job in the city for a life rolling down the river, the song is filled with details that ring so true that it feels autobiographical. The lyric is married to music that is utterly unique yet curiously timeless, blending rockabilly, country, and Stax R&B into something utterly distinctive and addictive. “Proud Mary” is the emotional fulcrum at the center of Fogerty’s seductive imaginary Americana, and while it’s the best song here, his other songs are no slouch, either. “Born on the Bayou” is a magnificent piece of swamp-rock, “Penthouse Pauper” is a first-rate rocker with the angry undertow apparent on “Porterville” and “Bootleg” is a minor masterpiece, thanks to its tough acoustic foundation, sterling guitar work, and clever story. All the songs add up to a superb statement of purpose, a record that captures Creedence Clearwater Revival’s muscular, spare, deceptively simple sound as an evocative portrait of America. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi |
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Billy Bragg, Vol. 2 $81.98 The first four years of Billy Bragg’s recording career (1982 to 1986) were a blur of record releases that established the froggy-voiced “Bard from Barking” as perhaps the most powerful and engaging political songwriter to emerge since the “folk scare” of the 1960s. From 1988 on, however, Bragg had the difficult task of living up to his own legacy, and that proved to be no small task; as he stylistically outgrew the rough electric guitar and vocal textures of Brewing Up with Billy Bragg and Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy, Bragg didn’t display the same immediate skill at “proper” record-making and took his time growing comfortable with the craft of the studio, and while he never ran out of things to write and sing about, as the 1980s faded into the 1990s his songs lost a certain amount of the sharp wit and keen focus that was second nature on his early records. (It also became clear the material was coming a lot more slowly, to boot.) This period of Bragg’s career is documented on Volume 2, the second box set compiled from Bragg’s back catalog, featuring expanded versions of four albums: 1988′s Workers Playtime, 1991′s Don’t Try This at Home, 1996′s William Bloke, and 2002′s England, Half English. While none of these albums can be called bad, very little of what’s featured on this set matches the consistent quality of the records compiled on the similar Volume 1 box, and even the best of the records featured here (Don’t Try This at Home) falls slightly short of the wit and fire of Bragg’s salad days. That said, while one has to pick and choose to find the pearls on Volume 2, they are certainly there, and Bragg has been generous with the bonus material on this set. Each album is accompanied by a bonus disc of demos, outtakes, single sides, and the like, and each is full of pleasant surprises for the completist (though they never quite equal the quality of the original albums) and offer an interesting look at how these albums came together. Volume 2 also comes… |
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Biscuits for Breakfast $12.98 One has to give the NinjaTune label credit for taking a chance on Biscuits for Breakfast. When we last listened in on Finian Greenhall (aka Fink), he was making ambient trip-hop beats (2000s Fresh Produce), and a long six years later he’s become a full-blown, guitar picking singer/songwriter. No, we’re not speaking of the whiskey-rotted, cowboy-hatted, delusional Americana of a Townes Van Zandt wannabe, nor the wasted Cocaine California decadence of the Jackson Browne-Eagles brood, nor the weepy, terminally depressed Nick Drake-wish-upon-a-Pink Moon-songstrelsy either. Instead, Fink’s gone his own way. That’s not to say the sounds of his heroes aren’t in here: one can hear John Martyn in his noirish approach to jazzy acoustic blues, the bottleneck influence of Peter Green (post-Fleetwood Mac y’all) and even the fingerpicking toughness of Davy Graham. There is a wonderfully intimate smokiness in Fink’s approach to his songs. It’s intimate, but utterly lacking in sentimentalism,. Check the opener “Pretty Little Thing,” on which he plays the whole menagerie: bass, guitar (nylon strings, no less), and B-3. The lyrics in this cut are not much to be sure, but as a first track Fink’s looking to usher in the set’s atmosphere, and as such it works beautifully. Dave Matthews would kill to have written a tune like this one for his “solo” album Some Devil. The real surprise is when his co-writers — bassist Guy Whittaker and drummer Tim Thornton — and bandmates jump in on “Pills in My Pocket.” The steel-string acoustic comes out, as does the bottleneck slide, a shuffling rhythm ushers in his streetlife tale matter-of-factly. Vocalist Tina Grace (Nitin Sawhney, Cirque du Soleil) sings lead on the swampy, spooky love song “Hush Now,” as Fink plays slide, and sings backup and creates a series of shuffling little loops that enter the picture. The title track has a few sparse FX on it, but the tone is a moaning little streetwise blues and the main instrument is his voice… |
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Blue Jays [Bonus Track] $12.99 The most romantic album to come out of the Moody Blues’ orbit, and the biggest success by any of the members during the group’s five-year hiatus, Justin Hayward and John Lodge’s Blue Jays actually started life as a busted collaboration between Hayward and Moody Blues keyboardist Mike Pinder, with Tony Clarke producing and John Lodge in a supporting role, until Pinder pulled out. Clarke then salvaged the early work by holding it together as a collaboration between Hayward and Lodge. Hayward has the more distinctive body of songs, but their strength as a unit lies in their vocal pairing, which is as strong here as it ever was with the group. The pair play the guitars and basses, backed by a group that includes members of Providence, who were signed to the Moodies’ Threshold Records. Hayward wrote or co-wrote seven of the original album’s ten songs, and most of it is fairly impressive as soft romantic rock, although “Nights Winters Years,” which ended the original LP’s first side, is a little bit too melodramatic, making Hayward’s “Nights in White Satin” seem almost restrained by comparison. Lodge has one of the better rockers to come out of the group’s orbit, however, in “Saved By the Music,” which opened the original LP’s second side. An alternately exuberant and reflective song that manages to be surprisingly spiritual, it has a great break and a better beat, and features harmonizing that will delight any fan of either musician or the original group. It’s also the perfect lead into “I Dreamed Last Night,” the best of Hayward’s songs out of this entire project and period in his history. The production by Clarke echoes the best Moody Blues sound. The bonus track, “Blue Guitar,” a follow-up single to the album that started life as a Hayward solo track recorded with his longtime friends the members of 10cc — with Lodge and Clarke adding their contribution for this release — is an added attraction to the CD. Blue Jays was reissued in the late spring of 200… |
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Broadway Songs for Kids (Book and CD) $26.59 This hefty collection also includes a CD featuring piano accompaniments for each song, making it easy to practice or audition when an accompanist isn't available. The CD is also enhanced with tempo adjustment and transposition software for CD-ROM computer use. It includes more than 30 songs made famous by kids singing on stage, arranged in piano/vocal/guitar notation. Includes: Castle on a Cloud Do-Re-Mi Gary, Indiana Getting Tall I Just Can't Wait to Be King I Whistle a Happy Tune I Won't Grow Up It's the Hard-Knock Life Let Me Entertain You Little People So Long, Farewell Tomorrow Where Is Love? You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile and more. |
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Buddy Guy Teachin’ The Blues (DVD) $23.7 Early influences, 9th chord licks, pick vs. fingerstyle, Elmore James “slide” effects, learning from keyboards for Buddy’s famed double-stop licks, country blues fingerpicking styles, turnarounds, special rhythm parts, hot lead blues guitar, tuning the guitar down to D a la Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and “barrelhouse” guitar style (60 min.) Classic Hot Licks titles on DVD! For the first time HOT LICKS classic video titles are available on DVD, making it even easier to learn with the world’s top players… right in your own home! These new transfers make them look better than ever while DVD technology makes navigating each lesson even easier! |
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Classical Guitar Pieces 50 Easy to Play Pieces Book and CD (TAB) $18.95 This collection contains 50 pieces from the Renaissance through the Romantic period. Some folk tunes are also included. The two parallel forms of notation bring together the advantages of musical notation and tablature, making classical music more readily accessible to those who may have come to enjoy playing the guitar without a formal grounding in reading music. Each piece is introduced with a comment on the origin and special qualities of the music. Further assistance is provided with the accompanying CD, which serves both as a model and as a reliable and readily available duo partner. |
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Classical Guitar, Including: Luis de Mil N, Russian Guitar, Edcage, Classical Guitar Technique, Classical Guitar Making, International Classical Guitar Competitions, Classical Guitar Magazines, Classical Guitar Strings, Classical Guitar Accessories $19.19 New – Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. T |
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Classical Guitar, Including: Luis de Mil N, Russian Guitar, Edcage, Classical Guitar Technique, Classical Guitar Making, International Classical Guitar Competitions, Classical Guitar Magazines, Classical Guitar Strings, Classical Guitar Accessories $14.21 Used – Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. |
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Classical Guitar, Including: Luis de Mil N, Russian Guitar, Edcage, Classical Guitar Technique, Classical Guitar Making, International Classical Guitar Competitions, Classical Guitar Magazines, Classical Guitar Strings, Classical Guitar Accessories $14.21 New – Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. T |
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Classical Guitar, Including: Luis de Mil N, Russian Guitar, Edcage, Classical Guitar Technique, Classical Guitar Making, International Classical Guitar Competitions, Classical Guitar Magazines, Classical Guitar Strings, Classical Guitar Accessories $19.19 Used – Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. |
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Classical Guitar: Book 1 $5.39 Used – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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Classical Guitar: Book 1 $6.79 Used – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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Classical Guitar: Book 1 $6.5 Used – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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Classical Guitar: Book 1 $7.47 Used – Since it first appeared in the 1930s, the concise, clear content of the best-selling A Tune a Day series has revolutionized music-making in the classroom and the home. Now, for the first time, C. Paul Herfurth’s original books have been completely rewritten with new music and the latest in instrument technique for a new generation of musicians. A New Tune a Day books have the same logical, gentle pace, and keen attention to detail, but with a host of innovations: the inclusion of an audio |
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Color Him Funky/H.R. Is a Dirty Guitar Player $18.98 Two Capitol LPs are reissued in full on this CD. Howard Roberts, a talented jazz guitarist from the 1950s who chose to become a studio musician, is in fine form on these selections, playing soul-jazz and swinging hard bop with a pair of quartets that have either Paul Bryant or Burkley Kendrix on organ. At the time these albums were released (they were both recorded in 1963), one could be excused for shying away from them because they both clocked in at barely a half-hour apiece and the individual selections were all quite concise, almost always less than three minutes apiece. The latter was on purpose so the numbers could be played on AM radio. But as it turned out, Roberts and his group did an excellent job of making every moment count, playing concise but self-sufficient arrangements and taking short but meaningful solos. So although most of the songs seem to end when they are just starting to get going, a lot of music takes place in a short period of time. Roberts recorded a long series of albums for Capitol, and the two combined on this CD are arguably his best for the label. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi |
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Continuum Music by John Mayer (Guitar Play It Like It Is) $21.8 Mayer was recently lauded by Rolling Stone for his massive guitar talent. This folio features notes & tab for all 12 songs from his third CD, including the hits Gravity and Waiting on the World to Change, plus his cover of Hendrix’s Bold as Love. Also includes an intro on the making of the album. Table of contents Belief Bold As Love Dreaming With A Broken Heart Gravity I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You) I’m Gonna Find Another You In Repair Slow Dancing In A Burning Room Stop This Train The Heart Of Life Vultures Waiting On The World To Change |
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Continuum Music by John Mayer (Piano/Vocal/Guitar) $16.1 All 12 songs from Mayer’s third CD, the last of the trilogy following its two multiplatinum predecessors. Includes the radio hit Waiting on the World to Change, his cover of Hendrix’s Bold as Love and: Belief Gravity In Repair Slow Dancing in a Burning Room Stop This Train Vultures and more, plus an intro on the making of the album.Table of contents Belief Bold As Love Dreaming With A Broken Heart Gravity I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You) I’m Gonna Find Another You In Repair Slow Dancing In A Burning Room Stop This Train The Heart Of Life Vultures Waiting On The World To Change |
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Crows $16.98 Allison Moorer may have seemed like one of Nashville’s most promising new voices when she first emerged with the album Alabama Song in 1998, but with the passage of time, it’s become abundantly clear she has something else in mind besides being contemporary country’s Next Big Thing. On Crows, her seventh studio album, Moorer’s country influences have practically vanished, and the rock & roll vibe that informed The Hardest Part and The Duel has faded; instead, Crows is a mature and artful set of keenly intelligent pop tunes from a singer and songwriter determined to avoid easy categorization. Moorer wrote 12 of the 13 songs on Crows, and producer R.S. Field has teamed her with a small but expert backing trio (including Field on percussion, Brad Jones on bass, and Joe McMahan on guitar) who give these songs a rich, moody tone that meshes gracefully with the tales of broken hearts and bruised lives that inform Moorer’s lyrics. Moorer’s a gifted singer, and her vocals on Crows show a control and confidence that’s impressive even by her high standards, but she doesn’t get nearly as much credit as a songwriter, and her compositions on Crows are quietly remarkable stuff, suggesting a previously unimagined middle ground between Bobbie Gentry and Laura Nyro. That a song as simple yet gently eloquent as “The Stars and I” could follow something as lovely but deeply troubling as “Easy in the Summertime,” with each seeming like matched parts of a striking whole, is an accomplishment few singer/songwriters could manage these days, and it’s one of several minor miracles Moorer brings about here. If Crows was the first album from a new artist, it would certainly be hailed as the debut of a powerful new voice, and the fact that it comes from someone who has already been making fine music in notably different styles makes the accomplishment all the more impressive. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi |
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Dan in Real Life $18.99 While in the beginning stages of making his film Dan in Real Life, director Peter Hedges went looking for someone to provide music the way Cat Stevens did for Harold and Maude or Simon & Garfunkel for The Graduate, someone to filter the meaning and feel of the movie through his songs. It’s hard to argue with his choice; ever since his first record, 2002′s Faces Down, Sondre Lerche has proven himself to be a fine chronicler of romantic confusion and winsome melancholy. Lerche was part of the process from almost the very beginning, even attending auditions for main characters and sleeping overnight in the house where the film was shot. The album is made up of a couple of songs from previous albums (a jazzy take on Elvis Costello’s “Human Hands” from 2006′s Duper Sessions; “Modern Nature,” his lovely duet with Lillian Samdal from 2002′s Faces Down; and the peppy “Airport Taxi Reception,” one of the highlights from 2007′s Phantom Punch), plus newly recorded songs. It being a soundtrack, there are several short instrumental pieces, most featuring Lerche on acoustic guitar with subtle backing from pedal steel, trumpet, or piano. They’re all very pretty and surely sound nice when sprinkled through the film, but what makes this soundtrack very good are the actual songs Lerche composed for the film. Best of the lot is the lilting and sweet-as-punch “To Be Surprised,” but the others are nearly as good, especially “Hell No,” a witty duet between Lerche and a very snappy Regina Spektor. Along with short instrumentals, another thing you’re sure to find on a soundtrack are stunt covers, easily recognizable songs rendered with a heavy dose of ironic hipness as an easy way to get audiences hooked without seeming like you’re pandering to them. Here Lerche adds syrupy strings to Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” and escapes pretty harmlessly, but A Fine Frenzy’s stilted take on “Fever” makes one wish that Congress would pass a bill banning future covers of… |
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Dandelion Gum $11.99 Over the course of the last couple years and two albums (plus a stunning collaboration with the Octopus Project in 2006 on The House of Apples and Eyeballs), Black Moth Super Rainbow has constructed a unique and impressive sound that takes the best elements of bedroom techno, DayGlo indie pop, and anything-goes maximum pop and rolls them up into a glittering ball of melody and invention. Most all of their songs are built on a tipsy foundation of lo-fi drums, bass, and the occasional guitar, then plastered over by all manner of tinny junk-shop synths and topped by vocals fed through the cheapest sounding vocoder on earth. Dandelion Gum is the perfection of that sound; each song is a perfectly crafted chunk of organic synth pop insanity. Sometimes a group with such an interesting and individual sound skimps on the actual songs, but BMSR doesn’t, as tracks like “Roller Disco,” “The Afternoon Turns Pink,” “Wall of Gum,” and “Spinning Cotton Candy in a Shack Made of Shingles” have the kind of child-like melodies that will nag you gleefully for days. Even when the melodies don’t grab you, something about the song will, whether it’s the dub-like shifting of tones or the sheer joy the band transmits through the speakers. While for the most part the album lives up to the title and exudes sweet and sticky happiness, some melancholy creeps in on songs like the very Air-y “Sun Lips” or the slightly creepy “Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods.” Apparently the album is based on a concept of candy-making witches who inhabit a forest and lure hapless locals to their doom with their sweets, so it works to have a well-rounded, fully realized, and varied batch of songs to fit the concept. As awesome as it would be to have a full-length album of all toothache-inducing sweetness and light, it might get tired after a while. And your teeth might fall out too. How could you chew your Dandelion Gum then? ~ Tim Sendra, Rovi |
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Death or Glory? $22.99 Roy Harper was spurred into making one of his best albums only after his wife abruptly left him in 1992, thrusting him into a deep despair. The rawness of Death or Glory?, and the fact that it was conceived after the bitter dissolution of a decade-long relationship, makes it the emotional, if not artistic, heir of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The album shuns Harper’s penchant for over-production in lieu of his more traditional acoustic sound. “The Tallest Tree” is a winning tribute to Chico Mendes with spiraling guitar work by Nick Harper. Harper is also positive in the winsome “Evening Star,” which finds him finally recreating his classic early-’70s sound. Harper wrote the song for Robert Plant’s daughter on her wedding, and even nicked the first line of “Stairway to Heaven” as a wink to his old mate from Led Zeppelin. Perhaps the album’s finest moment is the mostly instrumental tribute to Miles Davis, “Miles Remains,” which is not jazzy, but sounds instead like a more guitar-oriented Clannad. But the majority of the album is very pensive and bleak, including the bizarre, weepy spoken word piece that ends the record. The album was remixed in 1999 when Harper deleted some of the more gratuitous pieces in an attempt to make the album less depressing. In any form, Death or Glory? remains one of Harper’s most satisfying works, and is his only release from the ’90s that most casual fans will want to own. ~ Brian Downing, Rovi |
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Dream $16.98 Keller Williams has built his reputation as a one-man band, but also as an equally prolific and eclectic recording artist. So, it’s no surprise that he would want to stand his self-defined image on its ear with this long-in-the making collection of collaborations with other performers. No less than 31 other singers and musicians join him on one or more of the 16 tracks on the 73-minute CD. The biggest name, particularly for an artist known for his jam band associations, is former Grateful Dead singer/guitarist Bob Weir, who joins Williams on “Cadillac,” the two exchanging acoustic guitar riffs and singing Williams’ typically quirky lyrics. Then there is B? la Fleck, who adds his banjo to the progressive bluegrass of “People Watchin’.” Although perhaps fashioned with the guest stars in mind, those songs are characteristic of Williams’ most frequent style, as is “Sing for My Dinner,” on which he’s joined by the members of the String Cheese Incident, longtime friends of his. Other guests inspire different musical explorations. Jeff Covert contributes drums and lead guitar to the first track, “Play This,” which sounds like a mash-up of hardcore punk rock ? la Black Flag and the funk of Red Hot Chili Peppers. The funk continues with the second track, “Celebrate Your Youth,” featuring the band ModeReko, which could be mistaken for a lost song by Dave Matthews Band. The appearance of Michael Franti on “Ninja of Love” inspires a sort of Japanese reggae number, and Sanjay Mishra and Samir Chatterjee take the music to India for the instrumental “Lil’ Sexy Blues.” Second-generation San Francisco rock guitarist Steve Kimock, with Williams on bass and John Molo on drums, gives “Twinkle” a seven-plus-minute instrumental, the feel of one of the Dead’s “Space” improvisations, but Williams expects jazz guitarist John Scofield to adapt to his own style for “Got No Feather,” and Scofield obliges. No matter who’s accommodating whom, however, this is always Kelle… |
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Ethiopiques, Vol. 1: Golden Years of Modern Music $16.98 This first volume of the Ethiopiques series just begins to show the scope of the golden age of Ethiopian music, loving assembled, remastered, and annotated. What’s obvious is the influence of American soul and blues, the former quite apparent in the Memphis groove of Muluquen Mellese’s “Wetetie Mare,” with its smoking bassline. Mellese himself has a very androgynous voice, unlike Mahmoud Ahmed, one of the major early Ethiopian stars, whose 1975 tracks sound like Arthur Conley singing in Aramaic, with “Yeqer Memekatesh” a true undiscovered soul classic. The three instrumental pieces that punctuate the disc have a wonderful smoky sound, like late-night jazz played by Booker T. and the MGs. The 1969 cuts from Teshone Meteku could only have come from that decade, with “Yezemed Yebaed” eerily reminiscent of “Black Magic Woman” in everything but its guitar work. But the most revolutionary pieces are from Getatchew Kassa, whose reinterpretations of the revered traditional “Tezeta,” in both slow and fast versions, go utterly against history, making the piece relevant for the young — which, after all, is what rock, hip-hop, and every other movement have done. ~ Chris Nickson, Rovi |
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Face the Colossus $14.98 Dagoba’s third full album certainly doesn’t lack for confidence — after all, what metal band wouldn’t want something with a huge, bombastic introduction matching cover art with an appropriate-looking colossus in question: towering, multiple horned,and looking not a little pissed off? That said, while the French band is absolutely accomplished in their blend of rasping rage, power metal frenzy and flourishes, and general attitude towards their chosen field, they’re also still very much a product of that combination and their favored bands hang heavy — when the promo material mentions their love for groups like Fear Factory and Machine Head, it’s pretty much admitting it straight up. As a result, songs like “Orphan of You,” especially with its quite astonishing, tense instrumental break, are perfect pleasures even while making a listener remember where they first heard approaches like that. Still, this is a strong effort overall since the band more overtly aims for sweeping romance amid the manic performances than ever before — “Back from Life” is where it first comes through, thanks to Shawter’s absolutely killer work on the choruses both vocally and musically, keyboard chimes, and his yearning then screaming singing coming together just so. Similar moments, as when the arrangement on “The World in Between” strips down to little more than piano, vocals, and rough electronic beats before rampaging back in, and the brief spoken word/guitar moment on “Silence #3,” which also features one of the best choruses going on the album, help Facing the Colossus stand out further. Meantime, going the murky instrumental folk march route on “Transylvania” is a nice twist, even if only an interlude — but sometimes that’s all you need. ~ Ned Raggett, Rovi |
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Fairytales $36.98 After winning the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, Alexander Rybak was naturally a sensation throughout Europe and scored a big hit with his debut album, Fairytales, titled after the prize-winning song. It’s a light album, with less than ten songs and a running time under 40 minutes (not counting bonus material), but this initial showcase of recording material shows promise and should please Rybak fans who enjoy “Fairytale.” Like that song, the bulk of the album is written by the 22-year-old violinist, who thoroughly demonstrates not only his songwriting talent but also his talents for musical composition and English-language vocals. Part of the appeal of Rybak, of course, involves his back-story. Recounted many times, the story begins in 1987, when he was born in Minsk to musically inclined parents, the father a classical violinist, the mother a classical pianist. At four years old, Rybak and his family moved from Minsk, then part of the Soviet Union, to Norway. He began playing piano at the age of five and began studies at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo at the age of ten. A little over ten years later he made Eurovision history when, as the representative of Norway, he garnered 387 points, the highest tally ever. In the wake of his history-making Eurovision win, Rybak began working with a few different producers and came up with the nine songs comprising Fairytales. The title track, with its memorable violin refrain, was a chart-topping smash hit in a half-dozen countries across Europe. The follow-up singles “Funny Little World” and “Roll with the Wind” were less successful but stand out as album highlights all the same. “Funny Little World” addresses Rybak’s newfound fame with a sunny set of lyrics, and the song is almost entirely free of violin, driven instead by acoustic guitar and a light drum track. On the other hand, violin figures prominently in “Roll with the Wind,” the lively album opener with a Celtic air, one of only two songs not … |
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FastTrack Guitar Method Starter Pack-TAB (Book/CD/DVD) $14.24 This pack provides both the original FastTrack book/CD pack along with an instructional DVD, making learning to play guitar easier and faster than ever before! |
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First Light [Bonus Track] $10.98 Never one to take lyricism for granted, trumpeter and composer Freddie Hubbard entered Creed Taylor’s studio for the third time in 1974 with the express purpose of making a record radically different from anything he’d cut before; he was looking for it to use electricity and to be out of the soul-jazz mold, but was also more ambitious and wanted to push that envelope and himself. Taylor and Hubbard assembled a band that included Herbie Hancock on Rhodes, guitarists Eric Gale and George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airto Moreira on percussion, and Richard Wyands on acoustic piano to back him. The band was also supported by the truly ethereal and adventurous string arrangements of Don Sebesky (a first for Hubbard). The result is a masterpiece of textured sound, gorgeously far-flung charts, sweet, tight grooves, a subtle mystic feel, and some of Hubbard’s most exciting playing ever. The title track — there are two versions here, the alternate is almost five minute longer than the master — and Hubbard’s ingenious read of Paul and Linda McCartney’s “Uncle Albert/ Admiral Halsey,” as well as Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town,” are so in the pocket that they bleed soul. Benson’s uncharacteristically edgy guitar playing juxtaposed against Hubbard’s warm tone, and Hancock’s beautifully modal Rhodes lines that are drenched with big, open, minor chord voicings, are simply made more illustrious and graceful by Sebesky’s strings. While Red Clay and Straight Life are both fine albums, “First Light” is the one that connects on all levels — and it did with the jazz-buying public as well. A masterpiece. [CTI's 2003 version added a bonus track, "First Light."] ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi |
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First Light [Japan] $7.99 Never one to take lyricism for granted, trumpeter and composer Freddie Hubbard entered Creed Taylor’s studio for the third time in 1971 with the express purpose of making a record radically different from anything he’d cut before; he was looking for it to use electricity and to be out of the soul-jazz mold, but was also more ambitious and wanted to push that envelope and himself. Taylor and Hubbard assembled a band that included Herbie Hancock on Rhodes, guitarists Eric Gale and George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airto Moreira on percussion, and Richard Wyands on acoustic piano to back him. The band was also supported by the truly ethereal and adventurous string arrangements of Don Sebesky (a first for Hubbard). The result is a masterpiece of textured sound, gorgeously far-flung charts, sweet, tight grooves, a subtle mystic feel, and some of Hubbard’s most exciting playing ever. The title track and Hubbard’s ingenious read of Paul and Linda McCartney’s “Uncle Albert/ Admiral Halsey,” as well as Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town,” are so in the pocket that they bleed soul. Benson’s uncharacteristically edgy guitar playing juxtaposed against Hubbard’s warm tone, and Hancock’s beautifully modal Rhodes lines that are drenched with big, open, minor chord voicings, are simply made more illustrious and graceful by Sebesky’s strings. While Red Clay and Straight Life are both fine albums, First Light is the one that connects on all levels — and it did with the jazz-buying public as well. A masterpiece. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi |
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Frettin’ Fingers: The Lightning Guitar of Jimmy Bryant $42.98 Here’s the kind of gargantuan production that only Bear Family in Germany has usually undertaken for vintage American country artists: a three-CD set, encompassing 75 songs and nearly three hours of music recorded by guitar great Jimmy Bryant from 1950-1967. This is on Sundazed, however, and it’s good to see an American label taking a chance on a major archival collection on a not-too-famous performer that by its nature is going to rule out casual buyers. Many listeners will be sated with a single-disc compilation of Bryant’s work (particularly the tracks on which he collaborated with pedal steel guitar master Speedy West), and the wholly instrumental format might make this hard to listen to in one sitting even for committed fans. But Bryant’s guitar is consistently inventive — and unsurpassed in its sheer speed — throughout these sides, making it worthwhile not just for specialist Bryant and country swing fans, but also for students of virtuoso guitar in general. The highlights of this package are, as you would expect, Bryant’s 1950s Capitol collaborations with West, which take up about half the three CDs. These two brought out the best in each other, and if West might be a little better known due to the relatively exotic flavors of his flashy steel playing, Bryant was his equal for mind-bending fluidity. Some of the compositions are less memorable than others, but at their best, as on “Bryant’s Bounce,” “Bryant’s Boogie,” “Stratosphere Boogie,” “Pickin’ the Chicken,” and “Arkansas Traveler,” they’re truly astounding, landmark achievements in high-paced country swing and boogie music. Although much Bryant-West material has been reissued elsewhere (particularly on the Bear Family box Flamin’ Guitars), this set does offer much even to those who have other Bryant-West anthologies in its inclusion of 37 tracks that Bryant recorded without West in the 1960s. True, these weren’t up to the groundbreaking level of the earlier recordings, due to both generall… |
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G3 Live in Denver $12.99 The video G3 Live in Denver chronicles the appearance of Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, CO, on October 20, 2003. (There is also a simultaneously released CD drawn from the tour, G3 Live: Rockin’ in the Free World, but it presents the following night’s performance in Kansas City, MO.) This is the fifth G3 outing, the trio of performers always including Satriani and Vai, with Malmsteen making his first appearance. Sequenced out of performance order on the video, Satriani, the least flashy of the three, goes first, his head and face partially hidden by a black cap and orange sunglasses. Satriani is all business as he flies over his fretboard for five numbers. Vai ups the theatricalism right away by beginning with a triple-necked guitar that is at times played with a fellow guitarist, and going on to line up three guitarists who each put hands on each other’s instruments. But the showiest performer by far is Malmsteen, decked out in long hair and leather pants, who seems almost like a parody of a heavy metal guitar god, throwing his guitar around his neck by the strap, using up one pick after another and flicking them into the crowd, and shaking his mane along with the music. But he plays well all along, displaying heavy classical influences, and of course the crowd eats up his shtick. When it’s time for the three main performers to jam together, Malmsteen often seems like the odd man out during a set featuring Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” each one of the performers spotlighted in turn, that is, until he gets “Voodoo Child” to himself and gives it the kind of showmanship that would do Hendrix proud. The video should be even more valuable to fans than the CD, since they will be able to study the performers’ playing and not just hear it. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi |
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Good Morning Revival $11.99 When ironies are as delicious as punk-pop quartet Good Charlotte turning into the very thing they parodied on their career-making hit, “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous,” it’s hard to resist the temptation to repeat the story, no matter how often it’s been said. After all, it is true. Good Charlotte succumbed to every temptation fame has to offer and turned into L.A. scenester frat-rats, which, in turn, turned them into gossip-blog fodder as lead singer Joel Madden dated teen queens and super-skinny celebs whose main claim to fame was being famous. It’s a textbook rock & roll clich? , and now that the apex of their popularity is beginning to recede into the past, they’ve fallen back on another textbook rock & roll clich? for their fourth album, 2007′s Good Morning Revival: desperate trend-chasing. True, the group was beginning to stretch out on their first post-fame album, 2004′s The Chronicles of Life and Death, but where that found the group getting a little more ambitious, Good Morning Revival — released a full five years after their breakthrough, The Young and the Hopeless — demonstrates that they now have real concerns about appearing fashionable, so they’ve adopted the two main rock trends that surfaced since 2002: dance-punk and ’80s fetishism. They’ve morphed from blink-182 into the Killers, a stylistic makeover that makes Madden’s swipes at the “plastic people” of Hollywood on the opening “Misery” ring a little hollow since his sudden pursuit of glam style seems like the epitome of L.A. emptiness. To be sure, the icy synth textures and guitar atmospherics borrowed from the Edge are the foundation of this album, but Good Charlotte aren’t content to just restrict themselves to tricks they learned from the Killers; they sample from a wide spectrum of sounds and bands from the last five years. There’s the pounding electro-disco of Rapture-lite “Dance Floor Anthem,” which feels like it should be ironic, but isn’t. There’s the Blur/Gorillaz-api… |
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Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars (Updated and Revised Third Edition) $31.34 Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars is the most extensive and detailed list of specifications ever published for identifying, dating, and establishing the authenticity of an instrument. This new edition is enlarged and updated, making it once again the essential guide enabling collectors, dealers, players, and fans to determine the authenticity, rarity, and relative value of vintage acoustic and electric guitars, basses, mandolins, banjos, and amps. Gruhn's Guide's thoroughness, detail, and clear organization have made it without peer, the must-have tool for discerning an instrument's manufacturer, model, and date-and most importantly, whether it is in original condition.You will not find a better guide, nor one that is so easy to use. Vintage Guitar magazine |
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Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars – Updated and Revised Third Edition $32.99 Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars is the most extensive and detailed list of specifications ever published for identifying, dating, and establishing the authenticity of an instrument. This new edition is enlarged and updated, making it once again the essential guide enabling collectors, dealers, players, and fans to determine the authenticity, rarity, and relative value of vintage acoustic and electric guitars, basses, mandolins, banjos, and amps. Gruhn’s Guide’s thoroughness, detail, and clear organization have made it without peer, the must-have tool for discerning an instrument’s manufacturer, model, and date-and most importantly, whether it is in original condition.“You will not find a better guide, nor one that is so easy to use.” – Vintage Guitar magazine |
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Guitar World Presents Kirk Hammett’s The Sound and the Fury (Book and CD) $21.84 In 1993, Guitar World introduced a column called The Sound & the Fury, penned by Metallica's master of metal guitar himself, Kirk Hammett. In his column, Kirk didn't just talk about his licks, riffs, warm-ups, and techniques he taught them. He also answered questions on every imaginable topic sent in by readers, making the column a major hit that ran for years. This book combines all of Kirk's columns into one volume, with an accompanying CD of demos played by Nick Bowcott. |
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Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1 with CD $10.4 Newly revised! The second edition of this world-famous method by Will Schmid and greg Koch is preferred by teachers because it makes them more effective while making their job easier. Students enjoy its easy-to-follow format that gives them a solid music education while letting them play songs right away. Book 1 provides beginning instruction including tuning, 1st position melody playing, C, G, G7, D7, and Em chords, rhythms through eighth notes, solos and ensembles and strumming. Features a chord chart, and traditional songs like: Amazing Grace Greensleeves and When the Saints Go Marching In. |
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Hal Leonard Guitar Method-Fender Special Edition G-DEC Guitar Play-Along Pack $18.99 This book/SD Card series lets you plug into your Fender G-DEC 3 and play your exercises from the Hal Leonard Guitar Method along with top-notch recordings making guitar practice a rewarding and fun experience even for absolute beginners. The recordings can be accessed by simply inserting the card into the G-DEC 3 amp's card slot. In addition, custom G-DEC 3 tone presets are included so guitarists can easily enjoy playing the right guitar tones and effects for each song. Students and teachers who use G-DEC 3 amplifiers will find their lesson experience greatly enhanced by these convenient tools.SD card details: Compatible with Fender G-DEC 3 Thirty and G-DEC 3 Fifteen amplifiers, or card reader on computer Full-fidelity demo and play-along audio tracks (.wav format) G-DEC 3 tone presets are included so guitarists can create the right tones and effects for each song in the book SD card has additional storage capability allowing guitarists to save additional presets, backing tracks, phrase samples, or lessons. |
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Helt Borte $15.98 Making as good on the label’s name as conceivably possible, in 2011, Smalltown Supersound reissued this obscure 2007 album by a duo from Vard? , a tiny fishing village at the northern tip of Norway. Regardless of the cosmic significance — or not — of this seemingly improbable event (it might have something to do with the fact that one of the duo is noted electro/disco producer Rune Lindbaek, who happens to have released a similarly minded album as one-half of Meanderthals, also on Smalltown Supersound), it’s certainly a boon for fans of slow, spacy, ambient synth music (Biosphere, Stars of the Lid, Tangerine Dream). In tritely predictable but nevertheless redolent fashion, Helt Borte sounds about as wintry, primordial, elemental, glacially paced, and remote as you would expect of sounds emanating from such a distant, arctic locale. Titling one track “Snowflakes” and filling it with placidly twinkling synthetic bell-tones may be pushing things a bit far –? or maybe not — but suffice to say this music will stand up to any sort of slumbering snowdrift/Aurora Borealis imagery you want to throw at it. So yes: Pechenga’s music may not be boundary-pushing, cerebrally stirring, or in any way original. At the same time it is, absolutely, haunting, entrancing, and lush, and not in a cheap or facile way, either. The basic musical methodology, throughout, rests on sinuous, slow-moving melodies and deep, thick synthesizer drones, often eerily dark and brooding (“Ununoktium,” “Pechenga,” “My Frozen Spirit”), sometimes ethereal and serene (“Ultima Thule”; “Hamningberg,” which is named for another, even tinier town in northern Norway). Sometimes other elements flit their way through, as with the languid, almost bluesy guitar figure which makes “Gitaro” (“guitar” in Esperanto) probably the most distinctive and memorable thing here, or the shards of harp splintering the title track, or even the occasional pan flute. The California-based producer Hatchback recen… |
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Hey Mom! Listen to This! $18.99 Hey Mom! Listen to This! is a soup-to-nuts guide for parents as they enrich their child's life with music. Starting with early-childhood Kindermusik, the book covers everything from strings, winds, and choral music to piano, guitar, drums, and ethnic instruments, presenting parents with information and options for renting or buying an instrument, selecting a private teacher, and finding performing ensembles for their child. The book continues past a child's high school graduation, with suggestions for continued musical experience for those not pursuing a music degree as well as educational and career options for those interested in making their living in music.Written in a conversational style and packed with comments from professional musicians and music teachers, the guide presents musical options available to parents and their children at every stage of their education, offering specific information on such topics as keeping children motivated to practice and helping them deal with performance nerves. By giving parents the tools to help their child find success and enjoyment in music, this book gives parents confidence that they are making informed decisions for and with their child for the best possible musical experience. |
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Improvising Lead Guitar Book and CD $14.2 Jamming with other players is one of the most fun, creative and satisfying parts of playing guitar. But after you’ve memorized all your favorite rock, blues, jazz and country licks and solos to play, how do you start making up your own? This book teaches you how t build solos with scales, ad lib chord-based solos, embellish melodies, play harmonized melody lines, leave the melody behind and improvise freely, start developing your own style, and more! All the tunes, licks and exercises are included on the accompanying CD, along with eight practice tracks to help you apply the soloing ideas. |
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Jason Mraz – We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things. Guitar (TAB) $21.84 Entertainment Weekly praised Mraz's third CD for its pleasantly lightweight jams, beachy guitars, R&B horns and playful scat singing. Our songbook offers artist-approved, note-for-note transcriptions for the hit single I'm Yours, the Colbie Caillat duet Lucky and 10 more witty tunes, plus an intro on the making of the album. |
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Jimmy Buffett: Sheet Music Anthology (P/V/G) $18.99 Among the more than 140 pages of piano/vocal/guitar sheet music in this collection, you'll find every song from Jimmy Buffett's classic Songs You Know by Heart greatest hits album. Plus there's a dozen more songs selected from eight additional albums, including popular live recordings and recent releases. This collectible songbook is a must-own item for every music-making "Parrot Head," and it makes a perfect gift. Titles: * The Ballad of Skip Wiley * Bama Breeze * Boat Drinks * Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes * Cheeseburger in Paradise * Come Monday * Fins * Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit * He Went to Paris * A Lot to Drink About * Margaritaville * Mele Kalikimaka * Mexico * Nobody from Nowhere * One Particular Harbour * Pencil Thin Mustache * A Pirate Looks at Forty * Rhumba Man * Scarlet Begonias * Son of a Son of a Sailor * Summerzcool * Uncle John's Band * Volcano * The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful * Why Don't We Get Drunk. |
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John Denver Anthology Easy Guitar $15.15 This superb collection of 42 great Denver songs made easy for guitar includes: Annie’s Song Leaving on a Jet Plane Take Me Home, Country Roads plus performance notes, a biography, and Denver’s thoughts on the songs. Song List: Annie’s Song Autograph Back Home Again Ballad Of The St. Anne’s Reel Calypso Dreamland Express Eagles And Horses (I’m Flying Again) Farewell Andromeda (Welcome To My Morning) Fly Away Follow Me For Baby (For Bobbie) For You Garden Song Goodbye Again Grandma’s Feather Bed How Can I Leave You Again I Guess He’d Rather Be In Colorado I Want To Live I’d Rather Be A Cowboy (Lady’s Chains) I’m Sorry Joseph & Joe Leaving On A Jet Plane Let Us Begin (What We Are Making Weapons For?) Like A Sad Song Looking For Space Matthew My Sweet Lady Never A Doubt Perhaps Love Poems, Prayers And Promises Rhymes And Reasons Rocky Mountain High Seasons Of The Heart Shanghai Breezes Sunshine On My Shoulders Take Me Home, Country Roads Thank God I’m A Country Boy The Eagle And The Hawk The Flower That Shattered The Stone To The Wild Country Whispering Jesse Wild Montana Skies |
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John Entwistle Bass Guitar Master Class $23.7 This restored classic video stars the late John Entwistle! The Who’s legendary bassist gives a personal bass lesson that covers fingering, licks, octave style, chords, hammer-ons, pull-offs, picking techniques, harmonics, soloing concepts, walking bass lines, string bending, and phrasing – all in the famous Entwistle style. Here is a unique chance to learn from the man who wrote the book when it comes to rock’n'roll electric bass. For the first time the legendary HOT LICKS classic video titles are available on DVD, making it even easier to learn with top players, right in your own home! These brilliant new DVD transfers make them look better than ever, giving you improved navigation, many extra features and some newly recorded introductions. |
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Johnny Hiland Bluegrass Guitar (DVD) $23.7 Learn bluegrass picking from one of the best there is. Johnny Hiland teaches rapid-fire flatpicking techniques, special bluegrass runs, hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, rhythm strums, bluegrass fills and much more. The disc also features some acoustic bluegrass jam sessions with Arlen Roth and Mac Wilson. You’ll be pickin’ and grinnin’ right from the first lick.Classic Hot Licks titles on DVD! For the first time HOT LICKS classic video titles are available on DVD, making it even easier to learn with the world’s top players… right in your own home! These new transfers make them look better than ever while DVD technology makes navigating each lesson even easier! |
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Just for Fun: Christmas Banjo (Easy TAB) $16.14 Just for Fun: Christmas Banjo contains over 40 classic Christmas songs. Most of the songs in the book feature three arrangements: the melody in notation and TAB, an easy rhythm option with a simple rhythm pattern and chords, and an intermediate-level rhythm option written in full notation and TAB. The intermediate rhythm option often combines full melody and chords, making it perfect not only for accompanying a singer and but also for solo performances for friends, family, and recitals. There's even a banjo chord dictionary in the back of the book. Plus, this book correlates to the matching guitar, ukulele, and mandolin editions, so you can have family Christmas jams and sing-alongs. |
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Just for Fun: Christmas Guitar (Easy TAB) $16.14 Just for Fun: Christmas Guitar contains over 40 classic Christmas songs. Most of the songs in the book feature three arrangements: the melody in notation and TAB, an easy rhythm option with a simple strum pattern and chords, and an intermediate-level rhythm option written in full notation and TAB. The intermediate rhythm option often combines full melody and chords, making it perfect not only for accompanying a singer and but also for solo performances for friends, family, and recitals. There's even a guitar chord dictionary in the back of the book. Plus, this book correlates to the matching ukulele, mandolin, and banjo editions, so you can have family Christmas jams and sing-alongs. |
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Just for Fun: Christmas Mandolin (Easy TAB) $16.14 Just for Fun: Christmas Mandolin contains over 40 classic Christmas songs. Most of the songs in the book feature three arrangements: the melody in notation and TAB, an easy rhythm option with a simple strum pattern and chords, and an intermediate-level rhythm option written in full notation and TAB. The intermediate rhythm option often combines full melody and chords, making it perfect not only for accompanying a singer and but also for solo performances for friends, family, and recitals. There's even a mandolin chord dictionary in the back of the book. Plus, this book correlates to the matching guitar, ukulele, and banjo editions, so you can have family Christmas jams and sing-alongs. |
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Kicking a Dead Pig: Mogwai Songs Remixed + Fear Satan Remixes $13.99 Mogwai get translated and abused in various ways in this collection of remixes. Whether it’s industrial, dance, or something altogether left field, the 12 remixes on Kicking a Dead Pig and the bonus CD, Fear Satan Remixes, take Mogwai to various new places, for better or worse. Remixes faring best are from Hood, Max Tundra, Third Eye Foundation, and Kid Loco. Remixers seemingly out of their minds at the time or simply collecting paychecks are Klute, Arab Strap, ? ? -Ziq, and My Bloody Valentine. ? ? -Ziq is known to show inspired disregard for songs during his remixes, but he turns “Fear Satan” into a grating mess. Kevin Shields suggests that he’s probably run out of ideas for good in his My Bloody Valentine-monikered reworking. He was always known for noise freakouts, but that was in a live setting. On CD, it just sounds sloppy. Still, the joy to be found makes the misfires somewhat bearable. Hood’s contribution introduces interesting sonic shifts and gritty guitar dynamics. Max Tundra’s interpretation sounds alternately like violins tuning-up and ticking electronics, as plucked guitars and organic industrial sounds blend quite nicely. Kid Loco’s remix is perhaps the most accessible, as dub textures and chiming sound effects approach something that might be called touching. Too many of the remixers add dance beats, making one wonder why a disco ball wasn’t included in the gatefold case; seeing as how many of these remixes were done in the dying days of drum’n'bass, one has to forgive the artists for jumping a rickety bandwagon. Kicking a Dead Pig + Fear Satan Remixes isn’t nearly as challenging or rewarding as one would expect, and thus not worth many repeat listens. ~ Tim DiGravina, Rovi |
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Ladies of the Canyon $24.98 This wonderfully varied release shows a number of new tendencies in Joni Mitchell’s work, some of which would come to fuller fruition on subsequent albums. “The Arrangement,” “Rainy Night House,” and “Woodstock” contain lengthy instrumental sections, presaging the extensive non-vocal stretches in later selections such as “Down to You” from Court and Spark. Jazz elements are noticeable in the wind solos of “For Free” and “Conversation,” exhibiting an important influence that would extend as late as Mingus. The unusually poignant desolation of “The Arrangement” would surface more strongly in Blue. A number of the selections here (“Willy” and “Blue Boy”) use piano rather than guitar accompaniment; arrangements here are often more colorful and complex than before, utilizing cello, clarinet, flute, saxophone, and percussion. Mitchell sings more clearly and expressively than on prior albums, most strikingly so on “Woodstock,” her celebration of the pivotal 1960s New York rock festival. This number, given a haunting electric piano accompaniment, is sung in a gutsy, raw, soulful manner; the selection proves amply that pop music anthems don’t all have to be loud production numbers. Songs here take many moods, ranging from the sunny, easygoing “Morning Morgantown” (a charming small-town portrait) to the nervously energetic “Conversation” (about a love triangle in the making) to the cryptically spooky “The Priest” (presenting the speaker’s love for a Spartan man) to the sweetly sentimental classic “The Circle Game” (denoting the passage of time in touching terms) to the bouncy and vibrant single “Big Yellow Taxi” (with humorous lyrics on ecological matters) to the plummy, sumptuous title track (a celebration of creativity in all its manifestations). This album is yet another essential listen in Mitchell’s recorded canon. ~ David Cleary, Rovi |
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