tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317206212012-02-16T07:11:35.763-08:00Thinking about music. What is rock, and how do we know? A reflection on rock & roll, and its importance to people and society. Degrades into guitar geekdom periodically.jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.comBlogger101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-20358625410751109562010-08-17T01:58:00.000-07:002010-08-17T02:21:16.876-07:00

My two fabulous tube amps—the tiny Fender tweed Champ and the hulking Vox 125—couldn't be more different. It isn't just size and volume; it's about how they respond to my playing. Switching between them reminds me again and again how playing electric guitar is hugely about playing the amp.I spend most of my time with the Champ. I'm playing in my basement late at night, and so the little amp is

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-47334604859949084552009-03-22T15:02:00.000-07:002009-03-22T15:34:09.620-07:00

So, on recommendation, I picked up Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City, which is his 2001 memoir/apology for 80s glam metal. Right at the beginning of the book, he sets out his mission to properly recognize the cultural importance of 80s metal in the face of the complete dismissal it receives (and always had) from music journalists. Not so different from what originally motivated me to start this

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-16277860619528017312009-03-22T14:34:00.000-07:002009-03-27T13:14:26.256-07:00

Note that this post has absolutely nothing to do with that band from New Jersey. I'm talking about my Seymour Duncan '59 humbucker, which, I am extremely pleased to announce, has finally found peace in my strat.Last year I went through a long phase of experimenting with pickups. The stock "Highway 1" gear in my strat was not what it could be. So I put in a set of fabulous GFS overwound single

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-81056552393544991122008-04-11T14:46:00.000-07:002008-04-11T15:15:49.931-07:00

Why are they so awful? I took the opportunity to check out our brand new Long & McQuade location, which merged at least two older stores into one new colossal two-story building. I don't know quite what I was expecting, but I came away pretty disappointed. Here's an entire brand new building, but still relying on the old, slightly nauseating showroom formula whereby you string up several hundred

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-24611386071382446582007-12-13T13:54:00.001-08:002007-12-13T14:04:23.947-08:00

Is anybody actually reading this? Let me know...Anyway, what is it about these gals? Currently, as I wrestle to get Last.fm to play me a station that isn't 90% dreck, I find that The Donnas are the only thing that keeps me from ditching it altogether... if I listen for long enough, eventually a Donnas tune comes around, and I smile. They have a kind of smartness and sparkle that makes pretty much

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-48562796699180869382007-07-31T00:37:00.000-07:002007-07-31T00:56:03.289-07:00

An amazing development this evening... I've been playing the Strat through the Tube Screamer into my Champ at low, low volume, and it's pretty cool. It doesn't exactly rock, though, as the 6V6 tube isn't getting a workout at all at that volume, so all I'm getting is the sound of the pedal. It's nice, but it really isn't as nice as the Champ on its own.But tonight, I tried something out that I

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-62129864142680644582007-07-26T00:05:00.000-07:002007-07-26T01:09:49.493-07:00

On the occasion of my (eek) 40th year, the completion of a rather sizable project I'd been working on, and the ongoing project of collecting musical instruments for the kids, I finally bought myself a real guitar. Now, I used to play the bass pretty seriously, both in terms of what my hands could do on the thing and also the size and weight of equipment I had acquired. And I've beeen noodling on

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-1154373389699504542006-07-31T12:14:00.000-07:002006-08-02T22:37:58.050-07:00

So I went looking for rock, looking in books and listening online.Ironically enough, I started with books... I took a trip up to my local ChaptersIndigo supermarket (where else can you look at books? But that's another blog post -- actually, that's another blog), and I found next to nada (somewhat as I expected).The first thing I noticed were the two categories in Chindigo that could contain

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-1153953151101718542006-07-26T15:12:00.000-07:002006-07-26T15:32:39.586-07:00

SOMEBODY, and I wish I'd taken note, 'cause I can neither remember nor Google who it was now, recently said on TV that Hip Hop is the most important cultural event of the 20th century. This struck me at the time, since I had written—in the liner notes to a compilation of classic 1950s R&R I was putting together—the exact same sentiment, except it was about rock & roll. Russian Revolution? OK...

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31720621.post-1153951310775631512006-07-26T14:32:00.000-07:002006-07-26T16:45:17.796-07:00

I'm starting this to let some of the steam out of my head of late—steam built up by a cluster of events not terribly significant individually but which together have got me a little bit jazzed (if I can use that word). The first thing was hearing Norway's Death Is Not Glamorous on CiTR one night a couple of weeks ago; here was a hardcore band that hit me straight in the heart, and instantly

jmaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01536915005247719275noreply@blogger.com4