Guitar Class

Happy Thursday! What a lovely summer this week was. Crazy hot! And so full of adventures.

Me and Carolyn and Jacqi went on a bundt cake adventure to Thousand Oaks, where it was as hot as the sun. I loved it.

And on Monday me and Jacqi went to Rocket Fizz and then to where my band hangs out, and then down to the beach where we touched the mighty Pacific and built a great big pile of sand with a five year old.

I don't even remember the last time I've been to the beach. I mean, more than just looked at it.

Aaand then I wrote another song, added a melody and lyrics to a basic guitar pattern I've been playing all summer. Sent it to Beth and she added backup vocals and some sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet slide accents, and DUDE is this not the best song we've ever written.

It's called Cloudburst, right? I mixed some tracks of rain using the tambourine and the fish tank. Very convincing. But today I tried recording the sound of the hose water hitting things as rain, but the microphone was not cooperating so I'll have to try again tomorrow.

But I did work more on the guitar part and the vocal, which is, like, simple but I really have to try hard to sound a little better than mediocre. Takes a lot of concentration. But I can actually play the guitar AND sing it at the same time, which is a step forward. So it wouldn't be impossible to play live.

Also that day I added the idea of a piano part to another new song, Broovin'. Which is a fun, rockish song, probably our third best. Because guys, these new songs are soooo much better than LIGHT IT UP. You have no idea. and you never will

And both me and Beth have been working on our various instruments, from harmonica to slide guitar. I've got some good bluesy sounds going with my harp, and she is wrapping her head around soloing. That's why I have to learn guitar, so that she can play lead and I can play rhythm and it'll all work out.

It's been a very productive week for MDMB.

So guitar class today. Is in a basement of a house up the street. No joke. But the house is a city landmark, and the basement is more of a city event facility that happens to be under this house. I walked there in a beautiful sunset.

There are seventeen people in the class, seven guys and ten girls. The instructor's name I think is Randy, and he does know guitar, but he doesn't expect any of us to (which is an apt assumption. They don't.)

Aside from me, we have:
Confused Dad
Overzealous Mom
Confused Mom
Nine year old Boy
Youth Group Leader Girl
Youth Group Leader Boy
Talkative Uncle
Little Mexican Lady
Dad With Nothing Else Better To Do
Quiet Girl
Blind Girl
College Guitarist
Nine Year Old Electric Guitar Girl
Thinks She Can Play
Confused Middle Schooler
Punk Rock Fifth Grader

A lot of them are so clueless I wonder even why they have guitars. They clearly have never touched them before today. Which is alright, because this class is exactly for them, very very beginner. We learned how to read his little chord notations (the fat string is the sixth string, everybody); Em, A7, A, and E; Camptown Races (of all things) and the E blues scale.

That took an hour and a half.

And while I'm sure most of them were overwhelmed or just keeping up, me and College Guitarist were the ones looking bored the quickest. He's the sort that clearly played in college, but that was 20 years ago. Otherwise, I don't know what he's doing in this beginner's class. I'm not really sure what other people's motivations are, other than the Moms and Dads who just have nothing else better to do, and the kids whose parents want them to be rounded (and the Punk Rock kid who just wants to look like he's playing the guitar).

So it'll be cool. Somebody telling me to practice chord changes. The opportunity to develop calluses.

Guitar Center sent me a coupon for 15% of guitar straps, so I went in today and got a cool Union Jack one. British Invasion represent! But my guitar doesn't fit in the case with the strap on it, so lol. It's better than the Rock Band strap, at any rate.

What fun, music.

-Steph

Them Trees

Happy Thursday! Will you believe that I actually accidentally just put "Happy Birthday!" Weirddd.

It was my dad's birthday on Monday, though! I made him an ugly cake, lol. A spice cake with walnut-studded cream cheese frosting. It had three and a half layers. Happy birthday, Dad!

Fall is upon us, and by Fall I mean The Summer I Never Had. Earlier in the week it was rainy type fog, and I was looking forward to the rain. Not to be had. Instead, we have summer. But the sun IS farther away, so it's not like a summer heat, just like, a fall heat. The shade is freezing.

I perfected my spiced lemonade, which is the perfect in-between seasons drink, and you should try some.

Falltime made me into a baker, and today I made ricey crispoes, russian teacakes, and toffee. Dude, how easy is toffee. A stick of butter and some brown sugar (how come you taste so good) and boil it. Delicious.

Yesterday I hung out with Carolyn and fished all her little fish out of the kiddie pool they were living in to put back in the brand new pond. It was quite an adventure. Fish wrangling is harder than you might think.

I also, at some point, watched the first six episodes of Cowboy Bebop with my mom. I do so love that show. All that cowboy and also bebop and also space and also western. Welsh Corgis. Perfect.

Been practicing my blues harmonica and writing songs, so that's coming along.

Oh, so. The trees. I heard scuttlings around above my room, which eventually became known to be rats. Because of this, we got our trees trimmed so the rats would not be able to jump onto our roof anymore.

But.

The tree trimmers.

Destroyed my childhood home.

I can't even talk about it.

The tree in the front? Has exactly 33 leaves. Thirty three.

I just want to ctrl-z this away, but alas, I cannot.

I wish I had never reported the rats.

I have such a burning regret about this.

Great! Peace out.

-Steph

Ladies & Gentlemen

Happy Thursday! I just got back from a Rolling Stones concert courtesy of Fathom Events, that crazy thing you see when you go to the movies advertising live opera and stuff.

Ladies & Gentlemen....The Rolling Stones is a concert film from two shows back in 1972 when they were touring for the new Exile on Main St. album. They've just remastered it and tonight was like a nation-wide (I dunno about anywhere else in the world) cinema re-release. Quite appropriately, the re-master of Exile has also been recently released. So it's a double flashback.

What a show! On the big screen it's something else. But without the screaming and raving fans and being able to see them close up. Wonderful musicians and performers. Great set list. My theater was pretty full, maybe like 130, 150 people, applauding each song.

There were literally less than ten people my age and younger. Everyone else was 30 and older. Mostly 45 and older. Mostly Mick Jagger's age. But still, imagine you're a 20 year old London kid who likes the blues, and fifty years later your little blues band still draws a crowd in a place like tiny Ventura, California.

Beth saw it, too, up in Oregon. She said there were like eight people all told. Haha.

Second best thing to going to a live Stones show, which I still have hope for, yet.

Been practicing my blues harmonica, or cross harp if I want to sound official. I can do it, just not consistently.

You see, diatonic harmonicas, which is what you're looking at most of the time you see a harmonica, are built to play in one major key. Mine, for example, are all in C. But by shaping the air different when you play, you can bend notes down to flatten them and get "blues" notes outside the key you're playing in. So to play cross harp on a C harmonica, you're playing in G.

Now my dad first gave me a harmonica and a little book titled "Country & Blues Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless" for my tenth birthday. I took to it enough that I learned some songs from the back of the book (I can still play you Camptown Races and You Are My Sunshine at the drop of a hat), and I even overcame stage fright to play Amazing Grace at a fifth grade music night. But I was perpetually stumped by this bending business.

So for 13 years I've played Camptown Races and You Are My Sunshine, and generally misplaced all my harmonicas from time to time. Then here comes along Mick Jagger and Brian Jones and their little blues band the Rollin' Stones, and now I desperately need to play the harmonica.

I set the piano to harmonica one day, armed with the info from a dozen youtube videos, and bent my first note. It only took thirteen years to do it. AND I WILL KEEP ON DOING IT AND NO ONE WILL STOP ME LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

Have a harmonica solo!

Or Champagne and Reefer.

Or of course, Brian Jones on harmonica. I realize now that it was this song I heard playing on Mick Jagger's birthday that first sparked the idea that I might get into the Rolling Stones. Thanks, Buddy Holly!

How about some sweet lap steel guitar from Ronnie Wood?

Or Clapton playing bottleneck?

And if you're wondering why I'm suddenly into the blues, remember this lil' show called Cowboy Bebop. I didn't know it at the time, but that slide guitar and cross harp was burrowing into my soul, just waiting for the right time to bloom.

Well, here we go.

yawn

Happy Thursday! So the weather is back to cloudy foggy wintertime, but our few weeks of summer were good while they lasted. Now it's time for pumpkin flavored things and way too many desserts.

I melted some baking chocolate with a touch of milk, cinnamon, and maple extract and threw in some peanuts to make chocolate covered peanut things. Pretty good. Pretzels will be next.

Over Labor Day weekend we drove up to Monterey Bay for a memorial service. I share a great-grandparent with one of the original founders of Zynga, the company that provides you with all your great FarmVille invitations.

Listened to Bob Dylan's first album all the way up and back, wrote a song. Studied James Taylor's Sweet Baby James. Took some pictures. Developed my thoughts on songwriting and other things.

Today Steven came over and we jammed a bit. I learned a new song. Then we went and got ten tacos and watched How I Met Your Mother. It was a good day.

I'm sooooo sleepy because I left my music on all night so I kept waking up every fifteen minutes to hear some song I really liked. It was tiring.

Me and Carolyn and Steven started watching the Evil Dead series. Lolololololol.

Did I tell you Jacqi's back from Korea? She is. Hanging out with them all tomorrow. It'll be epic.

Now I sleep.

Eyy Thursday

Happy Thursday! Can you believe it's Thursday again? I can.

This week has seen me near the end of my Jagger biography, watch about 14 dozen youtube videos of the Stones, comment on a customer's awesome Stones shirt, dust off my blues harmonica book, and sign up for guitar lessons. And I wrote some blues lyrics for MDMB.

At the thrift store, the magical one that always has what you're looking for, I discovered treasure. A Beach Boys double LP, a greatest hits, I'm sure, in pristine condition. Not even a scratch, and I mean, have you ever seen a record in a thrift store before? This was like, brand new. For a buck ninety!!! !!!!! That's like 12 dollars in savings, say from what it would be in a dusty old record store. I was thrilled.

Next to it I dug out a handful of singles: Clapton's I Shot the Sheriff, B side Give Me Strength; Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' I Love Rock 'N Roll, B side You Don't Know What You've Got; and Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son, B side Questions of My Childhood. 50 cents apiece.

Whuttafind.

That day was actually all around sweet. I parked downtown and then walked all the way up and back, stopping in at the thrift stores, the druggie music store, up to the library (Gimme Shelter and No Direction Home, Stones and Dylan concert/documentaries, respectively), outside of which a homeless man dug my Starfleet shirt, and then down to Rocket Fizz where I got a cherries 'n mint soda. And it was sunny out and generally lovely.

In the thrift stores I was looking for some more pairs of gray jeans and/or corduroys. Them's my fave now. I've also got my eye out for a corduroy jacket? That or a denim jacket that I can spray paint MDMB on the back. Gotta get my gig outfit together, you know.

Let's see, I'll put it this way. The Beatles made me interested in learning music again (specifically the bass); the Rolling Stones have made me interested in being a rock star. Now I'm not saying I'm going to BE a rock star, but there's a fanning of the flames about this little band of ours, about seriously writing songs and playing songs. I would like to be a good bassist. I would like to be able to play guitar. And blues harmonica. Why can't I? So I will.

Gonna go watch Gimme Shelter. Peace out.

-Steph