Great stuff, thanks so much
David
1 2009-07-15 11:38:41
Re: Wonderful tonight (2 replies, posted in Song requests)
2 2009-07-15 08:36:02
Topic: Wonderful tonight (2 replies, posted in Song requests)
Hi, everyone. I may be going mad here, but can't see Eric Clapton's wonderful tonight on the site ? I know the basic song is fairly easy to work out, but I want to transpose it to D - and that's where I struggle !!
3 2009-07-01 13:13:41
Topic: Tricky One (1 replies, posted in Poems)
I don't know what the rules are for this sort of thing ....... I'll explain. in 1982 I had a very unusual girlfriend - she was unlike anyone I had ever met and left an impression on me that exists to this day. In one of her letters to me ( she was at university so we weren't together much, but wrote a lot ) she signed off with a small poem. I've always remembered it verbatim and recently tried all sorts of google and other searches to see if it existed - and to find out if she was quoting someone else's work or made it up herself. I can't find anything, so I'm hoping that it is her own work and that she won't mind me putting it up here ( given that I haven't seen or heard from her in 27 years then the odds are long .. So - whilst thanking Sally Radley ...
Deafened by the silence of the praying men at war
Hope flees on through torn emotion to some dark, secluded shore
To a place called isolation - a sweet sanctuary from pain
Where only acts called madness are past strivings to stay sane
4 2009-06-23 08:00:40
Re: New town lament (7 replies, posted in Poems)
Hi, Buvvy .. .. .. .. ..
No, ' The Reverend' in question is Paul Green - he's a legend in these parts
I've been going to see this guy in various bands for 25 years and I guess I was just driving at that no matter what else changes, he's always around and still playing ....
Thanks for the compliments - looking at what's been posted since I can't help but feel I was over-negative 
5 2009-06-22 13:55:45
Re: WHAT WAS THE FIRST SONG YOU LOVED? (17 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
What becomes of the broken-hearted - Jimmy Ruffin
School disco + un-requited 11-year old love = heartbreak !
6 2009-06-22 09:18:46
Re: Made my Mom cry (17 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)
Nice work, Cam. It must have been a fulfilling experience. I'm sad to say neither of my parents ever showed much interest in any of my musical endeavours - music just wasn't on the list of priorities in my house. I always wanted to find an excuse to show them what I could do but they just would have been embarrassed by the whole thing. 
7 2009-06-21 20:14:45
Re: An Ode To My Town (7 replies, posted in Poems)
Phill ........... I didn't want to start a protest group but I feel there's genuine sadness in what you and I have written. Myabe they are reflections on the state of things generally, rather than just a town rant. There are many, many songs that could be written about how things are - hope more people will do so.
David
8 2009-06-19 13:25:34
Re: New town lament (7 replies, posted in Poems)
Hi, Phill.
There are 100 songs just waiting to be written on this subject ! Perhaps we should all write a song dedicated to our hometowns, the good, bad and ugly - and produce a CD for our own purchase and enjoyment ? A kind of transatlantic effort.
9 2009-06-19 08:23:43
Re: New town lament (7 replies, posted in Poems)
Thanks, Ken. I totally agree - England will fall to dark powers on the day that cheese rolling becomes a health and safety issue.
And please give my regards to Dumfries and Galloway - glorious place.
David
10 2009-06-18 14:27:56
Re: I Love The Hills. (4 replies, posted in Poems)
Powerful stuff, friend - very evocative and heartfelt. Makes my rant seem pretty feeble, but it was heartfelt, too. That's when the best music comes.
12 2009-06-18 10:05:13
Topic: New town lament (7 replies, posted in Poems)
Here in England, after WW2, they built 'new towns' to cope with the exodus and need for housing of Londoners. My parents were typical of this generation and I was born, 47 years ago in a new town. It was a fresh, exciting and pleasant place to grow up. Now, it is a festering hell-hole. So I wrote some lyrics, which I'm in the process of morphing into a song ... apologies for the negativity of the whole thing ! Quick notes - the Reverend is a guitar playing friend of mine and staffies are awful status dogs that the scum infesting these Isles own to make themselves look tough.
town of my birth, I have travelled so far
now it hurts me to see just how dirty you are
but the Reverend, he still strums away on his black guitar
who are you people and when did you come
how did you strike those proud Londoners dumb
you've got all the money but still you keep asking for some
with your staffies and benefit books and fake gear
burgers and scratchcards, fags and your beer
muggers and robbers are having a ball
christians are drowned out by cheap alcohol
sometimes I wonder if I am in England at all
and where are the children dancing round maypoles ?
who stole the flowers from outside the old cenotaph ?
now how I wish I had never come back
to see how my new town is under attack
they celebrate Englishman's head coming home in a sack
and there's staffies and benefit books and fake gear
burgers and scratchcards, fags and their beer
13 2009-06-18 09:51:31
Re: My sob story (35 replies, posted in Acoustic)
Hi, Seersha
greetings from England. I can't add much to the generous posts above - other than to say music is not about learning a zillion fancy chords, just having fun with ones you do know can be enough. Buy a Ramones CD, quickly ! And also, take some comfort from the fact that any future performance you do will not be as daunting as the one you told us about - you certainly had a baptism of fire.
David
14 2009-06-05 15:45:34
Re: Your Top 5 Guitarists of all time (167 replies, posted in Electric)
Order can change !!
1. Cliff Gallup
2. James Burton
3. Mickey Green
4. Johnny Winter
5. Jimi
15 2009-06-05 13:24:06
Re: Squire Affinity - Telecaster (8 replies, posted in Electric)
Hi, from England !!
Although I play a Peavey Cropper, mostly nowadays - I still have my first electric guitar - a Squire Telecaster in red wine colour. I can't bear to part with it - even though the pick-ups are crap neck has begun to bow .... I love the thing so much. I've never found an amp that really makes it sound like a proper Fender Tele though. The closest I have come to it is the Laney Tubefusion that I use on stage - which as an amp is good enough to make any guitar sound okay. Bottom line answer is that a good amp will help you get the most out of the Squire - but I hope you grow old with it in your collection like I intend to with mine because it has such a special place for me.
16 2009-05-22 20:07:45
Re: The phenomenon known as open mic ... (12 replies, posted in Acoustic)
wow - great feedback chaps, thankyou all. This is one cool forum. I've just begun rehearsing some stuff with another guy - so far we are up to speed on The Kinks, Melissa Etheridge and Mike and the mechanics !!! so in a couple of weeks we'll go out and play to the teeming masses of (largely) scum that is England. I'll let you know if we escape with our lives. Long live music and musicians.
17 2009-05-15 12:43:52
Re: When do you play a barre chord rather than an open chord? (25 replies, posted in Acoustic)
Just to backtrack a bit, I painstakingly learnt barre chords because if you are writing your own music ( or playing anyone else's I guess) you cannot survive on just the open chords. I try to use them all the time - and when playing with someone else in a duo format, it's cool to have one guy playing the natural chord and me play the barre. It really does open up a whole new world and well worth the effort
18 2009-05-15 09:05:06
Re: The phenomenon known as open mic ... (12 replies, posted in Acoustic)
Interesting stuff - thanks for taking the time to reply. I guess I was hoping to hear that things are very different over there - thus giving me even more incentive to quit this god-forsaken place and join you !!! I've been lucky enough to visit New York, San Francisco, Charlotte NC and Denver - but always on business and never was able to get out and experience the local music scenes. Guess I would have seen a lot of variation. I'll get there...... don't know how ZZ Top would sound on acoustic guitars but maybe that's the way forward !!
Have a good Friday, everyone.
D
19 2009-05-14 08:47:37
Topic: The phenomenon known as open mic ... (12 replies, posted in Acoustic)
Guys,
I'd be interested to hear how this is handled over there in the 'States. In the UK, the scene is very active - a great many pubs are now staging open-mic once a week where people who can't get a gig anywhere else, or new players can get up and perform a couple of songs to an audience. The problem here is that the audience tend to treat the performers as a distraction from their usual evening's entertainment of drinking and talking loudly - so they continue doing both throughout. It can be very dispiriting. A few well-run open-mic venues have a no talking whilst the performers are doing their thing policy but it's mostly a case of trying to make yourself heard over the noise coming from the drinkers. My own remedy is to do Aerosmith's ' don't wanna miss a thing' as loudly as I can ! What's the protocol over there ?
20 2009-05-13 14:19:35
Re: recording your songs (21 replies, posted in Recording)
Much obliged, Sir.
This site is very useful, informative and friendly so I shall be inputting as often as I can.
David
21 2009-05-13 12:41:13
Re: recording your songs (21 replies, posted in Recording)
As a newbie to this board and forum, I thought I'd share my recording method - so you can all have a good laugh at it's byzantine approach, probably ! I have a zoom 16-track digital recorder - my first job is usually to lay down the drum track. I don't like the pre-set rhythms so I usually play 'live' drums on the pads that are on the zoom - since I'm a better drummer than I am a guitarist I find this a great part of the process. I then layer bass, guitars and vocals on, of course. I re-master on the zoom to the master track, but then dub that off to my pc where I have cooledit installed so I can top and tail the track and store various versions with various dynamics processing applied.
22 2009-05-11 08:56:14
Re: AHHHHHHHHHHHH I CANT NAME MY BAND IM ABOUT TO SCREAM!!!!!!! (20 replies, posted in My local band and me)
Don't even try !! Something will come about naturally. When putting my most recent thing together I flatly refused to get involved in any kind of discussion about band names ..... I was on e-mail to the other person involved and she said " ok - we'll leave it for now. I gotta go cos the Coffee Fairy has just been " .... and that was the band named. Awful, twee, crap and totally unrepresentative of what we do but at least we didn't sit for 3 weeks with an open newspaper shouting out stuff like...
" The Flat back-four " ?