Category Archives: I Need Your Feedback

The Metallica Playlist – Part II

Posted on by Standard 1

So, did you read my last post about making a playlist of Metallica songs so Bethany will be familiar with some of the music at the show?  l grabbed a few tracks from each album, popped them into a list, & mixed ’em up a bit.  It still seems a tad unwieldy.  It’s 47 songs, and I don’t even want to know what the run time would be.  (I still need to dig out all of my CD’s & rip some of these older songs.  I live in the stone age and listen to mp3’s saved to a thumb drive plugged into the car.)

Metallicollage

How would you pare it down?  Could you get it to 30 songs?  10 songs?  60 minutes?  What is the most essential stuff you’d need to grasp their overall sound and/or appreciate a live show?

I had Alexa playing some random Metallica this morning, and it wasn’t a bad mix.  This actually really has me appreciating Death Magnetic & Hardwired… To Self-Destruct more & more.

 

Metallica 101 Playlist…

  1. “Ecstasy of Gold” (We All Love Ennio Morricone) [Ennio Morricone]
  2. “Enter Sandman” (Metallica)
  3. “One” (…And Justice for All)
  4. “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (Ride the Lightning)
  5. “Whiskey in the Jar” (Garage, Inc.) [Thin Lizzy]
  6. “(Anesthesia)—Pulling Teeth” (Kill ‘Em All)
  7. “Whiplash” (Kill ‘Em All)
  8. “Last Caress” (Live Shit: Binge & Purge) [Misfits]
  9. “Master of Puppets” (Master of Puppets)
  10. “Cyanide” (Death Magnetic)
  11. “The Call of Ktulu” (S&M)
  12. “Nothing Else Matters” (Metallica)
  13. “Seek And Destroy”  (Live Shit: Binge & Purge)
  14. “Some Kind of Monster” (St. Anger)
  15. “Fade To Black” (Ride the Lightning)
  16. “Overkill” (Garage, Inc.) [Motörhead]
  17. “Hardwired”  (Hardwired… To Self-Destruct)
  18. “The Memory Remains” (Through The Never)
  19. “Four Horsemen” (Kill ‘Em All)
  20. “Creeping Death”  (Live Shit: Binge & Purge)
  21. “Until It Sleeps” (S&M)
  22. “Altas, Rise!” (Hardwired… To Self-Destruct)
  23. “Battery” (Master of Puppets)
  24. “Die, Die My Darling” (Garage, Inc.) [Misfits]
  25. “Frantic” (St. Anger)
  26. “Fuel” (Re-Load)
  27. “Orion” (Through the Never)
  28. “Unforgiven” (Metallica)
  29. “Unforgiven II” (Re-Load)
  30. “Unforgiven III” (Death Magnetic)
  31. “Sad But True” (Live Shit: Binge & Purge)
  32. “I Disappear” (Mission: Impossible 2 Soundtrack)
  33. “All Nightmare Long” (Death Magnetic)
  34. “Mama Said” (Load)
  35. “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” (Master of Puppets)
  36. “Commando” (St. Anger Single) [Ramones]
  37. “Now That We’re Dead” (Hardwired… To Self-Destruct)
  38. “Stone Cold Crazy” (Garage, Inc.) [Queen]
  39. “Wherever I May Roam” (S&M)
  40. “The Day That Never Comes” (Death Magnetic)
  41. “Tuesday’s Gone” (Garage, Inc.) [Lynyrd Skynyrd]
  42. “Disposable Heroes” (Master of Puppets)
  43. “Blackened” (…And Justice for All)
  44. “St. Anger” (St. Anger)
  45. “Low Man’s Lyric” (Re-Load)
  46. “Harvester of Sorrow” (…And Justice for All)
  47. “One” (S&M)

Would you skip songs & go to videos, live sets or clips, or documentaries?

 

 

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Help me make a playlist: Metallica 101

Posted on by Standard 5

So, Bethany is awesome and got us tickets to go see Metallica when they come to Pittsburgh in October.  We don’t have a whole lot of overlap in musical taste.  We have been to a bunch of concerts together, ranging from Flogging Molly, Rancid, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, & the Dropkick Murphys, to Willie Nelson, The Devil Makes Three, Poison & even (Lord help me) Kenny Chesney.  This doesn’t even count the dozens (hundreds?) of club shows we have attended for the local and national levels back when I was actively gigging… which was mostly punk or metal stuff on a more local-ish level like Omegalord and Peelander-Z.  I think I have successfully sold Bethany on the awesomeness of punk rock.  We haven’t really delved into metal past what I have played in the car.  Even myself, I have gravitated more in the punk direction than metal listening over the years.  Perhaps due to a shrinking attention span?  Metallica stands as one of those influential bands for me as far as it being one of the earlier things I “got.”  A kid in 6th grade lent me his cassette of …And Justice for All, and it was all-in from there.  It led me to stuff like the Misfits, Danzig, Megadeth, Motörhead, & Black Sabbath.  I wore out multiple copies of the Master of Puppets cassette.  The black album is a hugely definitive and divisive album, but it hit right when I was headed into high school, metal ruled the airwaves and guitar magazines, and grunge hadn’t yet stomped all over the oft-mocked hair metal’s reign supreme.  A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica and Live Shit: Binge & Purge made me want to be a rock star.  My aunt & uncle took a me and a friend to the Guns N’ Roses & Metallica concert at Three Rivers Stadium.  That was the first and only time I ever saw them live.  It was my two favorite bands at the time.  It was awesome.  I’m anxious to go again.

That brings me to this;  How do I bring the wife up to speed on multiple decades of Metallica fandom, some of which even pre-dated my time as a fan?  Dave Mustaine getting booted?  Cliff Burton?  Jason Newsted?  Haircuts?  The Napster thing?  James catching on fire?  Goofy psychologists?  Lulu?  Lars’ drumming ability vs. his business acumen?  Kirk Hammett’s appearance of total passive and obedient participation?  “Four Horsemen” vs. “Mechanix”?

If you were going to make a mix tape playlist as an introduction to Metallica, what would you include?  Jokes about St. Anger or Load/Re-Load aside, what is the important stuff?  Audio?  Video?  Live performances?  Documentaries?  Metallica covering their influences?  Other bands covering Metallica?  Related bands?  Originals that Metallica has covered?  What videos would you say are essential?  MTV Icon?  Behind the Music?  When Metallica Ruled the World?  I know “One” is up there in my all-time favorite songs.  Do I start there, or go in chronological order?  Which instrumentals?

So, I set up a living room rig. 🎸

Posted on by Standard 2

This morning I felt like playing the guitar. I didn’t feel like jamming in the basement by my work bench where all my stuff is set up. I didn’t bring up the Laney 2×12 or the Orange Micro Terror. I brought out the Fender Blues Jr. & a Yamaha MSR100 powered speaker so I could run my new DigiTech Trio into two different outputs.

The Trio was a birthday present from my wife. It was on backorder from Sweetwater for a while & we have been really busy so this was my first chance to try it out.  I set it up like this…

Living Room Rig Setup

It started out as a pile of stuff in the corner.  Then I remembered that I had an old RCA-Victor TV cabinet in the garage purchased from our house’s previous owner that I thought about turning into an amp someday.  The Blues Jr. fit where the TV went, and the Yamaha PA fit underneath where the speaker grille is.

Then I had a cabinet and I pile of pedals.  So, I cut up a milk crate and made a goofy pedal board with a Donner power supply & some zip ties.  The “board” fits inside the cabinet with the blues Jr. too.  It was a morning long project but it felt good to get it done & know I can jam a lot more easily.  It may be tricky if I just want to use the Trio & some headphones.

I do have a Dirt & Ernie pedal & an A/B/Y that I use to run the Jr. & Micro Terror at the same time.  Maybe a board extension will eventually be in order?  How cool would it be if the doors came off & were the pedalboard?

Oh well.  Enough monkeying.  Time to jam.

I will eventually have to give a serious(?) evaluation of the Trio.  I do already know I want a looper now.  Ha ha.  It was pretty intuitive & loads of right out of the box.  My 4 year old told me to turn it down right away, so it had to be cool.  Right?

 

Monkeying with the DigiTech Trio:

I apologize for the “living room while the wife and kids are home” volume, and the Crocs.

 

My little dude seemed to like the idea.  He has all the moves down.  Maybe some day he will want to play too!

Do you have a living room, bedroom, or other small setup rig?  Share some in the comments!  Any thoughts on any of this equipment?  Any tips for the Trio?  You can comment below here at the blog with WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, or a Gravatar login.

Posting #25XmasSongs – Part 2 🎅

Posted on by Standard Reply

Did you see part 1?  I quickly realized I like a vast odd selection of Christmas music.  There are so many I dig that didn’t make the cut, and I’m sure ones I forgot.  Throw me your favorites in the comments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posting #25XmasSongs – Part 1 🎄

Posted on by Standard 3

I have been trying to post a Christmas song per day since the beginning of December.  I think I make a new YouTube playlist every year.  (I must have set YouTube to tweet when I add videos to playlists way back… because it seems to be doing that with the stuff I’m adding.)

I enjoy some Christmas albums, but seem to have found a bunch of random songs that I like over the years.  Some traditional, some quite the opposite.  Here’s the first batch.  There is no rhyme or reason or favorite order or anything.

Post some of your favorite Winter Holiday songs in the comments.  Links to videos, album names, artists, etc.  Show me what you dig!

1. No Doubt – “Oi To the World”  (Vandals cover!)

2. MxPx – “Xmas Night of the Living Dead”

3. Willie Nelson – “Silent Night”

4. Run DMC – “Christmas in Hollis” (The A.K.A.’s do a neat cover too.)

5. Johnny Cash – “What Child Is This?”

6. RAMONES – “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)”

7. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – “This Time of Year”

8. Bing Crosby & David Bowie – “Little Drummer Boy”

9. D.I. – “Mr. Grinch”

10. Laurie Berkner – “Santa’s Coming to My House Tonight”

Google Photos is awesome/creepy with these videos it made & sent to me automatically…

Posted on by Standard 9

Fascinating.

So, Google Photos made two of these video clip compilations all by itself, then it let me know in the photos app. One was for Molly, and one was for Ian.

HOW DOES IT KNOW?

Are these algorithms? Facial Recognition? Time, date, & location stamps?  Did it use the videos from my phone, or the online backups?

This is so awesome, cute, and creepy.

These videos give me all the feels.

For those who noticed I didn’t blog very often for a while, all this was happening. It’s incredible to look back on it all.

I wish I could tweak some of the clips just a tiny bit to include some better little funny moments, but whatever made this did a pretty damn good job.

As amazing as this is, and how cool it is that it reminds me of the make-a-grown-man-cry Dear-Sophie Google Chrome commercial, it’s a bit weird.  Are we in the future?  How does it do what it does?

I may find a simple answer after a Google search.  Does Google let you learn all about Google?  Does anyone use Google+?

Google Photos

Your Friendly Binary Overlord

Seriously though, they do grow up so fast.  Thank you for the reminder, Google Photos.

Should you be featured on #GuitarHoarders? 🎸

Posted on by Standard 5

Narrator: “Up next on Guitar Hoarders; Jim, 48, a self-professed ‘Blues Lawyer’ from Oaklahoma is going through a divorce due to his recent failure to remove 27 partscasters from his bathroom, leaving his soon-to-be-ex-wife to do her business in the rose bushes out back.”

Narrator: “Jim’s wife, Tonya, thought the rented apartment two towns over was for another woman, but it was way worse than she could have imagined. It was full of Chibsons and falsely advertised ‘Lawsuit Era’ LP copies that were actually nothing of the sort.”

Tonya: “I wish his browser history had said PornHub or RedTube, but no… it was all Reverb, eBay, ShopGoodwill, Craigslist, and the lowest of the low… local & national guitar forums on Facebook!

Don’t even get me started on LetGo and OfferUp. I wish I had found Tinder or even Grinder. That, I could deal with.”

Narrator: “Tonya did at least see a bright side to all of the madness.”

Tonya: “I mean, I guess at least it wasn’t Reddit.”

Jim: “I guess I don’t need that many guitars. I mean, I don’t get to play as often as I like. Most of my time is spent online explaining to n00bz how tone wood makes a huge difference, why I think Gibson is overrated and how they have gone downhill, the best types of wood for a fretboard, you know… the important stuff. There are some real idiots out there. How can you have fun if you’re not getting the best possible tone from your fingers?”

Narrator: “Jim is seemingly unaware that he has a problem.”

Jim: “GAS? No, never heard of it. Wait, is that the psychobilly jam-band that plays every open stage night at Free Beer Tomorrow over in Tulsa? No?

Anyway, did you know that Slash’s Les Paul that he used on Appetite for Destruction wasn’t even a Gibson?  And now they endorse him?  I mean.  If you don’t know that, you shouldn’t even be allowed to play Guitar Hero.”

Tonya: “I’m currently living with my sister.  Her husband plays the bass, so he can’t afford to have a hoarding problem.”

Jim: “That guy?  He doesn’t even know the difference between active and passive pickups.  Heh.”

Narrator: “At this time, Jim refuses counseling.  He thinks they can work it out.”

Jim: “I was teaching her how to play, but Mel Bay is so dumb.  We re-started with a ‘Top 50 riffs of all time’article form an old guitar magazine out of my pile.  I mean, there are only 8 notes, right?  Or is it 12?

I was trying to tell these guys at the county fair that they were playing the riff for ‘Lay Down Sally’ wrong, but you just can’t tell some people things.  I have a tabographic memory.  That’s where you can instantly remember every guitar tab that you have ever seen.”

🎸

TLC, I have another TV show for you.  This is a comment from a guitar group gone awry because I amuse myself way too much.  Who wants to do a YouTube sketch comedy show for a very specific audience?

Guitar Collection 2017