I just looked at the rehearsal pictures... Man, it hurts to see "Bells Of Lal" written on that piece of paper in the pile. It was so close to being in the set. ;-)

Roger that on SBM Clarky....I think taking a "fresh" approach in a couple of months might make it better to return to it and honestly judge it....

JS1: Yeah, I can't believe that I did that with CP either!! I'm sure your really liking NOTE!! One of my fav. of all times is the Rubina version from there....Simply the most gut wrenching heartfelt solo by JOE IMHO :-)

LOL dragonchild :-)

Austin: You said you met Jon before the show....Did you get a chance to meet JOE??

Thank's for the link JON, I will go check it out....

LOL Michelle!! Happy belated Birthday to you and your husband..in advance :-)....BTW, age is a state of the mind, right?!!

Yo MATT!! How goes it?! Keep the faith bro' :-)....

Hey Rusky, welcome to the site!

In answer to your question ( all together now fellow T2J'ers!).

they're saying 'Stuuuuuu' NOT 'Booooooo'!!

Wingnut - try to get some backing track CD's from guitar mags, and tecnique books like total accuracy for example. You can use these to mess with ideas and jam. It is possible to practice improvising but obviously you need somewhere to start... The first thing you'll need is a nice little vocabulary of licks.. little set piece lead breaks... This gives you a nice starting point from which to build... If you're stuck for licks, a nice easy place to collect a whole bunch of them is to learn the solo from Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd [as this contains a stack of nice blues-rock licks that can easily be reworked and reapplied]. Next, choose a lick and a backing track [note that you'll have to move the lick into the key of the backing track] and mess with it... This is cause and effect stuff - such as 'what happens if you start the lick one a different beat of the bar?' 'what does it sound like if you change a note here and there?' 'what does it sound like double or half the speed - or half speed for the fist few notes and then normal from then on?'.... The idea is that you learn to noodle with a single idea to find out how much music is hiding inside that lick... Your ears are noting the differences as well as your fingers. Then chose another lick and do the same... just pull it around [or appart] and see what happens... experiment to the full and explore ideas... Eventually your lick vocabulary contains the licks from the Floyd track plus a whole pile of new ideas.... When you improvise [especially at first] you solo from selections out of your lick vocabulary with little 'noodles' in between.. This is kind of like speaking a laguage from a phrase book... sometimes you'll sound a bit strange and others you'll sound great... over a period of time, your vocabulary grows larger and ultimately you become 'fluent'. In guitar terms this means that you'll be able to just tear up over anything and know what it will sound like as you play it.. Also try to pay great attention to how you are sounding with respect to the backing track... i.e. 'playing in context'... listen as you play...

Damn Clarky, that's some great advice there buddy!! Noodling with scales and such is great fun, and like you said.....tweek it, change it, flip-flop it and it's all good :-).... BTW, great choice of licks to chose from on FLOYD!!...If you have the DVD Wingnut, even better, cause you can "see" the effect of a great lick........Shred on my brother's and sister's ;-) Also, listen to some "Satan's Salad" and get with the groove ;-).. I've heard that song somewhere else here on Japanese T.V. awhile back dude....Where is it from??

Peace all, /\/\ike

Euro - nice to see you so enthusiastic about UJR, saw him at a very small venue in '85 (ooops showing my age!) on the Beyond The Astral Skies Tour, 'kin blew me away still remember it now - very under rated guitarist. Recall someone on here slagging Hendrix but you've got to put these things into perspective, there was no Satch or Vai three decades ago. Before anyone points it out I know SV was playing with Alcatraz in 85 but he didn't sound like he does now!

Anyway everyone out there playing keep it up it's people like us (okay maybe i'm too old now :-() ) that will keep rock alive!

It took me a while to catch onto the stu thing - but then I listened to the speech in LISF - and came across my favourite quote:

'They Stu him cos they Love him!!!' - Joe

whojackafibby - musical meditation - tubular bells, joe satriani etc, all these sorts of tunes really relax me and inspire me!!

never heard of don ross, but I alway like to hear new artists - any songs I should look out for?

Joe,

Fourth HULK link:

HULK4 (continuing with another frame from the animation I'm working on)

I’d like to use a section of “Mindstorm” for the Background Music!!!

Michelle- happy husband's birthday, time is flying very fast at the moment, frightening just a bit. Makes you realise life is for living right now.

Ben - good top ten there, we are with you and supporting you now.

Eric Tranquada - saw your pics with Joe, you and your mate look just like him. whoo hoo.

Clarky - Value your opinion. I personally love SBM and thought Joe was great in London and Brum, he was a bit drowned out a couple of times though, thought it would have been louder somehow.

Still on with the tattoo thing, just discovered the bloke who does them that lives just down the road from me is the world champ, he charges about £40 an hour and from what i am told no one can touch his work with a barge pole. There are four of us at work that are considering tattoos at the moment and we are going to have a day searching his designs.

Anyway, disconnecting now to finish taping SBM for my car. Favourite track - The Traveller.

Yahoo, I am one of the aftershow pass winners for the Austin show! I'm not trying to rub it in, I'm just INCREDIBLY ECSTATIC! Joe's fans are the best, and Joe, you're the best, too! I'll be sure and post a review of the show and how it goes backstage.

Just one more post for today,

Did you hear about the bloke with two left feet who went to buy a pair of flip flops. He bought two flips. ha ha.

Today we are having a swear box at work. We'll be in the money this time next month.

Sharon - Him and his what?! haha

That would be ME with Joe's almight left hand on my right shoulder

Sup Joe!!

Dude i was at the G3 concert in Mexico City and it fucking rocked man! I just wanted to congradualte u for that amazing show. And hopefully you could come back with steve and john or byyourself, cus ur music kicks ass!!!

Carlos Guasch,

CLARKY - thanks for the advice, i'll practice licks and jamming to backing tracks.

Wingnut - no probs bro.... also, I'm a 7-string player... I jus' love 'em

Ovation - Satan Salad is all mine and was my first experiment with a drop tuned guitar... you'll notice that Satan Salad and Mutha of Mothers are both in D ['cos that's were I was tuned to].. I wrote it last summer and recorded the backing track at home. The solo was cut in a hotel room in Cambridge England shortly after.. If it sounds similar to something else then I guess that it is a coincidence....

Psycho_Monkey and Jeffertz and anyone else who was wondering about "Stu's decision to leave the band..."

According to Stu (seriously, I asked him about in person), it was not his decision, it was Joe's.

Stu explained that Joe just likes to mix it up. And let's face it, for this new album, Matt's aggressive sound was perfect... I agree about Matt not being the right person for the songs Stu has already played live with Joe, but just know that it WAS NOT STU'S DECISION to leave the group (I can't say as to whether Joe said he wanted to mix it up and it happened, or if Joe initiated the decision and Stu followed along with it, or whatever).