Greg - You probably did congratulate me dude, but I think it was about 4 weeks between posts or somewhere around that. On the KC front, I love Two of A Perfect Pair but my personal favorite is Discipline, obviously compare to ITCOTCK the production is much better, but the guitar lines are great, the guitar effects are great (Elephant Talk) and the songs themselves are very memorable and well written. I believe that you may also be able to hunt down a live performance from around that era that I recall watching on late night BBC many years ago. ;-)

What would I want for a 2 cd album... hmm.. maybe 23 new songs? :)

ga60 - i'm just downloading universal mind, then i'll listen to it and complete this post. In the mean time though, I'm going to break out my bass and have a pop at "Home" - that's DT's Home, not Joe's.

OK that was some really intesne practice... my fingers are now absolutely flying and my typing is going completely haywire as a result. Never mind. Still downloading universal mind.... 81%....

Listening now... I'm impressed with the opening, a few bloopers, but nearly all spot on, and I really do know how hard that is. Love the 'sonic the hedgehog' style synths too :)

Ooh, well done on that riff just before going back into the opening theme around 1.20 i think. very well played.

a few of the bends not spot on around 2.40 but not bad by any means. Great stuff at 3.15 ish.

side note: darn, jordan's sooooooo good!

at the piano break now, excellent stuff so far. Just off the bass solo, the guitar's a bit too low in the mix to comment on. About 5.10 i think you hold a chord on, where JP changes, you might want to look at that. 5.40 ish you need to look at the rhythm of the solo, nicely played though.

Again, the rhythm before going back into the theme is a bit different, nice, but if you're going to change it from the original you need to do it with a bit more confidence and obviousness otherwise it just sounds like mistakes. Good chromatic work at the end, you might want to play slightly different chords in the ragtime theme though.

Gabriel, I'm no musician, but I am a DT fan, and your U.M. sounded great!!! Wow! Fantastic :)

ToneCapone, I think it's the stupidest bitchfest I've ever heard. If ppl. are so friggin sensitive that they are offended by something like that - I mean they just can't go on living with the 10 Commandments on display in a public building and they can't just ignore it- they should move to another place. It's the 10 Commandments for Pete's sake! There are homeless ppl., rapes, murders, all sorts of horrible things, but what sticks up these ppls. asses is the 10 Commandments on a slab in a public place. Their priorites are a bit askew if you ask me. Another group of ppl. could say they are offended by all the crosses outside the churches and want to take them down too. Another group is offended by pink Converse sneakers and wants them outlawed. It's just retarded. As for taking God off the American dollar bill, that's never going to happen.

Ga60: Nice man, and the only thing I was thinking was the drums, keys and recording dont do it justice....Very nice technique there man (I need to get LTE stuff NOW, lol!!)....And you do that on a Joe Perry Les Paul!?!?....Great playing man!! Hey, btw, IUMA is getting tricky!!....That vodafone ad comes on (by itself) and scared the F*CK out of me!!!!....lol ;-)

Renecas: Thank's for sharing that story with us!!....lol, that was a great way to get JOE to play!!

Wow! I'm so Happy! lol... I went and I bought this month's edition of Guitar One, w/ Jeff Beck and BB King. I had sent a question concerning pitch axis to the magazine awhile ago... Check the "Noise and Feedback: Your Questions Answered" section of that magazine, the 2nd message (from me, Mike Cheatley)..:)!! Hahaha, they published my question and answered it!! How freakin' cool is that?? It makes references to Joe, as I was planning it... they even put an example in it!

I think this was the first time my name has been in a huge Guitar Magazine... or any for that matter! lol... what a day! Hopefully, someone will buy some Joe albums because of that!

trutina - lol... sanity.. I think I was insane to start this thing... writing this stuff is insanely difficult at times... the programing and recording process in insanely confusing so in the fleeting moments that I totally understand what's going on something cool happens... playing this stuff is insanely difficult all the time.. mixing it would drive any good sound engineer insane.. the thought of putting a band together [which I am] and doing this live is totally insane [but what the heck].. I was kinda hoping that all this insanity would start mixing together and cancel each other out.. for me to assume that this would all be in anti-phase shows that I am not only insane but stupid.. it all appears to be in-phase therefore all these insanity waves are adding and multiplying.. the stupid part is that I was too stupid to notice how insane I was becoming before being stupid enough to add something additional and insane to my stupid list of insanely stupid things to do..

funny you mention the album cover.. Barry and I pondered that one even before the first track was written...
think of the themes... dramatic art set to music.. the title: Shredz at an Exhibition...
there can be only one cover
an RG headstock pushed through the face of the Mona Lisa from behind...

no respect for fine art with no class and no style

Last night I cut the first rhythm guitar track [on Envy] for the Raft..
the track works well.. it's not the prettiest or tidiest playing I've ever done but I like it.. it's nice and and aggressive
I did toy with the idea of making everything really tight and crisp.. reduce the reverb, heavy gating and compression etc.. It had that Vai / Petrucci tone.. at first I though that this was the way to go.. the Vai.com / Petrucci.com shredders would love it... total accuracy and all that bullshit.. then it hit me...
it sounded really machine type accurate.. not a note, click or bump out of place..
and it sounded lifeless and bland...
those tones just don't suit my music or my playing style..
so I went back to my regular riff tones, turned down the technique, turned up the volume and played like I meant it rather than like a precision engineering project in a sterile lab..
the whole thing transformed there and then..
yeah.. the timing is not 100% tight down to the last 1/1,000 of a second.. yeah.. there are some small moments of 'spillage' from strings etc sounding that shouldn't...
yeah.. it's totally organic sounding and yeah... it seriously kicks...

I'm not really into this total accurate shite 'cos it don't interest me.. I don't know why I wasted the hours doing it..

All this reminds me of some advice I gave someone long ago [in here I think]...

"if the song is crap and has no vibes it don't matter how accurately you play it... accuracy and the study of it is important but it is a double edged sword.. it's a trap too.. you can spend a lifetime working on playing scales etc with increadible precision and never write a song or play a gig.. you can run the risk of not working on the creative aspects of musicianship.. the result is a bland, inispiring, poorly writen, lifeless, but increadibley well perform piece of music.."

so I listened to my own advice [for once]..
and now we are back to glooves off, eye gouge, nose bleed rock'n'roll [with orchestra and choir] performed by someone that sounds like he is right on the ragged edge and well into the red line... none of this pretty bullshit..

Ga6e - I sent you an e-mail..... I will get these CD's to you... I am determined..

better late than never I guess...

I'll have a pint of what they're drinking.. I'd really enjoy having my common sense getting that scrambled..

sorry about the double post..

sorry about the tripple post..

all T2J CDers jon luini sent me this email:

"i talked to mick today and mentioned the t2j thing and he said he'd try to reply shortly.

in case he doesn't, the short version is that since you aren't using any joe tracks, there's no publishing stuff that needs to happen, so you should do it on your own and if you want to use an image of joe, it's possible, but it'd have to be seen and approved first. i suggest mailing mick the potential covers for him to check out."

hope thats helpful

crushing day That sounds really cool.

Hello Satch You're really the greatest electric guitar virtuoso... But I have one great wish: Please come to europe!!!!!!!!! It's my greatest dream!!!