Mahavishnu Brian, nice to meet you both too, and for sure, lets catch the next Portland show together, maybe some other t2j'ers can join us....blue buffalo, civgeek?? Chris won't make the fall shows if it's 21+, but for G3 09 he will!! He hits the magic number next February, lol! He doesn't care about it being a legal drinking age, just that it means he can see all the Joe-shows :)

Jamie, thanks....we did have a good time there, Chris most especially...he got to go home with a new Boss GT-10 pedal fer pete's sake.... $$$$$, lol...spent all his monies for the next few months he did!

Joe Satrini, thanks, I'm considering it...but mckenna already said he's too scared of me so he won't be much help while I'm there, if I go.

Austin, yeah, maybe....it's a little scary to think of traveling that far alone and I'd really like my friend to go with me, she just may not be able to :((( It's a hard decision to make, for many reasons. But if I do go, then I'm doing both shows...that's a long way to go for just one, when the next night is just "down the road".....a few hours, lol....I've heard enough bus stories from mckenna though, so that's kinda scary...however, I won't be riding the bus drunk so that might make a difference? LOL!!! Guess I wouldn't pass out and end up somewhere strange, or sleeping in a ditch ;)

Blue Buffalo...Freddie....I thank you so much for your email, you said some very thought-provoking things in it....I'll answer you later today. Thanks for caring enough to write me :)

Satriella Sandy, hope you're hanging in, it sounds like you're making plans, and that's good...having something to do rather than just sitting and crying or feeling miserable is always better...a plan of action. Keep checking in here as you can, you know we'll all be thinking of you.

Slansh

&It could sound weird to people who know me, & know how much decisive for me are guys like joe, srv, evh, malmsteen, fripp, meola & above all, Beck... it could sound weird that this Frank Zappa playing is one of my fav guitar rock playing ever.. but it is.

The Shut Up is all improvisation, raw, visceral, inspired, & in connection with drums.

& i will add this piece of improvisation

after.. Zappa has always said that he wasn't a virtuoso. Zappa has composed more than 65 creative albums with a small 50 years life. When you get 65 creative albums to compose, you don't get time for virtuosity, & his poorest aspect, the shredding.

The shredding.. as Joe says, shred is easy... talking on the very hard worker level, of course.

Guitar shredding, tool for some, egotic disease for others, is a detail of history of music.

& to be clear, to me, This is not guitar shredding.. this is guitar saved from guitar shred's dead end

Mark : cool.

Maritime : The style is by definitiion the difference... lack of style, in all the domains, is a general likeness.

mikesb:bwahaha

Maritime : agreed.. & above all, "Emotional expression over technics".. that's why to me, Beck is all right.

Edit : Sometime, i go back to Django Reinhardt, & realize how much he's by his perfect expressive virtuoso aspect, the best, if there's a best. You listen to him, & simply forget 90% of all the others come after him until this day.. music is hard, very hard.

__________________________________

Maritime : as already said here, Beck guitar technic is a monster thing, especially the way he plays tremolo arm.. but all with him is under the control of an evolutive feeling.. the genius.

somewhere along the line the word techique became associated with those that only play fast, you also need amazing technique t play slow which converts t emotional expression, however its true 95% of the peeps including pros i,ve heard on you tube cant bend a string t pitch & add various types of vibrato....now thats shockin!

My 2¢ on the whole Zappa thing... let me start by saying that I listened to nothing but Frank for almost a whole decade, Zappa only for almost 10 years, I know his stuff upside down. IMHO he is one of the most gifted musicians of our time, not only musically but spiritually as well. He taught me that no can offend me unless I choose to be offended, that changed my life. Nobody is off limits to Frank, he takes pot-shots at everyone, because after all we are ALL "dumb all over" (& maybe even a little ugly on the side?). He exposed stupidity wherever it tried to hide, even in places no one else ever thought to look. His best quote ever is as follows: "Scientists believe that the world is composed mainly of hydrogen because in their opinion, it is the most abundant element. I however, feel the earth is composed mainly of stupidity, because it is more abundant than hydrogen."

His guitar playing is still unequaled. Only Dweezil sounds even remotely like his Dad used to. Frank's tone was monumental, nobody can deny that. If you get a chance to see the Zappa Plays Zappa tour (seen it twice, going again this Summer!) check it out. Some of the best music you're ever going to hear performed by the best band you've probably never heard in your life (yeah, cheap pun intended!) so do yaselfs a favum peoples.. don't miss it!

You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream. -FZ

You will know when you are TRULY a Zappa fan when you can actually sit down & listen to Thing-Fish and REALLY enjoy it. That' takes some getting used to, to be sure.

My personal favorite stuff is off of Shut Up'N Play Yer Guitar, the song "five-five-FIVE" is a brutal favorite. Also, most of the album Läther is amazing.

My last point is just to reiterate what was said by someone else, Zappa almost NEVER performed anything in the studio, he used the studio to chop apart live stuff and put it back together again, somehting like %90 of what he released on albums is actually live recordings, with the exception of albums like Jazz From Hell where there is a lot of syncalvier compositions, done in the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen.

One last thing, if you don't know where my knickname comes from check out these lyrics and see if you can figure it out.

OR... watch the "video" here

Slan... still have to train several years... & then, i could sit on the toilet..

For Zenfish....

chelle, lookit dis..... Musterion at GC Clackamas :) The kid right in the middle of the video, in the red t-shirt...he's the one who got to buy the cab Joe played on...I'm sitting directly in front of him, and Chris is right next to me, just over the red t-shirt's right shoulder....you can even see Chris holding up my cell phone at a couple of points in the video...that was YOU on the other end, LOL!! So now you have video to go with the audio you got to listen to :)))

here's another one, kind of Joe's intro to the night

Well geez, there's so many good videos over at youtube of the GC appearances....this guy has quite a few, here's the first of many this guy did in San Fran

Roy : Of course

Joe, Just wanted to thank you for a chance to meet you for the second time in Portland Oregon at the Clackamas Guitar center! I am proud and honored to be one of your many fans! Is there a tour in the works for the USA and when will you be by Portland Oregon agian? Thanks agian Joe!

Fan For Life!

Hey, folks. here's my Fuzz news article on the Seattle Satriani clinic yesterday. Check it out! :)