(slowly): ooooooo kkkkkkkk...

I think he wants to be your bodyguard Joe...

Chad...tsk tsk tsk...pay attention ya mo!!! LOL....Chris is good, thanks for asking, he's getting more settled in his new home, and is playing for a large crowd of peoples a week from Friday, about 300 or so I think, so he's very excited and madly practicing for it.

Ken, glad everything worked out so well and you and Cindy enjoyed the show, but...I knew u would...it's Joe, and it's Chickenfoot, LOL!

Miguel, congrats on your upcoming wedding. Hope you and your sweetheart have a lifetime of happiness.

New York - have a great time, they should be on stage right about now.........

Whew! What a day! Spent 6 1/2 hours at Stanford with my Steve from 7 to 1:30!! Early morning to early afternoon......first an MRI at the Imaging/Xray clinic, then a 2 hour break for a walk, coffee and shuttle bus ride.....tour of the campus! Then a 10:30 appointment with one of the surgeon's nurse practioners at the comprehensive epilepsy clinic and off to PRE-PRE OP consultation with a resident, a "blood vampire" (heehee!) and RN who did a short EKG with stickies and clamps......we finally got to leave Stanford and go get some lunch......then home to get my guitar and go to my guitar lesson with Ry! What a day.....but nothing compared with what's coming up Monday!

Michelle and Tracie--Hi to ya both. How are you doing?

Kayla--Congratulations on your graduation and generous scholarship! I hope you get good classes with the best instructors/professors. Also, I hope you keep your feet on the ground and your face up to the sky! Don't fool around like I did. I was so spaced out, spacey because I was such a wide-eyed dreamer.....I should have used my mentality and stayed in touch with reality.....I was so into music, music ,music---24/7.....sleepy half the time and on an emotional roller coaster.......AND I WAS STONE COLD SOBER! Those late nights studying didn't do it for me! I saw people passing out over their textbooks in the study rooms.....I was wide-eyed and my feet didn't touch the ground.....The truth was I didn't have it in me to concentrate on studying......I was off in a hundred different directions. What could I do for other people without thinking about myself! I guess what I'm trying to say is get your bearings, get grounded, know yourself as well as you can before you go out into the big, strange, shocking, surprising, puzzling world so you don't crash and burn like I did at San Jose State U!

Igneousiceman--You are rock solid man! I won't take you for granite.....You are growing into a fine, major musician....Please, keep at it!

Alan Mc---I love you man.....you are worthy of an internship with Joe or Steve Vai or Steve Morse or Andy Timmons or......any of the greats out there in gifted guitarland!!

Guitarvibes--Thanks for the revisit of Joe Satriani and Grace Potter in Cortez the Killer!!! I love it!

Love ya all.....following my first loves--compassion and empathy and how they flow naturely from Joe Satriani, the man! See, I'm luni enough sober!!! ;-)

Joe--You captured my recent feelings perfectly when you say in the song STRANGE..."All I ever think about is fearing fear itself. I wish I could unscrew my head and put it on a shelf." LOL! So perfect and so real! Thanks, man.

6 piece set of Pearl Professional DLX series been stored for 20 years. The wife was not hip on having them set up and I guess I never took the time either. The guitar was a little neater to keep sitting around. Since my youngest daughter has gotten interested, we have begun to accumulate quite an array of musical gear. So my soon to be 3 year old grandson is showing signs of interest in drums. He loves Neil Peart. When we are in my pickup he is sitting in his car seat listening with an intense look on his face. His legs and arms begin to move and his head gets that serious tilt. He says he wants to play like him. Sooo,..I have the excuse to get them out and set them up. I am in the process of buying more cymbals and a new double bass pedal. I am converting one of the upstairs rooms into a music room. I feel like a teenager again. Hey wait a minute...I am 43..ya think this could be a mid life crisis? Whatever it is I love it, and I am having fun.

I played 2 bass drums back in the day and have never used a double pedal. Just curious, has anyone had any experience with one? Does it feel natural?

Burly - Your grandson has great taste getting into Neil Peart so early in life!! Wow!! I played drums for 30 years and finally decided a few years ago to try guitar. Drums was so easy and natural for me, but I always loved watching guitar players. Guitar definitely does not come naturally for me!! Good lord!

Cube : yeap, a killer indeed. & Wooten & Smith. Nice trio. These guys know their shit. & a very good cd production.Thx for the link.

I always loved jazzrock era, i mean jazz with a rock tone. Especially Beck & Stanley Clarke. & now, i'm wondering what could become rockjazz, or the enigmatic swinghard, if you prefer. The work should start from the rythmical aspect.

Other point. I should come to Canada next year. At last.

Joe : Do you get some memory of this one?

I always found this piece very special in all your opus.

& if i check again that

I see clearly the ground of rockjazz.

Axeshredderj - sorry about that :0) always have to think about the time diff.

I'm playing catch-up...there were a few pages from around the time of last week's Chickenfoot gigs that I don't think I ever read. So...

gotta have Joe - Congrats on graduating, and it's very cool to hear that you got a scholarship as well...way to go! :-)

Where will you be going to college?

And to answer your question about turning someone on to Joe, I think you need to treat each case differently. I've made a few mixes for people and I think the song that appears most often is Friends, so if I had to pick one song I'd go with that.

If I think they'll like ballads I'll go with Love Thing or Thinking Of You early on. If they'll like rockers, I favor One Big Rush, The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing, or The Souls Of Distortion.

I'm still playing catch-up so I don't know if you've answered yet. But if not, what would you go with?

It's hard to find a middle ground, I guess. I wish magazines would look harder, though, because I think the "reviews" that appear in magazines like Rolling Stone are too focused on image and reaction of the masses as a result. And I think that has really hurt music.

burly - sawadee ka mate, wow you got a lot of equipment you could open your own pub :0), would be great to see the little guy bashing on the drums but maybe not so good for the ears?

mahavishnu - well you and Mrs M will have to come on the Aussie Foot tour and meet up with all of us! You've been everywhere else :0) would be great to meet some T2Jers if they travel out. Mind you, you will get to see them (again) before us .

Do The Stu - what area (field) do you want to work in next? TV, print, radio, internet, corporate?

Kayla - well done, great achievement! Are you going to see Chickenfoot on the next tour?

Glltzy?

Pip - I like your range of Satch shirts, very impressive.

Iggy - good luck with Biology, I am picking up the "Red Rocket" (my friend's cast-off hybrid bike) this weekend for a spin hopefully I'll go faster.

scoob- got your guitar back yet?

GG2 - hope it all went well with Steve, can you give me a rundown on how your lessons with Ry are going? I can hack out "Father and Son" this week and a lovely person recorded himself playing Ten Words for me in slow motion so I can keep learning it, how cool is that? Super coolies.