Powerslave214 - I've been a Strong Bad fan for quite a while, and from the looks of this search, it looks like there's quite a few others here as well:

http://www.satriani.com/perl/2002/ttj/main?thread=1&age=&author=&search_str=homestar&mpp=25

I'm proud to say I was the first to mention Homestar on this site. Yes, I want a cookie :)

Mikey Vai, Death Cube K - thanks for the feedback on the "song". It was an off the cuff thing, but now I'm thinking of extending it into a real song - thinking out a melody, using more than the pentatonic scale, adding some variations to the drums, adding a bridge, etc. Yep, I might be done in a month or so if I'm lucky!

I'm really liking Tracktion so far - it's so easy to use - also, the quality of the MIDI and free VSTs are incredible (the drums and bass in the test song are all MIDI, controlled by a cheap Yamaha keyboard).

I guess all this is probably old hat to everyone else, but my last recording experience was with an old tape-based Tascam 4 track, which I just recorded a few simple vocal and acoustic guitar tracks on.

Do The Stu - thanks for explaining what Joe's "that song is the best" message was about. That's cool that Joe's into it, too.

I found out about Homestar when a few friends and I were having drinks, and one guy (who is not known for his range of emotions) was telling us about the Strong Bad emails - as he was explaining one of them, he began laughing so hard that he started crying and talling in a high-pitched voice! I figured it had to be a good site...

Dave

My possibly realistic G3 suggestions:

Gary Hoey, John Petrucci, Ron Thal, Tony MacAlpine, Marty Friedman, Vernon Reid

Dave

TheBob - I totally forgot Petrucci already was in a G3. Now I'm trying to remember what the heck I was thinking not going to see that show!

espguitarlord - Kirk Hammet would be cool for G3. The "Joe and his students" tour!

trutina - You mean you're not Joe? :-) I can see your point about not wanting to interfere with Joe's release. Speaking of which, I'm surprised that all the autographed copies of ITLIS aren't sold out yet. Joe estimated he signed ~1,000 - 2,000 of them (which is quite a generous number for him to personally sign, but not that much considering how many fans he has).

I'm listening to Joe's catalogue on Rhapsody every day up until I get the new CD. Since Joe get's paid a little bit per listen, I figure I'm making him about 25 cents or so (seriously, anyone know the real figures on this?).

Home Studio Fanatic - the song sounds pretty good. One suggestion that may not be too difficult to implement - I kept waiting for the drums to do something more. Not necesarily speed up, but just to have more going on. You (or whoever the singer is) has a good voice, but sometimes it's difficult to make out what the words are, expecially at the end of some phrases in the beginning. In any case, good job.

Greyfox88 - Interesting question. Personally, I tend to play ENTIRELY different types of music on acoustic vs. electric. When I'm playing acoustic, I'm thinking more along the lines of Cat Stevens (simple chords/song structure, focusing mostly the lyrics). When I'm plugged in, I want to be Joe, John Christ (Danzig), Angus Young (AC/DC), and Ron Thal (Bumblefoot) (all at once preferably) - basically crazy but controlled hard rock. Honestly, though, I'm not all that skilled, and I think it definitely shows on the acoustic when I try more complex things.

Webmaster/Joe - thanks for the longer sound clips. My first impression when listening to them was that the new album is going to be heavier than I initially thought, which is fine by me.

Joeman9 - I wouldn't doubt it. I do know that it's not true that Thal plays with a thimble, though (a popular rumor).

Satrionick - thanks for the link to Hands in the Air. It sounds awesome - especially the solo at 2:07. This may be up there with War's solo (1:58), If's solo (3:38), and Time's (3:09) as some of the best guitar work ever recorded. Then again, maybe not - it's late here in DC and I've been listening to rough mixes of MY music all night :)

I just got the autographed CD in the mail. Thanks, Joe, for signing it (and putting some great music on it!), and to Sony for shipping it before it's release date!

I'm on my third listen so far, and I'm going to reserve (some) judgment for a later time, when I've digested the songs a bit better. Generally, with my favorite CDs, I hate them when I first get them (initially I thought I wasted my money with Vai's Passion & Warfare!). I think it's because it's such a new sound to me and/or too complex to fully appreciate on just a few listens. That wasn't the case with this CD, I think partially because I have Joe's style hardwired into my brain by this point.

Gnaahh is defintely the standout track. Like I said before about the sound clip, I love every detail of this song. I'm hearing new details on every listen (the gurgle sound at 1:28 is very cool). I am a bit dissapointed that Joe so blatently ripped himself off at 1:37 (compare to Borg Sex at 3:13). Not cool, but it's forgivable :-)

The solo on Hands In The Air is PERFECT.

Lifestyle seems pretty cool, but I'd hate to see Joe release it as a single, just because it's pretty standard blues with a lot of cliches and a complex solo, and there's way better stuff on the album (Gnaahh, Is There Love In Space?). Great sound on the vocals, though.

Is There Love In Space? is great. As I said before, there's four notes that initially reminded me of Until We Say Goodbye, but they're used in different parts of the phrase (which wasn't obvious on the clip), so I don't really hear it anymore. And I was being picky - it's just four notes. 2:02 is my favoite part - I love the clean guitar sound with no accompaniment. The solo is awesome - I'm glad Joe decided to go with the "crazy" one, as he explained in Guitar Player magazine. I love when a solo comes in playing notes you'd never expect to be played, but still fitting in to the rest of the song.

I don't like the Souls of Distortion yet. I think I will, though.

The voice is too distorted on I Like The Rain. I keep skipping that song.

Searching is a good example of Joe's real talent. Like Joe stated in Guitar Player magazine, it's a loose jam where Joe came up with an initial melody, then told the band to jam for a long time. It's amazing how cohesive and interesting the whole thing is. Like the band Tool, Joe knows how to keep your attention throughout a 10 minute song.

Bamboo is cool. I hear Ronnie Montrose all over it, but I seriously doubt Joe was trying to copy his style. And there's still a lot of unmistakable Joe in there. I like the backwards guitar - it doesn't sound like your typical backwards guitar just used for effect - it's more like how George Harrison used the technique (he worked it out so he knew exactly how it would sound when it was flipped around).

Joe - I tried to find some info on the "FM Distortion" pedal you mentioned on Rockline - not sure if these links help or not:

http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Acetone/FM_3_Fuzz_Master-01.html

http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/KOI_Super77/Sonic_Modded_FM4-01.html

Unfortuntaley, this is all I could find - there were some references to the Fulltone FD II (FM) "Flat Mids", but that sounds like it's a pretty popular pedal.

Dave

Joe - here's more info on the Acetone FuzzMaster - the first review mentions that there are also a few variations - FM-1 through FM-3.

http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Acetone/Fuzzmaster-01.html

I'm sure one of the reviewers on the page would be happy to sell the pedal to you, if this is what you're looking for.

Anyone want a free Gmail account? Make sure you post your email address so I know where to send it to (you can always remove the post later if you're concerned about having your email on a Web page)

Anway, I've got one invite left, and who better to give it to than a Satriani fan...

EDIT: Well, this is no fun. I think I'll donate it to the troops or something...

I may get more invites later if somebody wants one, though. This last one is really burning a hole in my pocket.

Wow, it's been a while since I posted last! I've been crazy busy at work. Anyway, the interview contest caught my attention. Now all I can think of is what questions I'd get to ask Joe if I won.

I also remembered that back in my college days I interviewed Ron Thal for my instrumental guitar radio show, but never got to air the recording, 'cause I got slammed with my senior class project. A few days ago I found the tape, and transcribed the whole thing, and put it on my Web site:

My Ron Thal interview

The interview is from 1997, before Thal got into the really funky fretless guitar work, so there's no questions about that. And now, listening to the interview again, I can think of tons more questions to ask him.

I remember doing this interview well - Thal seems like a very cool guy, and I remember feeling like would probably let me ask questions all day, even though he's obviously an extremely busy person.

Anyway, there's definitely a few nuggets of information I haven't read anywhere else (though I haven't looked in a while). I'd love to hear what you think.

Lots of familiar faces, uh, nick names, still around. I'll have to do some catching up...

Do The Stu - Congratulations! You totally deserved to win, considering how much time you've spent getting to know people here, welcoming newcomers, and answering people's questions on T2J. And your questions were good.

Enjoy the interview - I'm sure you'll do great.

Austin - nice job on the interview. You seemed a lot less nervous than I would have been, and you were able to get Joe to answer questions in "verbose mode," which is great. As you know, there are some painfully-short interviews with Joe out there. I think the difference is that he's got to feel comfortable with the interviewer, and the questions have to be good.

Joe, you've got some new competition:

http://www.me.gatech.edu/mechatronics_lab/Projects/Fall00/group3/photo.htm

sound clips: http://www.me.gatech.edu/mechatronics_lab/Projects/Fall00/group3/sound.htm

Chops, but not much stage presence :-)

I can't say I like the new album cover (it kind of looks like a rap album to me), but I'm sure I'll love the music, as long as it's not really a rap album...

"The scroll bar is on the right hand side of the browser window, boys."

I don't want to start a flame war here, so I'll be done with this after this post, but under this logic, I should just post random spam here, because if people don't wan to see it, they can just scroll through it.

Zinc Master - it appears that you are sincere about posting info for others to see. That's great. I would suggest, however, that you start your own blog. You can get a free one from http://blogger.com/ or http://wordpress.org/. Heck, I might even read it, but I don't want to see general news here, and certainly not so much of it.

Having said that, this is just my opinion. Perhaps other people get their interesting general news from Satriani.com courtesy of you? Maybe a good compromise would be to just link out to the article, like most blogs do anyway...

SupaaDave - thanks. I usually pop back and post in when a new album is in the works, at least, though I do always lurk quite a bit... BTW, is DoTheStu still around?