edit: i was in a bit of a slaggy mood for no known reason. so i'll delete all that and leave the good bits.

matrix fans on T2j there's a great new trailer out, the full theatrical one, along with several tv-spots. The trailer comes into action on Sunday for you Americans, but is available for download in Quicktime off http://www.whatisthematrix.com

Trutina - sounds like a good idea, definitely to get people started early rather than late.

Mr Nick, Neil Morgan, if you're reading....

You're both going to be at the ACM next year, is that right? Well I've firmly accpted Surrey University's offer to read music there (in Guildford also). So it's looking like there'll be a lot of us T2Jers in Guildford. Could even start a Joe tribute band.... hold that thought.

We demand fresh fruit!!!!!!

It's a good point actually, way back yonder in the days of old, Joe had to appear once in a while to give us a fresh page, now he doesn't... :( But fresh fruit would be great

And I wasn't particularly thinking of a G3.1 thing, more of the others sharing lead guitar duties and me... well, guitar tech if i'm lucky ;) or bass guitar if i'm not so fortunate.

mr nick - i'm going to surrey university (in guildford, near the cathedral).

I'm sure that if we wanted to, we could come up with a band (since you'd have all the ACM people to choose from and I could nab someone from the uni if necessary). We could get tonnes of people, like the polyphonic spree, only rocking.

Master yoda sir... tough luck on the gig. Sounds like most of my gigs. except if i'm singing there's not enough vox, and people have a weird thing about putting smoke machines around us. Maybe it's to hide the smell.

artanis - I shall add it to my seemingly endless list of CDs I want to listen to. Seriously, there are sooo many and I have no money.

greg m - fair enough, I just really like it. With that album he seems to be weird but in a musical way rather than in an odd-noise making way. That's the main thing I don't like about P & W. Fire Garden's got some awesome riffs (like in Little Alligator and err, can't remember it's name... the one after When I was a little boy)

Sorry if I'm really slow in answering posts at the moment, I'm up at my girlfriend's house in Wigan atm and can't get on the internet so much.

"jelly man..about vai and satch scales...vai usues more exotic scales and modes than satch..thats why his songs sound different and have a different flavour to them...satch tends to use the same modes and scales. "

well, this is a different matter to what I was talking about, but I don't know if that's true. I think Vai chops and changes more, his music modulates lots in general. Joe's does, I agree use the same modes a fair bit, but then he'll use someting really different. Vai seems to love mixolydian feels to his music.

So in some senses I agree, in that Steve Vai has used 16 / 24 frets to the octave guitars, and Joe does use the same scales a fair bit (at least in the rocky stuff). But I think that statement's a bit generalised, since Joe's music can use pretty exotic scales. (power cosmic, borg sex being good examples) Never mind that. I agree, but it's a touch generalised and not really what I was talking about :)

as for lord of karma's JS100 going out of tune and him regretting having bought it, I have some things to say. Sometimes I regret having bought it, and so I think to myself why did I choose it over the RG550? And there were two answers. It looked far nicer (and was lighter). And it had a sweet sweet neck that I much preferred. And since I've found that I never use the trem anyway, and have blocked it, it stays in tune very nicely and is a lot easier to mantain. And it's got a nice clean.

Master Yoda - Smoke machines just... well, they seem showy, particularly when used with bands like mine where I don't remember lyrics, and other people don't remember the order of the verse chorus, solo etc.

dark high - if you're only joking when you offer us peace and love, does that mean that you offer us war and hatred?

chris peters - you sure you want to go down that road? it seems to me that for 2000 you could get a pretty specced up pc/mac made ideal for the job that would be more upgradeable. For the all in one-box thing though, I don't know the high end ones, but Fostex seem to do pretty good boxes.

962- bass guitars- i was interested in the ergodyne basses and even ordered one, but the shop had run out, and there was all the new ibanez range coming out, that model was being dropped and stuff. If you want a really rocking bass alternative, look at the Yamaha range- I ended up with an RBX-775 and it rules. Really solid even though it's light. A lot easier for slapping and popping than the ergodynes, cause the strings aren't really close. I would really check it out. (John Myung of Dream Theater uses the bass guitar one up from that in the same range)

I can't believe that no-one's mentioned "my guitar wants to kill your mama"

greg m - sorry, must have missed it. My bass is a 5 string, the 5 on the end of RBX-775 means that- there's a 4 string model with 4 instead of the 5.

is anyone here into weebl and bob?

greg m - you can get both cds from amazon (UK). They're superb. The SFAM version isn't quite as long I seem to remember, and the original doesn't have the "shake that thing" sound. But they truly are amazing, get the first one for paradigm shift and universal mind, they're ball-bouncingly brilliant. And then you get Kindred Spirits, Chris and Kevin, Freedom of Speech, State of Grace *and* a 30 minute long jam. Superb.

And the second CD has Acid Rain, Biaxident (which is just awesome), Another Dimension, and the epic When the Water Breaks. Oh and the most sublime finishing track Hourglass (which actually helped me in aural the other day cause i knew what key the teacher was playing in , cause the first chord was Em in root position with G at the top, just the same...

paganini was actually more of a violin/viola virtuoso then a composer, yes he did write some nice caprices, but he i known foremost as a player, I believe. He commisioned Berlioz's Harold in Italy but never played it cause the viola part (written for him) was nowhere near flashy enough.

artanis I - i wasn't quite sure whether you were being sarcastic or not about the britney spears quote....

Anyway, pop is something that comes naturally to people of our generation, we've heard so much of it that that's how we think. I think writing a pop song in the first place certainly comes much much easier.

Now whether a good pop song or a good "artistic" piece is harder to write. I think merely the names of them given away. Why does "artistic" imply we're not talking about pop music anymore?

I don't think anyone can really say that writing something like Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky is easier than writing something in one key with a powerful chord progression and a catchy lyric. You've got to have real style to pull something polytonal off.

Anyway, enough of my bigoted views....

To the guys who are taking their a levels in UK, greg m, mr nick etc. (you were talkin about it 15 pages or so back....)

I'm handing in my two coursework compositions that are my composition portfolio today, so I hope Rubina or whatever has gone well..

Maths euugh - you think trying to get your head round the A level is hard? Try getting your head round P4 and P5 having done no homework all year. AAAAAAH! I've only got 5 maths exams (further maths, with one retake, and two done earlier this year), but they're darned tricky. Then I've got two music exams too (edexcel) which should be fun. Let's keep in touch about how the music stuff has gone.

artanis - i do know what you're saying, and I see what your point is, and i think it really depends on your feeling of how good a pop song has to be to be great in your estimation.

If you purely define greatness on how well something lasts, here's the problem. To right a good catchy tune which will be remembered I'd say is a lot easier than to write something with bare remnants of a tne, which spreads several different keys and is far less easy to sing or hum along to. That music could be the most wonderful listening experience but you could forget it easily as anything.

stu clone, trutina - great to hear more about Stravinsky from two more guitar people. I'd like to think we're in one of the most musical genres in existance at the moment (certainly that is pop oriented), so it's great to know other people like me have carried that musical love back to people like Stravinsky (or come forward in time from guys like Stravinsky). My faves: Pulcinella (for the vivo), Petrushka (for the opening) and Symphony of Psalms (for the Laudate Dominum and horses in third movement.

artanis - i'm just not quite sure where you say the benchmark for a great pop song is, give examples, then I'll know whether to disagree with you or not ;)

lord of karma - you'd say AWMAWY is Joe's most passionate solo? I've never really thought of it quite like that. I think Joe said he meant for the song to sound like a saxophone player doodling around, which if you watch bleeding gums murphy, could be pretty passionate I agree. I'd personally go for rubina instead (the LISF performance is truly brilliant).

OK, I was playing through the postman song (by me) with my drummer, excpet using the shrink 'n' grow section from fatal tragedy in the middle, instead of the much more simple solo section. suddenly three guys from college burst into the studio and start watching us. At that point the music teacher kicked them out, not liking audiences and suchlike. But i caught up with one of them later (who i happened to know) and found out that they loved dream theater and was amazed that a) anyone else in college knew dream theater and b) that anyone could actually play it. so that was quite encouraging. I'm amazed they actually recognised it- apparently the guy who i didn't know had just been listening to it on a cd player, turned it off, but carried on hearing it being played, then it twigged.