Hi everyone. I'm sorry for putting this in a post that's separate from my other comments, but this a completely different topic. I hope everyone understands. I finally got around to typing up my thoughts about Strange Beautiful Music. The entire thing would make one HUGE post. And since I'd rather not see whether or not there is a post length restriction here on Talk To Joe (LOL), I thought I would break up the review into pieces and post one each day. That way there will be more time for people to read everything. Maybe we can get some good SBM discussions going. So here is the first little bit about my experience buying the record as well as what I think about the packaging. I'll go through the album song by song, posting my thoughts about one song each night at around midnight Pacific Time. I'll also include the track times of the parts that I think are really cool. It'd be nice if other people here could do the same thing, in response to my posts. So I'll start with Oriental Melody later tonight...and I guess I'll finish up in about two weeks. But right now, here's some basic stuff...

It took me forever to find Strange Beautiful Music. I looked at a local music store, as well as Target...then I called Circuit City and Best Buy. None of these places had it... I called Tower Records next...they had it so that's where I bought it. Even though it took forever to find it, it was DEFINITELY worth the hours of visiting other stores. It kinda sucks though...next time I think I'm just going to buy it online. That way I won't have to deal with driving all over town to find a copy.

Case / Artwork / Etc. - I think it's really cool. I love the color scheme. Sometimes I think it would've been better if the inside was full of bright colors (blue, green, yellow, red, etc.) to make up for the black / white / gray outside. Although with it the way it is now, everything is the same in the packaging and you have to listen to the music to find (hear) the different colors. It's kinda neat if you think of it that way.

Mud Grunt - I actually got lucky... The CD had a $18.99 sticker price, but it was on sale for $13.99. That's about what it sold on amazon.com, without shipping...right? Still...I'd rather pay a little extra and know that I wouldn't have to worry about anything. So I'll go with amazon.com next time.

PSUKCAT13 - SBM is at the top of my list of favorite Satriani albums. And know what? I honestly think it'll stay there...yes, it's THAT good. :-)

Lowend - List yourself as attending your show on the tour page and you might win backstage passes.

wiser1 - I've had to buy tickets without presales before. I know exactly what it's like. It stinks sometimes, but hey, at least you'll be able to go to the show. As far as accusing me of kissing butt and brown-nosing to get backstage passes, that's just ridiculous. I have the same odds as anyone else that uses the backstage pass contest. And go read some of my other posts...I've pointed out quite a few things that should be changed on the site. There is a difference between telling someone to "prepare to be flamed" and using constructive criticism to point out flaws. Constructive criticism is not brown-nosing by any means.

Sorry for making a lot of posts tonight, but here's the first part of my SBM review...

Oriental Melody - This song is very different for Joe. After listening to it once I thought it was just ok... But I like it more and more each time I hear it. My favorite part is from 1:14-1:38.

Kinda a crummy "review", but hey. ;-) Some of the ones for the other songs are better. Does anyone else have any comments or favorite moments in this song?

Belly Dancer will follow tomorrow night.

I haven't read all of the messages here, so I'm sorry if this was already mentioned...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/773340.asp?0cm=c10&cp1=1

LOS ANGELES, June 27 — John Entwistle, bassist for the rock group The Who, died Thursday in Las Vegas shortly before the group was scheduled to begin a concert tour, according to the Clark County Coroner’s office in Las Vegas. He was 57 years old.

Hi everyone. I just thought I'd say hey to all of the new members that have stopped by...we've gained about 100 since SBM came out. That's pretty cool. :-)

jofdm - I got your email...I've been busy lately, but I'll try to write back later tonight.

cart boy - Slick is not on any version of SBM.

stu hacking / Marcia - There are two versions. The Japan version has The Eight Steps, and the other version has no extras.

wiser1 - Joe hasn't sold out to SFX/CCE. They are a HUGE company that has a near monopoly over the entire music industry. They own so many venues and radio stations that artists are just about forced to play at CC venues in order to get the airplay they need to sell albums. Go to http://www.clearchannelsucks.org/ if you want more info about that. About your other post... What merchandise link are you talking about? Is it the one for the www.satriani.com tshirt? That one hasn't worked for years because the tshirt company went out of business. It was mentioned several times since it happened. Also...the reason you're getting such a negative reaction here is due to the way you say what you say. There's a saying, I think it's "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.", and it really fits here. I don't want to fight / argue with you, but please try to be a little nicer on here.

drafter37 - I'd try to clean it...get some water and a cloth and see if you can make it work. If not, there are CD resurfacing tools that you can buy. They're basically a clamp that you put the CD in. You turn the handle, and it scrapes the outermost layer off of the bottom of the CD, effectively removing all of the scratches.

mrpool02 - Joe and Dream Theater are both playing 90 minute sets, regardless of who is closing each show.

wench - Bonus tracks are put on international versions because in foreign countries (Japan, for example), it's cheaper for them to buy the version imported from the USA instead of the local version. By putting bonus tracks on the local versions, people have a reason to buy that one instead of the USA one.

jonno - I think Steve is getting ready to work on his new album, so he won't be touring for a while. Once a tour is set up, I'm sure his website http://www.vai.com/ will have the dates.

Plum Loco - Congrats on the house! :-)

Ya Yo Gakk - The listening party only streamed for 48 hours...so you're outta luck now. Sorry. :-(

Ga6o - Use the "mark read" feature on the most recent post that you've read and you won't have that problem in the future.

Here's the next part of my "review"...just a few comments on Belly Dancer. I only had two or three people reply to me last time... Is this a good idea or does it suck? ;-)

Belly Dancer - This is a great song...definately one of my favorites on the album. I love the "free for all" ending...it's really different and sounds so spontaneous. It would be cool to see Satch do things like this more often in his music. I love the "Satch Boogie" tapping with the backwards drums as well. My favorite part is the jam at the end, from 2:59-4:42. I especially love what the bass and rhythm guitars are doing.

Come on everyone, what are your favorite things about this song?

drafter37 - I found a link for one of those CD resurfacing things... Go to http://store.yahoo.com/herrington-catalog/a231.html and you can see it. It works for everything...I have a friend that uses this to fix his Playstation 2 games.

Thanks for all of the replies about the songs, everyone. I know my "reviews" aren't the best...I don't know much about theory, etc... But the main thing I wanted to do was to generate some discussion. So this is really cool. :-)

shell - I never thought of Mind Storm from the borg point of view...but it does fit. Thanks for the thought.

ethn - You listed You Saved My Life, Chords Of Life, and New Last Jam as your least favorites from SBM. Those three are definately favorites for me...what don't you like about them?

Prog X - You can hit return between different parts of your posts now, to insert spaces. Hehe...

gruskada - LOL at the guitars...are they prototypes for the new JS3000?

cabrao - Joe isn't going to Washington this time around...sorry.

selphm - I think it's easier to do a longer stretch between the index and middle fingers, and then the pinky finger, instead of doing the index/ring/pinky thing. It's just preference, but I do think the way I described will be easier for you in the long run.

Harpo2002 - JS and DT will each play 90 minute sets.

The Forgotten Part 2 - I think EOC received MUCH MORE criticism than this album is getting. :-)

gruskada - I think the opening to Raspberry Jam Delta V would make a good cell phone ring, if you could figure it out.

Here we are...part three:

Starry Night - I wasn't too sure about this one when I first heard it. Now that I've listened to the rest of the album, though, I think it's a great choice for a single. I like the bit from 1:44-2:16...it reminds me of friends from the LISF show that I attended. It appears again from 2:39-2:47. I love Joe's tone on this song...nice and bluesy. There are some cool fills in here as well, but I won't list them all. :-)

Well...the tour is just about ready to start. Can someone plan on writing down the set list of the first show, to post here? Thanks...

atomiq - Congrats on winning an aftershow pass.

webmaster - Click the "a" next to the first show and look at the aftershow pass winners. Your dyslexic numbering system (2, 3, 1) is very creative, but it's confusing. ;-)

michelle - You are insane.

Ocel01 - Joe's settings are 9 o'clock, 5 o'clock, and 2 o'clock for the DS-1.

Damn Straight - A "Talk To Austin" site? I totally agree with you and support you now!

ethn - Yeah, my favorite song is Why. So you are right, we do agree on some things. I just think it's weird how we're so far apart on some other songs. LOL. That's the cool thing about Joe, though...he has a lot of very different music...everyone can find something that they like.

evbro - How can you have nothing to say about The Traveler!?!?!? Come on...the wah is awesome. :-)

Hi everyone... I'm trying to think of a cool new user name... Any ideas? I thought of "StrangeBeautifulStoooer", but that's too long...LOL. It's really cool though...it fits with the Stu theme that I have now, as well as the Strange Beautiful Tour. Oh well. Maybe I'll just settle on "SBM Stoooer".

ethn - You emailed me about that a while ago...sorry for never getting back to you. Folsom is about 30 minutes or so from Sacramento. It'd be cool to jam with you sometime, but I'm only here for the summer...I go to school down in Long Beach.

Harald - Bonus tracks are on foreign releases so people in other countries buy those versions instead of the less-expensive US versions.

evbro - Ok, so The Traveler is majestic. I can deal with that. :-) And I agree...it is WAY too hard to only pick 32 songs. And it's even harder knowing that Joe is only going to play about 15-20.

pakihaki - It's so cool that you get to meet Joe. I hope all goes well.

alien32 / PSUKAT13 - Those are cool nickname ideas, but they're all too long...hehe. Oh well.

drafter37 - I'm not a huge soccer fan, but I think the World Cup is a lot of fun to watch. It's much better than MLS.

Discostew - Cool nickname. :-)

It's quiet here tonight. Here's the next part of my SBM review...

Chords Of Life - I think this is my favorite song on the album. It's great to hear some acoustic stuff from Joe. I'd love to eventually hear a whole acoustic album, but this is cool for now. I like how it builds up and then slows back down througout. Light and shade, in a sense...kinda like the whole Led Zeppelin thing. My favorite part is, of course, the entire solo from 1:17-2:05. ;-) I know this will be the one spot on the CD that will ALWAYS get turned up louder.

Does anyone else have comments about this song?

njbeast - The Part 1 and Part 2 thing that Joe uses on some songs sounds to me like a way to separate introductions from the rest of a song, while keeping the same title. If you're asking why he has a "Power Cosmic" and a "Power Cosmic 2000", it's because the second one is a completely different take on the original idea...

Mr Nick - That sounds cool...now I need a cell phone. Haha...

Master Yoda - Vincent Van Gogh did Starry Night originally...hehe.

death cube k / Ya Yo Gakk / Bullster - Congratulations on the first "What the f...?"-peat.

stu hacking - If I changed my nickname to Stu Hamm I would confuse everyone on this site...haha.

Vetteguy43 - According to someone's post from a while ago, the acoustic chords in Chords Of Life are: Gm, F, Eb, Dm, and Cm. Listen to the track...you double some of them, but you basically go down and up in this same order...

Everyone that's talking about EOC - I agree...Champagne? is probably my favorite song. Then there's Borg Sex, Devil's Slide, Clouds Race Across The Sky, Until We Say Goodbye, and Attack.

ROVER - Go to the tour page and click the "a" next to your gig. You can add yourself from there.

Ya Yo Gakk - Have you ever been to Knott's Berry Farm? Montezooma's Revenge goes from 0-60mph in like 5 seconds. That's probably my favorite roller coaster.

Here's part 5...

Mind Storm - I love it. This was the first new song title that we knew of, and I think it has definately lived up to all of the hype it got on this site. I was a little worried about what Joe might do with a seven string guitar...I didn't know whether or not I would like it. Of course Joe did not disappoint. I like a lot of little things about the song, such as the guitar fill from 2:45-2:49. Of course the rest of it rocks too. :-)

Any comments?

Well...the first show should be done by now. It's after 5:00 pm here in CA... England is 8 hours ahead of us, so it's 1:00 am there. The show was farther east than that so it should have ended a while ago. Where are the reviews? ;-)

Master Yoda - Santo And Johnny did Sleep Walk originally.

Ya Yo Gakk - Have fun camping.

Zsolt77 - I don't know if the song is connected to the painting. One of the aftershow winners should ask Joe.

Mr Nick - Actually, Joe visits the page more when he's on tour. During the G3 tour, he posted just about every night at 2:00 am or so, when he was on the bus going to the next gig.

gurus - I think that's a problem with the promoter...evil Clear Channel.

JS Clone 1 - Yeah, that part is cool. It's a shame Champagne? was never done live. I think Stu could've done an awesome job with the funky bass part.

webmaster - I tried to get the Oriental Melody and Starry Night downloads. I made it to the Sony page where I have to click "download", but I get an error message on the next page. It was "There was an error in retrieving the requested track license. "... What's that mean? Did this happen to anyone else?

Here's part 6...

Sleep Walk - This is an interesting choice for a cover. It's very different for Satch. The original isn't one of my favorite songs, but Joe certainly does a good job with it. My favorite parts here, like in Mind Storm, are the little bits like 1:11-1:23.

Any other comments?

pakihaki - I had a little trouble reading your post... Did you say Joe played Crushing Day and I Believe? I love I Believe...I hope he does it here in the US. It'd be cool if you could write a review for the tour page and include a set list. Thanks. :-)

climber - Post it here when you figure parts of it out...I'm sure we can help with parts you might not know.

atomiq - Try to post the review again. Did you write down the set list?

sebboi98661 - I don't think Joe will make it to the Northwest this time around...sorry.