ovation1 - mail me specs. i'd love to get an update on the poll up :} use my personal email address if you can so i'll see it sooner.

Austin - yeah, features like that would be neat provided enough people set their preferences. we'll be sending out a newsletter about upcoming g3 (and some other) stuff and i'll push folks to do so there as well.

ovation1 - the main problem with putting together a webcast for G3 shows is that the coolest part of the show (the end-of-show jams) get into legal issues since they are cover tunes that each artist doesn't have rights to say can be webcast for free. it might not be *that* much money, but unfortunately the effort to make it all happen tends to often be too much trouble to overcome, esp when the webcasts are typically done for free. however, i have heard rumors that there may be some recording of a g3 show... and when that happens you never know, it might end up being released to the public. you can keep your fingers crossed on that one, and know that i'm always pushing for webcasts whenever possible :}

in other news, i just got back from the studio where joe and matt and jeff (and john cuniberti) are already at work laying down material for joe's new album! i was shooting some promo items for the web site and for upcoming other things which you'll be seeing shortly.

megaboyd - i did give thebone videos for two tunes to post on their site, but i don't think they ever got their mime types straightened out. perhaps i can make those available here at some point if nothing else comes together.

to answer the question about aftershow passes, yes we plan on doing aftershow pass giveaways as usual for all of the G3 shows.

i heard from mike (vai's webmaster) that they are looking to do some as well, though that might involve some coordination to avoid duplicates.

in case you missed the new news item, there is now an option for you to select your top 25 tracks for the essential JS. just select "Edit Essential JS Tracks" from the pulldown, or use the link from the news item.

since i know some people have specifics on which version (ie, electronic borg sex vs. live borg sex), you also select which album's version for songs which have more than one version available.

crushingday62 - i'm not including that since the quality isn't good enough that it'll actually be included. if you look through the (now-outdated) FAQ, joe replied to a question about it, saying "...the song "talk to me" couldn't be transfered because the original tape had some age related defects."

gregm - i've added the g3 songs into the list as well.

i sinatra - i've clarified some of those discepencies and anyone who selected the mispelled raspberry jam delta-v or the missing 'the' versions of mystical potato head groove thing or extremist will need to re-edit their lists to get them updated.

i just got confirmation from the booking agency that all of the presales that start tomorrow (atlanta, clearwater, west palm beach, pensacola) do not need passwords. just go to ticketmaster, search on G3 and you should be good to go.

hey everyone-- tons of thanks from Joe, Mick (Joe's mgr) and me to all who picked their top 25 tracks for the "Essential Joe Satriani" upcoming release. Joe found the fan responses so fascinating that he really got into checking them out and we should have final track information in the next week or so.

michelle - i post all presale passwords that i receive on the tour section, so that's your best bet. my sense has been that most of the time there aren't any, but perhaps before the presale date ticketmaster's site leads you to believe there might be one. to be clear, there is no direct relation to ticketmaster's site and satriani.com-- ie, they don't need your satriani.com password for anything.

the_whitterer - joe actually specifically prefers the free-for-all open forum. it makes it easier for him to just drop in an read what's going on and he likes the idea that it's like an open mic where anyone can hop on and talk. i'm thinking of perhaps creating a more involved forum that fans can use to just talk to each other, though. it's sorta low priority right now, though.

hey folks-- some quick answers to the last couple weeks of posts that included "webmaster" in 'em....

the "best of" release has been renamed slightly "The Electric Joe Satriani - An Anthology" and is still coming out. i can't give you the track listing yet, but suffice it to say, all of your input was heavily taken into account.

yes indeed, neal schon sat in on the 17th and is planning on being at detroit too, i believe. in concord on the 17th he was playing a new prototype guitar which you might eventually see in stores, btw.

yes, there were some glitches in the server the past week which have been resolved. y'all have been accessing the site a lot and it required some slight tuning-- still plenty of horsepower available :}

i've been on vacation the last week and will try to get to posting folks recent photos that have been sent.

i've also got a brand new G3 promo of joe, steve and yngwie that'll go up in the next day, so keep an eye on the site! it includes some snippets of performance that'll knock your socks off.

all aftershow pass drawing details are included when you sign up to attend a show.

all - as you've noticed by now, the g3 promo bit is now up-- check it out! if you have trouble with the realvideo version, try the quicktime as it can be downloaded and then played so it doesn't have to fit in realtime over your internet connection.

do the stu - i received the go-ahead from mgmt to go public with the info earlier. often times info is kept secret and usually we arrange it to go public on satriani.com first, but sometimes the big corporations slip things out first. the new comp album info is now in the discography section :}

aftershow passes - the #1 problem with aftershow pass winners is they fail to check their email before heading to the show and don't find out they won until they get back. let this be a reminder-- always check your email before you go! the #2 problem is people not having their full name in their satriani.com account profile. in those cases, galen just has to do the best he can and hope it works out. he always responds to email clarifying full names, so that's another thing to watch out for. alas, there's not much more we can do to make sure the winners get their passes-- you've gotta want them! :} that said, we've been able to be good about working something out for people who miss picking them up, so contact tourmanager@satriani.com if this is you.

phrydom - i haven't heard anything about the t2j cd in quite some time. each time this seems to happen, i reply to have someone contact me and i help get an answer from mick who's obviously busy out on the road and with new releases. the same folks who i've exchanged personal email with about it are always free to email me again if they're waiting on something.

do the stu - i verified that all remastering on the anthology release is new for every track, so it really should sound killer and a nice cohesive collection of tracks.

the formatting is that way sort of intentionally (it has to do with them having to be separate tables that are autosized). there are no sound samples for the not of this earth releases since i only recently got my hands on copies of that and haven't encoded them :}

lastly-- an unrelated disk driver lockup cause that downtime. things are stablized again but i'll likely be migrating the satch site to a new server all-the-same. :}

fused9 - i deleted the dup posts by them and dropped an email about etiquette of the site (ie, don't post the same message over and over)

Jake 49ers - there used to be a guitar gallery section but it is very outdated (it's in the archive vault somewhere) and the last time i talked to joe about doing a new one, he wasn't that into the idea. there are some other resources, like the rehearsal webcast video, which gives you a glimpse of his setup. i'll make a note to bring it up again in the future to see if we can make something happen.

howdy-- the drawing for the random winners from the poll will probably happen on the release day (18th), but might go a little later.

i don't have the specifics on the other 200, but my suspicion is that it'll be tied to the sony store sales. i'll let you know when i get specifics.