MissouriPicker

GC is vastly different than it was several years ago. There was a time I had a high opinion of them. My local GC and its owner ( Musician’s Friend warehouse and retail store) were very close to my location. Both places employed guys/gals covered in tattoos and Mohawk haircuts who knew everything about musical instruments. They could talk Beatles, Cash, Sinatra, Baez,, opera, folk, hillbilly music,etc. They were real musicians. Today,the warehouse outlet is gone and the GC store employees are teenyboppers who need help using the cash register. They can’t answer your questions, so you don’t ask and eventually don’t go there. The problems at the top have run to the bottom. Places like Wildwood Guitars put GC to shame. Sorry to see it failing so badly, but everything comes to an end.

So far today I’m working very hard at doing as little as possible. So long as my wife doesn’t interrupt me I’ll get it done.

GAS doesn't disappear. It just hides for a while. I recently got a new J200. Really fits in nicely with what I do. I'd been "GASSING" for one for the last several years. I needed one. I'm very happy I've got it, along with my other previously gassed-for Gibsons. However, just yesterday I read a thread in here about a Gibson Firebird.......and that reminded me that I've often thought about a Firebird. Now I'm thinking about it more. You might buy a new guitar or you might buy a bottle of BEANO or you might buy both, but the GAS will return.

Damn, damn, damn! What the hell is this?

Super guitar! You’re going to love it.

Over the last couple days i’ve been playing Mr. Bojangles a lot. It’s just an instrumental version I figured-out 2-3 years ago and with the passing of Jerry Jeff Walker it seems the right thing to do.

Another icon gone. Another one of those folks who didn’t follow the in crowd. He and a group of contemporaries didn’t jump on the rock-and-roll train. The stayed who they were.

I can completely identify with trying to put too much detail in a song. I think when we have experienced and/or know a lot of details about a particular event we want to express it all when we write about it, because we feel it’s important. That’s fine if we’re writing a novel, but not if we’re writing a song. I think in a song we have to let the listener use their imagination and fill-in some blanks. Otherwise we have a very long song. I know Dylan and occasionally Lightfoot write some really long tunes, but even then the song can lose the listener. If the second verse is the one about Kennedy heading to Chicago, that verse does sound to be just a little bit rushed. In my view, I don’t think the part about Chicago is relevant to the song’s theme and importance. Anyways, I really like this kind of music.

Thanks for all the kind words. This song tends to be about a cousin of mine who drifted away from the family back in the late 60’s. Aside from seeing him at a few funerals, most of us had little contact with him. Don’t know where he is or what happened to him.>..........It’s true that a guitar can inspire you to write. Playing the J200 the last several days led me to new lines, melodies and directions. All my guitars can inspire me. This time it’s the J200.

Truly awesome! You will be very satisfied.

Sorry to be a little late to this, David. I really like the lyrics. Great rendition of a tragic and historic event. Both versions are good, but I think the second grabs my attention more. While the fingerpicking version is sweet and very folksy, I think the second version adds a tenseness, despair, and seriousness to the event.....Just my view, but imagine Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” being fingerpicked instead of the Doomsday background in the recording. The lyrics are the same, but the atmosphere created by the musical accompaniment gives a different feeling to the song. I like your mostly strummed version. For me, it adds to the seriousness of an already tragic event.

During all this lockdown crap I've been working on songs. Stealing ideas and lines from old song I never completed and finding places for them to fit by kind of going a different direction. Anyway, this is called "Mama." Recorded straight in to my IPAD. MAMA.........written by Larry Garrett Ma(C9)ma, I left at an early (Am) age. (C) I guess, just a young man’s (Dm)rage. (G) (F) You and daddy begged me to stay, (C)But I had to do things my own way. (G) Mama, my pride took center (C) stage. Mama, I rarely came back home. Hardly ever called you on the phone. And I wasn’t there when Daddy died. Who’d of believed my excuses and lies? Mama, it was easier to roam. CHORUS....... (Dm) Mama, it’s twenty years since Daddy (C) died, and (G) now again you’re at (C) his side. And (Dm) Mama, I’m feelin’ (Am) blue. (G) Wish I’d spent more time with (Em) Daddy and (C) you. Instrumental...... Daddy used to say, “Son, you can always come back home.” Mama, but it’s been so damn long. Mama, and I’ve been so damn wrong. But, what do you do with guys like me? I create my own misery. Mama, time for me to move along. CHORUS........

Another icon gone from an iconic era.

Had some unexpected quiet time this afternoon, so I did some video on my J200.

Played my regular Wednesday gig today. Pretty nice out on the patio. They’re hoping the county allows them to go to “full seating” in a few weeks. I’ll go back inside then. Also, heard from Caribou coffee yesterday. They’ve had people ask when the Friday music is coming back. They said they can’t give me a definite date yet, but they wanted me know they’re working on something. Good news all around! ......AND, I’m hoping for some time soon to actually do some recording with my new J200. Haven’t gigged with it yet. Waiting until I’m inside.

I found the first Dune interesting in the fact that it wasn’t another Star Wars, which it followed after. I’d already read the book several years before, so it was easier to follow the involved story and different characters. I think at the time a lot of folks were expecting something similar to Star Wars: a continuous line of fast space ships, blazing lasers, strange creatures and explosions. Dune was very different. It was dark and moody with music that matched. It was long and usually moved slowly as it tried (sometimes succeeding and other times failing) to develop and merge the various characters and storylines. Really not a movie to hold the interest of kids, like Star Wars. Star Wars was a fun movie while Dune was kind of dark and sinister. Anyway, I like the story around the book and I hope the new Dune fills-in some of the holes the first Dune failed to do. Looking-forward to seeing it.

That is drop-dead gorgeous. I wish you the very best of luck with it.....It would look even cooler with a Gibson in the passenger seat.

With all the gigs I’ve lost because of the pandemic, I figure I’ve saved $1702.

I’ve got 8 Gibbys and none of them look like this. The OP’s post made me check the inside of my new J200 with a flashlight and mirror. It’s immaculate.

Today was a day of three 1hr. & 45min baseball games for our grandson (started at 8:00AM and last game ended at about 1:30PM. Then this evening we went to our granddaughter’s soft ball games. Fortunately, they lost the second game.....lol.....otherwise they’d still be playing the third game. I’m getting too old to burn the candle at both ends against the middle. That’s for people like Janis, Cash, and Jerry Lee.

Sweet-looking guitar. I think walnut has a kind of dark tone and I really like it.

Three years ago we stopped in Galena, Ill, on our way back from Wisconsin. Grant's Home and a real nice and historic strip downtown. They had this shop that sells nothing but hot sauce. Lots of free samples with warnings on many (Don't taste unless your wearing a diaper, This sauce cures death, Your hemmroids won't know what hit 'em, and so on. Real funny stuff). The heat level started at a mild level like you'd find in a grocery store and went-up to a nuclear reactor meltdown level. We bought a bottle for my son and his wife called The Rectum Reaper. On the bottle lid was a little doll of The Grim Reaper. All around the bottle were skulls. Anyway, he put it out with the chips at a Labor Day Party with no warnings and with other sauces around it and once you dipped a chip in it, that was all it took. You wouldn't go back to it a second time. It was seriously hot. And "Yes" on sugar. It does seem to give you a "stay of execution." We've laughed about that sauce many times and my son still has the bottle, but in all sincerity, some of these sauces are nothing to laugh at........Yet, they are fun to talk about if you're one of the survivors.

I like a wider nut width . All.my guitars are 1.75 or approaching it. It all depends on what feels good to the individual. ....4-5 years ago I bought a Luna guitar with horses galloping across the top. I thought it looked cool, and it did. The only thing that killed it for me was a very narrow neck. I returned it in a month to GC. It wasn’t a great guitar for tone, but I’d have kept it because of the horses if the nut had been wider......I make fewer fingerpicking mistakes with a wider nut.

Today was a real good day....l didn’t do a damn thing!