Bullshit - Fila Brazillia

I came across this article on guitar playing this morning. I think it's probably one of the greatest pieces of music writing I've ever read. I'm just going to repost the whole article here because everyone should read it.

How to play Guitar
by David Fair

I taught myself to play guitar. It's incredibly easy when you understand the science of it. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds. If you put your finger on the string farther out by the tuning end it makes a lower sound. If you want to play fast, move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower. That's all there is to it. You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that's pretty limiting. Even if you took a few years and learned all the chords you'd still have a limited number of options. If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day.

Traditionally, guitars have a fat string on the top and they get skinnier and skinnier as they go down. But the thing to remember is it's your guitar and you can put whatever you want on it. I like to put six different sized strings on it because that gives the most variety, but my brother used to put all of the same thickness on so he wouldn't have so much to worry about. What ever string he hit had to be the right one because they were all the same.

Tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion. If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong. But that's absurd. How could it be wrong? It's your guitar and you're the one playing it. It's completely up to you to decide how it should sound. In fact I don't tune by the sound at all. I wind the strings until they're all about the same tightness. I highly recommend electric guitars for a couple of reasons. First of all they don't depend on body resonating for the sound so it doesn't matter if you paint them. As also, if you put all the knobs on your amplifier on 10 you can get a much higher reaction to effort ratio with an electric guitar than you can with an acoustic. Just a tiny tap on the strings can rattle your windows, and when you slam the strings, with your amp on 10, you can strip the paint off the walls.

The first guitar I bought was a Silvertone. Later I bought a Fender Telecaster, but it really doesn't matter what kind you buy as long as the tuning pegs are on the end of the neck where they belong. A few years back someone came out with a guitar that tunes at the other end. I've never tried one. I guess they sound alright but they look ridiculous and I imagine you'd feel pretty foolish holding one. That would affect your playing. The idea isn't to feel foolish. The idea is to put a pick in one hand and a guitar in the other and with a tiny movement rule the world.

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YES!

Ketsueki - Kokeshi Doll

Finally started cleaning the living room. It's lookin' good but it's going to take more than a couple of days to get everything clean. The trick will be to make sure it stays clean until they get here.

This is really just a post for the band Kokeshi Doll. They are fucking rad and their live show will make your head explode. Talk about your power trios. Make sure you check out the mp3 section. I recommend going to the Japanese version of the site if you can because it has a shitload more links and information than the never-updated English section.

ROCK!

Curly Dub - Lee "Scratch" Perry & The Upsetters

Just about have the trip to China completely planned. The only thing I have left to do now is pick up my visa from the Embassy. Got the tickets, got the time off, etc. Can't wait to go. It's been too long since I've seen Seth! And a trip to China to boot!

Today I did this thing called "English Cafe" where I get paid ¥5000 to talk to people for two hours in a restaurant. My friend Takako's father owns the place so I got a call last night asking if I could fill in for someone today. Of course I jumped on the chance to make ¥5000 and get free coffee. And....

Oh Man. It was so worth it. And all because of one man. His real name? I have no idea. His moniker: Elton. Elton has a bit of an attitude. Kind of like he's better than you. Or really famous. Elton is probably in his late twenties. He wears big thick glasses. Kind of like these.** He wears turtlenecks. He claims to have played the keyboard for 20 years. He has been to London several times. He wants to live there. He likes rock music, specifically late 70's piano rock. He was surprised that I'd "never heard of him." I only hope that Elton is there the next time I go to English cafe. I think I'm going to try humming "Rocket Man" under my breath next time and see what happens.
**Doing a search for these glasses somehow turned up a find for 'home ec. teacher' porn. Oh Japan.


So the 1st graders have just finished up their final exams for the year. I'm grading the 'letter to Sean Sensei' section. I don't know what this says about my ability to teach English but there are some gems in here that I had to share:

"Dear Sean sensei. I'ts a cool Sean. usually Thenk you. I LovE sean."

"Hi Sean. I am stubey Happi Engrish. Don't be sed. Miss you. Yuur student (student's name) Good bay."

"Dear Sean sensei. Hi Sean. Ha wo you? I'm fualn. I miss you."

"Hello sean sensei. I like sean sensei. This is my first E-mail. I miss you. See you next werak."

"Hi Seansensei. You are so kins. You are so cool. I miss you. Take cans. Your studey, (student's name)"

Yeah. Good stuff.

I still haven't cleaned or done any of the things I said I was going to do. I'm hoping to get some kind of inspiration to start cleaning but something tells me it will be the only thing that ever inspires me: last minute panic.