Fruity

I've been playing around with some digital music tools, mostly a software sequencer called, of all things, Fruity Loops. I'm totally hooked. This sounds pretty crappy because all I did was plop down the camcorder with my amp on one side and the computer with horrible sounding little game speakers on the other. I'm on the lookout for a used mixer so that I can balance everything out and feed it straight into the camera. I'm also waiting for a 5m optical interconnect so that I can feed the computer into the stereo for those times when it needs to be, shall we say, a bit louder? :)

Variation

Paul Gilbert is one of my favorite guitar players. This is a good example of why.

Quickie Day 1

Left Wellington at 11:15. Five hour layover in Auckland. Seat next to very large, not fat, just a very large person. Squeezed into seat. Kid kicking back of seat. Insane mom. At various points in the flight she told her daughter that "we don't use toothpaste, it's poison" and "no it's not butter, it's margarine, you can't eat that, it's made of plastic" and something about her "third eye" and "astral travel". Left my favorite brown hat on the plane. Picked up rental car with Guy, went to In-and-Out. Discovered that I had lost all my travel documentation and my per diem, ouch. Went to hotel and checked in. Showered. Actually took mass transit in LA to Hollywood from downtown. Still had to take a $10 cab ride from a totally insane Armenian taxi driver from the subway stop to The Guitar Center. Mrs. bought me a brand new JS1000 for my birthday/father's day. Very first brand new guitar. Very excited. $30 cab ride back to hotel. Haven't really slept in much in 48 hours. LA is a shitty place to not have a car.

Shot

Finally got around to uploading this.

Really?

Hey Joe!

Boy, oh boy, was it loud. We skipped Pertrucci, well, we watched on the monitors and listened through the doors while we drank beer and ate nachos in the lobby. Satriani was, of course, incredible. He played Shalla-Bal, Potato Head, Crowd Chant, Always, Blue Dream, Cool #9, Ice 9, Satch Boogie, etc. Lots of stuff from Surfing With The Alien. Then they all played together. Foxy Lady and Purple Haze, Going Down and Some Rolling Stones Tune. The whole thing was almost 4 hours. Pretty cool.

Gilbert

Paul Gilbert has some fucking sick chops. Bruce Bouillet on Rhythm. They fucking rocked the house. Played RacerX, Mr. Big and Gilbert's solo stuff.

Satch!

Mrs. STFU&GBTW and I are going to see G3 tonight at The Grove in Anaheim. Satriani, Petrucci and Gilbert. I could give a rat's ass about Petrucci, but Joe is wicked awesome live and I'm excited to see Paul Gilbert. I got 4th row seats and The Grove is sma ... errr ... intimate so maybe I'll pop a pic up here from the show.

Satch

Saw Satriani and Eric Johnson last night at The Grove in Anaheim. Wow. EJ played for about an hour, and then Satch played for over two and a half hours. It was, in a word, awesome.