Grateful Child

Blog ads!
The ads on my site are chosen by some clever software that examines the words in my posts.
Thus, when I criticised Roland, I got a Roland ad!

When I expressed disappointment in most of Eric Clapton's career I got flooded with Clapton ads. No doubt it will happen again when I publish this post.

I normally take each ad on face value, and find some are informative and relevant to the themes of my blogs, others, I wouldn't recommend in a pink fit!
Hopefully, you read my posts and take my criticisms into account and have them in the back of your mind when you click on the advertisers and go to their web pages.

Some of my recent posts have looked to the heavens in supplication, with a yearning for justice and support for some of the idealists still left on this planet.
I don't normally go so far as endorsing any of the advertisers, but I felt blessed when on a recent occasion I had an ad which when I checked it out knocked me out!
It was for a website: http://www.gratefulchild.org/

It is a very high tech website.
In its own words, it is "dedicated to the children of the future, ... a promise of love, truth, charity and justice... and hope!"
I'm not sure if I would look at it with a slow dial-up modem, but it is full of quality music clips that play automatically in the background, links to arty movies, and high quality graphics.
Thematically, the site is anti war, pro environment, pro child, and very much pro love and compassion. And no, it is NOT a religious site!

The site has a hero of the month, this month the hero is a nine year old who carried his sister from Darfur to a refugee camp in Chad.

There are links to notable charities such as Amnesty International, Medicin Sans Frontiers, Greenpeace, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and significant music artists, such as Midnight Oil, Genesis, ELO, Pink Floyd, with heaps of video clips and links.

For the youngsters there is Walt Disney's Uncle Remus downloadable in installments, and riddles.

And statistics! On that infamous day, Tuesday September 11, 2001, at least 35,615 of our brother and sisters died from the worst possible death, starvation. This is typical of every day. Somewhere around 85% of these starvation deaths occur in children 5 years of age or younger. Homo sapiens, blatantly caused approximately 578 species of the web of life to go extinct. This extinction rate equals one species of life going extinct every 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

This site is both disturbing and inspiring, and has enough content to keep you hooked for hour after hour, and with the associated links, for day after day as well!

GM Arts

I'm not sure who or what GM Arts is even after visiting his homepage http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/index.html and reading his self-introduction!
The lad has no shame, for he proudly introduces himself as a crow-eater, even showing a cartoon style map of Oz with a HUGE arrow pointing to South Australia and a smaller arrow pointing to Adelaide.



This IS a very good website, however.

His chord theory explanations are very good. (Similar to how I describe chord building and theory).

He talks about types of effects and the best order to chain them in.
He gives an interesting spiel on guitar amps and on loudness and comparative volumes.
He has sample wiring diagrams for different pickup configurations.
AND heaps of technical info and specs on MIDI.
(rather than me explain MIDI here, go to his page, and if you need more info he has some very good links).
There are tips on how to be a good band member.....

Oh, and when you need a break from music, he explains Einstein's theory of relativity in plain ocker, (something Albert never did!) and (quote) "lots of interesting information about calendars, and Easter dating".
No, you dill! The Easter dating referred to has nothing to do with getting your rocks off!

P.S. He even has a link to the end of the internet, I'll let you find that one for yourself!

The Truth shall set you free!

The Truth shall set you free!
Truth, Knowledge, Light!
Out of knowledge, we can combat disease, find cures, extend life and extend the period of useful, happy, energetic life.
Sickness originates in the heart and mind, Truth, Knowledge, Light, can combat diseases and cure these mind/spirit disease sources.

Science investigates the solid, concrete, measurable, but in its pure unadulterated form is inspired, drawn towards the truth. The scientist aspires towards truth as his journey along the path towards heaven.

Art, philosophy and religion. (The inate inward quest for truth, not the fear ridden and guilt causing institutions that create wars, capital R Religion).
Art, philosophy and religion aspires towards the abstract of truth, to complement science as it uncovers the material.
The calling is the same as for science, a parallel journey, which should be pursued with the same purity of motive, for its own sake, for Truth when found should ever be the enduring reward for the quest.

The scientist with pure intent and concentration and conviction as his partners, opens up a channel to the collective unconcious, and eureka! receives inspiration and the magical intervention of serendipity.



The artist, thinker, believer or musician receives the guiding hand of the muses, who speak through him.

Bad art corrupts, bad science destroys!
Salvation for this planet and its people lies with the spirit of the alchemist that beats in the heart of the true scientist, and with the true artist rather than the mercenary equivalent.

The scientist or artist who proceeds without pure altruism or idealism loses the focus on Truth, Knowledge, Light.

And it is Truth, Knowledge, Light, that will set us all free!

The Musician as Idealist

During the cold war, we lived every day in the fear of any moment being senselessly annihilated in a nuclear exchange along with potentialy every other man, woman, beast and many fish, plants and insects.
Then came the lies of the Vietnam War era, with the U.S. escalating it's involvement on the pretext that two of its ships were attacked in the Bay of Tonkin, an event now commonly believed to not even have occured.
In what is perhaps an oversimplification, my belief has always been that musicians are either extremely mercenary and comtemptible, or as true musicians who live and breath their art are idealistic to the core.
This idealism had a huge impact on mass culture in the sixties and an inherent blood brotherhood of idealism with the peace and anti-war movement.

In what I guess are now modern times, in a new century, we are still lied to, by the unelected Corporate oligarchy that now more or less rules the world through the sham of the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and World Bank, and a supposedly beneficient world policeman and benefactor in the persona of the United States.

And I feel proud that real musicians can still be sorted out from the chaff of endless inane pop product that fulfills the role of the new opiate of the masses, (although religion is making a come-back here, in fundamentalist guise) .
Some musicians express their idealism as a total commitment to their art and concentrate on playing superbly. Sunday evening I saw Nick Charles at Nighthawk Blues with new guitar strings on his axe, in superb touch, even his palm harmonics all working and sounding gloriously crystal clear.

Other musicians choose to get involved with the world at large and sharing their idealism with an attempt to promote truth and justice.
In a previous post I have mentioned Robb Johnson and Billy Bragg.
I would also like to commend and recommend Michael Franti and Spearhead, (don't let the name fool you, he is a pacifist, honest!) and a very good band with honest ideals and an uncompromising message, in Rage Against The Machine.

I stumbled across a brilliant film clip which combines a live band performance on Wall Street with a Game Show with a difference, full of irony and facts to make you think.

Sleep Now In The Fire by Rage Against The Machine

Les Paul wins two grammies!

At 90 years old Les Paul still has a weekly gig At the Iridium Jazz Club in New York.
He has just won two Grammy Awards for his ninetieth birthday tribute album, Les Paul and Friends:American Made, World Played.
Les, who was forced to miss Tuesday night's 90th birthday tribute show at Gibson Amphitheatre because of a bout with pneumonia, received two awards: best pop instrumental performance, for the track "Caravan," and best rock instrumental performance, for "69 Freedom Special.
The friends include Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Steve Miller, Keith Richards,and Buddy Guy.
This album is his first release since 1978's Chester & Lester with the late Chet Atkins. That album marked the only other time he won a Grammy.

As well as lending his name and a large amount of genius to the Les Paul guitars, Les is the father of multi-track recording and overdubbing, using a recording machine that he built from a Cadillac flywheel which had been dynamically balanced to act as a turntable, a jukebox motor and a linking belt provided by a dental house. He also broke the taboo about standing two feet from the microphone, by introducing close mic technique, which is still utilized. He also brought in delay echo, by putting a playback pickup behind the recording head of a wire recorder.

In 1947 Les had a car accident.
The doctors wanted to amputate his right arm, but Les convinced them to pin the arm with it bent to picking position. He went on to to a hugely successful string of hit recordings between 1948 to 1955 with his wife Mary Ford.

The Mohammad Cartoon Controversy seems to be a media beat-up on behalf of the U.S. propaganda build-up for the coming attack, which will likely be nuclear, on Iran.
I understand the military preparations for this attack are well advanced, but after the Iraq debacle,and lacking sufficient justification or ammunition to produce the similar litany of lies used in that campaign, a frenzy of anti-muslim hate feeling will be more than welcomed. After all, rulers go to war, not the people, who are either just cannon fodder or collateral. And once the people become sharks in a feeding frenzy of antagonism, when they are damaged, well, they asked for it...........
And blind hate was used to justify the two previous world wars, the reasons for the first of which one person in a thousand would be lucky to even begin to explain.
Sure, (some, though a considerable number of some) Muslims are very upset by these cartoons of their prophet with a bomb for a hat. What would you reasonably expect???
How would our Christian fundamentalists react if a major Arab publication published a cartoon of a gleeful Jesus brandishing a sword as he rode an Exocet missile that was reigning down terror on one of their cities?
Sure, freedom of speech says we should be able to publish these cartoons, even though it is blasphemous to Muslims to have their prophet depicted. but then, we should be steeled for their reaction, and genuinely apologetic, too.
Fifty years ago, before even further Western moral decline, Hollywood movies wouldn't even allow facial shots of the actor playing Jesus.
Last week in Footscray, a cop crawled through upstairs windows to retrieve a burnt Australian flag, even though he had no legal justification whatsoever.
Our Western media is at least as far removed from genuine universal free expression as most media from totalitarian regimes. The difference is self-censorship by a media owned by the ruling elite on behalf of that self-same ruling elite.We couldn't even bury a thug monopoly media baron without the truth, in fact we sanctified him.
The pity is this disgusting campaign of hate being whipped up by an extremely agressive Western imperial political axis for their own ends is working.
Letters to the editor, feedback, etc shows every small minded cretin who thinks he is a patriot finally feels justified for suppressing his guilt at what he said and thought about the Arabs.
Don't be sucked in, stand for genuine truth and tolerance. We live in a nasty world as is, in the West. We could very well join the Middle East and the Third World in the total kind of hell we have inflicted and wished on others.
Sure, it is a cliche, but the real message of Jesus was, is and ever will be:
Love is the answer

Further to my previous Roland bitch number 2: Smartarse marketing and product development.
Many of their products require specialised and expensive footswitches to operate to their full potential. e.g. The Cube 60 watt amps have 3 footswitch jacks. The cheap non-Roland switches will not work properly.) They require double clicks to perform the required function. Why Roland needed to do this other than exploitation is beyond me, to perform simple channel switching or for turning effects on or off.
Again, the Boss footswitches are NOT included, they are options. the RRP 0n a double footswitch is approximately $129.95 and on a single,$39.95. On a $600 amplifier that is equivalent to well over 25% extra.
These switches also are sold without the required cables, (more expense!)and what's more require batteries (still more expense!) which introduces a reliability factor: you wish to kick in an effect during your highlight song at the audition for that pub gig and the battery is flat. You don't get the gig, who would you be likely to apportion a share of the blame to?

My old Yamaha G100 amp supplied a double footswitch as standard.
Many other amp and equipment manufacturers supply footswitches as standard, and this needs to be factored in when comparing purchase price.