Exploring the Blue by Luka Bloom

I go down into the water
And dive as deep as man can go
Into those dark places
Watch the underwater flow

Exploring the blue
Exploring the blue
Exploring the blue
In search of you

Here I stand by the mountain
Look up to the sky
Knowing it's a matter of having to climb
Above this place these clouds lie

Exploring the blue
Exploring the blue
Exploring the blue
In search of you

It may be high
It may be low
Where I think you are
That's where I'll go
That's where I'll go
That's where I'll go

I go into the water
And dive as deep as man can go

Well-known among most guitarists, Rory was, sadly, largely unknown by most mainstream music listeners. This is his "coming home" tour from 1974. Even among guitarists who worshiped him, few realized he was also an accomplished player of the bass, mandolin, banjo - even sitar. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, Rory died in 1995 at the age of 47 following complications from a failed liver transplant. Listen to most modern rock music of the last 25 years or so and you will find the guitarist lifting something from Rory.

The Night is Still by Strays Don't Sleep

When the night is still,
And the world doesn't know our name.
The light crawls in,
And falls on your pretty face.

You roll around,
And your smell is everywhere.
The night is still,
And you are here.

I love the time,
No one else knows the lines.
We say could the world love this way?
If they knew the words, would they,
Shout it out across the lonely skyline?
Aren't we the same?

Hello, hello, hello, hello.

We say could the world love this way?
If they knew the words, would they,
Shout it out across the lonely skyline?
Aren't we the same?

Yesterday evening I installed the Planet Waves O-Port into my Takamine GS430S acoustic guitar. As you may know, the O-Port is touted as making "any guitar from beginner to custom sound richer, fuller, and louder, with more clarity and better projection." Due to the body size of the GS430S, I find the mid-clarity and overall projection to be a bit lacking. For under US$20, I thought I would give the O-Port a try. (I should clarify; for a guitar with a street price of around US$300, the Takamine GS430S sounds and plays great.)

I chose to remove and replace the strings instead of trying to simply loosen them (as Planet Waves suggests) and try to get my big paws around the strings and in the sound-hole. It's likely because of my big paws that the O-Port wasn't quite as quick to install as Planet Waves or YouTube would have you believe. But, it was simple enough. I can't complain and it's not their fault my mitts are so big. The photo above shows the unstrung guitar and the uninstalled O-Port in the foreground. The upper left inlet photograph shows the installed O-Port. It looks nice and unobtrusive.

I am happy to report that I did notice a distinct change in the overall tone and clarity of the guitar and I have to admit it is an improvement. It didn't make this US$300 guitar sound like a handmade Martin or a (more than 10X-the-price) Gibson Hummingbird, but it did elevate the sound to something comparable approaching the US$500-$600 range. (It's just an estimate, but trust me, I've played A LOT of acoustic guitars!;)

The bottom line is I wouldn't dream of sticking this US$20 piece of plastic in my  Epiphone Masterbilt DR500ME acoustic-electric, my TAKAMINE EG523CDX Honeyburst Jumbo acoustic-electric or my Cordoba GK Studio "Gipsy Kings" Signature Model. But it did serve nicely to improve the acoustic quality of a mid-market Takamine. I suspect the improvement is a result of the smaller body style of the GS430S and I'm thinking the device would have less of an impact on dreadnought and jumbo body styles. I absolutely love the sound of the Cordoba GK studio, so I wouldn't dream of toying with that.

Planet Waves makes some claims regarding the improved quality of recorded guitar tracks. To be fair, I can't make any judgement on that. As I mentioned, it is highly unlikely I will be sticking an O-Port in any of my other instruments and it's unlikely I will use the GS430S to record, so I will leave it to others to argue those particular points. What I can tell you is that the device clearly had a positive (and inexpensive) impact on the sound quality of my GS430S.

I hope this helps!

The world was in watercolors today.

More pictures at http://photography.mymountainsareclouds.com

"I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then I was thinking about myself again. It was the age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications."

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

The recording set-up is finally together; a desktop and a portable laptop setup. So, it is with much excitement that I can report I've begun rehearsing and demo recording for my next release! (We can't really call them "CD's" anymore, can we?)

With a working title of A Certain Kind of Lonely, here is my current plan for a track listing.

A Certain Kind of Lonely (April 16, 2013)

1) A Certain Kind of Lonely
2) Maybe It's the Weather
3) Lost Lovers, Found
4) Does it Please You?
5) The Gray
6) And They Walked Away
7) Widow's Weeds
8) Go Our Own Way
9) Garbage Angels
10) Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley Cover)

Nine originals, one new recording of an old tune and a cover of one of my favorite Tim Buckley songs. I've got some new songs percolating, so the track listing may grow. Also, I've recently uploaded two videos to my YouTube channel. I will be uploading at least one new video every month as the recording commences.

Cheers!

Tim Buckley - Song to the Siren

More test videos. Voice is still a little shot, but I'm hoping by the time it heals, I'll have my setup figured out!

On this 22nd anniversary of my dad's death, I have been thinking about him a great deal. When I was a kid and had just started playing guitar, he would regularly wake me when he got home from the 3PM-11PM shift at the Ford stamping plant to play guitar for him and his whiskey-drinking co-workers. It didn't matter if it was a school night or a Friday night, he would rouse me and ask me to entertain the troops. So, in his honor, here is the first public (and very poorly lit) YouTube video for my music channel.

(My apologies for the very poor lighting. It was dark to start, then YouTube squished it to near-black!)