Jim Alfredson

I would love to play with Houston!! He's the A&R man for Savant, too... hook us up!! Actually I've heard Savant is real old-school in their record deals.

Interesting. I am not a fan of "proper" grammar. I agree that language is constantly evolving, but I also agree with the notion that the art of public speaking seems to have been lost, especially among politicians. I do not think Charles Eaton's words "sound stiff, quaint, outdated..." at all. They are quite beautiful, in my opinion. That said, you (and I use "you" in a general sense) can't deny that our culture is extremely casual, not only in language and music but in all aspects. My wife commented the other day that no one dresses up anymore. We see commercials on the TV for local "fine dining" restaurants here in Lansing, specifically the State Room which is on the campus of Michigan State University. In their ads they are comparing the menu to places in New York, Paris, etc. Yet in the commercial you see people eating in jeans and baseball caps. What the hell!?? And that's yet another rant. Baseball caps. I hate them. When did it become socially acceptable for middle-aged men to wear baseball caps constantly? Will the fad ever die? How did such an ugly piece of attire replace something as cool as a Borsalino? I should start a Jimmy's Rants page on my website!

Why, yes it does, Muskrat. Very astute of you!

I should ad, this should probably be in the Musician's Forum, not the Forums Discussion board. And away we go...

I don't condone the above method, but I must say, I've heard it's pretty cool. The version I heard about even has a .pdf index whereupon you can look up any tune, click the name and presto, there's the chart. Why pay $7 when you can download it for free?

tsabbides was member #600.

I went with Blue simply because by the fact that this thread exists I'm assuming you're not married... and this is the only time in your life that you can get away with this shit! I can't make such important decisions anymore... "Hm, pay my credit card bill or buy that new pair of interconnects?"

Josh Groban is fucking terrible. He sounds like every mediocre high-school musical singer I've ever heard. I'm glad they compared him to Kenny G... the two are one of a kind. Musical wallpaper. So what, they majors aren't focusing on jazz and classical. What's new? American tastes have been falling for decades. People don't want music that has any meat to it. They want instant gratification. We live in a fast-food society: I want it now, I don't want to do much work for it, and I don't have time to even say the name. Just give me a #3. The music industry has shot itself in the foot by over-saturating the market due to greed. Why does there need to be music in a grocery store? I was shopping with my wife the other day and noticed that our favorite grocery store is no longer playing "the real hits by the real artists" which was bad enough (do I need to hear "Goin' To The Chapel" while I'm buying crackers?) but now they've switched to Muzak... instrumental versions of schlock probably because it's cheaper. But why does it need to be there in the first place?!? Why does every public place you go to have to have music on? It's become like TV. Almost every place you walk into nowadays has a TV. You can't go to a restuarant without one. Do I really need to watch TV while I'm eating? Lord knows, I might actually WANT to talk to my wife instead of watching the game. We're constantly bombarded with music from every angle of life and as such it's becomen nothing more than background. People don't pay attention to it... they don't notice it. They take it for granted. It's just there. I'll finish with a lovely story about a duo gig I did with Joe some years back. It was for a company Christmas party at this new restaurant that opened in East Lansing. They claimed they were a "fine dining" establishment yet you could not look in any direction without seeing a TV. There were even TVs in the fuckin' bathrooms!!!! Anyway, we're playing this little Christmas/cocktail party. Organ and guitar. We play a whole set and we're about to take a break and the manager asks if we could keep playing. Well... ok. So we play another hour and finally take a break. So two straight hours of music. We get up to take our break and instantly this horrid woman comes over (in a dress WAY too small for her bulky frame) and says, "Are you going to play any real music?" And that, my friends, is the state of mind concerning music of the average American slob.

Tracks from that are on the original re-release of "The Sermon" (released in 1987 I think?) The new RVG of "The Sermon" does not have the extra tracks on it. Are they now available on "House Party"? I can't keep this shit straight.

And they would write back saying, "Exactly. The key word is was".

The whole internet is running slow for me. Everything is loading very very slow and I have a cable modem.

The Babe Thread!

One to go.

Yes, the guys like their babes.

CDBaby is a fantastic company. I really hope it isn't bought out by a major label and screwed with. Derek has integrity and has set up a site for working musicians to make money. We had good sales over the holidays ourselves... I think about $200 worth.

I'm finding that technology can help tremendously in the writing process. Joe and I have been co-writing some pieces recently with my computer, running Reason 2.5 and Cubase SX. We can set up drum parts and bass parts and loop them and come up with melodic ideas to use. And of course you can just keep recording melodies... different takes, different phrases, until it sounds right. We've also used it to work out rhythmic patterns (odd time signatures against 4/4, for example) and even used some of the built in sampled beats as writing tools. Anyone else using modern technology to help compose?

The iPod is cool, but waaay over-priced. Much like Macs themselves. I love Macs, but who can afford them? Jesus, I built myself a 1.93GHzPC with 1gig of RAM for music production/recording for under $500 that runs Cubase SX and can record 32 tracks of 24bit audio at once. A Mac that could do that would cost me at least $1500. Crazy. The software is great, the hardware is great, but for poor folk like me, who can afford it? There are so many other mp3 players out there, it would pay to look around. And the $99 battery replacement charge after a year and a half is fuckin' stupid.

The "Babe Thread" is a topic on this board that features photos of women that our members find attractive. "Babe" is slang for a beautiful woman.

Right, but you'd still only have one IP address which I can see and thus I'd know you where three different people and I'd politely email you and say, "Why do you need three aliases on the board?"

No, it's only impossible to register with the same email address. Of course, email adressess are free nowadays thanks to Yahoo and Hotmail so it doesn't really matter.

Welcome ds0823!

The whole major label recording industry can go to hell.

Gee, Masterhit was a bit rough. Don't worry, I restored your post to all it's original glory, DEEP. Although I thought it was pretty funny. Thought you guys could take a joke. Can dish it out but can't take it, it seems...

Invite him on over here! Sounds like a cool cat!