Here is a short of who once called this once Toronto historical music recording studio home at one time in their life.

• RUSH
• Ringo Starr
• Steve Winwood
• Gordon Lightfoot
• Aretha Franklin
• Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• Rosemary Clooney
• Chubby Checker
• James Brown

This ordinary one story unit was called the McClear building. It was located at 225 Mutual St., in Toronto.

“I’m a little saddened that it’s gone,” said former McClear chief engineer Jeff Wolpert. “It could have been designated historical. It had a lot of great ghosts.”

Just a side note here folks but another historical music site is just within ear shot of this place. It’s called Maple Leaf Gardens. Another historical site is within a stones throw as well, it’s the old CBC recording studio’s on Jarvis, directly to the south east of the McClear Building. My favorite and the one who influenced me the most as a very young player was Glenn Gould who recorded at the CBC studios for most of his career.

Scott Yellan, property director for Arsandco Investments, a company with ties Yellan would not precisely describe to both 225 Mutual and the nearby Best Western Primrose Hotel, said the studio building would be replaced by a parking lot. Toronto Star

In the infamous words of Joni Mitchell they paved paradise and put up a (F- – - – - -) parking lot!!! Assholes!

To read more about this story check out this link.

Keep on Jammin’

Many bands have attempted to play this great song like Humble Pie, New Riders of the Purple Sage or W.A.S.P. (remember them?). John Mayer’s interpretation of this song closely resembles that of John Scofield, which features guess guitarist Mr. Mayer. In Ray Charles adaptation, he has a more upbeat rhythm were as John Mayer’s is performed with a slower tempo with a swampy bluesy swagger.

In I Don’t Need No Doctor, which is a classic 12 bar blues song in the key of E, John hooks his distinctive chording in it. The trumpet player Brad Mason and saxophone player Bob Reynolds fill out the song rather fittingly.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXWKMwnWP4Q

Here are some neat chord inversions that John Mayer plays in this one. For this song, I will provide you with the chords in TAB form that I think he uses. Please be patient with this new TAB tables that I am using here folks. I’m just seeing how it comes up on some people’s screen. Please tell me if there is a problem viewing this post, thanx!

Keep on Jammin’

For one, keeping Jimi and his revolutionary guitar playing skills should live on forever. Guitar players of today and tomorrow would benefit greatly from the release of new tunes. We have all learned tons of guitar techniques from the master from old offerings but what about stuff that we’ve never heard of? Little Wing is a master piece that keeps fingers moving and exploring different ways of expressing themselves to either the masses or just person pleasure. What if something extraordinary like this tune was never released? I know that someone out there would eventually come up with a similar guitar approach but still Jimi’s style is in a league of it’s own! Next we have the just let him go camp.

A lot of music fans feel that the people/company that keeps exploiting the man are doing a great injustice. I can appreciate that view and would support it … to a certain degree.

What’s your take on this?

This one (Hear my Train a Comin’, acoustic version) is on the new album Valleys of Neptune.

Keep on Jammin’

I’ve always found some great topics and intriguing issues in this magazine. The way the articles are phrased makes them simple to understand and the writers don’t talk down to you. I find this magazine to be unmatched and highly recommend it to any level of guitarist.

I’ve picked up some real nice little riffs and chord progressions in it that I find myself using without even realizing it! The website is just fabulous! If you have an online subscription, the guitar videos will help you become not only a much better guitarist, but a well rounded musician as well. I can’t say enough about the guys and girls that work there.

Acoustic Guitar’s 20th anniversary issue has what they consider to be the top 240 essential albums from the past 20 years. Some are from albums/guitarist that are familiar and some musicians that are very obscure to most, but in the end will help you expand your playing styles in new and exciting directions.

The anniversary installment, January’s issue, covers some great guitar and gear innovations over the past 20 years. Products like the Trace acoustic TA-100, the Kyser Quick Change capo (I’ve got one and I NEVER leave home with out one in my case), the Fishman Acoustic Matrix piezo pickup, tons of guitars and pedals. It also has a real nice article about how guitar making technology has helped change the sound of modern instruments.

Acoustic Guitar 20th Anniversary collector’s edition is out and I highly recommend that you pick this one up for either yourself or a guitarist that you know.

Keep on Jammin’ Acoustic Guitar!

I got a sneak listen to some of the tunes on Battle Studies the other day and what I heard I liked or thought it was just plain amusing.

The song titled Heartbreak Warfare has a U2 feel to it. The song starts off with a classical orchestra tuning up for a piece that is followed up by the unmistakable guitar intro influence of the Edge. In All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye, John falls back on his trademark acoustic progressions with a hint of Beatles chords thrown in for good measure.

Half of my Heart has that country flare with a bit of classic John Cougar Mellencamp feel in it at the beginning of this one. It takes a bit of listening to to get use to it. Who Says is just a funny little piece. Just simple guitar, drums using a brush on the snare and some simple melodic bass phrasing to keep your feet tapping to it! The lyrics seem to be from another time that is long gone for today’s political correctness era.

Perfectly Lonely sound like the old guitar player from an old buddy of mines band called Needy Fingers. The raw guitar sound it fabulous with just the correct amount of vibrato to add a beautiful colour to it.

Crossroads is the one song the his new album that I like the most. It’s an old Cream standby cover tune that is precise, nice and crisp sounding. The funky sound that he adds to this classic keeps me interested and wanting to hear more of it!

I’m sure I’ll get the album at a later date and I will then have a better understanding of it to comment further. Has anyone else heard about his new album?

Here are my favorite John Mayer albums in order!

• Inside Wants Out
• Any Given Thursday
• Room for Squares
• The Village Sessions

Keep on Jammin’

They had all these tv sets beside the stage that featured holographic images on them. They also had these black light effects that blew my mind, a first for me at a the local level as well as a phenomenal light show!

The band members of Cineman Face were Frank La Magna (guitar, vocals) Armin Hart (keyboards, vox) Randy Infuso (drums, vocals) Darryl Peterson (bass, vocals).

The band played at variable clubs throughout Ontario and started building a small fan base over their 13 years together. While the band faltered in Canada, they finally gained some ground in Europe and Japan. In Germany, the band gained near legendary status!

Even though they did not achieve overall commercial success they tried their utmost but came up short. Finally in 1983 Cinema Face recorded a self-titled album, which was released under the Red Sun Records label. Though the band had already called it quits by 1994, their debut was then re-released on the Pacemaker Records label. The album did well enough to bring Cinema Face back to life in 1996 to complete a sophomore offering, Face Card.

This is a video of the band playing at the old Gasworks in Toronto in 1983. For those who are not aware of this Toronto landmark, it was the bar that Wayne and Garth went to in Wayne’s World.

Below are some links to check out if you were a fan of the band and you want to pick up some of the bands CD’s for your collection!

• Cinema Face
• Face Card

Keep on Jammin’

While playing in Pylis, we played this song as an opening number. It got my heart just a pumping at break neck speed! The great keyboardist Tony F., recorded this circus like pipe organ sounding song that was followed by a keyboard solo that helped us lead into this tune! Ah, the memories!

Another tune from these guys that we did was called Time for your Love. It had lots of fun openings for me to jam on stage and boy was that fun! See CounterPoint, there was a time that I could pull off some free jamming/soloing on my axe! Too bad that I couldn’t reach deep into my little bag of tricks and show you what I mean.

If you are a fan of this band and you are looking some of their tunes to download, then check out this site for more info.

Enjoy.

Canadian pomp rockers Zon, which were originally released at the end of the 70s. What set them apart from other Canadian bands at the time, was their theatrical approach. Anyone who saw them performing live 25 years ago, will tell you how impressive they were. With special costumes and masks, it was indeed something you had to see at the time. Musically the band played keyboard orientated rock and have always been compared to Queen and (especially) Styx. As a matter of fact, one of the highlights of their (rather short) career came when they were asked to support Styx on their “Grand Illusion” tour. CBS took them under their wings and released “Astral Projector” in 1978 and “Back Down To Earth” a year later. In my opinion, the former is the better of the two, because it’s Zon from start to finish. On “Back Down To Earth”, CBS tried to push them into a more ‘commercial’ direction and the guys didn’t get enough time to write (enough) decent songs. Negative publicity and a corporate cleanout saw CBS dropping them from their roster. A (rather weak) third album was released on the small Falcon Records in 1980 before the band called it quits.
Rock Report

Keep on Jammin’

The song that caught my eye and had my feet a tapping is called Different When It Comes To You.

It has a hint of pop and the regular challenge that he regularly provides us is not here in this song. He’s still better then most out there in the industry today!

I find this video quite appealing, visually that is. Some folks out there may think that he is selling out, but as in the past, that is not his end game! The singer/port Ani DiFranco does a guest appearance on this tune as well!

I just thought I’d share it with you all, enjoy!

Keep on Jammin’

Three Parades, by Guelph artists/multi instrumentalists/producers Scott Merritt and Jeff Bird, will orchestrate a performance by three different bands, each made up of 10-20 musicians, that will approach the St. George’s Church’s bell tower from different directions. All three bands will play a Merritt composition in counterpoint with one another and with the tolling church bell (played by Guelph player Jeff Bird), which will act as both a time pulse and key center for the composition.

Along the three routes, road signs will provide supplementary cues for the musicians to change what they are playing. The bell tower will house a PA system, which will project a pre-recorded score for solo voice that is reminiscent of a muezzin, who delivers the Muslim call to prayer from mosques. Once the bands converge at the tower and play together for several minutes, they will turn around and recede to their original starting positions.

The compositions for the three bands, the bell, and recorded voice work both independently and in concert, regardless of the listener’s position.
The Guelph Jazz Festival

The man was always a head of the curve. How he composed his songs were brilliant and very innovative. He did it such a way that I have never heard of before. I guess this is what peaked my curiosity with his overall body of work. In 1986 he was a nominee for the Juno award of Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year!

He was the kind of guitarist that when he entered the local music store, Music and Sound, everyone who was holding a guitar put it down making it look like they didn’t play it at all! We all just had so much respect for him that we felt a little bit insecure about playing in front of him. The man was always a gentle giant in person and Scott’s interviews were always insightful.

My wife and I feel in love with his Gravity is Mutual album when we first heard it. We still have our original vinyl copy downstairs!

I will leave you with a video that he did to support his album and I know that you’ll all enjoy it!

Scott Merritt, Keep on Jammin’ PLEASE!!!

More things about Scott Merritt

• Serious Interference
• Scott Merrit’s Gravity is Mutual
• Scott Merritt’s The Detour Home

I had all these musical emotions fly directly into my mind the other day by an unexpected force, my god-son Jeffery! He had been talking about this TOTO Greatest Hits (Steel box collection) that he just picked up and he talked about some of the tunes that he liked on it.

The songs he was referring to were some of Toto’s newer releases. They were the ones that I had heard over and over again on the radio. They were nice and all that but, not always as complex and intricate as I liked in comparison with their first project.

So yesterday a few of us went off to help my cousin, Jeffery’s aunt and her husband, put in a retaining wall in their back yard. On the drive over there, Jeffery told me he brought his Toto CD and asked me if I wanted to hear it, so I sheepishly said ok?!

When he placed it in the car CD player and hit play, a few of the songs on it instantly brought me back to my early years as a young progressive guitar player. I honestly love how they formed all their chord/vocal progressions in each of their songs. All though I could not for the life of me figure them out back then, I could certainly appreciate the talent that was needed in performing these difficult pieces live on stage.

Does anyone out there have their self titled album Toto in their collection? If not, then here is what they played on this classic album in order!
Child’s Anthem, I’ll Supply the Love, Georgy Porgy, Manuela Run, You are the Flower, Girl Goodbye, Takin’ it Back, Rockmaker, Hold the Line and Angela.

The members of the band for this album were Bobby Kimball, Steve Porcaro, David Hungate, David Paich, Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro.

These bunch of musicians were everything that I could ever want in a band’s style. They guitar, keyboards, bass, drums and percussion are all seasoned studio players. Just imagine how many ways they could come up with in playing a song?

I used to listen to them everyday in my early years. The only song I ever played of theirs was Hold the Line, with a Brantford band called Duece. No other musicians wanted to venture off in that direction. I used my sister’s old stereo a QueOn some much that I went through 3 stylists! I listened to each song taking it apart instrument by instrument in my mind. It’s amazing how much time a young kid can have on his hands isn’t it!

BTW the word toto means all encompassing in Latin! This is so great because it really represents the true essence of the band because of all the contrasting musical styles that they cover.

Keep on Jammin’