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Jim Dunlop’s new MAX GRIP Guitar Pick

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Jim Dunlop has just released the new MAX GRIP Standard and the MAX PICK Jazz III guitar pick. These two are something that I will definitely go out and pick up to take home for a test drive when practicing later today.

Jim Dunlop MAX GRIP standard guitar pick

Jim Dunlop MAX GRIP standard

I personally use the Jim Dunlop 1 mm Nylon Standard guitar pick when I play. I find that this pick is the only one that I can hold on to when I play, due to the fact that I tend to perspire a lot while preforming. While playing live at a bar in front of some spot lights, my fingers start sweating like a black dog laying out in the hot summer sun.

Jim Dunlop Max Grip Jazz III guitar pick

Jim Dunlop Max Grip Jazz III

At first glance MAX GRIP has a molded gripping surface that is carefully concocted to provide the guitarist an incomparable non-slip guitar pick surface. It looks like it’s made for all you speed pickers (I’m certainly not one of them) and hard strummers (that’s me) out there that demand extreme precision and stamina, without losing control of their pick. I remember one time performing with this guy and I lost my pick on stage when we were playing Whole Hearted by Extreme. It was both embarrassing and frustrating for me at that time so from then onwards, I use the Jim Jim Dunlop 1 mm Nylon Standard.

Has anyone out there checked this thing out? If you have one, would you recommend it to other players?

Keep on Jammin’





John Mayer says I Don’t need No Doctor

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As a guitarist who loves to show who and what has influenced his style over the years, John Mayer surely isn’t hiding his love for that Motown sound!

In the song I Don’t Need no Doctor by Motown songwriters Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashford while made popular by Ray Charles (1966), he pays a reverence to this genre. It’s also from his live performance DVD in LA titled Where The Light Is. The intro that he does for Neon is a real nice. Now back to my post!

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.

httpv://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!

     C#m7b5     Dm9     Cadd#4     A7sus4     B7sus4  
E  X X 0 5 7
B  4 4 2 5 7
G  2 3 0 7 9
D  3 1 3 5 7
A  1 2 1 7 9
E  X X X 5 7

Keep on Jammin’

A gift from a volunteer at work!

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I got a gift from a volunteer at work quite a while ago for Christmas present!

She was cleaning out her house during a renovation at home and she didn’t know what to do with it, so she knew I’d get a kick out of it. It was a great gift and I just wanted to show you.

It’s a blow up guitar and I let some kids who are having difficulties coping when they wake up from an operation try it out and it really works.

At another time, she gave me a really neat pack of Guitar Picks for my birthday, she thought that I’d love it and I sure did!

funny blow up guitar

Thanx Connie!

Keep on Jammin’

The Crystal Method’s Double Down Under

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One night last week my wife and I saw a video on AUX TV from The Crystal Method performing their hit Double Down Under. It was a mix of many performances over many nights at the infamous Electric Daisy Festival. The band was on it’s Divided By Night Tour at the time and by the look of the 10,000 in attendance, it was one of those shows that you wish you had been there.

Heralded as ‘one of the best live dance acts on Earth,’ by the Village Voice (USA)

It was a very moving video. I found myself taking apart the song section by section in my mind, I’m always doing that to any music that I hear. It also got my heart a pumping and adrenalin a racing with the strong beats and bridges that it had. The visual effects that the band uses is not for those with the faint of heart. It could trigger an epileptic seizure for those afflicted with that disease if exposed to, for too long. It makes one wonder how much it costs the venue in electricity for a show like this, just a side thought.

TCM belongs to the style named the American Music genre. The band consist of two members, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland. Both of them were born in and local DJ’s in the Las Vegas, Nevada. Their studio albums are as follows

* Vegas (1997)
* Tweekend (2001)
* Legion of Boom (2003)
* Drive: Nike + Original Run (2006)
* Divided by Night (2009)


Rolling Stones (R.S.) call them a pair of basement beat scientists. This is a reference to where the band started off in, while perfecting their trade. As the story goes, they bought a home in Glendale, California, which had a small underground shelter beneath the front lawn. R.S. says the techno kings as comfortable on the dance floor as on rock radio, and just as wildly uneven. They also add that the band’s live performances throb with raw inspiration and intense sexual energy.

From a musicians point of view, dance music doesn’t seem all that much challenging at first glance. I use to share in that mindset until I was introduced to it by an old friend Rick Jones from the now defunct G-Force Media of Toronto. It was quite the exposure to this new genre of music that I did not appreciate up until then. He was also the guy that brought to my attention the Tone Port Line 6 and the APEX 420 microphone. The guy was a wizard sitting behind his massive sound board deep inside his recording studio.

Rick is a natural keyboardist with tons of other technical talent to boot. He showed me how he used loop effects, how to program them, then bring them up to be used at the drop of a finger during any song.

I have only a general interest in this form of music because it brings me to a place that I would normally in the past not appreciate. I am referring to the level of musicianship that I thought went along with it, that is. I now think of this type of music as very challenging in it’s own right.

So what do you think of The Crystal Method and their classification of music plus do you listen or play this school of playing?

Keep on Jammin’

All Things Strings website

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I found a discarded magazine called All Things Strings on my walk today with my little dog Midnight.

At first glance, it covers most stringed instruments out there ie: Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass and Fiddle. At first glance at the magazine cover, it showed a nice picture of some musician holding a lute like instrument, that is what really grabbed my attention. Then flipping through it, it appears to be focusing on the classical music scene. I did not take it home because it was all soggy and dirty so I ripped off the part that had the website on it and then investigated it shortly after I got home.

The All Things Strings site was nicely laid out and easy to navigate. They provide the classical enthusiastic with the same Subscribe to, Shop for, Forums, overall search for schools/instructors … and Articles that most websites now a days have.

The company has a section for beginners and how to start off their musical journey. It has links to their articles about easy lessons, preparing the beginner with what to expect what they will be doing in their first year of learning their new instrument and how a violin works. It’s a nice starting point for the newbie musician.

So for all those out there that maybe interested in a resource area in the strings category of classical music then check it out and tell us if it’s worth further investigation.

Keep on Jammin’

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