Most Commented Music Blogs (1,259)

52 years of friendship. The news comes as no surprise. I'm sure you had all your documents in order...
No more jokes about getting the band together!

At about 10:35am PCT the ground beneath began to oscillate. I was helpless to do anything about it and briefly wondered if it would end with me digging myself out from a pile of rubble...or just end. Lights out.

Anyway, it was a little one and only lasted a few seconds but made me want to hear this song!



Better luck next time, Maynard.

Singer & songwriter Colin Hay was the front man of the Australian rock group Men At Work, who made international fame for their 1981 hit song "Down Under"

Over the years, the band broke up and reformed with different members a few times, but Colin, the founding member of the group remained the only original member of the group.

Through the magic of YouTube, I followed bits and pieces of his career and see that although he's got a fantastic (and distinct) voice he's become much of a has-been, staying busy doing low-key small venues of solo work and a few guest appearances here and there.

I recently found one of this appearances in which the audience had a major contribution providing vocal accompaniment. I closed my eyes and swelled with the aura he created on stage and think... was it wrong management that stunted the longevity of his success? I don't have the answer for that, but I did enjoy the song...



Overkill (Colin Hay / Men at Work / 1983 Studio album CARGO)

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know we'll be alright
Perhaps it's just imagination

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

Alone between the sheets
Only brings exasperation
It's time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation

At least there's pretty lights
And though there's little variation
It nullifies the night from overkill

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Come back another day

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations that
I know will be alright
It's just overkill
Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away
Ghosts appear and fade away

Leo Fender was an electronics repairman who teamed up with Doc Kauffman in the 1940's producing musical amplifiers. Leo split with Doc to create his first generation of amplifiers around 1946 that had a tweed covering and brown metal faced chassis attached in a combo where the amplifier and speaker were in one enclosure. Around 1950, models changed to a Tolex textured vinyl covering available in different shades of beige and brown. While this era was significant, it wasn't until the 1960's that Fender started producing larger and more powerful models and in 1963 introduced a blackface model where the amplifier (head) was detached from the speaker cabinet. This is the generation that created worldwide awareness for Fender and his Blackface amps.

In 1965 CBS bought Fender for $13 million and started producing the same products with only a cosmetic change of a silverface chassis. Soon after, there were circuitry changes making them less desirable than blackface Fenders.

Blackface Fender amplifiers became hard to find and getting one often came with a price tag 4 to 5 times the original list price. I owned a silverface purchased around 1969 and it couldn't compare to the sound of my friends blackface.

The venues I had performed at were mostly nightclubs and school dances, but I joined a well established band in 1970 and needed something more powerful for outdoor concerts and stopped using Fender.

Once in a while I'll check a sale on eBay and see that year after year, blackface Fenders always hold their value.

Blackface pre-CBS


Chromeface

It all starts with communication

In a span of 60+ years, I've had lots of speakers in my house. Starting off with speakers reclaimed from junk TV's or stereos left in someone's trash. Hey... you have to start somewhere.
My dad bought a Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder with add-on stereo speaker. It was awesome as I could connect it to the TV speaker and record TV shows and it wouldn't pick up sounds in the room when we were all watching Thee Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show!

Learning guitar and my first amp had a tiny speaker, probably 6" but soon after I was able to get something bigger. The name was National and it had 2 10" speakers. I don't remember what happened to it (probably a trade for something bigger) but that vintage guitar amplifier would be worth a small fortune now!

One of my keyboards was financed and when making a payment, my dad saw a bigger amp at the finance office. It was repossessed, probably because it didn't work. He picked it up really cheap and the diagnosis was one wire from the power supply burned at the connector so it failed. Easy fix and I was the owner of an amp with a 15" speaker!

Years later and I had a specially designed cabinet with two 15" high-performance speakers.

Going from band to band and for outdoor concerts I often used 9 speaker cabinets, some fitted with 12" speakers and some with 15" speakers.

I ended up with a custom rig of four 15" speakers in 2 cabinets.

Somewhere along the way, I tried an ACOUSTIC 360 bass amp with one 18" speaker in a large cabinet that had special internal shape to maximize the sound. It's called a folded horn enclosure. It was always my desire to copy one (with the help of the woodshop I was working at) so, I bought two 18" bass speakers and downloaded the specifications of the enclosure.
John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin had 2, Jaco Pastorius had 2, the bassist in Santana had one. That project was put on hold.

In the 90's I bought a bass amp, 100 watts with one 15" speaker. Very nice, but I sold it looking for something larger and shelved that project.

Now, I own a guitar amp, 120 watts with two 12" speakers. My plan was to take guitar lessons, but that project was put on hold.

Since my 2 cousins want me to play music (professionally) with them I considered the guitar amp, but there's a possibility I'll ruin the speakers using bass at a loud volume.
I could buy bass speakers and put them in, but my thought is not modify the guitar amp and buy a real bass amp for practice and gigging.

I did a blog about speaker size and there are all thoughts from 10" to 18" but I'm seeing some manufacturers offering models with two 10" speakers and 300 hundred watts, they move a lot of air and be in a compact lightweight cabinet. The only drawback is the cost. I'm choking on $700 for a freaking combo amp.

Shopping online I see there is a special sale on a smaller model, 100 watts and a 12" speaker. I could buy THREE of these units for less than any of the others and have it easier to move things around, same watts, bigger speakers. Maybe 2 is enough for now.

The sale ends tomorrow, so I have to decide on which which speaker in my House, it's going to be!

The Beatles released their 11th album in 1968 (correction) 1969 (September in England and October in America) with the iconic cover of them walking across Abbey Road. I'm doing some YouTube videos and a little history about The Beatles and saw a reference to the famous crosswalk. Well.. it's called a crosswalk in America and 'Zebra Crossing' in England. My response to that was "Zebra crossing?... get the fuk outta here."
There are NO ZEBRAS to be seen anywhere... however if you consider it coming from the land of strange names and short cuts, zebra crossing makes sense... to them.
Yeah, I get it. The white stripes are the zebra part.

One big question is the stripes on a zebra. Are they white with black stripes or black with white stripes?
The underside is white, so I'm saying white with black stripes. Yes, that's my final answer.



Back to The Beatles and Abbey Road. You see, the studio/studios where they recorded at is named Abbey Road Studios. Pretty catchy name that didn't take much thought.



I read that a zebra crossing really exists outside the location of the studio. It's a historical landmark, but now I learned the actual album photo came from somewhere else. Please, I'd like to leave my childhood memories intact.

Google maps has the exact location. Amazing.

@51.5320966,-0.1777321,116m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x48761aa33eb87a9b:0xe406bb492eaf555b!8m2!3d51.5321771!4d-0.1778452!16zL20vMDExazNt?entry=ttu

Abbey House, 1A Abbey Rd., London NW8 9BX, United Kingdom
GRJF+R3 London, United Kingdom

Producer Rick Beato was fortunate to get a tour of the Abbey Road Studios and went over some of the microphones and equipment The Beatles and many other famous groups used to create their albums.

I've always wanted to do a historic blog about the Hammond organ.... it's one of the most famous musical instruments in the last century. Consider this the first installment.

Hammond electric organs came into manufacture in 1935. They were large dual 61 note manual consoles mounted in wooden cases. The sound they make is synthesized/created by rotating tonewheels and magnetic pickups. The tone is shaped by controls called drawbars that can be pulled or retracted changing the harmonics and the overall sound. Over the years various model added features. The B-2 manufactured from 1949 to 1954 was very popular and had a vibrato circuit added to it's sound. The model B-3 is by far the most popular Hammond. it was produced from 1954 to 1974. The B-3 was used in Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Rock and many other genres.

In the beginning Laurens Hammond had a speaker system to go along with his brand of organs. Donald Leslie created a speaker cabinet with a rotating horn and baffle that created a chorale or tremelo effect to emulate the sound of a theater/pip organ. His attempt was to market his product with Hammond but Laurens wasn't interested. Leslie Tone Cabinets were sold as a stand-alone product around 1941.

To the ear, the combination of a Hammond with a Leslie was awesome!

How do you judge beauty? Israel was only 38 and weighed close to 1000 lbs. May 20th was his birthday