These last days we (the band) got to a very interesting point…Costin, the lead singer told us that he would want to quit making music (not just the band). WTF?! Why? What happened? After all your life so far singing, making music, all of a sudden you decide to just stop. It doesn’t work like that, man!

So, I (given the wisdom I am gifted with, of course) tried to grasp WTF is actually going on. One of my beliefs is that most of the issues in life when it comes to people is that their (unshared) expectations don’t meet. So, could it be that?

We had a discussion, me and Costin (after all we are like 10 m away all day long, I have the office right on the flour above him and we have a long history behind us), to see what’s going on. Indeed, he felt like we are not heading anywhere, the band doesn’t have a clear direction, this kind of things. I should have seen it…

Given that, I tried to confront the rest of the guys, so everybody speak his mind about what each one expects from the band, where we see the band, what we should do, where we should go from here, why everybody is in the band at this point, this kind of things, to try to come to a common conclusion everybody should agree with.

The fact is that now, that I have spoken to them, it’s me the one that is a bit confused…

I mean:

• 2 (out of 5) go for the big scene(they say no reserve), same style, rock, pop-rock, recordings, video, etc
• 1 (myself) go for the big scene also, same things as above, but with the reserve that if it would happen (which usually doesn’t without a big and maintained effort from the band(!!!)) none of us would probably be able to live up to it (given the fact that it would imply a total change of lifestyle). I love to play, study, learn what I don’t know and I realize the music is so damn huge that I know so little of it and I discover each and every day new grounds that I love to explore. That’s my reason for playing…
• 1 sees it a s a hobby, which is not a bad thing as long as you treat it with responsibility. I mean from my point of view, seeing it as a hobby is at least as important as a business because you invest the best you can in yourself, so you should study because you love it, you should buy gears because you love it, you should spend time playing because you love it and not think about the return on your investment.
• 1 needs a change. He asks for playing at the weddings, a totally different kind of music that none of the others enjoy, no overdrive, no rock, something that would put us out of the direction we once had (the one where we were heading for the big scene) and I don’t agree with that. And the others think the same. He goes for the money, for an extra job playing at weddings, music that none of us like, know or want to learn. It’s just a different musical universe that none of us like to explore.

Now it is a difficult situation since we are long time friends, play together since 12-13 years and with some of the guys even longer, but the situation put us in a position where we don’t know where to go to from here, since it seems we don’t have a common goal anymore and we clearly need to find that goal if we want to continue.

At this point I am trying to define some common goal from all I could get from them, to define some guiding lines that i would like to present to the guys, to try to define our way to get there, in order to find the our way again.

And most of all, we would need to find our pleasure of playing music for the sake of it, because this is the reason we all started this, isn’t it?

Did you experienced such a situation? How did you handle it?

Please share!

It is said that you observe that time flies when you start to lose your favorite artists…

Ronnie James Dio died yesterday, on 16th Mai, such a great artist, such a great voice…

RIP DIO

PS: I know it is totally inappropriate, but if I’m allowed to make a short joke, as seen on BeetWeek.com, like a flash of the day:

“DIO died, Ozzy is still alive and well…“

I started to enjoy more and more fingerstyle guitar music, I had this mate in high school that played that way (sort of) and we didn’t know at that time how to call his style, we just said something like “like this guy (name here)”

Now, once in a while you find one of those guys that really master this style and come up with a great work of art like this guy here,f or example…

So, here it is, Unbreak my heart on jazz guitar…

Enjoy and comment!

At least 3-4 times in my life I had the idea of doing something great, or at least I thought so, but because not doing it, I lost the train and somebody else did it. OK, I guess it happened to the best of us…

One of the things I wanted to develop was well…something that was later developed and called WordPress (I actually wanted a web site platform able to give people the possibility to make the web a read-write environment, not a read only environment as it used to be in my first days in university. This happened I guess somewhere around 1998 – 1999 or something)

I had a few other good ideas on the way, never put them in practice…Man, I could have been a millionaire…

Now, when I started GuitarFlame I had this list with big ideas to follow that should drive valuable traffic to my site. Some of them were put to practice, some were not.

Among those that were not put to practice was the idea of recording something with a virtual band, a bass player somewhere on the other side of the world, a lead singer on another corner of the Earth and so on. I can tell you that at one moment I even had most of the pots filled in (in my plan, I won’t say who was there because it was my dream, I have the right to keep it secret)

Why am I telling you this?

Today I have seen this video on YouTube that I really liked, because those guys did exactly what I wanted in my early days with GuitarFlame! And they rock!

So, without other words, guys, I give you Welcome to the jungle!

Enjoy!

These last days I found myself looking on YouTube for amp reviews and this is because at the gig we had a few days ago I played on a 15-16 years old 50 watts Peavey combo (with a Celestion speaker), made in USA. It belonged to a new buddy, he lent it to me for playing there, I still owe him at least a couple of beers for this.

The fact is that I didn’t quite know what to expect from that amp but I was really amazed of how nice it sounds, so it opened again my taste for amps.

The fact is that at this moment I have an old Russian combo, I have it since  a long time and I really like the sound, but the wattage is not great, it easily gets covered by our drummer, so it’s not that useful, so lately I play directly on the PA.

However, since I got interested again in this and started to listen a few amp reviews on YouTube, I said to myself I should ask you here: what amp/combo would you recommend?

I personally keep an eye on the Line 6 Spider IV amp since I own a Line 6 Variax guitar, but for some reason I am not quite convinced, even if the guitar gave me more than expected.

What’s your take on that?

This Sunday we had a show in Cuba, the same club here in Pitesti where we used to play a couple of months(?) ago. We really enjoyed the show, since it was our night, nobody else played, we had the liberty to play whatever we wanted, electric, drums and everything and I could say we really rocked the night. Ok, I am free to say it, argue with me on that!

So, this post is not about that night, but about a discussion that started during that night about a famous band in Romania, named Cargo, a band that we (almost) all love and appreciate. That band is one of those bands that started like 20 years ago, built a fan base thanks to a great vocal and great songs, a band that actually made a mark on my own path.

In 2003, a rumor started to spread, that the lead singer of Cargo is going to leave the band and…emigrate to Australia to work there.

Stop! WTF?!!

I remember I was really pissed off at that time and I could not understand what could possibly be the reason that could drive a great artist, well known in his country, to leave showbiz for another country where he could only work for a living…

And so he left, the band promoted the second guitar player and backup singer as the lead singer and actually he did a far better job than expected, being able to fill in for a great voice and sing the same songs, in his own way (kind of) and release new songs breaking new grounds.

So 2 days ago we were wondering what happened to Kempes (the lead singer that left for Australia). Mihai, my band mate sent us a link this morning that kind of explained what happened in the last 7 years with Kempes in Australia.

Seems that the money he made from music were not even close to enough to make a living here, he was waiting for a child to be born so he took the decision to leave Romania for Australia where he took a job as a house painter, job that he did for the last 7 years.

I could not miss the fact that he lives in Brisbane, owns 2 houses now there, 3 cars and one Harley that he has no time to ride. He stopped singing, except while driving. He provides whatever needed for his family and 2 (now) children…

He came back to Romania once, he was at a show of his old band but was not part of it.

I can’t tell you what a bitter taste I have in my mouth now while writing this. I am in my office  next to our rehearsal room, listening Cargo…

This should have not happened this way, a great voice must be allowed to sing, an artist must be allowed to grow, not be forced to work for a living…

I added here a few songs, listen them. They are in Romanian. You should do it, beyond the language barrier and appreciate a great hard and heavy voice.

End of story.

Hello, my good old online friends…
Haven’t seen you in a good while! I haven’t updated my blog since a while but I couldn’t really tell you why, I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like it.

Today listening some songs on YouTube I suddenly felt like saying hello again here, just for the sake of it. Again, I don’t know why…

I know I owe you a couple of good posts about how things have been lately, I promised you I will tell you more about this and I really can tell you about it at this moment. I just don’t feel like it today.

Today I just felt like posting here this beautiful song that made me write this post, read a couple of posts on other guitar blogs (that also started again the urge to write).

So here’s the song. Enjoy and see you soon!

This morning I was in the mood for GNR (the new one, I mean, yes, that one that I don’t actually consider to be GNR) so I started to search for it on Youtube, I couldn’t find the original This I love but I found this one here and I must admit I didn’t expect that this guy actually sing this song this good.

You know that damn feeling that you have when you are waiting for the guy to screw up at every note he takes. I had this exact feeling with this guy so at the end of the song I found myself tensed because I waited for him to not be able to sing high notes. So I listened the song again, this time more relaxed, actually enjoying it…

After I watched the video I realized the guy gives rock singing lessons. So I can only say keep it up, dude, you rock! Literally! He also has a site, http://www.rockstrip.com.

How about it?

And remember to visit Buddy and Hopkins online store

OK, not THAT Cuba, but a local club here that was recently open.

Last night we were invited by the house band to play there as guests. I can tell you we had a great time, i really felt good and the fact that there was another band there that was used to the environment lightened up the atmosphere quite fast.

I can tell you that quite fast everything turned into a gear discussion, look, I have this new guitar, I use this new amp.. Ok! My Variax guitar was a bit different and it was for a short while the subject of discussion.

We played, as expected, mostly covers since we were in a club, people there enjoyed every song, we had a great time, people actually sang along and this is always nice.

Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures from the show, I didn’t bring my camera and also none of my band mates did so you just need to trust me on this, we’ve been there. We’ve been in Cuba!

PS: For me the evening ended a bit earlier since I got a call from my wife who didn’t join us yesterday evening. 2 days ago a neighbor next door died. She phoned to ask me to come home because she is really afraid to stay alone…

Women…