Steve Seeks Redemption For Once
May 13th, 2006 | by steve |That’s it I am done with this site…
Who am I kidding? You know I can’t leave. But I feel like it somedays… It’s when you shut the lap top and push back from the desk.
This blog is no doubt, left leaning and I should expect it. We few conservatives, tos, John Rogers, Chosen One and GTL (sike!) should expect it. (I know I am forgetting someone but…)
But dude, I can do without my decency being called into question. I can do without being called a racist. I can do without being called evil. I can fully do without being called stupid. I am pretty intelligent, I am not evil and I am quite the opposite of a racist. In fact, I am, like most people including conservatives, a descent human being. I am pretty much easy going. Take that for what’s worth.
To set the record straight, I don’t hate or despise anyone, including 4truth. In fact, I am quite entertained. Most of you (including 4truth, sometimes :)) bring valid information to my life and my family. Sometimes, well… A lot of times, well… Almost daily I see a post or two that is flat out, out there to me. I can choose to respond. But a lot of times, if any of you follow my pattern, I don’t respond to everything, especially the “out there” stuff. It is pointless to me to do so. It is pointless to appear that I am on the attack as well. I enjoy this blog because it can be fun and educational.
I am a challenging person by nature. I challenge everybody. I ask question whenever I can. I gotta know man… but it has got to be the truth and not some opinion. And that is the biggest problem with politics. It is open to interpretation and/or opinion. Sometimes there is no right or wrong. And that is the entertaining part.
But for real entertainment… And a complete turn from what you are all expecting out of me, Mr. Steve (I-Drive-a-Hummer-to-piss-you-all-off) Conservative: I had a couple of beers the other night and saw on the news that Bob Marley died 25 years ago last night and I was sitting in front of the Apple. I can barely play my guitar or type for that matter for too long with this thing going on in my hands and back. But I sat back and pulled out the M-Audio sound recorder and plugged it. Redemption Song by Bob Marley was one of the first things I learned on the guitar when I picked it up in college. So here is one take with out fracks or any wrong notes. I hope I got the words right because those were some pretty good beers.
Without further ado, listen
13 Responses to “Steve Seeks Redemption For Once”
By Kevin W. on May 12, 2006 | Reply
That’s the spirit, steve. I’m in the same camp as you. I don’t hate the people here. I just think they’re stupid and wrong, and they think the same of me. But they’d have to do tons more to make me hate them. Like Osama-level more.
By ken grandlund on May 13, 2006 | Reply
Steve-
No shit man, that was beautiful. I’ve always loved this song, and you may not be Marley, but you definitely give it a flavor that comes from ones heart. You may be a messed up conservative, but you’re alright man! (Ha- thanks for sharing.)
By dusty on May 13, 2006 | Reply
I figure driving a Hummer is its own punishment these days..costs you a second mortgage to fill the sucker up. Music is a great equalizer.
By steve on May 13, 2006 | Reply
The Hummer gets 19 miles to the gallon and no one believes me. The BMW took exactly the same amount of gas. My wife only drives 3 miles to work so it ain’t that bad. Now my Dodge Dakota, well I put about 1000 miles on it this week and spent $200 in gas. Now that hurts…
Ken… the power of Bob transcends all.
By chicago dyke on May 13, 2006 | Reply
ok, i missed it- what did you do? you have to love blogging, you can have a couple of beers and muse pointlessly and the whole world can share.
never apologize for what you blog, unless you’re factually incorrect and it leads to something like…war, for example. if you piss people off enough to get them to say something, you’re doing something right. even when it’s not what you think you’re doing.
By steve on May 13, 2006 | Reply
Click “listen” at the end of the post…
By Pia Savage on May 13, 2006 | Reply
Steve that last “haaave” was almost a little mindblowing. I liked it. I did.
By Ditto on May 13, 2006 | Reply
Steve: You have a degree in music? And you drive a Hummer? BMW? Dodge Dakota?
For a challenging questioning type your lack of outrage about the government you helped elect remains a conundrum. Does your “pattern” indicate your support for the Right is primarily tax-relief based?
I listened to your song. What’s your favorite mode? Like that or do you change it up? Any original compositions you can share? I’m partial to Dorian Minor and Pentatonic Minor for improvisation myself, but enjoy composing in Phrygian.
The myths and music of Man are strongest threads in the fabric of humanity. Thanks for the post, fellow American. You’re right, not what I was expecting. Keep on challenging…
By steve on May 13, 2006 | Reply
E minor and G major are my favorite keys. I can pull a song off the radio in those two keys and just play them. I grew up as a brass player with the Baritone Horn and Tuba as my emphasis. G major and E minor are odd ball keys for those instruments.
As far as modes, I have been partial to the flat 5th in Mixolydian myself. (Even Flow by Pearl Jam) I choose however E minor and G major a lot or transpose to that when I playing. If you noticed though I drop tuned my guitar to E flat though for the Bob Marley song. It records better for me. Most of those classic slow acoustic rock songs from the 70’s and 80’s and even 90’s for that matter are in those keys. D major is popular as well as B and A minor.
Dorian mode would be cool on guitar but the flat 4 is never in tune…
As a quasi lead guitarist, I tend to fall into that basic blues pentatonic stuff like Hendrix and Stevie Ray. It’s simple and easy to mimic and it plays well out in public. I was playing in a bar a few years back and we were playing “Come Together” out of one of our original pieces which was in G. We played Come Together in it’s orignal D major blues form out of our G and then transitioned to a pretty hard edged “Riders On The Storm”. Picture Primus meeting Jim Morrison in a dark alley. We were only a three piece but we would throw ourselves into our performances. 90 people showed up that night… It was pretty cool for us. We made 100 bucks. I think we played those three songs for half an hour and the rest in the set 10 song set in 15 minutes.
By steve on May 13, 2006 | Reply
As far as the Tax relief stuff… I personally never notice the tax savings we supposedly get. I don’t see the big deal. The economy is cyclical. First it was the stock market, then the housing market and now the commodities market and precious metals. What’s next is what I’d like to know. I want to retire at 43.
I am not wired to worry about who is President or not or what that person was doing. It’s about 4 year terms and limitis and if it got really bad America would do something about it. I have said repeatedly that Bill Clinton was a good President even though I didn’t vote for him the 2nd time. I did the first but I was 18 and stupid… :)
By Ditto on May 13, 2006 | Reply
Cool. Ahhhh yes the flatted fifth. Injected into the Pentatonic scale as a passing tone is beautiful. After years of composing peices in all the modes as a form of study I have arrived at this… aka the ‘blues scale’ as the absolute purest of the lot… particularly with for guitar. Did you ever hear the story that during the Spanish Inquisition the flatted fifth was banned from all Church commissioned compositions? They considered it a pagan tone. For non-muscians out there a reference; the first 4 notes of the intro to Purple Haze - before the drums start - are flatted fifths (and the octave above).
Isn’t the flatted fourth is the same as the third?… if you’re holding the tone counts relative to the Major scale, which I suppose isn’t the only way to count ‘em. That’s just how I learned. Tonic, whole step, whole step, half step, etc…
I agree 100% with the Hendrix / SRV nod. When it comes to full blown improvisation on electric guitar I have yet to see that boiling-point level of skill in anyone else. Those guys seemed to have a way to find their ‘zone’, let go of the physical mechanics of playing and any constraints of the arrangement, and just let it pour straight from the soul. I sometimes believe that Jimi didn’t play the guitar as mush as he did the speakers. That’s where his attention was. Just the sound.
I played lead guitar in a locally popular, but undergorund, rock-n-blues band for 10 years and we did tons of that self-indulgent Hendrix/SRV/Cream/ZZ Top/etc stuff that, anymore, only musicians (and Dead heads) appreciate. I eventually tired of the bars and festivals when it became too much like work ( I do have a real job - I design buildings - the band was only for fun! ) By the end I lead a band with only 4 guys yet we had a manager, a sound man, 6 roadies and two box trucks of gear. We had to make X dollars at every show to stay out of the red, had to pay my guys decent, feed ‘em, etc. Plus I felt like I had taken the blues stuff - as I knew it - back to it’s electric roots. Yet after doing everything by the blues masters from the 50’s on (T-Bone, Muddy, Wolf, etc.) I could not fully understand the physical approach what the REALLY old bluesmen were doing (Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Slim, etc.) There are lots of audio recordings but not too many movies showing them in action… this stuff started in the late 20’s/early 30’s.
So more recently I’ve put down all of my Strats, bought a few new acoustics and been teaching myself Delta blues, Peidmont, Rag style as well as different open-tuned slide. Right now I’m into Rev. Gary Davis - he has an unbelievable approach with an honest working man’s technique. As a musician you know how one’s own development kind of ebbs and flows. This new stuff has opened up a whole other world for me and I love it. In fact I’m currently working on an album (my fifth CD) of just me and my guitar. No more struggling with the tone of the bass or the drum mix or trying to keep multiple guitar trax from phasing each other out, etc. Just simple simple simple!
I disagree with one thing however, Come Together was in D, but minor key… both the Beatles and Aerosmith versions anyway. We did most of the Doors catalog as well, fun to work out arrangements for a band with a bass and 2 guitars and no keys!
Keep playing brother. Music, real music, is somewhere between language and mathematics and oh, what it can do for the soul.
By 4Truth on May 13, 2006 | Reply
All I look for is the TRUTH, talk is cheap.
By steve on May 14, 2006 | Reply
Yeah, too bad I said “Redemption Song” was in E minor… It’s in G major, I tuned it down a half step though. Sorry I had a headache. D minor, D major… it’s a blues tune anyway.
You are seriously beyond me with the CD recording. I have never nailed down a style and quite honestly, after a thief made off with my Gibson back in 2002, I really have not touched my electric stuff. I never was much into effects either unless it was the distortion and reverb through my Fender Deville Amp. When bought the Deville back in 1999 I was actually handing cash to the guitar store for the Twin Reverb but backed out when I heard the built in distortion through that thing.
Without the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, there’d probably be no rock n roll because Bach would have not got going. And actually there’d be no America like we know it. It’s amazing if you think about it.