I'm semi-estranged from my parents, I bear them no ill will per se but we don't really connect in a deep or emotional way, we talk now every few months or so, visit maybe once a year, and it's usually pleasant, the conversation is usually excellent as they are both intellectually very brilliant people in their own very different ways, but as parents, I dunno, they were sort of content to leave me to my own devices I guess, and of course at the time I thought that was pretty cool, but it didn't really take me to a great place in my late teens/early 20s. I don't blame them though because their generation, they were raised by Dr. Benjamin Spock which turned into "if it feels good, do it" and all that, and, probably a great deal due to their Boomer peers, raising a child in an increasingly toxic culture which cannot possibly be an easy thing to do. I can't even imagine what it's like now in today's culture, which is orders of magnitude more toxic and has the amplifying effect of the Internet. No wonder the current "millenial" MySpace generation are so fucked up, raised by Gen-X, coming into awareness around 9/11, and from there into the fucked up society we live in today? It's a societal problem, really, I think, that makes parenting such a challenge, and reflects it in our individual lives and relationships with people. Yes, a lot of our parents are toxic people in various ways, personality issues, addiction issues, mental health issues, whatever, but, ouroborically, it reflects back on our culture I suppose. And let's remember that the whole modern conception of "childhood" is a pretty new one. One that I think Western society hasn't currently settled down with yet -- up until somewhere in the 19th century, children were "little adults," now, on top of the mixed signals of permisiveness and "helicoptering" we are pushing "childhood" into the 20s, which I think is another pretty good way to ensure problematic relationships with parents to one extreme or another, either enmeshment or estrangement.
I feel you there. Suicide is not permissible for me on religious grounds, but on practical grounds it definitely occurs to me from time to time. On practical grounds given how fucked up a world we live in and how fucked up a lot of people's circumstances are, removing oneself from it probably has to appeal to a lot of people. But like they say, permanent solution, temporary problem.
On intake with my psychiatrist, he asks about it, my response was, "I think about it all the time, but I have no intent or plan because I'm too much of a stubborn bastard, don't have the balls, and besides it's against my religion."
He accepted that pretty well.
After all that melancholic shit ...
I'm not really a white wine guy, more into red, but Spanish wines are some of my favorites, especially Riojas.
A good affordable one is Lopez de Harro, this is pretty much my go-to table red. 2010 is a steal, 2008 is excellent for a few more bucks, haven't tried more recent vintages.
Another decently priced is Vega Crianza:
For a little bit more there are many excellent Rioja reservas.
All of the above IME comparing favourably in quality vs price to Italian wines.
Also into South American wines, Uruguay in particular. Monte de Luz has an excellent and again very affordable Syrah:
I prefer white wines, my income of ~$300/month kinda limits the quality of what I buy. I mostly get stuff from the discount section of the local liquor store, which is a bunch of past-their-peak whites for 3 bucks a bottle (now only chardonnay), I've already worked through the good tasting stuff, the best was some Marc Brédif vouvray that was actually worth $27 a bottle .
hey xorkoth, since you play keys, what can you recommend for me to properly learn to play? I dabbled a bit into learing piano, but not much really. I can play easy melodies, but I also wanna be able to play more complex and rhythmic stuff.
Hmm, well, play a lot (a LOT), that's the best thing. I only started playing again, or this type of music at all, in December 2014. But I did have extensive classical training from age 8 to 19. So I had a lot of technique training (my technique was better then though, I haven't gotten it all back yet but the muscle memory was more or less still there when I started again, as well as the understanding). You could look for a teacher to supplement your learning. It also helps a lot to have people to play with, you'll learn faster and you'll learn how to play with other people (I was also in band from age 10 to 18 so I got that as well).
Ah, well obviously, I'm a millennial. I wasn't really aware of what they called each generation, or how they classified them. My parents would be gen x then, born in the early 60s.
As far as my future risks of developing skin cancer... well, I always knew, since my mother had her first skin cancer at age 27, that I was likely to have it at some point... but I never really thought about it till the doctor called me yesterday and said I had a precancerous mole and needed the extra surgery. If I had ignored my girlfriend's nagging to go to the doctor, I very well could have had actual skin cancer in a year or two. I haven't taken care of my skin as far as sun block goes, and I'm paying for it. I'm guessing if I keep a close eye on my sun block application when outdoors, I'll be okay for many years, but it seems to me that by the time I'm in my 30s this problem will resurface regardless...
I remember when I took my shirt off for the doc to check my moles out he said, "Wow... that is a lot of moles." I'm a freakin leopard almost with how spotty my torso looks...
So, I was standing outside 7-11, finishing up my cigarette before I went in, and some guy gets out of his car, smoking a blunt, and he randomly gives it to me. So, I'm smokin' it for a moment just kinda like WTH, then remember where I am and put that out and away. It was high quality stuff too. I dunno, viva Los Angeles, I guess.
As a complete and utter guitar novice nooblet, what do you do to get the sound around the 2m20s mark? Chorus and reverb? Or an octaver? And/or an analog delay? Am I getting it right from the bends, that there's a mild distortion/overdrive/fuzz in there? I love when distortion isn't apparent until you make the sound break up a bit. I'd be very interested in knowing what pedals you use, because I'd like to get that sound as well. I love that cosmic, spacey Pink Floyd psychedelic feel to it.
I'm currently using a modded knock-off tele (just replaced the pickups with wilkinson single coils), a modded knock off strat (humbuckers on bridge and neck, single coil in the middle) and an epiphone dot. I love heavy fuzz, so I usually play with a bigg muff pi (the tone wicker variant) hooked up to a blackstar tube amp. I've also got a bad monkey overdrive, a crybaby wah and loop pedal, but I haven't used them much.
For that sound I'm looking for, I was thinking about adding an octaver and maybe an analog delay (on a low setting)?
Awesome tune! I love that you're covering the wide range of mellow pentatonics, screamy bends and heavier riffs (9'ish minutes). Sounds like Pink Floyd and Maggot Brain had a love child
You have the Russian Big Muff? I have one of those.
I could discuss guitar tones for hours, because i have found that magic formula and achieved the Sound I've Been Looking For...but for me personally it has nothing to do with pedals, and everything to do with the right amp and guitar combination.
I used to use a bunch of pedals (fuzz, delay, tremolo, chorus, etc) but when i got my Gretsch, and my Laney Lionheart british class A tube amp, the tone was so sweet that i didn't want to "pollute" it with cheap stomp boxes.
Generally the fuzz i use is just amp overdrive, which is reasonably subtle but so warm and crunchy, it sounds like a Kinks record or something else from the mid-60s. Gives me a lot to work with.
Plus, my amp is only 20 watt (with 4x10 inch speakers) so it is always cranked when i'm playing with drums and other instruments - so it breaks up all on its own. I can't really get a "clean" sound out of my amp, which i love!
I've heard blackstar are pretty good, what is yours like?
Suppose i am pretty lucky to have such a nice guitar and good all-round sound - but to be honest i'd rather spend the money on a really good guitar and amp than have heaps of effect pedals. Mine have been gathering dust for the last 4 years or so - and i've never had better guitar sound
The guitar player in my band is a pedals guy... he uses them to create all kinds of effects that sometimes resemble electronic music but are played live. When he's not playing effects he uses his amp (one of two depending on what he's going for) and his guitar which is quite nice. It's just part of his style to use pedals to produce all kinds of sounds, and I love him for that.
I had such a weird night last night... my girl called me at about midnight when I was about to head home from playing music, asked if I wanted her to come over for bedtime. I did, so we both headed to my house. She's on her period and for the first time ever I saw her get emotional in that female sort of way (thus far I have been unable to detect when she's PMSing or on her period other than if she tells me)... not angry but sad, well actually, sad and angry at her dad/family life. I knew there were some things that had happened but I never realized how much anger she carries around from that, at him. She hides it really well, but I think it holds her back in life in some ways. I felt bad because I was SO tired, I could barely stay awake but I wanted to be there for her. I was half-awake until 3:30am, and then she was like, you need to go to bed, sorry I kept you up so long, I'm still not tired so I'm gonna drive home. I was worried she thought I wasn't being there for her but this morning she thanked me for letting her vent and cry and apologized for pouring it out on me (as if she needed to apologize). I also felt bad because she asked what I was doing today and I said I have band practice with the other band... she was clearly kind of frustrated, I'm in 2 bands and I spend a LOT of time with them, if I didn't have her it would probably be ALL of my free time. I think she likes that I'm so passionate about it but it clearly is frustrating to her sometimes (and why wouldn't it be?). I wouldn't feel too bad because we do see each other 3-4 times a week, except in a few days she's leaving for 2 months. But I cancelled on the last practice because of deciding to spend time with her instead due to her imminent departure. This might be our last chance to have a full practice before our next show and it's important I don't miss this one too. Hopefully it doesn't become an actual issue between us, because I'm not going to stop focusing really hard on music, and I really love her, she's awesome and I want her in my life. I hope I can have both long-term... she's the most chill girl I've ever met but what happens if/when we start touring and finding success? I'll be even more busy...
Then after she left I fell asleep before she even went out the door. And I had the weirdest fucking dream, it was really unsettling. In it, my car kept getting fucked up and I had to fix it repeatedly, including 2 of the tires popping. Then I was riding around with weed in the center console and got pulled into a traffic stop where they were searching everyone's car, but not their pockets, and the cop was walking towards the car and I had about 2 seconds to get the weed from the console and into my pocket before he would see it, but I froze and couldn't move, so he found it. Then I got arrested and put into some sort of weird work camp that was really bad... I had a dorm room sort of thing, and for some reason when I went back to my room one night I had that same bag of weed sitting on my bed, and the guard was coming to check on everyone and I was trying to hide it under the mattress but as I did it grew huge and there was a huge lump under the mattress, totally obvious something was there. Then somehow I was out of the work camp prison, driving my car, but now there was a nuclear explosive device attached to it. It was threatening to go off and vaporize the city, and I was trying to stop it, but I couldn't figure it out. It started getting really hot and melting parts of my car including all 4 tires. For some reason my primary concern there was, "damn it! I just replaced those tires! I can't afford new ones!". And it also stranded me so I couldn't go anywhere for help, but that was less of a concern to me than the tires.
It sounds kind of silly and random now but it was so weird and unsettling. I woke up today feeling weird and unsettled from all of those factors. Plus I overslept so I came into it immediately having to catch up a bit with work. Hopefully this weird fog clears away soon, right now I feel a little out of sorts, with lingering anxiety from the dream/last night.
I have a gretsch too and I love it. I run it through a digital-tube vox hybrid. Sounds pretty good but want to replace my all in one pedal with individual boxes.
Do you like a hollow body sound? What guitar tone do you like? Any inspirations?
Ah, a fellow Gretschian!
Yeah, i love the hollow-body sound - i play a lot with feedback resonance and different sonic textures in a melodic context, so it really suits me.
Lately ive been playing in a band with a guitarist who has a similar set up to mine (a 60s valve amp and hollow body guitar from the early 70s) and the tonal interplay between us is amazing. So warm and rich, or jangly or twangy.
I pretty much just alternate between the 'clean' and 'drive' channels on my amp, and bridge pickup/both pickups on the guitar.
The bride pickup is great for lead and tones with more "bite" - and i use both pickups generally for rhythm stuff.
I find i can get some really nice rickenbacker-ish jangly sounds out of it, or chunky sounds for solid riffs, or pretty much anything i want. I play some pretty experimental stuff at times, laced with feedback and fuzz, and i really like to get as many moans, grunts, squeaks and throbbing feedback sounds out of the amp as i can.
I'm pretty obviously influenced by a lot of lou reed's playing on the first two velvet underground albums (specifically...but not so much the crazy "ostrich guitar" tunings) - but i quite often find that some of my favourite guitarists also played Gretsches, such as the guys from the Animals and the Troggs - and the Jesus and Mary Chain.
Hollow body guitars are SO good for feedback. So much fun.
I have pretty eclectic tastes, but guitar-wise i really admire people like Rowland S Howard (who was in an Australian punk band called the Birthday Party, and did a couple of great solo records too). He got some really crazy sounds out of his Fender jaguar; that was my guitar-of-choice before i got my green gretsch. But really, the fender didnt even get a look in once i got the gretsch - and i sold it.
Really dig melodic playing, but also with a crazy, wild bent. I tend to go for simplicity over virtuoso-playing - for me it's all about how music feels, over the technical aspects.
Hendrix is probably the biggest exception to that rule-of-thumb. That man could fucking play, but with so much soul.
Not too many people can do that, very very few in fact
I had a dream about going to a Phish concert last night (never even listened to Phish before in real life) and I remember everyone was doing things which I didn't know to do, and the people there were disgusted with me for it being my first Phish concert... I think dreams do underline our concerns in life. I hate the concept of trying to join a new group and being marginalized for simply being new and not knowing their ways.
Dreams most definitely hold meaning! I just had a breakthrough today (not because of a dream though ) that I hold a lotttt of guilt for multiple things that bogs me down TONS.
I sometimes have weird anxiety dreams like that, but for the life of me I can't figure out if there's something I'm ignoring. There certainly WAS in my life, for 12 years... they started during that time. I find that it takes a long time for my dreams to catch up to my reality... for example my girlfriend and I have been seeing each other for over a year but she hasn't been in my dreams ever yet, actually most of my friends where I live don't tend to be in my dreams either, it's usually people from my childhood. I wonder if I just have residual anxiety from my relationship/opiate addiction phase. It was certainly very traumatic. It's just, things in my life are great, I'm doing stuff I love and I'm healthy and happy.
^I wouldn't put too much stock in it, dreams can be meaningful, but they're mostly just random bits of data that are drawn from all over your mind and stuck together. It seemed to me that the one you related was just an expression of a perfectly ordinary fear of bad things happening that are beyond your control. At least that's my 4 halfpence.
So much good content here, why I love this social! I'll get into later when I have time!
I randomly found a tab of ETH-LAD today. I thought I was out but it must have fallen into my scale kit in the directions. I absolutely love that sort of thing. It's so rare that something like this happens, and it's truly amazing. I love the peaceful serenity of this lysergamide. I also tossed in a bit of 3-MeO-PCP. I find it can balance things, and as always I love combining dissociatives and psychedelics. In a bit I'm a going to load a few N20 Chargers and get even weirder. Ahh life!! I might toss in a touch of 4-HO-MiPT for more flavor...
I hope your all well and your complications fade into the background, and you'll be free to live a wonderful life....
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