I’m often puzzled by discussions about the “greatest” band of all time, or the “best” guitarist/drummer/bassist/etc., or the “top ten” albums, and in general with the obsession with ranking everything.

When it comes to music, I have my preferences like everyone of course, but I often have troubles defining what I love “best” or what I find to be the “greatest”. I’ve found that for me, it varies greatly with time and mood.

I have spent most of my life listening to all sorts of music in various phases, and if I’ve started by listening classical music, then rock, then hard rock, then punk, then blues, then pop, then folk, then progressive rock, then jazz-rock fusion, then jazz, then classic rock, then ambient, then… I have a hard time listing them all and in a specific order - let alone ranking these genres.

It might come from the fact that I had most of my musical awakening in the seventies, where eclectism was the norm, and also the fact that I wanted to be a session musician and wanted to be able to play in any style, so I studied them all and I tried to absorb as much as I could from any style: I was a musical glutton, and it helped me shape my own music I believe.

Today it would seem like everyone is obsessed with ranking, and I wonder: does music really needs to be a competition?

Every guitar player knows it: As soon as you pick up the instrument for a solo in front of a live audience, you have to make “THE FACE”… at least if you want to be considered a real guitar hero!

This is especially true if the guitar is electric, but even classical or folk players with an acoustic instrument are not entirely exempt. A simple Google search for “guitar face” will show you all sorts of vivid examples in all genres.

It’s pretty hard to pinpoint exactly where and when the fashion started, historians will probably debate this one for many years to come. I suppose it all came, like most of popular music, from the blues. And it makes sense that the suffering of the slaves in the cotton fields somehow translated to the players singing their harrowing plea.

How it came to be adopted by guitar players in particular, and in the rock scene especially, is left open to controversy. I will not adventure a theory myself.

I just know that for the many many years that I studied guitar, I have missed one essential part of my training by not doing it in front of a mirror. I would have perfected my stance and yes, probably made it big!

I gave up to the pressure of the internet: this photo is for you all!

As I was editing a video yesterday for my song “Frozen in Time” (which BTW, you can see on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqOxzrB1YYA), I was looking for evocative public domain clips that would fit the music, and I remembered reading marketing advice somewhere that to really attract an audience nowadays on the internet, particularly on social media, your images and videos should really contain one of the 2 major content elements that drive the internet nowadays: boobs or cats.

Not that I’m not into that, actually I find them both pretty attractive (for different reasons), but I wonder how a juicy pair would fit the intro lyrics of “Floating, weightless… looks like there’s no end to…”, or how much misinterpreted would be the phrase “I can let it go now”?

As to cats, they are cute and all, but do they really belong in a spacey dreamy song which in essence evokes death, cryogeny and a final voyage? “I wonder…” is one of the lyrics.
Yeah, I do wonder!

Does it matter so much that people are “liking” and “following” and “RT-ing” anything you do if it’s not something you’re particularly proud of anyway? And even if I had boobs (I don’t, remember I have a beard!), would I really want to share them to the world? Should I make an alternate version of this video that would appeal to the masses or should I just continue doing my thing, in all its invisible glory? I leave you to ponder with me. :D

OK, I admit: this sound turns me on!

So much memories that goes with it, from the first time I’ve heard that sound to the hundreds of records I’ve kept playing on what couldn’t be called a hi-fi setup. The first turntable I owned looked like a suitcase, you opened it up and voila!

The speaker (yes it was mono) was in the top part and the turntable underneath, and there was a tube amp underneath.

The problem with the tube amp was that if you forgot to remove the LP and went away for a while, it was overheating, and you came back to find the disk roasted and bent to such an extent that the needle was struggling to follow what was now looking like a miniature roller coaster.

Later on, I finally got a real hifi setup and boy was the sound marvelous, and that initial thrill of hearing the needle go down on that new LP you had just bought added to the experience and the suspense.

Perhaps if they added that sound to the online streaming sites nowadays this would appeal more to old git like me? :D

Remember these? If you’re old enough, you might…

I remember when this first came in into our house, it was put in the entrance, and you had to physically go there to actually make a call. You couldn’t put it in your pocket, nor move around the house with it, let alone go outside…

I bet most teenagers nowadays wouldn’t know how to operate this thing :)
There was no screen, but hey! there was a separate speaker, so you could have 2 people listening to a conversation at a time! That’s right!

I remember my mom, who had long conversations with her sister living in another town, used to pull up a chair in the corridor because she was tired after a while.

And oh! The price of a subscription, and how much each minutes was expensive. Happy days?

Now there were some advantages to it: for example, people were unlikely to use it at the diner table, and it was easy to forget it when you were outside. So people couldn’t actually reach you 24/7…

Imagine that! :D