General Music Chat

Hey gang,

I know it's been ages since I've been around these parts. I was looking over the forum and it seems a lot of sh*t has happened! (So Sorry Crip!)

Anyway, I moved across the USA and back and in the process took over the lead guitar spot in a friend's band. Here's some pictures from our show this past weekend.









I thought folks might be interested to know one more person from this board made it into a gigging band. These guys I'm playing with opened for Slaughter and Puddle of Mud this year, and we're opening for Hell's Bells in about three weeks. In between we stay pretty booked with local clubs and bars. It's pretty cool.

It's been an intense 4 weeks for me trying to learn all the songs and solos.. But well worth the effort! I love playing out!

Hope everything is going well with everyone else!

-Christopher (a.k.a. ColorsFade)

Chris its great hear from you and see some pictures, I love the smoke and laser effects in your pics!

Didnt you hook up with some gal from Europe, or is my memory going bad!

Thanks for sharing, and glad to see your out there Rockin!

Theres nothing like playing live in my book, no matter what the venue is.

Very cool Chris. Nice pictures too. What's the name of the band? What's the music like?

@jimmydanger Name of the band is Homewreckr (misspelled on purpose).

We do a lot of rock from the 80's, 90's and some new stuff. It's a ton of Ozzy, Motley Crue, AC/DC, Judas Priest and then we mix in a lot of stuff like "Bad Girlfriend" from Theory of a Dead Man and "Crazy Bitch" from Buckcherry. Our 3rd set is non-stop dance rock; stuff chicks really dig. I love our 3rd set... We're trying to add more stuff like that. It's a constantly evolving lineup of songs. We're always learning, which is great.

@jw123 I did get engaged to a German rock star. I moved across the USA as she was moving back from Germany after 20 years of being a rocker. I bought a house over there and we moved in together and for a while it was absolute bliss; best days of my life really.

But... I can't get into what happened, but it fell apart. She has some issues she really needs to deal with, things from her past that scarred her pretty bad and made her unable to maintain a healthy relationship with me. It was a really sad and terrible break-up.

But, I came out of the other end okay. My life is great. I have no complaints.

Sorry I mentioned the gal Chris, sorry you went thru that, I know its tough, but hey I saved a ton with Gieco!

Your band kinda sounds like mine, we go back into the 70s more than you guys probably, but your right about the dance stuff, I always wanted to do a rocked up version of Fire, by the Ohio Players, great dance song, that needs to be guitared up, I love the breakdown in the middle.

You cant go wrong with old dance songs and revamping them for the late night set. There was a local group I went to see that did NIN Closer and it wasnt really the same but really got the people going, in fact I dug the hell out of it, listen to Zombies version of Brickhouse, thats another good one anywhere you play.

Keep on Rockin and stay in touch everynow and then!

@JW123 Don't sweat the girl. It is what it is. I just take the good from it. I remember the good stuff and always will. She was an amazing person in my life. It's sad that it turned out the way it did, because for a while we were quite the dynamic duo...

And now that we're not together anymore, I don't feel bad about posting who she is (she was very secretive while we were together).

This is her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMb8vA0Pld4

And you can see why I had a ring on her finger for a while... But, it's been over for a year. And I moved on.

As far as music goes, about as far back as we go is Zep's "Good Times, Bad Times". We also throw in the Four Horseman's "Rockin Is My Business" toward the end of the night and Rainbow's "Man On Silver Mountain". That's about it for really old-school rock.

We do NIN's version of Cars - all heavy and sh*t. That's early and we use it as a band-intro. We do the two verses in it and then we slam that main riff while he introduces the band. I have a BB Preamp I use for sustain, so I do all the keyboard notes on my guitar. It rocks. It's actually one of my favorite tunes that we do.

My other favorite tunes are the Cult's "Firewoman", "Hurricane" from Scorpions, Ozzy's "Crazy Train" (love the solo), and Shinedown's "The Sound of Madness" (which we just added and we need to perfect).

The dance stuff though... I love that set. We slam 'em with "Control" from Puddle of Mud, then "Figured You Out" by Nickleback, then Crazy Bitch and Bad Girlfriend. I mean, that whole set just rocks (we do 11 song sets) but those four especially and no one leaves the dance floor. And of course the AC/DC stuff goes over really well. The classics, like TNT and Dirty Deeds. We also do "Ride On" late in the last set when people want to bump uglies... It's fun.

We ussually do Control and i dont get why they dance to that one, and then ussually go into Killing In The Name and Spoonman and they dance thier asses off to those too. Paranoid, CrazyTrain, Livin after Midnite, and Enter Sandman get em rocking, you just never know what nerve your gonna hit.

I guess by the third set if you are playing anything they are half way familiar with they dance! LOL

Last gig we threw together Shout It Out Loud by Kiss, just decided in the parking lot to play it and hummed it out between me and the bass player, and the folks were going wild over that one, I had never tryed it before.

Great musical news dude.
Love the pictures.
So good to hear from you.

Rock on !

Anyway, I moved across the USA and back and in the process took over the lead guitar spot in a friend's band.

If only you could learn to play lead guitar, eh?


Rock on!

Hey Chris,, does that mean ONE LAST GLANCE is now a formal song.

You prolly forgot that one. I should have tried to fix that one fn note.

Still good to hear from you.

No GlenJ, it's an official song. It's on my official website. Still in that format.

Someday I'll get around to re-recording it and everything else I have. When people hear that song, and especially "Raindrops", they all say the same thing: "I'd buy a CD right now!"

So... I gotta get on that.

Right now, just focusing on this band. It's a lot of work to learn all these songs. I had to improvise a ton of solos at our first show because I just didn't know them note-for-note (exceptions: Crazy Train, Enter Sandman - you gotta know those!)

The acoustic stuff is definitely in my heart and soul though. I will keep working on that stuff. You all will be first to know if I ever get the CD done

Anyway, I moved across the USA and back and in the process took over the lead guitar spot in a friend's band.

If only you could learn to play lead guitar, eh?


Rock on!

LOL. Yeah. I wish I could play lead like my idols...

I keep working at it. At least now I'm starting to hold my pick correctly

Work in progress...

Chris I just gave up trying to play lead like my idols, these days I just do it the JW way, mash a few pedals, throw in a few licks and hope it all works out ok.

My band has been playing some songs for so long now, that when I hear them on the radio, some of our versions have taken on a whole life of thier own, its kinda neat.

Our latest is we do two Rocking verses of Whipping Post, then in the little guitar break I kick into Zeps Heartbreaker, play if thru the solo, then drop back to Whipping Post, do the climb at the end of the solo and finish the song. We did it last gig and it went really well, and the lyrics of both songs kinda compliment each other.

Blues Edge posted a version of Hush by DP, on here and Im gonna try to get the guys to play it sat for our next gig.

Chris just enjoy what your doing man, thats what its all about, I'll take the infamy of being in a local club band any day over the headaches of really trying to cut out a living in music, give me my $150 and free beer and food for the night and Im good to go!

Keep Rockin Man

Hey what gear are you using these days? Amps and pedals, sounds like you do a lot of the same stuff we do.

@JW

I am still using all my same gear. Mesa Boogie Triaxis with a Mesa Boogie 2:90 power amp, a TC Electronics G-Major for effects and a BB Preamp for leads. Everything is rack-mounted into one 8-slot rack and I use a Rocktron Patchmate to bring the BB Preamp in and out of the chain. The whole thing is controlled on the floor with one pedal system, the Rocktron Midi Mate. I throw a Tremonti (Morley) Wah in for the songs that need it (my favorite Wah; it doesn't have the harsh highs of the Crybaby and it doesn't require clicking to turn on; just start pressing down and it engages).

I love the Triaxis. I replaced all the tubes a couple years ago with some NOS and other stuff and it really beefed it up. I love the versatility and the programmability. Being in a cover band, I can get pretty much anyone's tone. I mean, have a whole separate channel just for the clean flanged intro to The Cult's "Firewoman", for instance. And tonight I was able to setup a separate channel for classic Van Halen, so I dialed in that Eddie distortion with a bit of phaser on it... Sounds great launching into "Unchained".

I wouldn't trade my rig for anything. It's exactly what I want. I just wish I had two of them - one for backup

I have heard the Triaxis is an awesome unit, man youve had that thing for a while, so I can tell you really like it.

I thought at one point about going the rack route and programming a gazillion things in for cover songs, but I just get whatever it is I sound like and mash a few pedals, Ive got the Bad Horsie II pedal currently on my board, along with a few more goodies.

Anyway its great to hear from you, and Keep On Rockin, just for the hell of it!