Blues on Purpose

I spent some time today watching Rev Glen Kaiser's School of Blues Instructional DVDs. In the first volume he covered acoustic blues, showed some of his gear and discussed techniques for slide guitars and the dobro. In volume two he talked about electric guitars, what kind of amps to use and even how to mike a harmonica.

At one point he discusses why he chooses to play the blues. He rightly points out that the Psalms is the largest book in the Bible and that a full 57 of the 150 psalms are laments. Christians, like all people of faith, are subjected to indignities, temptations and sufferings. He asks, "Why aren't there more people of integrity writing, singing and playing real music that deals with real life as we all know it?" Amen, brother, amen.

Rock On, Stevie

Who knew Stevie Wonder can rock out on the drums?! I am impressed.

We Got the Blues

I went up to the Chicago Blues Festival with Signgirl this past weekend. The weather was great. I met her friend Karen and got reacquainted with her parents. My brother was in a weird mood, but seemed to enjoy himself at the festival.

We also checked out some used books at Printer's Row. Signgirl bought some Dr Who books. I would have bought some, too, if we hadn't had to carry them around all day.

The Scott Air Show will be July 7-8 this year. It includes a display of a B-2A Stealth Bomber, the most technologically advanced bomber in the world, which is rarely seen outside of its home base, Whiteman Air Force Base.

I Know What You Did Last Weekend

I spent the Memorial Day weekend writing characters for the Spycraft LARP that Atomic Squash plans to run at DieCon this Saturday. I started Friday after work and worked morning to night on them. I took a few breaks to play Battlefield 2 and do some shopping. More on that in a bit.

We managed to post a list of characters for this year's game. In total there are a total of 35 characters. Since we usually have around twenty players, the unfortunate reality is that a third of these characters probably will not make it into the game. I just hope some of the ones I sacrificed my holiday weekend to write find their way into the game. Here is the list of characters on which I worked the past three days (in the order on which I worked them):

• Vittorio Esperto: an Italian collector visiting the United States. (White Tux, Greased Hair, Pinky Ring)
• Malcolm Whitlow: a former Prime Minister of Australia. (Bald, Charismatic, Bold tie)
• Clodomir Uteem: an exiled islander and activist. (Dark Skin, Beard, Scowl)
• Nicole Mason: an Australian government official. (Plain, Flat Hair, Nice Dress)
• Jamal Riggs: a European Union tax agent. (Wrinkled jacket, Wing tipped shoes, Soul patch)
• Izanami Kishi: a famous Japanese actor and martial arts expert. (Black Formal Robe, Bald, Short)
• Hong Gildong: a Korean-born Texas oil magnate. (Comb over, False Teeth, Designer Tuxedo)
• Jeremy Wade: the assistant to Izanami Kishi. (Flamboyant, Curly Hair, Pink Shirt)
• Juan Kerr: the bodyguard to Elsa Beisheim. (Eye patch, Muscular, Van Dyke)
• Cynthia Pride: a British journalist working for The London Times. (Pantsuit, Short Hair, Notepad)
• Elmyr: a little known artist seeking some exposure. (Ascot, Chain Smoker, Earrings)
• James Camelot: a hacker who claims he has a program that can determine if paintings are fake. (Young, Nerdy, Skinny Tie)
• Pat Pennyworth: a beautiful auctioneer working for Fukabun Naka Auctions. (Stiff Prosthetic Arm, Stunning, Red Dress)

Yeah, I'm a slacker. I have a new respect for writers. Getting my head around most of these characters was a challenge. How do you make a tax agent interesting? What motives a wealthy Texas oil tycoon? What would compel somebody to spend time with a former Australian Prime Minister? I am convinced that writing involves hundreds of these little decisions. Good authors are the folks that make the best decisions.

I managed to accumulate enough points in Battlefield 2 to get promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. So far I have earned 75,099 points and have played the game for a total of 825 hours.

I picked up Ozzy Osbourne's new album, Black Rain. It definitely rocks. The album features some juicy guitar riffs, or as I heard a DJ once say, ".. the sound of finely tuned chainsaws". It's a beautiful thing. The lyrics were adequate but fell short of being great. Thankfully Ozzy did not completely disappoint me like Sevendust's last effort did.

Burns Night 2007

I went to the St Louis Tap Room for Burns Night last night just like I did last year. It is a fun celebration of the Scottish poet Robert Burns.

I had some excellent Scotch Eggs. My buddy Adam joined me. He had the haggis, nips and tatties.

We got there too late for the recital of the late poet's "Address to the Haggis", the best poem ever composed by a man to a meat product. Even more regrettable is that we missed the Lassies Response delivered last year by an attractive lass who was very amusing.

We were entertained by a band of kilted performers who marched into the club room playing drums and bagpipes. They performed a number of traditional songs and an impressive drum piece.

Unfortunately I had to cut the evening short because I had a morning meeting. I had a great time hanging with friends and enjoying the food and music.

Darrell Mansfield in St Louis

It's a Wednesday night, but I AM SO THERE!

Darrell Mansfield
in Concert

February 14
6PM

The Gathering Place
8426 Halls Ferry RD.
St. Louis, MO
314-269-6563

Keep Up With Your Love

Brilliant! Folks, guitars prevent synchronized dancing.

You Are My Deathstar

Hello friends. It has been a while since I have made a sizable blog entry. Back on Labor Day my mother came to visit. I have mentioned before that I lost my father earlier this year. Mom brought an old PC from my late father's business. I plan to take the hard drives out and browse through them for anything important. She also brought some JRR Tolkien books I had bought Dad as Christmas gifts. Somehow I did not expect to see them again. You never give a gift expecting it to show up again on your kitchen table. I have an idea. Since I was a teenager the first time I read and enjoyed the Hobbit, I want to take the books to Archon and give them to a teenager there. It feels like the right thing to do.

Mom and I went to St Louis Bread Company. We tried their Crispani pizza. I had the Sausage and Apple. Mom had the Three Cheese. All in all they were pretty good. I'm grateful too that we didn't have to sit in the waiting area of a restaurant.

Last weekend I had dinner with a friend at Plaza Frontenac. It was nice to catch up. Funny thing is I used drive by that mall every weekend for three months. I never stopped by to check out what it had to offer.

I have a personals profile on Yahoo! Personals. So far the only date I have managed was with a woman I already knew. I just do not get responses from women in which I am interested. I have responded to women in whom I am not even interested. I wanted to see if they would respond. Nothing is more like a Deathstar to my ego than to get the virtual cold shoulder. I hear folks say that they have had luck. But, sadly, my experience has been different.

Well, I got fed up with sub-par performance of my Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I bought a replacement in case I wanted to hack the ROM on my current router and bricked it by accident. Fortunately, that was not necessary. I reset it to its defaults and tweaked parameters. I changed settings one at a time and examined performance changes. I learned the following:

• Enabling burst mode is not good
• Changing the channel from 6 (the default) to 11 helped considerably
• Anytime a 802.11b device uses the router the performance of my 802.11g devices drop
• Increasing the value of beacon interval to 360 milliseconds improved performance on my laptop two rooms away

I upgraded the firmware on my Playstation Portable (PSP) to version 2.81. This allows me to download and play game demos. I downloaded the Loco Roco Demo from Sony's site. It is a cute little game. You control a gelatinous blob by tilting the screen left and right using the shoulder buttons. Pressing both buttons at once bumps the screen causing your blob to bounce. The goal is to collect fruity looking widgets while avoiding the spiky looking whatzits. It is very entertaining but can be frustrating. The graphics are brightly colored and interesting. The soundtrack is a hauntingly sweet Japanese tune.

Black Label Society recently released their new CD entitled Shot to H-ll. Amid a collection of mellow meandering songs with aimless lyrics these songs stand out:

• Concrete Jungle - a grinding metal song. this is where BLS shines
• Blacked Out World - another heavy song. a little softer but still a decent tune with some good riffs

Saw "American History X" last night. I noticed that Ethan Suplee, the actor that plays Earl's brother Randy in the sitcom "My Name is Earl", played a skinhead in the movie. The dude has a huge range of acting ability.

You may have had some problems accessing gazpacho.net lately. Dreamhost, my web hosting provider, has been suffering network issues for a number of weeks now. The past couple of days they struggled with router issues that resulted in intermittent loss of access for my web friends. Just today they replaced the router and promised that things are better. Here's hoping.

I have toyed with the idea of producing a podcast. I'm thinking about doing something funny. I am considering spoofing commercials, mocking liberal politicians and so-called public radio, doing man-on-the-street interviews with America on current events, giving treatment to ridiculous social mores and perhaps producing an episodic radio play. Are there any female friends who want to lend voice talent? gratis? I'll buy pizza.

Wedded Worlds Collide

I received the following mix CD as a party favor at a wedding.

A Little Country

• Garth Brooks - The River
  
• Rascal Flatts - Bless the Broken Road
  
• Faith Hill - You Give Me Love
  
• Martina McBride - I Love You
  
• Lonestar - Amazed
  

A Little Rock and Roll Metal

• Black Sabbath - Spiral Architect
  
• Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
  
• Alice in Chains - Would?
  
• Metallica - Fade to Black
  
• When in Rome - The Promise
  

... When Worlds Collide

• Coldplay - Clocks
  
• Josh Gordon - Remember When It Rained
  
• The Church - Under the Milky Way
  
• Toby Keith feat. Willie Nelson - Beer for My Horses
  
• Days of the New - Enemy
  
• The Monkees - Cuddly Toy
  
• Eagles - Seven Bridges Road
  
• Ernie - I'd Like to Visit the Moon
  

I thanked the groom for including Ernie from Sesame Street. Now I do not have to download it using file sharing software purchase it from an online store.

Black Label Society's New Album

Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers

Whatever of Ozz

Well, I went to Ozzfest last weekend. Black Label Society rocked the second stage. Dragonforce reminded me of Judas Priest. They sucked. Lucana Coil was the pick artist of the evening.

It was hot out there. Temperatures were in the high 90s. Somebody passed out in the area where my brother and I were seated. There was some excitement as a mass of security staff rushed to aide the heat victim.

Hatebreed did a decent job. I decided to walk around rather than listen to Avenged Sevenfold. Then Disturbed took the stage. Where do I start? The lead singer launched into a sermon complete with "brothers and sisters" talk. He went on a bend spewing liberal tripe about the war on terrorism, global warming and pop music. There was anger. There was hate. There were lies. What qualifies a recording artist to comment on matters of global politics anyway? Shut up with your short sighted opinions and sing already!

A Christian Banned

Why do I find out about this stuff too late? The band One Bad Pig -- whose first album was named "A Christian Banned" -- organized a project called Cover Project where they asked aspiring artists to design cover art for a collection of fan-submitted covers of their songs. Sadly, the deadline has passed. It was April 1, 2006. I wonder if they'd take a tardy submission from a recreational guitar player singing "Christmas Time", "Judas' Kiss" or "Isaiah 6".

It must be like another thorn stuck in your brow
It must be like another close friend's broken vow
It must be like another nail right through your wrist
It must be just like
Just like Judas' kiss

- One Bad Pig, Judas' Kiss

Incidentally, the band has a St Louis connection. The inspiration for its name came from KSHE 95's Sweet Meat, the radio station's pig mascot.

DieCon Postmortem

I had fun at DieCon 6 this past weekend. I was good to see all of my buddies. I had a blast playing Rock High, a role playing game based on a high school full of mutants, and the Spycraft LARP. I lugged around a backpack full of books. That was mistake. I had serious back pain yesterday and self-treated it with ice packs and aspirin. Today it was a little better. I called in sick to work and am nursing my back with heat packs and Aleve. I hope to be well enough to limp my lame self around the office tomorrow.

The weekend before last I took my boss' sister to a tribute show at Pops. That's the closest I've come to a date in a long time. We had fun watching the tribute acts to Kiss, AC/DC and Ozzy. The Kiss tribute band had a lady who stood out front of the stage and translated the show in sign language. It was interesting to watch Kiss lyrics being signed by a cute blonde woman. The AC/DC band was good. The Ozzy band played a few too many obscure tunes for my taste, but still did a decent job.

Underrated Items of 2005

The past year, 2005, brought its share of hype and hero worship. As I did last year I decided to give a select list of underrated items some exposure.

I read an excellent article on podcasting. Would anybody listen to a gazpacho dot net podcast?

Twas Robert Burns' Night

Yesterday was Burns' Night. The Tap Room had a special celebration complete with reading Robert Burns' poetry and the presenting of the haggis. A crew of bagpipe players marched between the first and second floors skillfully entertaining us with Scottish tunes.

That reminds me of a story. One summer I worked at a Boy Scout camp. The staff members resided in one camp site. We had the luxury of electricity. Several staffers brought their stereos. They had a bad habit of playing them late into the night. One morning we all woke to a loud, high pitched wail. All of us ran out of our tents. I remember asking, "who's skinning a cat?" A scout leader at a neighboring campsite was playing his bagpipes poorly. He was upset about the late night music and taught us a lesson about unwanted noise. Turned out that he was a talented player, but gave us a sample of what bad bagpipes sound like. The stereos got turned down at night.

I had the haggis. They served it with mashed potatoes and turnips. It was pretty good but definitely not something you will find at a chain restaraunt.

Click on the image for a larger picture

Burns' Night

Happy Holidays from Powell Hall

I received the following email today from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

As we head into the peak of the Holiday season, the staff and orchestra members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra wanted to take a moment to say Thank You for your support!  If you've been to Powell Symphony Hall this month, you know that we've decked our Halls and we thought we'd share the image with you so you can deck your monitor!  Follow the link for a free downloadable wallpaper just for our e-minder patrons. A little something to help make your computer work area a little more festive.

All our best wishes for a safe and joyous holiday season!

Download the Symphony's free holiday wallpaper

Sliding the G String

I made a trip to the music store this week. I picked up a Blues Bottle Slide. Playing guitar with a glass slide is an interesting experience. It gives the guitar a new sound. On which finger are you supposed to wear the slide? I've noticed that some modern blues musicians wear the slide on their left-hand pinkie finger. While some rock musicians such as Joe Perry and the dude from Clutch wear it on their ring finger. There is also the matter of tuning. A little research on the Internet reveals that many musicians drop the 1st, 5th and 6th strings by a whole step in a tuning scheme called "G tuning". This tuning was popular among many delta blues artists.

I also bought a Boss TU-80 Tuner & Metronome. It is great for tuning my acoustic guitar. The metronome does not get very loud. But it does have a cool LCD display. So I can time my playing with the image I see on the screen.

Get Your Clutch On

Clutch plays two full sets tonight at Pops in Sauget, IL. The band can best be described as chicken-bone jam band southern rock. It is hard to pigeon-hole the band's sound. It has changed often over their last twelve years. With their latest release, Robot Hive: Exodus, they've returned to the guitar rock sound I grew to love on their self-titled effort.

Doors open at 7:00. Show starts at 7:00 PM with special guest Kelly Carmichael. Tickets are $19 at the door.

Directions from the Pops website:

Hope to see ya there.

Red Hat, Red Beans

This weekend I was a computer doctor for a friend's computer. The hardware was, to say the least, non-standard. We upgraded his Linux OS to Fedora Core 3. This broke his X-windows. The firewall he had set up kept spewing messages to the console. This made typing impossible to read. He didn't have secure shell installed. After three hours of upgrading his OS and futile attempts to fix X we called it a night. I hate to say it but he'd probably be better off with a re-format and an install of Fedora Core 4, the latest version available.

Saturday night I went to BB's Jazz Blues and Soups with a friend. We had dinner. I had excellent red beans and rice. She had two large whiting. The food was excellent. It was nice to sit and listen to some blues afterward. If you are looking for a place to dine in St Louis, I recommend BBs.

Zakk Wylde is the Godfather of Guitar

The Second Coming of Stryper

The yellow and black attack is back! The 80s Christian metal band Stryper announced last month that the band is back and plans to release a new studio album entitled Reborn. It will be the band's first studio album since 1990's Against the Law.

It has not always been easy for the righteous metal rockers. In an article in the August 2005 Guitar World singer Michael Sweet recalls:

I remember back in '85, we played a death metal festival in Holland. Before we went on we could hear the audience chanting 'F- Stryper!' over and over. One guy even superimposed a photo of my brother's [Stryper dummer Robert Sweet] head onto a girl's body and nailed it to an upside-down cross. He held it up and the crowd ripped it to shreds."

Say isn't European intolerance for religious expression one of the reasons why the United States of America came to be? Hundreds of years later we see the same narrow-minded behavior overseas.

The Reborn album embraces subjects like forgiveness, God's patience and true enlightenment. "The power of God is alive, but we often miss it," Sweet asserts. "We see opportunities to share the gospel, but we are so caught up in other things of life that we get sidetracked." Guitarist Oz Fox says, "It is a strong statement about our faith, and also about us as a band. This is a fresh start of us - we have been reborn. And we're telling people that if they choose to believe in Christ and follow Him, that can be reborn as well."

Original Stryper members Michael Sweet (lead vocals, guitar), Oz Fox (lead guitar), Robert Sweet (drums) are pleased to announce the addition of Tracy Ferrie (bass) to the band. Stryper will embark on a North American tour this fall.

In fact they will be the in St Louis area at Pops on Thursday, October 6th. The tickets are $20. Tickets went on sale starting yesterday at all Ticketmaster locations.

I See Drunk People

The Chicago Blues Festival 2005 pictures arrived from my brother today. This past weekend I went up to Chicago. We headed downtown to Grant Park to see this year's festival.

Click on an image for a larger version.

Chicago Blues Fest Main Stage

Again this year Gibson had a large tent set up. Inside they had mini-amps connected to an array of their electric guitars. I tried out several guitars including a Flying V and a SG model. They are nice guitars, but I still love my Goldtop Les Paul Gibson.

Tom playing a Gibson Flying V!

Blues Fans trying Gibson guitars

Even though we were at Grant Park, there was a statue of President Lincoln. I am told there is a Lincoln Park that has a statue of, yes, Grant. Chicago has wierd sense of humor.

President Lincoln at Grant Park

The famous Buckingham Fountain is located in Grant Park. You may recall seeing it in the opening credits to the Fox TV Show "Married with Children". Sing it with me, "Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage!"

Buckingham Fountain

A short walk across Lake Shore Drive lead down to a marina where boats are anchored during the summer. It was nice to take a break from the drunk people and relax down by the lake.

Boats on Lake Michigan

The Irish and the Egyptian

:: TIONOL

It is old news now, but I went to the St Louis Brewery Taproom to check out an Irish jam session called Tionol.

Click on an image for a larger version

A Dozen Musicians playing at Tionol

Jam Session Continued

:: EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGNS 2005

In older news I went to the Egyptian Campaigns 2005 with a buddy. It is a gaming convention run by the students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. It was disorganized and noisy, but we made our own fun.

Underrated Items of 2004

The year 2004 was filled with many overhyped products. I decided to give some exposure to a few items I feel did not receive the praise they deserve.

Good news! My Windows installation is mostly working. Look for the article on quiet PCs soon.

Chicago Blues Fest 2004

This past weekend I went up to Chicago to visit my brother and check the Chicago Blues Festival. Unfortunately, my train was five hours late getting up there on Saturday. By the time I got there, the festival was winding down for the day. So, my brother and I caught a train out to his suburb and got a bite to eat.

I did get to check out an hour of Blues Fest on Sunday. There were six stages with some good Blues being played. Gibson had a stand set up where a dozen or so people could play Gibson guitars. I've never seen that before.

On the train ride home I sat next to a woman who graduated from high school with me and also went to the same college. We spent the train ride chatting. We caught up on each others' lives and the goings-on in our hometown. Nancy, you rock!

I nearly cancelled the trip when I learned the train was late on Saturday. I'm happy now that I didn't. Talking with Nancy made the trip worth it.

Frizzle Fry

I saw the sold-out Primus show at the Pageant last night. There was no opening band. The band launched right into a few Frizzle Fry songs and played some tunes off their new CD. The second half of the show was almost entirely songs off Sailing the Seas of Chesse. Overall, it was a decent show.

Canadian Brass

I saw the Halloween show that the Canadian Brass did with the St Louis Symphony Orchestra. If you had asked me if it were possible for a brass quintet to perform to perform Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, I would have said it wasn't possible. But the Canadian Brass pulled it off in a frenzy that took my breath away. Those guys have talent!

Kevin Dumps Core

Kevin, my brother, recently contributed a track to the album: Requiem - For the Children of the Oklahoma City Bombing. The tune is entitled "Cement Skeleton" and appears under the band name Kevin Dumps Core.

Ballistic Test Zine, an online mag that covers the industrial/dark ambient/goth Christian music scene, has posted a review.

For more information drop by Kevin's site.