All Points West

So you’re going to go to new york and trek out to Liberty State Park in Jersey City to listen to 20 some bands on what’ll probably turn out to be a muddy mess.  You’re going to pay $20 for a hot dog and $40 for a bottle of water; cripes the economy is bad.  But you’re going to get a picture of either The Beastie Boys, Tool, or Coldplay.  Don’t get me wrong, the pics’ll make your friends jealous when they see them on facebook, and they’ll be in awe when they see the lo-fi 20 second vids you post, but in terms of enjoyment, really do your research before you base your decision on those 3 headliners.  Are the Beastie Boys really going to tell you to fight for your right to party?  Will they get intergalactic?  Do you care anymore?  Do you want to hear Coldplay perform to bad backing tracks, or are you still confused as to why the live video you saw at your buddy’s place sounded like they had a string section. And when Chis Martin tells you to make trade fair, and you’re dying of thirst, are you going to puke on your girlfriend?  As for tool, not too many people know the faces of the band, but when they hear schism they know for sure who it is.

But I don’t mean to put the festival down, sure there are a lot of good acts, and there’s no better way to watch the sun rise, hover, and set.  Sure, you may not like every tune, you probably won’t puke, and you can always buy a poncho if it rains.  And to tell you the truth, you guys who are reading this cuz you already have tickets and you wanna read the scoop on the show, I honestly haven’t said anything about it.  But I’ll let you know, my point is that, you’ll probably like the names in small print better than the names in big bold and also that I’m tres jealous that I can’t go myself.

-M

Female Law Power

I found this quite interesting after I found out  that Sonia Sotomayor was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Sotomayor was named the first Hispanic Justice and the third female Justice of the Supreme Court.  I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the integral females of the legal system in my country.

Everyone knows the great Sandra Day O’Connor, from the United States, who has recently retired, and was even on David Letterman, this week, June 24th, 09.  The lesser known (even to Canadians) Bertha Wilson,  served on the supreme court of Canada for nine years, retiring in 1991.  However, she was indeed the first female to be appointed.  Actually, when Canadians look back, the 80’s were probably some of the greatest modernizing times for our nation, especially in the legal areas and naming the first female justice to the supreme court is almost as important as declaring for the first time the fully Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Since this we’ve had, although for only a short time, a female Prime Minister, and have beefed up the estrogen level on the Supreme Court.  Bertha Wilson wasn’t just a one-time deal; now we boast a 4-female-justice supreme court, including Marie Deschamps, Rosalie Abella, Louise Charron, as well as the right honerable, Chief Justice Beverley Mclachlin.

And, in looking up these fine femmes of the law, I found out that the woman, Bertha Wilson, who broke the barrier and set the record for all of the other women that followed, had recently past.  She was said to be an inspiration to other female law students, lawyers, and justices.

Also, Wanted to give a shout out to my female lawschool peeps, Viv and Colleen.

Music After Plastic Surgery

I’m just having a relaxing day in the 2nd beautiful day of summer, with a cold cola (yes I know it causes heart disease), and my subscribed Rolling Stone magazine.

On the cover is Adam Lambert, a guy I’ve never heard of, but apparently he’s huge  now.  Either that, or Rolling Stone is photographing and writing stories about random people off the street.  So, as I peruse the 4 page spread on Adam Lambert the most interesting thing to note is that “while on a European tour of Hair at age 21, Lambert started smoking pot and went to his first sex club.”  In 2007, after all that, he apparently had a psychedelic drug trip where he convinced himself to do American Idol.  Okay, so now we’re caught up.  But this article isn’t about  Adam Lambert, not even close, It’s just the beginning.

So, what I tend to do is read all the short stories of the Rolling Stone mag, and then skip to the back, and flip the pages backwards and read the remaining short stories that always follow the 4 and 5 pagers tucked away in the middle.  So I’m at the point now where I’m at the very back of the mag, and there’s always the billboard Top 40 Chart. I’m always curious to find out what’s on the list.  THE LIST!

(1)Eminem tops the chart this week with, (2)Green Day slightly behind and (3) Hannah Montana of all things, (4) Marilyn Manson and (5) Lady Gaga finishing up the top 5 until the next issue comes out.

Manson’s single is new, and enters at number 4, which is quite good, because since his last album completely alienated audiences he still has a very big, although mostly cult-following, fan-base.  But what strikes me is the correlation between the classic top 10 albums and what’s currently on the top 40.        Somewhat like the Mad Magazine’s back cover in every issue we get to see two images and two completely different messages all in one place.

This week though, one man who still is on the scene comes in just ahead of Mandy Moore and one slot behind Beyoncé.  Bob Dylan.  Bob Dylan had the number 3 album on June 14th, 1969 as well as his number 24 single (17 last month) on Billboard.

So, I’d like to put this forward as my thoughts towards what’s going on (yes that’s a marvin gaye line) on these charts.  Hey, on june 14th, 1969, the Hair soundtrack was the number one album, and today if that happened I’d probably curse it too, but Hair has stood the test of time, and hey, they had acoustic instruments on that vinyl disc.

Now, the only valid music charts it seems, out there are college charts.  And so few people are buying the albums that are on these charts.  I mean, I have friends who work for college radio stations, and as soon as an album goes top 40, the college radio stations aren’t allowed to play it anymore.  And actually, you’d most likely find the album hair in a bulk bin at some used LP store for 25 cents, and in 5 years, you’re going to see every number 1 single by beyoncé and and Eminem in the bulk bin too.  But are you going to see that Bob Dylan album, that Marvin Gaye album or Metric or Iron and Wine  (college radio #1 this week) selling in the bargain bin?  Probably not.  Infact, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album on LP still sells used for upwards of $25.00 CAD.

There’s obviously exceptions, I don’t have a problem with Green Day or Marilyn Manson being up there, but lets have some gospel music (Johnny Cash and Elvis sang gospel), lets have some jazz (Phil Collins and Billy Joel Both love jazz), and lets all get over ‘R’ music and lets reunite the ‘R’ with the ‘B’

Some of it just ain’t music to my ears.

Twitter Tweets Loud and the Big American Meh.

This girl is better than CNN and CNBC despite the fact that she drops an F-bomb and she can’t pronounce the word Guantamano?… No, its Guantanamo.

But I think she has the best reporting on this, where all the networks mentioned the american plea to keep twitter running, during the riots, instead of following through on their scheduled maintenance on saturday as she describes.

And in case you were wondering Mahmoud Amadinejad won officially, and Mir Hussein Mousavi, or “the other guy” as she calls him, officially lost the election by something like 62% or so.  But it amazes me that what had happened in Iran over the weekend conjured up so many supporters of the scandal theory, where despite the misinformation, despite the sketpticism, Americans in past scandals have always shrugged and didn’t care.

Do you remember this?

So, maybe I’m jumping along with the reform party in Iran, along with all the protesters, and I’m a little naive like the girl talking about how “Iran’s latest election matters globally”, and maybe I want to free our western conceptions about terrorist profiling, but I think, in a way, this is far worse.  By God, say a prayer for the absolutely lost and apathetic.

Anyways, another video that spoke to me, from deep in the cultural salad that I call home, and love dearly, a hundred miles from my abode. BTW  If you aren’t familiar with a multi-lingual society, essentially, he speaks the same thing in both languages, so just enjoy the music, if you can’t understand the words.

Hockey-Town Contradiction

Two of the major sports news stories this week come from the Montreal Canadiens being sold and the Phoenix Coyotes holding their fort.

La Presse in Montreal reported the sale price is well over $500 million, which would include Gillett’s 80.1-per cent interest in the team and 100 per cent stake in the Bell Centre and event promotion company Gillett Entertainment Group.

Obviously there are millions of habs fans globally, and to them, this doesn’t change their historical, often bittersweet, and glorified perspective of the team, however there is an interesting contradiction between this transaction, and the transaction that occurred between Blackberry God, Jim Balsillie this May, which ultimately concluded this week.

The story as found on the wikipedia website states: On May 5, 2009, Balsillie made an offer of $212.5 million to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes following the team’s filing for bankruptcy protection inArizona. In a press release from Toronto, Ontario,^[14] the offer to purchase is conditional on relocation to Southern Ontario. At the request of the current owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, Jim Balsillie agreed to post debtor-in-possession financing of $17.0 million U.S. dollars to allow the Phoenix Coyotes to operate in advance of a restructuring or a sale. A few hours later, the NHL removed Coyotes owner, Jerry Moyes, from all decision making regarding the future of the Phoenix Coyotes, as the NHL has had control over the team and all holdings since Moyes signed a proxy agreement. This is to be disputed in court on May 19, 2009 in Phoenix Bankruptcy Court.^[15]

The strange thing about the two deals is that in the end, the bottom line comes to the fact that hockey teams are in the market for selling to hockey fans.  Simple as that.   Is a team, in the 2nd largest hockey market in canada, really worth “well over 500 million” when one guy can make a bid to buy a team, to stick it right in the middle of the largest hockey market in canada, for under 300 million?

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re searching for a lambourghini at bargain annie’s third-hand junk store, don’t quit your day job.  And don’t play tricks on the die-hard hockey fans, right in the heart of Leaf country dangling some Gretzky meat along with it.  Thanks, Balsillie, for nothin’.

Melodic Minor Guitar Lessons

I think this Lesson is good for people who already know the melodic minor scale in this position but really don’t know what chords to use it on.  And he also shows you the augmented 7th chord associated with the scale.

So he says that if you play an ‘A minor 6th’ chord you could use the A melodic minor.

This lesson is the continuation of Marty’s lesson, where he tells you that the same scale (A melodic minor) can be played over the ‘D7′ chord.  But he calls it a D lydian dominant, which is correct.
Why?
A: Because if you start the A melodic minor scale on D you would be starting from the fourth note of the scale of the 4th mode of the melodic minor.  So if you are already familiar with the major scale or natural modes, the 4th mode is called the lydian mode.  And the word dominant comes from the fact that the scale is intended for a dominant chord (ie. it has a +3 but a -7)

So, to start you off with some melodic minor sounds this is great.

So I’m going to go to marty again for this third video, I believe his intentions were to create this series.

The altered scale as he says serves as a nice way to find the {#5, b5, b9, #9} as well as the necessary dominant chord tones.  So, as he says, you find the chord you want to use (in this case a G7) and you take your melodic minor scale and shift it up a semi-tone (so now you are actually playing an Ab-melodic-minor scale) and you have an altered dominant scale.

Now, you may think, that ii/v progression he plays (Dmin7 to G7) sounds bad with the melodic minor scale in there, well, I certainly agree, but when you put it into context with a series of integral key changes and things such that are found in the blues or in most jazz tunes, the altered scale is very essential.  For example: here’s john stowell comping on a blues and the tune solar…

Now imagine yourself playing all natural modes over these changes.  You might just be out to lunch.   I’m only now getting into the melodic minor scale, but I’ve already found over 5 licks I can use (in one key), and am learning to play them in all keys, impose them into my solos (I’m performing tonight, maybe I’ll stick some in there… I know I did last saturday).  As well, I’m creating different permutations to the licks that I already have.  Just one lick can be milked dry into several permutations.  So that’s a lesson all alone.

But I’d like to close this review of some of the best melodic minor youtube videos by saying that my jazz teacher in university told me that the most commonly used scale in jazz is the melodic minor scale.

Update: the next chapter of my novel

I have posted another chapter of my novel Two Views of a Secret on the page that can be found on the right-hand side of this page. 

 Go to the right hand column and find the heading Pages and find the 2nd chapter of my novel.  Chapter 1 is posted there as well.  The first chapter is entitled The Normalcy of the fall.  And the second chapter is entitled Straight to sleep.

A Music Vid done by myself

Since I wasn’t able to put up songs on my blog, I decided to put one of my songs to video.  Now its on My blog.  Give’er a listen, and tell me what you think…. I know its scratchy, but its the best I could do with 10MB.

 

Check out my other blogs down below.