1. Nerves-When I first got on stage I was really nervous. This band had been around before so I was getting held to the old guitarist as a standard. Luckily I surpassed the crowds expectations and I went over very well. Now the band I am in has a traditio of a shot before we play and that does help some but honestly alcohol doesnt help as much as just getting out there and playing in front of people.

2. Focus-I know this sound like something Mr. Miagi would say but its true. You have to completely block everything else out of your mind and focus on playing. Dont worry about the significant other, your job or any other problems you have. It should just be you and the music. Another thing that I have yet to encounter is the negative drunks who just diss on your playing. You have to ignore them because most of the time they dont know what theyre talking about.

3. Be ready for the unexpected-Just one example is this past weekend on the second gig I was about to go into a solo when the PA and my amp and pedalboard died. Luckily we just tripped the power strip but the band kept playing as if the lead singer and myself were still playing. This was my second night of playing, so as you can see it can happen anytime, anywhere and you just have to improvise and take it in stride.

4. Equipment-This goes as unspoken but always make sure you have played the gear a while before you play live with it. My SG untuned during a school concert because I hd played it a week and thought it was fine. Make sure you play a guitar as hard as you can, bend notes as high as possible, use the tremolo bar like Hendix, anything to make sure in wont detune. Also look at the electronics and make sure are connections are solid and soldered correctly because that it a tough thing to fix mid song. Same goes for all other equipment make sure you can trust it. As I said though stuff will go wrong as much as you prepare and be ready for it. If at all possible have back ups. Not just guitars but cables. power supplies, strings, and if possible an amp even. Dont go overboard and have a spare of everything because you can survive without this pedal for a night for this guitar.

5 Volume-This also is should be a no brainer but people sometimes dont realize it. This is hard to say no to because some people rely on volume to get their tone from an amp. My first word of advice here is turn the amp (or cab) around so it faces the wall. Then mic it up and this will reduce how much power you send at the crowd. Now another solution is too find a pedal that gives you a great tone. The chances of a 50 dollar distortion pedal giving you a tone to be proud of are slim to none but look at some of the higher end ones.

6. You will not always have a crowd. I had the impression this band had a huge fan base but honestly its not what i thought it was. Always play as if you packed Madison Square Gardens. Because that one guy in the bar may bring friends, and they may bring friends the next time you play.

Hopefully these tips will help you avoid any major problems the first time you play a gig.

Another thing is that it seems to resemble our society. In the past people made stuff by hand and added their personal touches to it. Today everything is manufactured and very cookie cutterish. In the past speed wasnt a huge factor for the gauge of a player. Numerous guitar heroes from the past do not have near the speed as the young ones do, but they poured their heart and soul out in their solos. Today these guys fly all over the place but it just seems so close to what the next guy is doing.

Another thing I notice is that shreds dont show as much emotion when they play its more of a straight laced shut up and play deal where as old school rock and blues guys are so into that their facial expressions mimic what they play. I know that is how they feel they best express themselve but they alway seems to play fast no matter what.

Throughout the interview Steven Spielberg keeps mentioning that he is doing this movie to show dinosaurs as animals not monsters. If you watch that movie you actually start to see the more animal side and less of the big killing monster. He talks about how they researched all these other animals to recreate the dinosaurs. If you watch it even of the VHS it is amazing to think about how many boundaries this movie pushed. One thing I also liked is how Spielberg presents different scientific theories about the dinosaurs and their behavior.

Now this flows into the second one but for some reason the second one didn’t seem as cool as the first. One reason I think that is, is because the people are the main characters, not the dinosaurs. In the first one you become familiar with almost all of the dinosaurs and their personalities. The second one has the three T-Rexes that are the main dinosaurs, but the people still seem to be the main focus. Also the story revolves more around the people and not the dinosaurs. The first one shows dinosaurs fight for survival but from the human’s point of view. The second one is humans attempt at trying to control nature (as is the first one but now we know they survived).

Now the third one is part of the reason that I believe they stopped making the movies. First off the kids of my generation who seemed to all love dinosaurs were getting older and away from the stuff the liked as kids. Second this one even strays more from the dinosaur focus. This movie could have been done in Africa with lions, hyenas and other creatures and it wouldn’t have changed it much. The graphics in this one are the best out of all three. In this one they slowly turn the dinosaurs back into monsters again and begin to get away from the bird theory. In this one they did do more theory on the Raptors, but seeing the first one it has the parts that they describe in the “new” theory, One reason I see this almost step back is that they had a new director. He also doesn’t allow you to become familiar with the personality of all the creatures, he shows more of the “Im gonna eat you” side of the dinosaurs not more animalistic side from the first one.

In my opinion the first one is still the best one and the worst is the third. So if you saw the second or third one first and didn’t like them, watch the first one because it is so much different from either of the last two. The first one I give two thumbs up, the second one, and the third a flat hand shake.

The basic plot is that the Viking came over to Canada and left a young boy that the Indians find and raise. The Vikings then return to the New World and going about exterminating the natives. In turn angering the ex-Norseman and leading him to seek vengeance. Now encounters between the Vikings and the Indians probably happened, we are unsure of how they went and the writer and director took some liberties with this.

First the Vikings are not historically represented, they designed them to look as mean and terrible as they could. In the bonus features they openly admit that they didn’t research much of the Vikings but they said they did a great job on the Indians. Now after watching this movie I was shocked they even say that. The Indians are just about as white as I am as far as culture. First of they had the wigwams all wrong. They do present this as being down towards Maine or the Northeast US. From my history classes I was taught that the Indians lived communally in these wigwams. Here each family has there own personal one. Then when this other tribe travels to this village to trade they shake hands when they meet. Now first off this started in ancient Rome after the murder of Caesar to show friends you didn’t have a knife, so this is a European tradition, not a native. Now also this trading band was the whole tribe, men women and children. We are unsure of Indian trading parties but evidence does suggest they traded. Making an educated guess I would say that trading parties were comprised of a small group maybe 10-20.

Another thing is the Natives spoke English, which was ok if the entire movie was in English, but the Vikings spoke Norse in the movie. Why couldn’t they have researched the Native language and tried to find out some info. Another thing that I was shocked about was the story about the two wolves fighting in your soul. I have always been told this was a Southwestern tribes legend not a Northeastern one. The one thing Im not sure about is the gentleman that played a chief in the movie. In the bonus features he says he was proud to be in such a great portrayal of Natives. Im not sure if this was out of politeness or he truly meant it but I really think it was tongue in cheek.

The movie is a great blood and guts one similar to 300 but near as good. As far as historical it is not worth watching unless you want a good laugh. To the average person it most likely doesn’t matter. I give this movie a flat hand shake (meh). It was a great guy flick but the historical inaccuracies really ruined.

Now I will give you a little rundown of the people I used to hang out with. The first one is a girl that I met through my freshman girlfriend (now ex). I actually got her a job as a trainer and we ended up spending a lot of time together which I thought made us good friends. Now honestly I really just wanted to date her is why I hung around and let her use me. She would give me enough of the carrot to lead me on some more, until recently I switched to tomatoes. Just to clarify this girl and me have never done anything physical as the statement before seems to allude to. Now I thought I was her best friend were actually I was the guy that would be the DD and I was always there when she called to do something. Now don’t settle for being a back up friend because eventually they will just stop calling.

The second friend that I left was the two faced kind. This is actually one of my ex’s and if you think this is just me getting back at her its not. But we met through our grandparents and she was just the nicest girl you could imagine. I will say that I did use her as a back up friend sometimes but I actually saw her as one of my best friends. Then we dated and I saw a whole different side of her that I hadn’t seen before. She was super messy, procrastinated everything, and is stuck in the past. By that I mean she talks about missing high school but then still bitches about kids in her class even though she hasn’t seen them in years. Lets be frank here high school was fun and there are aspects I miss but I like college so much more I wouldn’t go back. I have forgotten about the grudges in high school and have given them up. Anyway after we broke up she was always running to daddy about every little thing. Now I will talk more about this on my blog post on dating.

Now one thing that I did after I realized how bad of friends I really had, I went through facebook and deleted friends of friends, people who I don’t talk to, and people I really don’t give a rats ass about.

This may seem like kind of a mean way to sort through my friends. But here is my thinking when I had 700 friends there could 100 people on at certain times. That means trying to find certain people you want to talk to is hard. Where as with my 200 some friends now they all are people that I can talk to and when they are online its way easier to find them on the list. People have criticized because it is a “networking” site but the people that I deleted really arent the kind of people I want to be associated with. More and more these days potential employers are getting on Facebook and checking into potential employees. Do you really want them seeing your friend who posts about doing pot all the time, or the buddy with pics up from Spring Break where you are hung over a toilet puking your brains out. Really take a look at who your friends are and if they are really that good of a friend to you. If you are unsure just do like Stalin and have them killed. Just kidding there been reading a book on Stalin and that just popped into my head as an analogy.

His main focus is achieving your childhood dreams. He was lucky enough to achieve most of his and the ones he didnt made him a better person.  He goes through his life talking about his setbacks, achievements, and brick walls. The brick wallks actually really applies to my life right now because arent happy with my career choice but he says “brick wall are there to show us how bad we want it.”

He has a ton of great advice on raising kids, education, behaivor, and just about anything else you can imagine. Another great reason to read this book is because he doesnt pull any punches about death. Reading this reminded me of my grandpas demise and actually brought me to tears because of how honest he is.

This book has actually changed my thinking about life and death because of honest he is throughout the book.  At one point he mentions not worrying about what other think. And today I went out and burned a letter an ex wrote me telling me I was an ass an all this other junk. I dont care what she thinks or anyone else thinks.The only people I worry about are me and God.

Now there were 2 things that reading this book I saw as being contradictory. First he says that he is going to try to survive and you have to keep your head up and cant get down. At the end of the book he says that pancreatic cancer will take me then mentions two foundations he supports.  That sounded like a man surrendering.

The second thing I read was about child raising. He talks about how his parents never spent money of unnecessary things. Then when he talks about his kids growing up, he mentions all these cool trips that most kids would never imagine getting to take in a million years.

Overall this book is excellent and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. Its really short (just over 200 pages).  It doesnt really have chapters but the way it is broken down makes it very easy to read.

Track Listing 1. Stone Free, 2. Valleys of Neptune, 3. Bleeding Heart, 4. Hear My Train A Comin, 5. Mr. Bad Luck, 6. Sunshine of Your Love, 7. Lover Man, 8. Ships Passing Through the Night, 9. Fire, 10. Red House, 11. Lullaby for Summer, 12. Crying Blue Rain.

Let me first start out by saying this is not a polished/finished album, but they are not rough demos either. Some songs like Sunshine of Your Love have no lyrics and others like Valleys of Neptune have no solos. Now most fans know that Hendrix has been dead for 40 years now and for those of you who dont now you do. These songs are from the last two years of Hendrix’s life. Along with some “Slight Returns” to some of his old tunes most of these songs are previously unreleased. Stone Free, Hear My Train A Comin, Fire, and Red House are all previously released, Hear My Train A Comin was first released on another posthumous Hendrix album called Blues.

The opening track of course is a return to the Stone Free. Hendrix made a more complex rhythm as compared to the old one. Other than changes in the rhtyhm the lyrics stayed the same. The solo is of course different and I prefer the new one.

The title track of the album lacks on Hendrix trademark and that is a guitar solo. But it starts out almost Pink Floydish. After the intro the song picks up and goes into a typical Hendrix sound with his mystic lyrics.

This is an old Elmore James tune that Hendrix covers. It humorous because Jimi is heard saying Im gonna start this like Elmore. This a typical blues song but Hendrix does his think and makes you think he wrote the song, as he does later with Sunshine of Your Love.  Hendrix makes this song pretty funky with the rhythm that he plays.

Hear My Train A Comin is one of my favorite songs of this CD. Its got a much bluesier feel than the Elmore James tune before. Hendrix also plays the melody while he songs on this one a la Voodoo Child (Slight Return). During the solo he also harmonizes his voice with his guitar and shows of his vocal talent along with his guitar prowess.

Mr. Bad Luck is a driving tune that bears more or resembelance to 70s rock than it does to Hendrix’s previous work. This is one of the songs that I think shows what Hendrix’s future held musically. This song has some of the Hendrix tendencies but it also has a way different feel than other songs.

Sunshine of Your Love is a cover of the Cream tune made famous on Guitar Hero, and honestly I like this version better than Cream’s. This also is one of my favorites of this CD, but sadly there are no lyrics on this track which would just enhance it that much more. But it is Jimi showing of his chops and ability to change rhythms.

Lover Man is another tune that just has more drive but it has a much stronger tie to Hendrix roots. It once again reminds me more of a 70s rock song than a hippie song. It just seems a bit raunchier and meaner than older songs.

Ships Passing Through The Night is a completely Hendrix tune that has the mystic drug induced symbolism in the lyrics coupled with Hendrix using some sort of effect that makes the guitar sound likes its underwater to me. Which I see as part of Hendrix’s creativity for using this tone on a song about a ship.

Fire is of course another rework of a previously released song. This song is much more raw and faster than the studio versions. I dont notice any major difference in the rhythm or some parts of the solo. There are parts in the solo that contain phrases Hendrix hadnt really previous used. Overall I dont see it as much of a change from the original.

Redhouse is the last rework on the album. And again this a much more raw version than the orignal release. This one is a classic blues tune that has a very strong resemblance to the orignal but to me he has much more of that blues sounding vocal than on the studio track.

Lullaby for Summer is one that if it wasnt on a Hendrix album you would mistake for someone else. This song is driving it has balls and it doesnt have the typical Hendrix rhythm to it. The lead work may give it away some but you would guess rhythm is someone else. There are no vocals on this track either and I would like to hear the words or at least see what he was going to sing because this song is a major departure from his work in the past.

Crying Blue Rain is a Hendrix blues song that has some spank in the rhythm.  Once again it is a different feel than other Hendrix work but it is not much of a stretch from it. This song contains no real lyrics but it shows some of Hendrix’s blues roots. Towards the end it does pick up and have that 70s rock feel again but the beginning is very Hendrix.

Overall it is a good album but it doesnt have the kind of songs that everyday music listeners will enjoy. But Hendrix fans will really enjoy it because it is interesting to compare this work with some other pieces of work and hear the evolution of Hendrix from the hippie blues rock to a heavier 70s rock sound.

If you have not seen the first Boondock Saints I would highly recommend that you see it before seeing this one. Otherwise it will giveaway some of the surprises of the first one. For those of you who have seen the first one it is a departure from the original formula. There are still the awesome shoot em up scenes but there are far less of them than the first. One thing this movie has a lot more of is comedy and drama. There are some great one liners that are fun to say around other people that have seen the movie. Also this movie shows the more humane side of the brothers, instead of the run and gun of the first one. Most of the main characters are back in this one, including the dad, the three detectives, the gun salesman, and of course the brothers. But they also freshened up the cast to keep it interesting, especially the smoking hot FBI agent and the Mexican.

One of the few things I didn’t like is that they got away from is the Aequitas and Veritas tattoos on the boys. They do have some new tats to show off in this movie that take center stage in this movie. From the people I have talked to that didn’t like said because it is so much cornier that the first which I have to agree with them on. I enjoyed the corniness of it but it all depends on your sense of humor and how much you liked the firsts one’s focus on gun play. Also in this movie they have several quotes that I think are great quotes to live by. The first one starts of the movie while Roco is walking and the second is during the dream sequence with him. I liked them so much I started and stopped the movie so I could write them.

Now the drama in the movie does show Troy Duffy’s ability as a writer. Most guys can write a movie about killing with very little dialogue. But in this one there is some very meaningful dialogue. Also there are several deaths in the movie similar to Roco’s in the first one, but I wont divulge the identities because I want you to see this movie, but I will say they are some major characters. The last thing I will warn you about is the ending is left open so there can be another movie. I started asking around and supposedly there is another movie coming called Boondock Saints 3: Saints Preserve Us. It sounds as if Duffy is going to wait another 10 years to make this one like he did between one and two.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. I give it two thumbs up, it has everything a movie should have action, drama, humor, and plot. I must give kudos to Troy Duffy for writing and directing an excellent film and I cant wait to see the next one.