Call off the dogs...

One of my nieces came to visit me at work yesterday, and by a stroke of circuitous karma a co-worker brought in one of those $200 Yamaha starter electric guitar rigs - a strip-mall strat with a 15-watt amp with on-board overdrive. I also had a nice new pick in my wallet that I'd just purchased. Can you see where this is heading?

I was mindlessly noodling through a tapping run when suddenly out of the shadows and high above the distortion rang a shrill, "Uncle Jas...teach me THAT!" I gave the little one, who's never picked up the instrument before, a quick lesson on how to look like a rocker in 4 notes: an e-minor palm muted/pull-off/whammy divebomb/pick rake combo lick. She spent the better part of 45 minutes sussing it out, especially enjoying the noise produced by the raking bit. I made the mistake of informing her that you can tell when you've done a mean rake the right way by the indentation it makes in the pick. My bad.

Behold the casualty of war:

The plectrum is totally destroyed...much like I wrecked mine the first time I wanted to play. I've seen (and owned) picks with less damage after weeks of intense use. I guess I forgot that at the tender age of 10 you really take 'if some is good, more is better' concept to heart.

Rock on, Tyler.

Play the 80's (and other stuff, too)!

I've been working on developing the format for a new YouTube-based instructional video series to help people play hard rock electric guitar. I'm going to write, edit, host and star in the damn things, so if for whatever reason I'm not your cup of tea, you're screwed. Just kidding! :-)

It's basically me sitting in the KUAM Studios waxing nostalgic about the music, touching on gear and effects, telling some bad jokes, and then showing you how to shred.

Since I'm a big 80's hair metal buff, naturally a lot of the songs and techniques I'll be covering have to do what that time period; but I'll also cover the blues, some neoclassical work and some Jimi Hendrix. (Hint: I hope you dig Dokken.) I've got a playlist that I've been working on of about 7 songs and about 15 crowd-wowing tricks so far, but if you'd like to see anything in particular, just leave me a comment and I'll do my best.

As soon as my friends and I can shoot, edit and release the first few lessons, I'll be posting about it. Stay frosty!

I'm not that pixelated in real life

What's equally hilarious and shocking about me is that despite having been on the air all these years, I never once took the time to compile a resume tape of my best work. (Or at least that which survived digital migration and the numerous natural disasters we've had.) This is surprisingly in stark contrast to how I've meticulously revised my resume on an almost monthly basis since I started working.

I've spent a couple hours on weekends the last few weeks cobbling together choice clips from KUAM's archive of some of the more memorable moments I've logged on the air. So this couples nicely with all the other writing, development and stuff I've placed as my little nest egg to prove to future generations that I actually did exist.



Kindly forgive the lack in quality, as the version that's on YouTube and Google Video got washed through S-VHS from its initial DV state before making it online. Let me know if you'd like a high-res DVD copy and consider it done.