Are we about to elect Donald Trump as our next president?
No. This… this cannot be happening.
Why is this happening? How can this be happening?
Why are we letting it happen?
I don’t want this. Why does this have to happen?
Please please please let it just be a scare. I can’t do this. And I’m fucking white. I’m a fucking white man. But my friends?
People I love?
For them.
This can’t happen. It has to be stopped.
Ah, Jeff Beck. One of the all-time greats. His playing is phenomenal and amazing.
Superstition has an interesting history, in that Stevie Wonder kinda sorta wrote it for Jeff Beck, who released it. Then almost immediately after, Stevie Wonder released it. So, of course, it makes a lot of sense for Jeff Beck to join Stevie Wonder for this amazing song (one of my all-time favorite songs, in fact), and Jeff’s soloing on guitar (and Stevie’s on piano) is incredible.
The guitar solo starts at 1:27 and ends at 2:22. And yes, there’s video to watch, here…
Enjoy!
This is just a picture of a really pretty galaxy cluster called MACS J0717. Enjoy!
Galaxy Cluster MACS J0717 in Infrared
I had a time for a bit looking for a good post for today’s Great Guitar Solo. I even asked on Facebook back at the end of September. A spooky song with an appropriately spooky guitar solo and a generally spooky atmosphere…
Wait!
Pink Floyd!
Careful with that Axe, Eugene!
This one features Pink Floyd at their decidedly creepiest. It features Roger Waters whispering some spooky nonsense, David Gilmour singing along with his guitar, Richard Wright providing the amazingly sinister atmosphere on his keyboard, and Nick Mason somehow making even the drums sound creepy.
It also features what I consider to be one of the greatest screams in all of music from Roger Waters himself, which I can only emulate by sucking in (and I’m almost positive that this is how he does it, as well). It’s a hard (and honestly painful) scream to emulate, but it makes this song.
As for Gilmour’s playing… I really shouldn’t have to explain why it’s so good. It’s frickin’ David Gilmour! He always knows the perfect solo to play in a song. And this solo is absolutely perfect. It also showcases his speed, too! Not a shredder, but I think this is some of his faster playing. His solo builds along with the song itself to an absolutely stunning climax that, if you aren’t paying attention, will absolutely be an auditory jump scare… and then slows back down. It follows the song all the way through absolutely perfectly.
I will say this, though… it isn’t on YouTube, but Dailymotion. I couldn’t find this on YouTube, unfortunately. So I apologize for the ad. I have adblocker, so I don’t see it, but if you don’t have adblocker, you will. Also, I don’t know how Dailymotion handles autoplay (I have a Chrome extension that disables autoplay for me), so I’m gonna put it below the fold.
The guitar solo is pretty much through the entire song. So… make sure it’s a dark and stormy night, turn off the lights, maybe light a candle or two, put this on the big screen, and enjoy.
Hello my less than ten loyal readers! How are you?
Any of you participate in and/or follow YouTube series/ARGs?
The creator of one I’m following right now, Andrew Muto (series is Night: Sleepwalking Journal), is looking for an old series that disappeared earlier this year called PodcastEntry. It was dispatches from a police officer keeping tabs on the weird stuff going down in the town he had recently been positioned in, and many watchers thought the weird things going on involved the Rake (content note: that link includes a fictional suicide note).
The YouTube channel no longer exists, and the creator/character had a Reddit account, but it no longer exists, either. Muto’s determined to find any information about the series, as he’s interested in getting in touch with the creator.
If anyone can think of anything that might help provide leads, that would be awesome.
(Content Warning: Discussion of Rape and Rape Culture)
I will go ahead and apologize upfront for the lack of transcripts. This relies a lot on audio. So I’m sorry for that. Unfortunately, Jay does not provide transcripts. If anyone’s up for it, please do! I’ll see if I have time to do one myself, at least for clip I link here below. Also, this won’t be long (in part because I thought I had a day off, but I’ve been called into work, so). I just really want to highlight this.
Here’s the episode’s blog post. Included in that link are individual links to the different clips (and music) used.
The entire podcast is, of course, about rape culture. It’s a very sobering look at where we are today in terms of how we treat women, and how we treat those who are victims of rape and sexual assault. Ignore the comments (as always), as there’s one asshole in there who, as usual, refuses to get it (reads like an MRA, frankly), but the episode itself is really good, if really angering.
Late yet again… sorry…
This one is really cool. It’s currently the most massive known structure in our observable universe, measuring 10 billion lightyears in diameter. Sorry I can’t get y’all a better link than Wikipedia. I can’t find anything at Nasa.gov or Hubblesite.org, which is annoying but… what’re ya’ gonna do?
Hubble image of MACS J0717 with mass overlay (Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall)
I think at this point, expectations of where this series was heading have been, perhaps, broken a little bit. Some were expecting Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Slash, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, etc. And don’t worry… you’ll see most of them (there’s one in there who I’m debating… he has a number of amazing guitar solos, but he’s racist, so… yeah). But I’ve decided to not just go in the obvious directions because doing that can be so limiting… it’s amazing what great guitar you can find in the perhaps not-so-traditional genres.
Anna Calvi is an amazing example. I find her voice mesmerizing, her style fun and intriguing, and her guitar-playing mind-blowing.
Here she is playing her song Love Won’t be Leaving live in New York. One of the most amazing things about this solo is how it starts off so slow, soft, and menacing, and then just builds into this face-melting amazingness. It’s an incredible use of the guitar, technique, and, yes, space, especially at the beginning. And then it just abruptly ends. Just like that. No come-down, no slow-down, nothing. Just… next verse, immediately, without a break.
The solo starts at 3:18 and ends rather suddenly at 6:25.
Enjoy.
Finding a link with a .tiff file for this one has been… hard… but it’s still really cool.
This is NOT an artist’s rendering. This is a direct image of an exoplanet, Beta Pictoris B:
Beta Pictoris B orbiting its star
Beta Pictoris, the star, is the large, blurred out circle in the middle. Beta Pictoris B is the small, light, pixelated circle at the bottom right of the star.
How cool is this?
I just realized that I have a good bit of covers in this series… I need to rectify that, but not right now. And don’t worry… you’ll be seeing more of Chantel McGregor in this series. But first, I wanted to introduce you to her the way I was introduced to her…
Although this is a song with lyrics, Chantel never really stops soloing… even under the verses, it’s got a more lead feel than a rhythm feel. So it’s throughout the whole song.
Also, again, this is live, so there’s something to watch, here.
Enjoy.