iJeng..... Fully Loaded MacIntel..... (soon)

Pronto publicaré cómo fabriqué mi propia mac. ¡¡¡¡Mantente chequando EL BLÓ!!!

iPod Constantly Played Albums

Hace unos días me puse a revisar discos que había dejado antes de haberme ido a trabajar a la RD. Decidí importarlos a mi iTunes sin escucharlos, ¡y ha resultado una fenomenal sorpresa! También aproveché que estaba ya en el programa y entré al iTune Store y descubrí más cosas que acontinuación comparto y recomiendo:

1. "Posibilities" - Herbie Hancock: Bueno, el Herbie nunca me ha quedado mal y en este disco -como siempre- se lució. Junto a John Mayer, Santana y un montón de otros 'cangris', dan cátedra de 'feeling'. Mi pieza favorita es 'Stitched Up" con John Mayer. ¡Escúchenla y verán (oirán) por qué!

2. "Tore Down House" - Scott Henderson: Éste es de los discos que les digo que tenía y no habíia escuchado o les había prestado poca atención. ¡¡¡¡MORTALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! Conocía el trabajo de Henderson con TribalTek, uno de los mejores grupos de Jazz fusión que he escuchado (¡¡¡gracias al viejo por la recomendación!!), pero en este disco el se tira solo y con blues y no sólo da la talla, sino que se pasa y por muuuuuuuuuuuuucho.

3. "Messege In A Box" -The Police: ¿Qué puedo decir?¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡Es POLICEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! Y no sólo eso, sino que es TODO LO DE POLICE.

4. 'Back Home" - Eric Clapton: Pensé que Clapton había sido parte de una época mía de fiebre de guitarrista, pero me equivoqué. Este album me recordó por qué me gusta tanto su música. Clapton no necesita una buena técnica ni una buena voz para pararte los pelos. Creo que es porque tiene tanto qué decir que no se le hace difícil a uno escucharlo y menos entenderlo.
Por otra parte y sin quitarle mérito a su voz, ¡qué bien están los coros! No sólo que se ecuchan bien grabados y mezclados, ¡sino que tienen un alma del carajaso!


5. 'Alterated State' The Yellowjackets': Wow! Estos tipos si están pasaos! Bueno, basta decir con que tienen que escuchar 'Youth Eternal'. No diré más. Escúchenla.

Jimi Hendrix (by John Mayer)

JIMI HENDRIX

I was listening to Jimi Hendrix in the car today - which in Los Angeles means that I spent a lot of time listening to Jimi Hendrix today -when, to paraphrase the movie White Men Can't Jump, I stopped listening and started hearing Jimi.

I was zoning out to one of the many CDs cobbled together from studio outtakes when I began to wonder how Hendrix could play guitar for so long and still manage to keep me interested. His extended jams sometimes stretched out for longer than ten minutes, and still it all seemed necessary. ('Jam' doesn't really describe Hendrix's playing because it suggests something of less worth than he was actually engaged in.)

So the question posed to myself became 'how?' How did Hendrix get away with sticking so many landings in his soloing while the rest of the guitar playing world are left saddled in their own self-doubt? Was it the drugs? Well, maybe, but in my experience drugs never elevated people beyond their inborn capacity. Was it because he was the first to have assembled the perfect amalgam of Elmore James and The Big Bang, therefore relieving him of constant comparison to someone before him? This is harder to discount, but it's better covered in what I believe is the real explanation.

Jimi Hendrix, whether by chemical escapism or by the luxury of singularity that discovery offers, never played guitar sheepishly. He was so rooted in 'now' (which unfortunately at its most immediate sounding is still only best known as 'then') that he never read over his own ticker tape while he played. Maybe after, sure - that's where self-betterment stems from - but in the act, when thinking about yourself does you no good, there was no judgment. By not considering the expression worthless, he made it momentous.

And maybe that's one of the many things I have left to learn. Maybe I need to bend a note without concurrently wondering if it's going to reach the right pitch; maybe I just start closing my eyes and bending away. And with statistics showing that over 90 percent of my readership doesn't know what a minor pentatonic scale is, I bet this is worth transposing into non-musical terms. So here goes: close your eyes, get out of your own way, and JAM.

POSTED BY JOHN MAYER AT 02:51 AM FROM LOS ANGELES, CA