Big Joe Burke Hits the Road Again

Once again Big Joe Burke is heading east, to Edmonton and Calgary, with stops in Nelson and Nanton. Not sure what or where Nanton is but I’m sure I’ll find out shortly. Last time we went east, we had Mike McDonald (not the Doobie bro) from Junior Gone Wild open for us at the New City in Edmonton. We also ended up playing “Calgary’s Home of Heavy Metal”, Vern’s. Strangely enough, the Punks and Metalheads loved us.Playing Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues” will win over the toughest audience.

This time we’re promoting the new disc “Quiver”. We have 3 songs on the top 10 Country Finals Chart at Songvault #3, 4 and 5. The dates on this trip are;

Oct 7 -Edmonton, Alberta(Emporess Ale House)

Oct 8- Nanton, Alberta(the Auditorium)

Oct 9- Calgary,Alberta(2 shows, the Palimino-early:4.45 and Shuckalucks- headlining:9.30)

Oct 10-Nelson, BC (the Royal on Baker)

Visit Big Joe Burke on Myspace and the Main site

Check out the new disc “Quiver” and our debut “Love or Money” at CD Baby

Come out and say hi, if we’re in your town. Our lovely merch-gal G from YVR productions, will have plenty of CD’s and T-shirts available. We’re all looking forward to getting out Vancouver for a few days.
Here’s a slideshow of “Toe the Line” from Quiver

New Deadcats Disc Preview!

“Look as Hell” is finally done, 2 years in the making, first new Deadcats material in 4 years! So we’re pretty excited about finally getting it done. As usual it covers Rockabilly, Instro-Surf, Garage-Punk, Country, and Psychobilly. There’s a guest appearance from Paul Pigat on Hank’s Cadillac, he lays down an incredible solo. This is the first Deadcats disc with horns, “Motoloco” features a couple of Trumpet parts that drive the tune. “Motoloco” was the first tune we recorded, we were hired to write and record a theme song for a new video game, that was never released. So if you’re wondering what possessed us to record a song with 1 word in the lyrics, that’s why.

This our first disc using the Upright Bass instead of our signature “Bucket Bass Sound”. You could hear the Bucket(washtub) on recordings, but it just didn’t cut it live. Sure, it looked cool lighting it on fire but it was really just a prop. Marc L’Esperance did a great job, this is by far the best sounding Deadcats disc since “Bucket of Love”. He’s a master of coaxing incredible performances from players. You can hear a good chunk of the disc on the Deadcats Main Site

Guitar Pick Punch

This looks like a cool idea. You can cut your own Guitar picks from sheets of celluloid. $24.95 plus shipping WILL buy you a lot of picks, pretty neat idea. I can see this appealing to the do-it-yourselfers. Here’s the website

Lessons From the Rev

9 part interview by D’Addario’s Guitar.com. The quality isn’t great, it’s a 2nd or 3rd generation copy but the info is good. I wish they would re-post this on guitar.com. Enjoy some amazing picking!

Thanks to garageink74 on Youtube, this is one of the best Rockabilly/Psychobilly Guitar vids I’ve seen. If anyone knows where I could find the originals, do tell.

How Do You Visualise Musical Info?

Howdy, Reddit readers. Thanks in advance for checking this out.

This is something everybody does differently. Self taught Guitarists tend to use Chord boxes and string/fret numbers. Some people see the notes on a 5 line staff, some see colors. Do you visualize the entire fingerboard? To me it’s  like whistling or humming. I  just think of the melody in my head(and the Root notes of whatever key, I’m playing in) and hopefully my fingers automatically play them. It took me a good 5-6 years of practicing 4 hours a day, to reach this level of proficiency. I want to find a fast/easy way of getting beginner Guitarists over this hump.  How you see the parts you are about to play?

I need to find the simplest, fastest and easiest to remember way of looking at Chords and Melodies. I don’t mean writing charts, this mainly a visualization exercise but feel free to use a diagram. It helps if you tell me whether you are self-taught and if you read music(not TABs).

I find that when you play different instruments or even use alt tunings, you have to simplify the way you store Musical information. Any tricks, tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated.  There might even be a Deadcats or Gorehound Sound T-shirt in it for the best comment.