That would be an existential matter

Further to this post, here are some more people I absolutely can’t stand. Yep.

Click on the compendium of cunts below to see their annoying faces in their full glory:

Overly important women please note: No one wants to see your fucking baby. Don’t bother bringing it into the office so everyone has to stop and gawp at it to satisfy your misplaced pride that you once managed to procreate.

Please don’t take away my blog Pete…

Arrgh. Sometimes I find playing guitar so difficult. I’ve been playing for about nearly 10 years now. I started when I was 15, gave up when I was about 19, and then took it up again at 23. Thing is, sometimes I’ll be existentially amazed at myself, as if I’m 16 and watching myself now. Other times, I’ll question why I bother. 10 years and I’m still shit, shit, shit. But I do realise that practice is the key. Using an online metronome helps in that area.

In other guitar “news”, I’ve got my Akai Headrush e2 pedal and now all I need is a nice case to put it in. So I’m buying one from New Sound Production these guys as above. It’s gonna be made of astroboard plastic so it’s lighter than plywood (but as strong) and it’s the only type on the net to have wheels (£40 for the Privilege mind…), both which helps in the carting around of many a heavy pedal.

Um, bit of a boring update really, but it’s more one for the ‘Guitar Category’ you see.

Everyone’s rooting for you innit.

Just to break the serious, current mood of this blog, here’s something I’ve always wanted to own. Wicked innit.

Just come back from seeing Dylan Moran live. My reaction can be summed up in an “uhummuh” noise and a shrug of the shoulders. He didn’t exactly work at his performance.

Anyway, an interesting thing happened on the way home. I was sitting on the tube reading, when I heard this bloke shout something aggressive to some other guy opposite him. He was angry because the other guy’s girlfriend touched his foot accidentally with her shoe or some complete bollocks like that. Anyway, this bloke was large and was fully aggro, giving it the verbal, acting like he owed the fackin’ train mate. The other guy just sat there, totally unphased, staring him in the face telling him to get over it. It nearly came to fisty cuffs but eventually the other guy calmed down and got off the train about 2 stops later.

Thing is there was only three other people in the carriage and I was nearest. My initial curiosity of the whole thing quickly turned into panic, and spineless, resentful fear consumed me; my clammy, cowardly hands clutching my book like the filthy little girl I am. After the whole incident, I sat there ashamed, wondering when it was (and why it was) I became such a fucking pathetic excuse for a man.

Seriously, this above everything else is how I judge other men; how I think a man (moreover, how I) should be. Not the drunken, fighting, violent, ready-to-smack anyone types… no. In fact, I have equal disgust for the men who go looking for fights. That isn’t what a man is supposed to be either. A man should be like that guy tonight with his girlfriend. Like John Wayne in The Quiet Man, like Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge. We should be strong, calm, defensive but clever with it, a protector and most of all selfless.

When I see powerful businessmen, all I see is a man hiding in a suit. I always look at CEOs and think “I wonder how he’d react if someone started on him? I bet he’d shit his pants” and if it did happen, for a brief moment everything he’s achieved wouldn’t be worth shit. It’s all material crap and man-made environments where he sits at the top of some made up hierarchy and orders people about. Maybe this is why I’ve never been able to buy into the whole work thing. Who gives a hoot if you’ve got a chauffer driven Merc and three houses, or you control the whole of the ‘European Quota’, that isn’t gonna help you when real life turns up… when a bloke in a pub thinks you’re a cunt for the t-shirt you’re wearing and decides to have a quiet chat about it, is it? What you gonna do, tell him how how many people you manage?

I’m not saying anyone should look for fights. In fact, the mark of a man is to avoid a fight, is to avoid any type of aggression in general (especially when drunk btw). Still at the same time, we shouldn’t (or maybe it’s just I shouldn’t) be this cowardly person who hides behind society to protect me from the general day-to-day scuffles and confrontations. I used to be a lot more confrontational, a few years ago, but I thought I had just become less preoccupied with all that “look at me I’m hard” crap. Turns out that I just got a lot more cowardly. Bollocks.

Time to update my pedals methinks. The other week, I was getting some pretty good noise out of my guitar with only a phase shifter, a delay pedal and two distortion pedals. Real swooshy, shoe gaze stuff and solos that make you sound like you’re playing quicker than Steve Vai on um, speed. However, I want to move from the “100 pedals all turned on” method to owning a powerful rack of pedals all with their own batch of excellent effects. So I’ve decided to invest in a loop / sampler pedal.

At first I was gonna get the Boss RC-2 as it’s cheap and compact.

However, after some chin wagging with Denmark Street types, I was swayed towards the Digitech Jam-Man. More memory, better loop and sampler options etc. However, after even more wagging of chins, I was told to invest in one of these bad boys:

The Akai Headrush e2 is apparently the best loop/sampler around for it’s price. I wasn’t that sure, but I was directed to this footage of (wait for it…) KT Tunstall. Now I’m not a fan of her or anything, but this is a great example of how useful and easy it is to use this pedal. And like her music or not, it’s an impressive performance. So, payday is round the corner and I’m snapping one of these up quicker than Steve via playing guitar on um, speed (what, heard it before?).

Incidentally, if you want to see some even more fuck-off impressive use of looping, check out this video of Howie Day performing his song Ghost. It’s 13 minutes long but well worth watching. He also throws the Today riff by Smashing Pumpkins in there at the end too… Truly excellent.

Unsigned bands on myspace who don’t have downloadable tunes: What a load of self-important twaddle.

Further to this post bitches, and becasue my blog is looking a bit too texty for my liking, here’s some more random pics. Look at them with your eyes. Think about them with your mind. Talk about them with your mouth. The opportunities are endless.