Live Musician Central

Hohner Blues Harp

   Mathias Hohner started making harmonicas in his kitchen in Trossingen, Germany. Amazingly, Hohner harmonicas are still made at a factory in Trossingen, Germany after all these years. I don’t think there’s any question that the Hohner Harmonica has had a profound influence on American music. The harmonica is one of the easiest and most fun instruments I have ever learned how to play.

Read more »

Frampton Comes Alive

   It’s no secret that as a musician I just plain love music. I learned to love music from my father who used to sing with me when I was a little boy. We used to take road trips and sing a whole bunch of old classics. Then as I got older I sang in choir in grade school, then learned trumpet, piano, guitar and a bunch of other instruments. So my love of live performance began at an early age and has developed over the course of my life.

Read more »

Martin 00CXAE

   My first guitar was a Korean made acoustic guitar that wasn’t even branded. I loved that guitar and it was my first step into a lifelong endeavor of being a guitarist. So when I finally wore the frets down to the wood I decided to get myself another acoustic guitar. What I was looking for was an acoustic guitar with the following qualities:          Read more »

In Stereo Bass Drum

   In Stereo played a wedding at a place called Wolf Creek Ranch this weekend. It was a lot of hard work as we had to play way up in the mountains. We had to haul our equipment across a bunch of gravel which you don’t really realize is going to be so much effort until you do it. We also couldn’t park our cars at the location we were playing so we had to do some extra driving around. All that takes time so our usual 1 hour setup time took us 2 hours. Luckily we got there 2 hours early and were ready to go.

Read more »

   Here’s a classic YouTube video from a band called Group X. The song is atually titled Schfifty-Five and it’s classic euro-trash punk. The song will not leave your brain after you hear it and the video is hilarious. That girlfriend….oy!                    Read more »

   Every weekend at Live Musician Central we pick the most heavily promoted new album releases as well as a few certified classics. This helps your band know which music the industry is marketing. You can be sure that a lot of people will be familiar with this music. This will help you stay relevant in the clubs that you’re playing in and it will keep you in touch with what’s happening in the music industry as a whole. So here are this weeks picks.
Read more »

   So I saw The Police in concert when they came through Salt Lake City last month. It was an excellent show and you can read my review here. The Police tour just ended in Madison Square Garden, New York and with the end of the tour the question has been raised. Should The Police record an album of all new material. I say Yes!

   So here’s a poll, Do you think The Police should record a new album of all original material?

 Loading ...

Roland Handsonic HPD-10

   Today I’d like to introduce you to the Roland HPD-10 Handsonic Percussion Controller. This is really an amazing instrument. The Handsonic is a drum controller meant to be played with your hands. It has 10 highly sensitive individual pads that have both pressure and positional sensitivity. That means you’ll get different sounds when you hit the pad hard, soft or closer to the edges of the individual pads. The Handsonic has 400 high-quality instrument sounds built in including congas, bongos, tabla, djembe and cajon.

   One of the coolest features of the Roland HPD-10 is the D Beam controller. The D Beam sends out a beam of infrared light which reflects off your hand or any other solid surface you put in front of it. Read more »

Guitar Chordbook at Chordbook.com

   When I was learning guitar one of my most valuable learning aids was a chord book. I had a Beatles songbook that didn’t have chord diagrams but it did have chord names above the music notation. So I had to turn to the chord book to learn how to finger the chords I wanted to play. It was a good way to do it because I memorized chords faster that way. Later on I got in Jazz Band in high school and had to learn all kinds of jazz chords on the guitar. Needless to say I used that chord book until the covers were falling off.

Read more »

Fender Bassman

   I recently had the opportunity to play a ‘59 Fender Bassman Reissue amplifier and I was really blown away with how amazing it sounded. As a guitarist you hear stories of the great amplifiers as you learn your craft and you hear the amplifiers on recordings. But there’s really nothing like playing the amps yourself and really being able to crank them all the way up. The thing about tube amplifiers is they give you more sweetness the harder you push them. Every tube amp I’ve played has had a sweet spot where the amplifier really sings.

   So I got to really push the ‘59 Fender Bassman Reissue and let me tell you, it’s loud. But it sounds so damn good that you don’t care how loud it is. It’s ecstasy because it’s a sound that you recognize from all the recordings that have been made with this amplifier. I love it when an amplifier roars when you really hit your guitar hard and then quiets down and softens as you play softer and roll down your guitar volume. Read more »