Live Musician Central

   Happy Halloween everyone! I hope that all your Halloween gigs go well this year. Hopefully you’ll get to see some sexy ladies on the dance floor. If you’re not playing a gig, then get out and trick-or-treat and raise some hell with the kiddies. In celebration of Halloween I’m posting up a clip of the classic Halloween song “Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett and The Cryptkickers. It’s an animation done by Gary Ramey and it’s quite well done. I appreciate the fact that the audio quality is so good which is hard to find on YouTube.

Read more »

  

There is one piece of equipment that no live sound man should be without and that’s a quality cable tester. In fact, no live musician should go to a gig without having a cable tester in the toolbox. Today I’m going to tell you about the Behringer CT100 Cable Tester. It’s one of the most affordable and most versatile cable testers I have ever found.

   The Behringer Cable Tester is controlled by a microprocessor that intelligently checks cables in several different ways. Read more »

   Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame as well as the supergoup Asia is one of my favorite rock drummers. He is a highly skilled live musician. He has a light touch and he’s amazingly accurate and fast. Carl was hailed as the rock-n-roll equivalent of jazz great Buddy Rich. I personally like to watch Carl Palmer using the classic jazz grip on the sticks. You don’t see it a lot with rock drummers. Another thing I really enjoy is Carls sense of showmanship. He knows how to put on a good show while playing the drumset. He is truly a great example of a good mix of musicianship and great stagecraft.

Read more »

  Yes here it is, the original and still the best wah-wah pedal on the market. The Dunlop Crybabay Wah-Wah pedal. This pedal is the highest selling guitar pedal of all time and for good reason. It’s been used by some of the greatest artists in Rock-N-Roll history. Here’s a short list of artists who have used the original Dunlop Crybaby Wah-Wah pedal.

• David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
• Mick Ronson
• Kirk Hammett
• Jimmy Page
• Steve Howe
• Tom Morello
• Brian May

Read more »

  

I’m always looking for song selection ideas for my band In Stereo. One of the greatest challenges musicians face when playing live music is playing music that the audience knows and wants to hear. One resource I like to use is industry magazines. Rolling Stone magazine has been covering the music scene since 1967 and I believe it has some authority in the music industry. Rolling Stone Magazine has released several articles with compiled lists of the greatest songs of all time. Today I’d like to point you to their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time.

Read more »

   Now I don’t have anything against larger women. In fact, I quite enjoy them. That’s why I’m posting up Steel Panther’s song and video tribute to the larger woman. The song is called “Fat Girl (Thar She Blows)” and I’m sure you’ll find some pretty funny stuff in it.

Read more »

   Every weekend I pick several albums to post on Live Musician Central. The albums I put up are determined by a couple factors. I usually put up a couple that are being heavily promoted by the music industry. These may not be albums that I particularly like but they are albums that are going to be prominent in the public conscience. It’s good for us as musicians to stay current with what’s being promoted by the industry. We can gauge what we’re doing with what is being pushed out there and see how we fit in with the current music scene. It’s also a good source to choose new music for your band to learn and play live or to have on the iPod to play during band breaks. The reasoning here is that you want to play music that people will know and since the albums I post on Live Musician Central are being so heavily promoted, your chances of people knowing the music at your shows is very high.

   The rest of the albums that I post are either personal favorites or they are certified classic albums that have sold millions of copies and are familiar to a lot of people. I also like to post a few links to iTunes and a few links to Amazon’s music service. Amazon has DRM free MP3’s that are ripped at 256kbps which is excellent quality at a killer price. So make sure you check them out! The new Labelle album is surprisingly good. It’s comprised of Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash.

Read more »

   I previously wrote an article called A Happy Crowd Means A Happy Band, in this post I’ll discuss the opposite point of view. It’s true that the band feeds off the audience, that being said, the audience is the most unpredictable part of your gig. We as live musicians would like to have a pumped up, excited audience every time we play. We can’t control the audience mood but we can control our mood. Or at least how we appear when we’re playing. Whatever your mood appears to be onstage, it will carry over to the crowd. So even if you’re having a terrible night, keep things light and keep a smile on your face.

Read more »

 Rock Band 2 Special Edition was released for PlayStation 3 on Oct. 19th. Naturally, I picked it up that day and have been playing it since. Even though there aren’t any groundbreaking updates there are several very fun updates in Rock Band 2. Today I am going to turn Live Musician Central over to our new contributor, Skyler Rushton for a review of Rock Band 2. -Matt-

  The new Rock Band 2 Special Edition consists of a drum set, a microphone, and one rock band guitar. Read more »

   One of my very favorite drummers of all time is Keith Moon of The Who. He is the first drummer I remember ever focusing on with my complete attention while listening to a song. I remember being simply blown away by how varied his drumming was and how he could play so much yet still carry the rhythm of the song. The way Keith interacted with The Who’s music is simply perfect and The Who were a great band because of the way Keith played. Keith had a way of intertwining with the vocals, bass and guitar that would lift the other instruments up without overpowering them. It always amazed me how he could sound so scattered and out of time, yet be so perfectly in sync with the music.

Read more »