Meyer's music...

Keep it clean, children may be present.

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bretski
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Post by bretski » Sun Aug 02, 2009 6:04 am

I am listening to Rouler Sa Bosse as I sip my Sunday morning coffee and type this. I love it. Please record and post some more!

-Bret
1978 Deluxe Westfalia - "Klaus"

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Elwood
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Post by Elwood » Sun Aug 02, 2009 1:12 pm

x2 ^ I love that song and have watched every cover on You Tube and Meyers is so much better. I have also read about Bruce Cockburn and his fame and extream talent (Canadian Hall of Fame) He still tours, but in Canada. I understand now the connection of French sound, Django Reinhardt is a long favorite of mine and Bruce does one of his songs (Nuages) with Rick Emmett. Genius :cheers:

Meyers you are very good and thanks for the talent. I understand how difficult those strings can be. I studied classical guitar long ago but age and arthiritis has taken its tole. My ears still work - and what a pleasure you bring them. Please do more Barb

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Post by MeyerII » Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:55 pm

Some stuff from a local event last night. Recorded on a small Creative Vado recorder - not the best sound quality.

I found out that the first half was going to be put on local television, so had to go with my own stuff, which I really haven't pulled out in quite a while, so I was focusing more on remembering what to do next than what I was doing. But ah well.

This first one was a song that I wrote over 20 years ago. It was about how I broke up with a girl after I left town to work on a 6-month assignment and left her in charge of a music festival that I founded. She proceeded to put the festival about ten grand in hock, signing up these amazing acts, but no way to pay for it. I had to come back and basically sign away my soul to get us back in the black.

One thing that really bugged me about this song is that as soon as I went into the chorus, I realized that I was supposed to have the guitar capoed up two frets so I could hit the lower notes reliably with my not-so-good voice. Damn. Also, see if you can spot where I forgot the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySzfI9jjp_o



Here's a song that I call "No Blues".

I wrote this after hearing a news story on NPR about some Southern Baptist preacher saying how the white man was keeping all of the rest of the people down. Well I'm white, and I didn't get the memo. So I borrowed some Delta blues licks and tried to be funny. Whether or not it actually was funny probably depends on the listener.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuMmclqBq6A

I don't really play in front of people that much these days, and one thing I really noticed about all of these tunes is that I'm going waaaaaaay faster than I should, which tells me that I must be nervous. Memo to self: slow it the fuck down.

On the other hand, its nice that my hands can keep up.


Lots of puns in this song -- I wrote it for my wife. I found myself one day ironing my shirts and suddenly realized that I'm not the kind of guy that does that. My wife, the idea of actually getting her, made me do it. So me ironing when I don't iron is --- well ---- ironic. And the rest of the song wrote itself, as they say. The one thing about the performance is that I went waaaay too fast. If I go slower and am recently rehearsed, I can lay in this sort of John Gorka kind of thing that sticks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X1GtOJ4Vxo

But regardless of the performance, this is easily the best song I have ever written.


The next one is called "Boomer". I was told that I only was supposed to do three songs for the first set, and then they wanted another. The song had to be original, and I'm already tired and one scotch and two glasses of wine under. You can see me kind of search at the beginning for what I should play next that isn't going to interfere with copyright law, and I'll be damned if I didn't for some reason pick the one song that I haven't played in at least fifteen years. There were dozens that would have been better choices, but go figure. You can see where I am pretty much completely lost several times while it is going on.

But here is my YouTube write-up for the thing, which kind of sets the mood:
I actually have a hard time keeping it together on this song, which is why I haven't played it in easily 15 years. But I was up there an searching for something I wrote that would be appropriate and for some dumb reason decided on that one. You can see where I'm searching to rememeber the chords in several places. But it is a true story -- not me, but an old friend of mine who had this beautiful malamute named Boomer. Well, Boomer got loose once too often, and the courts gave my friend a choice between paying the fines and letting the dog live with some other family. He was forced to choose the latter, and even though it was probably the best thing for the dog, it broke many hearts to see him go. Aside from breaking into tears damn near every time I play the song (and if you look closely, you can see that I started to choke up early on into it), it turns out that the chords that I came up with for this song back in 1986 were eerily similar to Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers in a dangerous time", which is weird, because I didn't learn who he was until 1994 - and have been a student of his music ever since. Kismet is a word that comes to mind. Damn. But I hadn't played this tune in at least a decade, so you can amuse yourselves with the places where I just plain forgot where the fingering was. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZAsujWyluI


Fats Waller, what can I say? I like the result here, but wish to God that I would have slowed it down and given it more of that Leon Redbone spirit that it really deserves. I was jittery that night, what can I say.

And the worst of it is that I completely forgot about the "I know for certain/the one I love" verse. Damn. But still, I like the way the guitar worked on this --- just got it refretted and fitted with a bone nut and saddle. It is a Martin 000-28EC Eric Clapton signature guitar that is over ten years old and it is holding up fantastically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8M040TJny0

And BTW, this is the first tune that is solely on my equipment, so I get to use my effects processors. Crudely dialed in, but I am hoping that it is better than the vanilla settings on the first four tunes.

Democracy - Bruce Cockburn.

Aw jeez. This thing is so hard to do, I shouldn't have to try to make excuses for how it came out.

My notes:
I almost have to apologize for this one. I played it right, but at something near double-speed and forgot to sing it and feel it. But it is what it is and isn't all that bad, is it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAyMqhFOPw

It fucking is what is fucking is. In the beginning there, I was trying to adjust the gain on one of the effects, but I couldn't get close to the amp because the on-board microphone on the guitar would start to feed back. Eventually, I figured out that I needed to cut the guitar at the preamp box I had clamped to the microphone stand in order to be able to get near the amp.

I've got to believe that it only got this difficult in the last fifty years or so.

:lol:

Rocket Launcher.

My notes:
This was done kind of off the cuff --- I was in a mood. It seems to work better for me on my Telecaster and done more slowly and deliberately. But still, I kind of like what I did, in a way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSH6Makgtko

Foxglove:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ3FQcZUNY
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MeyerII
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Post by MeyerII » Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:38 pm

Is it possible to have buyer's remorse before even making the purchase?

Spent all day canvassing guitar shops in and around Seattle. My fingers hurt - as I type, I go ow, ow, ow, ow. ow. You see, I kept my job Friday. Once a year for the past two years, they have been doing large layoffs at my day job. Not much fun. But my wife and I agreed that if I hung on for another year, its time to possibly juggle the guitar collection.

So here's the thing. I have many guitars, and all of them are fairly decent, but I only own one Very Good guitar - a Martin 000-28EC (the Eric Clapton signature vintage series edition). One of the other two main other guitars in the collection is a 1980's Martin D-6732 - a Shenandoah in "woven ash" - which is a stunning guitar, but has laminate sides and back. The other is a late-'50's/early-'60's Kalamazoo-made Epiphone FT-45 Cortez - a copy of an early Gibson LG0.

The guitars I want eventually: a Martin HD-28V, an early Gibson L-7, and a National Tricone.

OK - even though I want to continue studying gypsy jazz ala Django Reinhardt, but L-7 is going to be a search and I'm not ready for it yet anyway - at least I don't need it immediately - so I'm eliminating that for now.

And I spent a considerable amount of time today in Dusty Strings in Freemont with that Tricone, and man I want one. But I don't own a real Martin dreadnought yet and even though there are many, many similarities between that and the 000 that I already own, I think this ought to be the way to go. So I think I'm pulling the trigger next week before I lose my nerve. I'm having one shipped from Elderly Instruments in Lansing Michigan directly to my luthier in Bellevue for set up with a bone saddle and bridge and to get the Fishman matrix ripped out of the Shenandoah and put in to the new guitar.

The original pickup that was in the Shenandoah and is now in the Epiphone goes back into the Shenandoah and the Shenandoah goes up for sale, probably in the $600 range, in case anybody is interested. I had it refretted a few years back and it is in great shape.

I'll hang on to the Epiphone for a while, but I think its eventually going to get sold for funds to go for that National Tricone.

But anyway, this is the guitar:

http://www.martinguitar.com/guitars/cho ... m&m=HD-28V

ImageImage

I'll tell ya: it feels like you do just before jumping off of a high roof.
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Post by MeyerII » Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:59 pm

Well, I've tried everything I can think of - including posting here - to try to see if there was anybody with input, but it seems like its a "go".

So if you want to buy a Martin guitar, in my mind you go to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. I went to high school - waaaaaay back when - with one of the luthiers there. So I called him up after about 12 years since the last time I've spoke with him - and he says, "Holy shit! I was just thinking about you the other day! I was diddling with a guitar in the shop and started playing this old Yes tune and I remembered that Rob guy teaching me how to play it in my car in the rain back in 1985."

This is a GOOD sign.

So he's going to be going through the stock and he's going to pick me out a nice one. They'll probably ship it out to my Luthier here in a day or so.

Allright. Here goes nothing. This is scary.

 
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Post by Amskeptic » Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:27 pm

MeyerII wrote:Well, I've tried everything I can think of - including posting here - to try to see if there was anybody with input, but it seems like its a "go".

So if you want to buy a Martin guitar, in my mind you go to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. I went to high school - waaaaaay back when - with one of the luthiers there. So I called him up after about 12 years since the last time I've spoke with him - and he says, "Holy shit! I was just thinking about you the other day! I was diddling with a guitar in the shop and started playing this old Yes tune and I remembered that Rob guy teaching me how to play it in my car in the rain back in 1985."

This is a GOOD sign.

So he's going to be going through the stock and he's going to pick me out a nice one. They'll probably ship it out to my Luthier here in a day or so.

Allright. Here goes nothing. This is scary.

 
So, do the tell the old fuddy-duddys here WHAT YES TUNE????
I came in at Time And A Word.
Colin
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Post by MeyerII » Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:22 am

Gah. It was probably "And You And I". Even though the middle passages were impossible to carry off with an acoustic guitar.
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Post by Amskeptic » Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:42 pm

MeyerII wrote:Gah. It was probably "And You And I". Even though the middle passages were impossible to carry off with an acoustic guitar.
I am a life-long Yes crazed fan of their music. Yes was the soundtrack to all of my early mechanical design art. Close To The Edge, The Yes Album, Starship Trooper, oh yeah anyways.
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BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
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Post by Xelmon » Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:26 am

Duuuddee, that is some sweet playing.

Props!

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Post by MeyerII » Sat Feb 27, 2010 12:56 am

Thanks!

Two more. I went to a singer-songwriter show as a spectator and got asked to play. Brought my cheap Vado camera because I wanted to record this other guy, so my wife recorded a couple of me.

The first one is one of the probably two songs I've ever written that is an absolute keeper. Its called "This is a James Taylor Song". Its a song about the songwriting process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ewcY4C7F5I

The other one is called "Archaeology". Its something I wrote a long time ago and can't believe that I remembered it. Just decided for some reason to pull it out and dust it off - not sure why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bSML8t70HY

 
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Post by MeyerII » Fri Mar 26, 2010 2:02 am

Update of a sort --- no word from the luthier that works at Elderly Instruments that I went to high school with: he's been through two HD-28v's and so far he's not ready to send me one. I'm willing to wait as long as he is, as it turns out that he's pleasantly picky.

My camper is still for sale and I'm about to reduce the price to $2,100 - and that is going to fund the National Tricone I've decided I want. But the camper is about to be displayed at the first show of the season, so I don't expect it'll last long after that.

After all the smoke clears, I'll be selling two guitars to make up for the influx. Any of you who consider yourselves to be guitarists but haven't been able to afford a great mid-dollar acoustic guitar should be sending me mail before I decide to EBay them. I also have a 1975 Kawasaki H1-F Mach-3 three-cylinder two stroke that I'm starting to wonder why I'm hanging onto it...

So in the mean time, I'll add some nonsence I posted over on the SEWR over the course of the evening - I think only two posts worth. And BTW: if some of you aren't familiar with the SEWR: http://thesambachops.com/SeaElephant/index.php

Its where the RANTS went on the Samba and is not for the faint of heart. But if you aren't already lurking there, you probably ought to be unless you are some sort of girl scout.

So the next two posts are repeats. I am going to be doing some cover recordings in the next month or so and promise to post them then, whether you like them or not. Currently having too much fun to care.

:-)
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Post by MeyerII » Fri Mar 26, 2010 2:11 am

Meyer wrote:I worked my ass off today, then literally worked it off again in the gym afterwards. Didn't get home until after 9:00. Rainy, but I'll be damned if there wasn't a break in the weather so I sent the wife to bed and poured the first of several glasses of Scotch and hit the hot tub.

So now I'm not ready for bed. Watched Stewart and Colbert, played my Martin LX-1 for a while (best $300 I ever spent), but still am not asleep.

I was working on cleaning out my upstairs man-cave last weekend, and finally took apart the box labeled 'fodder'. It is one of those boxes they ship copier paper in, and it is full of everything I've ever written and never did anything with. I threw away a great deal of it, but out of the things that I kept, there is one thing that is completely unusable: a poem. It is unusable because I have no intention whatsoever to put it to music because it will not work, and I can't even remember who I wrote it for, so as a poem, it is equally useless: I'm already married and if I'm going to try to wow her, I'll come up with something fresh, goddammit.

And after you read it, you may decide that it was useless to begin with. But I really like it. So what the fuck - I spent time on it, obviously got laid at one point partially because of it; so it either sits in my house until I die and some relative throws it into the recycle bin, or I take the time now to retype the fucker because I don't want to go to sleep right now and am not inventive enough to think of anything else I'd rather do (wife is asleep, bad idea to wake her).

Heck -- one of you younger folks might have your eye on some lass that you have absolutely no intention of spending your life with, but wouldn't mind bedding; send her this. It more likely than not will get you halfway there.

:D
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Post by MeyerII » Fri Mar 26, 2010 2:14 am

I Hope You Take My Meaning

I'm back in my apartment, I'll admit I'm kind of tired,
But I'm feeling sort of restless, and I'm certainly inspired.
I'd hoped this new elation might just get me up and going
On those tasks that I've neglected ever since you I've been knowing.
I'm supposed to do my taxes
And the bathroom still needs cleaning,
But first I'll write this poem for you:
I hope you take my meaning.

I think I have a dish or two that isn't in the sink.
The past-due bills in front of me are driving me to drink.
The life forms in my carpet, they are getting sort of rude.
But thoughts of us, and us last night, have changed my attitude.
Enough of bills I ought to pay,
and dumb domestic preening -
I can't think about such things right now:
I hope you take my meaning.

We both admit our meeting was occasion most auspicious,
But nothing lasts forever, so sometimes we get suspicious,
That as we change we'll grow apart, and so you wonder whether
If come next year, about this time, will we still be together?
Yet can you doubt or wonder
Which direction I am leaning?
I spend my time on thoughts of you:
I hope you take my meaning.


The growing and the changing
Is something we all do:
And with every change we make
I'm growing more in love with you.


:wink:
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Post by MeyerII » Mon Apr 26, 2010 1:01 am

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the Martin Shenandoah is apparently sold, and my new Martin HD-28v is on its way out here from Michigan. Yee haw.

So went out this last Friday, had a few more libations than was probably good for me, but ended up having a hell of a time.

First one is yet another stab at Rouler Sa Bosse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwBWW794Sgg

Second one is two tunes - another Cockburn cover and one I wrote quite a long time ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmjx1RRj4RA

Third one is a Dougie MacLean cover -- I was about five glasses into a good Cabernet and wasn't tracking at my best, but I think I brought it around for the last verse and chorus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmjx1RRj4RA

 
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Post by Sylvester » Mon Apr 26, 2010 4:29 am

I watched a few Meyer, why are you not doing this in Nashville, or writing recording in New York? You have the gift.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue, I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod, The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

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