Why I don’t Twitter.

There are 2 reasons why I don’t Twitter.

1. I don’t have an iphone, or a good phone with ubercool applications or internet. I’m the type with the simple Nokia on which I had to delete all the backgrounds and screensavers so that I could put a cool song on it and use it as ringtone. Proud of it. And I think that Twitter should be used primarily with phones, not with computers. cause then you’ll get situations like this:

2. The other reason is (the actual reason I’m writing this) this:

I refused to blog when that was popular, but now I’ve started doing that too. I might do the same with Twitter in a few years, if I finally get that iphone.

To me it just seems that Twitter is another easy way to let your friends (or collegues, whatever) know what you’re up to. In this way you don’t have to call them all individually and tell them you just saw a 3-legged dog. In a way I think that a lot of Bloggers do the same. They write to the public what they’re thinking of, or what happened.’I don’t think I’m losing my friends because I have a blog. But I can imagine that friendships will (or already have) become more shallow. And it’s easier to choose which friends mean more to you than others. I can choose to follow one friends blog or twitter, and choose to not follow someone else’s. This isn’t bad about blogging/twittering. I just wonder how the friendships will develop. Hey, maybe they become even better!

I just don’t want to twitter (yet), because it seems to make things more shallow and simple. Sometimes I need way more than 140 characters to communicate something. Especially to friends.

I think it is a great tool for bands and artists/actors to keep their fans informed. I just still want that Iphone, so that I can tell my friends right away that I saw that 3-legged dog!

Peace

The Best walking/running to the station-songs.

The Best running to the station-songs:

It’s 5:015pm, and you’re done with work, some moron called you at 4:58pm and wanted something totally impossible from you. Being a loyal employee, you do it, and endanger catching you’re train on time. It leaves at 5:19pm. Luckily, your company is only an 8 minute walk away from the station. Well, not in this case. In this case you get to run, and try to make it to the station in 4 minutes, because your wife cooked something uber-special and she’ll kill you if she has to heat it up again. RUN!

I’ve picked some songs that may help you run even faster, or give you the idea that you’re running very fast, so open iTunes, make a playlist for “Running to the Station songs”, or something like that:

A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles: This is the best one for running, or being in any kind of hurry for that matter. The best feeling in the world is probably when you’re actually running on the exact same beat as the song. It makes you believe that this song was written for you. Or about you.

Helicopter by Bloc Party: Woah, this guitarriff makes people who have an hour to catch their train run like maniacs.  There’s so much energy that can be harvested from this one. Make use of it, and listen to this song when you’ve got to make a run for it in your nice Hugo Boss suit.

Mr. Brightside by the Killers: If you make your right foot hit the ground,  when Ronnie Vanucci hits his snaredrum in the song, it feels like you’re weightless, and running through the clouds.

The Small Print by Muse: This one is for the fanatics, the men and women that will beat you down if you’re walking in front of them. If you want to keep pace with this song, you’re going to sweat, even if it’s only a 4-minute run. But who cares, diner is waiting, and a cold beer that will be so much more rewarding after an awkward run through a large crowd of strangers.

 

The Best walking to the station-songs:

Again, you’re done with your work and you’ve got to walk to the station, you meet a beggar outside your office building, decide to give him something and realize your wallet is still in your office, on the 3rd floor. You run inside, take the stairs, go to your office, grab your wallet, walk downstairs and give the beggar some money. Then you look at your watch and realize that you haven’t lost that much time, but you’re still in a hurry. Luckily you don’t have to run to your train, you can afford to walk. But fast.

Here are my favorite walking to the station songs:

Losing  Touch by the Killers: Another song by the Killers, this time a slower one. Losing touch is the first song on their newest album, Day & Age. It’s a great song for walking on. The tempo is perfect (well, that depends on the length of your legs of course, but this one works fine for me ..), and the song is very general. If during your hurried walk to the station, the sun is going down, and you had a promotion at work that day, and you’re listening to this song, it might just be the best day in your life.

Lady by Lenny Kravitz: A song especially for the romantic types. Perfect for walking. It’s also good for dancing while you’re walking. Hey, pretend you’re in a musical while walking to your train, twirl around, sing along, bust some moves, smile at people when you sing: ”She’s so fine! YEAAH!” Something like that.

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol: Perfect tempo for a chill walk to the station. This song may give you a very sweet, romantic, thoughtful and somewhat melancholic mood. Your partner will buy this whole cd for you if you listen to this song often before heading home.

 

That’s it. Good luck running/walking to your trains!

peace

I saved someone’s hand today..

Today, Valerie, my lovely fiancee landed on Schiphol airport and I picked her up. After missing 2 trains because we were too distracted by each other we finally caught a train to Utrecht. From there we hopped on the train to Soest, my hometown. When we just sat down in the train, and put our bag on the seats in front of us, a man just jumped on the train, BUT, his hand got stuck between the doors!
I only found out when a woman outside starting screaming that someone’s hand was stuck between the doors. I jumped up and felt all the adrenaline my body could produce in one second rush through my veins. I ran to the door and tried to pull the doors apart, but they were too strong, and then I punched the little glass window above the door, behind which was the emergency button to open that door. The door opened it’s jaws and the man was free. I walked back to my seat, and noticed that my hand was bleeding and that I had cut in 3 places.  Luckily, Valerie brought baby-wipes (not what you might think!) and I wrapped my finger in them. But then, the train couldn’t leave, because the door was apparently broken. Then the conductor fixed it and we were on our way, 10 minutes later.
What a heck of a day to start the holidays. But Im so glad Val is here.  And my brother is getting married tomorrow! Party!

Too much guitargear!

I want to be cool today and just post something about all the guitargear I have. It is too much, but still not enough! There’s always room for more, there are always more sounds to find, etcetcetcetc. Here’s my list of stuff, and also a description of what I’d like to add or change.

Guitars:

Gibson SG Worn Ebony Black. This is a guitar I bought last summer in the States. It’s a limited edition (I think), and i’ve never seen another guitarist with it. It’s worn black and has a white pickguard. It has 3 pickups. 2 490R pickups and a 490T pickup in the bridge. The last one is the one I use most. It’s very aggresive, and loud. But, I’m not completely satisfied with the pickups. I think this little monster could rock so much more. Therefore I’m thinking of putting in a Gibson Dirty Fingers Humbucker in the bridge, a Gibson P94 (P-90 in humbucker-shape) in the neck, and either a 500T in the middle or just kee the 490R there. Oh, and I just found out that this guitar has been discontinued by Gibson, hehe, it IS limited!

Squier Telecaster Custom II. This is one sweet guitar. Especially once I’m finished fixing it up. It’s a remake by Squier of the Fender Telecaster Custom from 1972. This one came with Duncan Designed p-90′s. They were nice, but not nice enough. So, I built in 2 Gibson P-100′s. That was the best thing I could ever do for this guitar. It’s nearly perfect now. I’m totally in love with the Neck P-100.  I want to replace the Squier neck by a lefthanded Fender Stratocaster neck, to add some spice and originality, and so that it’ll have better tuning machine heads as well, because the ones I have now aren’t very special.

Fender Telecaster Nashville Deluxe. This guitar was perfect when I bought it. It didnt need any modification, and it will never need any modification. The pickups (Tex Mex) are really good and rock so hard, but also have a gorgeous clean sound. I´m never going to change anything about this guitar. I want to keep this one for the rest of my life.

Amp:

Fender Blues Deluxe 40 Watt (Tubes). This is a great amp. I’m a big fan of the clean channel. I never use the drive-channel. All my effects go over the clean channel. I just love the fact that I can do everything with this amp. If I really wanted, I could play metal with this amp. But, I don’t. I still play really loud stuff, and it works fine. It’s also great live, and it has always been very reliable. If I would ever have enough money to buy a different amp, or another amp I’d go for the Hiwatt Hi-gain 100 watt , the Fender DeVille 60 watt, or the VOX AC-50, although I hear that VOX amps aren’t very reliable on stage. Bummer. But, for now I’m keeping my Fender, and I’m going to play many more shows with it.

Effect Pedals:

Boss SD-1 Superoverdrive. This is the first and the only overdrive I’ve ever had. To be honest, I’ve never tried the Tubescreamer, and Im not sure if I’d love it more than my SD1. But, for now, the SD1 just does everything I want it too. It sounds so perfect over my Fender Blues Deluxe.

Boss DS2 Turbo Distortion. It’s a good distortion and it’s loud. But, not my favorite. I think that if I get the chance I’ll get a Fulltone Distortion Pro, and that one is amazing, and expensive.

Boss DD-20 Delay. This is my newest toy. It’s a 23-second delay by boss. It has a lot of cool delay sounds, and nothing is overdone. It’s a very easy-to-use delaypedal, and very reliable. I’m so happy that I can bank 4 different delays in this baby and then on stage press one button and have them ready. Great!

Boss TU2. Stage tuner. Very good.

Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster.  This is a pedal I use when I play high-end riffs. It’s intended for solo’s, and also for Single Coils to sound like Humbuckers. It’s an awesome pedal and I love the sound of it. It can boost a signal with up to 25 dB’s.

Accessories:

Ebow. Such a fantastic little thing. Every guitarplayer needs one of these.

Dunlop Slide. I still have to figure out how to use it properly, but I think this thing can create some awesome sounds.

That’s all.

Martijn

10 best guitar sounds ever, in my opinion

These are my favorite 10 guitar sounds, in no particular order.

Jeff Buckley’s Fender Telecaster in Hallelujah.

Teppei Teranishi’s (Thrice) Epiphone Elitist Casino in Come All You Weary.

Mark Engles (Dredg) Gibson SG Standard in Jamais Vu.

Dave Keunings (The Killers) Fender Stratocaster (or Gibson Explorer) on All The Pretty Faces.

Jason Wade’s (Lifehouse) guitar (SG/LP/Hollowbody) on Everything.

Greg Hill’s (MuteMath) MusicMan (I think) on Typical.

Jónsi Birgisson’s (Sigur Ros) Gibson Les Paul on Glosoli. (Especially the last part)

The Edge’s Fender Stratocaster on Where The Streets Have No Name.

Stephen Carpenter’s (Deftones) ESP on Minerva. (Especially the intro)

Dave Keuning’s Fender Starcaster on When You Were Young.

Check them out!

4,942,566

This blog is the 4,942,566th blog on WordPress and I’m so proud of my own unique number! This is probably the 9,654,657,487th blog in the world, but I could be wrong.

Hey, check out this video of friends of mine of an Underoath cover. I like Underoath, but these guys are really talented too. They’re friends that I’ve never met, but I know that when we meet we’ll all be good friends. (Our bands are friends on myspace, and we’re going to play a show together in the future, or a few shows. ) Anyway:

Today I had a sandwich at my favorite lunchcafe here in Amersfoort, Lazy Louis Jazz Cafe, and the sandwiched was called the ‘Wall Street Crash’. I don’t remember exactly what was on it, but I do recall the taste of chicken, bacon, quacamole and mayonaise. It was good though. I chose it mostly for its name. Next time I will write down all the ingredients for you, and then we can find out together if there is some hidden symbolism in this sandwich. Maybe this sandwich will tell us why this world is in such financial trouble.

Oh yeah, before I forget, something else: I went out with my brother yesterday to eat some spare ribs at this cool place, and I ordered a very special beer there, La Chouffe, quite strong, but very tasty, spicy and Belgian. If you have the chance to drink this one, please do so. One more comment though; This is one of those beers that you should just have one of. You’re warned.

peace,

Martijn