Fret Filings - (Anne's Blog)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

"THAT'S THE HOLD"
Topic: New Tab Postings

"

What is this? This is a rock song."

I can't really think of much to say on this one. But then Kim Mitchell doesn't need much introduction, does he? He is, afterall, a wild party.

One thing that stood out for me while I was doing this tab was some of the chords in the Bridge. Specifically, the chords in Bars 3 & 4 of the Bridge (I'm not even sure what the names are). But does that part sound Max Webster-ish, or what? It reminds me of the keyboard opening of "Gravity". Good to hear a little of that Max sound in his solo work.

"That's The Hold" is from Kim Mitchell's second -- and most successful -- solo album, Shakin' Like A Human Being (1986). Certified triple platinum in Canada, it also contained such hits as "Alana Loves Me", "Get Lucky (Boys & Girls)", "Easy To Tame", and his biggest hit "Patio Lanterns". It was pretty much a Greatest Hits album all by itself.

The tab: https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/mitchellkim-thatsthehold.txt

A live version of the song performed in May of this year, in Renfrew, Ontario:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUBhxizJlN4

Posted by planet/zerofret at 3:21 AM EDT
Updated: Thursday, September 18, 2008 3:22 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Monday, September 15, 2008

"COUSIN MARY"
Topic: New Chords Postings

"Cousin Mary", one of Fludd's most famous songs, came from the band's most infamous album, 1972's oddly titled ... On! The intention had been to name the album "Cock On!", but the band's label (Daffodil Records) couldn't sell the idea to their distributor (Capitol Records). Rather than change the title altogether, they just reduced it. Also scrapped for being controversial was the photo for the inside gatefold sleeve, which showed the band naked but for coats. The album was eventually re-issued in 1996 with its originally planned title.

The song wasn't intended as a single at all. Three singles were released from the album, then the band started recording its next album. When the recording of that album got continually stalled for various reasons, the record company reached back to the previous record, and released "Cousin Mary" as a single near the end of 1973. The result was a Canadian Top 20 hit.

When the band split in 1977, three of the members went on to form the progressive rock group Saga. Former Fludd member Greg Godovitz (who formed Goddo after leaving the band) later recorded a cover version of "Cousin Mary" with his band The Carpet Frogs.

I've made a note on the chord chart itself about the album name change, because if someone were to go looking for a CD named ... On!, they wouldn't find it. The song is, of course, available on a few different Fludd "best of" CDs, such as From the Attic: 1971-1977 (pictured).

The chord chart:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/crd/fludd-cousinmary.txt

And the audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEuI2tdfGnY

Posted by planet/zerofret at 2:50 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

"TAKIN' CARE OF BUSINESS"
Topic: New Tab Postings

A new tab added today, Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care Of Business". In a 1999 interview, Randy Bachman gave an account of how BTO's signature song came to be:

It was written in an instant but it took 10 years for that instant to happen. What happened was, way back in the late 60's, when The Beatles had "Paperback Writer" out, I wrote a song just like it. Mine was called ""White Collar Worker", but the lyrics went "They get up in the morning from the alarm clock's warning, take the eight fifteen into the city." I'd been to New York and Chicago with the early Guess Who and seen people on commuting trains and how they had to catch this eight fifteen into the city 'cause they started working at nine thirty or ten. So I wrote about that. But when I got to my hook, my hook was "White Collar Worker" just like "Paperback Writer". I played it for the band and they said this is a joke. We can't record this. It's a copy of "Paperback Writer". So this song got put back into the filing cabinet of my mind...

Fast forward about 5 or 6 years and I'm out of The Guess Who. I've now started B.T.O. and we have our first album out. We come back from our first big tour of the States and we're playing a club in Canada for a week... In the middle of this Saturday night set, Fred Turner lost his voice and came to me and said "you have to sing the last set." Well, I was only a relief singer up to that point. So I went to sing this last set... I'm doing basically all non-singing songs that you could kind of talk your way through. The crowd is yelling "Rock 'n Roll."

Going to the club that night, there was a d.j. that said, "We're takin' care of business on C-Fox Radio." I thought "Takin Care of Business" is a great song title, put it in the back of my mind, and then onstage that night, out of desperation I turned around and said to the other guys in the band, "Play these 3 chords over and over, C, B flat, and F endlessly and when I get to the hook, help me out. It's "Takin' Care of Business". Just sing it with me. So I start to play the song and I sing my lyrics from "White Collar Worker" exactly as they appear in "Takin' Care of Business". When I get to the hook, instead of doing this breakdown where we all do "White Collar Worker" in high voices, I say "Takin' Care of Business" and the music keeps going. It was just put together like that. The crowd sensed that we were jamming and making it up. They were all clapping and screaming. When the song was over they kept clapping and stomping and singing "Takin' Care of Business." So we then picked the song up and sang it for another minute or so.

(Interview by Gary James at classicbands.com)

The tab: https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/bto-takincareofbusiness.txt

Whew, this tab was a workout. Enjoy. I need a rest.

Posted by planet/zerofret at 2:35 AM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 2:37 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

NEW ARTIST & TAB INDEX PAGE
Topic: Website

A new Artist & Tab Index page has been added to the site. I re-designed the page as an html page -- replacing the previous text version -- partially to make it a better looking page. But the main reason for the change was to make site navigation more convenient. Now there are direct links from the Index page itself to every other page of the site. If someone sees a tab in the index that they'd like to look at, they can take a link right from the Index page to the page/site section they want.

This is the new page:

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/page9.html

Posted by planet/zerofret at 5:03 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 9, 2008 5:09 PM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Saturday, September 6, 2008

WIDE MOUTH MASON
Topic: Riff-In-A-Jiff

Wide Mouth Mason's first CD came out in 1997, when music was still in the grip of grunge. When I first heard some of their songs, I thought they were a breath of fresh air. They were stellar musicians, with a relaxed blues-jazz-pop-rock sound. And I also felt that before too long Shaun Verreault would be included among the likes of Alex Lifeson, Randy Bachman, Rik Emmett, Jeff Healy, etc., as a Canadian guitarist of note.

That first CD was full of great guitar playing, memorable riffs and solos, and overall catchy songs, such as "My Old Self", "Midnight Rain", "This Mourning" (all three of which were singles), and "Tom Robinson". That same year WMM became the first Canadian rock band to ever be invited to play the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. At the closing news conference, the Festival's director said the world's "discovery" of WMM was a highlight of that year's festival.

Tabbed here is the Intro and Verse of one of my WMM favourites.

WIDE MOUTH MASON - "This Mourning" (S.Verreault/E.Pereira/S.Javed)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/canriffs.txt

You can hear the full song on this page:

http://www.imeem.com/ihun/music/2YOrSLjJ/wide_mouth_mason_this_morning/

Posted by planet/zerofret at 2:22 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

AUGUST 2008 REVIEW
Topic: Website

Most-viewed tabs for the month of August 2008 (w/ view numbers):

22 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
19 - Harlequin - I Did It For Love
15 - The Kings - Switchin' To Glide
15 - The Kings - This Beat Goes On
14 - Harlequin - Sweet Things In Life
14 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
12 - Harlequin - You Are the Light
10 - Kim Mitchell - Patio Lanterns
9 - A Foot In Coldwater - (Make Me Do) Anything You Want
9 - April Wine - Tonite

Total tab views for August: 387

(By section: Canadian-280, Girlschool-41, Various-33, Chords-33)

Most-viewed tabs overall (stats date from Oct. 3/07 to Aug. 31/08):

124 - Harlequin - Thinking Of You
83 - The Kings - This Beat Goes On
69 - The Kings - Switchin' To Glide
66 - Honeymoon Suite - Burning In Love
60 - Headpins - Don't It Make Ya Feel
56 - Girlschool - Race With the Devil (guitar)
54 - Honeymoon Suite - Stay In the Light
52 - Harlequin - Innocence
52 - Harlequin - Sweet Things In Life
50 - Kim Mitchell - Patio Lanterns

*Only tab views made by people (excluding my own views) are counted here. Webcrawler/bot views are excluded.

Posted by planet/zerofret at 12:46 AM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 12:49 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Monday, September 1, 2008

"THIS COULD BE THE RIGHT ONE"
Topic: New Chords Postings

I hope everybody is enjoying the Labour Day holiday weekend.

The newest chord chart entry is for April Wine's "This Could Be the Right One". It's from the 1984 album Animal Grace, the band's 11th album. This was the last album April Wine recorded together as a full band before going on an eight year hiatus, which ended with their reunion in 1992. "This Could Be the Right One" was the only single from the album.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvHlc9V09GU

Posted by planet/zerofret at 2:08 AM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 12:56 AM EDT
Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink | Share This Post

Thursday, August 28, 2008

"BABY RAN"
Topic: New Tab Postings

"Baby Ran" was the first 54-40 song I ever heard, and it continues to be among my favourites of theirs now. The song originally appeared on the band's 1986 self-titled album. I had that album on vinyl, but my vinyl collection has long since been retired. About a year ago I was putting together a variety playlist of songs by Canadian bands to burn onto a CD. So I went to an mp3 site in search of "Baby Ran". I had no problem finding it; it's on the band's greatest hits package Radio Love Songs: The Singles Collection (pictured). I was surprised, however, to discover that that CD had a re-recorded version of the song. I wanted the original. The site didn't have the album 54-40, though, so it seemed the original wasn't available.

I think it's mostly just a matter of familiarity. I had always known the other version, so I liked it better. But the two are really very similar (although guitar solo parts are different), and I like the re-done recording, too. For the tab I listed both albums at the top, but be aware that the version tabbed here is the one from Radio Love Songs. Regardless of which version, it's just one of those irresistably catchy power pop songs. I saw the band at The Diamond in Toronto when they were touring behind the 54-40 album, and it was a great show.

I had to look around a bit to find the re-recorded version (that the tab is based on) online. You can hear it here:

http://www.imeem.com/people/pECoAD//music/D6gwbuyd/5440_baby_ran/

The video features the original version of the song, and can be seen/heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbquA796WJQ

Posted by planet/zerofret at 2:13 AM EDT
Updated: Thursday, August 28, 2008 2:27 AM EDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

Friday, August 22, 2008

BACK TO IT
Topic: General

Good news.

My Dad was released from the hospital a couple of days ago, after a twelve day stay there. (Details in previous post.) He'll now continue his recovery at home, taking it easy for awhile as he gets his strength and energy back, and finishes out anti-biotic prescriptions he's been given.

I'll be getting back to working on new content for the site. I don't think anything's been added all month. One riff entry, maybe. I started working on a tab last night, and I also have one that's finished, but still needs checking. (I don't have my tape deck at the moment, and I can't check that tab until I have it back, since that tab was done from a cassette.) After the past two weeks, I think I'll just decompress for a while, choosing a few songs myself to tab. Somewhere into September I'll get back to doing some of the requests.

Posted by planet/zerofret at 5:04 PM EDT
Post Comment | View Comments (2) | Permalink | Share This Post

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

DELAY
Topic: General

Does it kind of seem like no one's minding the store right now? Not answering blog comments and such? That's because I haven't been around much recently. Last Friday, my Dad went into the hospital rather unexpectedly. So I've been visiting downtown at the hospital every day this week. The diagnosis turned out to be massive pneumonia in one lung (which really seemed to come out of nowehere). Fortunately, things have gotten much better over the last few days, although we're told the full recovery process will take some time.

The second day we went to visit, there was kind of an unexpected wrinkle. It turned out that anyone visiting a patient with a possibly infectious condition has to don a lot of hospital gear: a gown, a mask, and latex gloves. You can't go into the room without it, and you can't leave the room until you've removed it. Anything you take into the room that you want to take out again has to be bagged. It's all to prevent visitors from possibly bringing germs back out of that room and having them get spread. They explained that these precautionary measures are largely a result of the SARS crisis in Toronto some years back. It takes some getting used to having to have all that stuff on, though. We were very happy to find out yesterday when we arrived that the isolation status had been lifted. So not only was it a good indication of improvement in condition, but it also meant masks, gloves, etc. weren't necessary anymore.

So this is why not much has been posted on the site in August so far. And it'll probably be awhile yet before there is anything. I actually have a couple of things complete, but they haven't been checked over yet, so they won't get posted until I do. I'll still be making daily hospital visits, but seeing definite improvement and having hospital staff tell us they're quite happy with the improvement being shown makes it a bit less worrying. So I'll get some new content posted on the site once I have some more available time.

Posted by planet/zerofret at 5:05 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 5:11 PM EDT
Post Comment | View Comments (4) | Permalink | Share This Post

Newer | Latest | Older

«	September 2008					»

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30