I also remember Outer Limits, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and Fireball XL5 which had a very cool theme song.

No I don't remember that series. I looked it up and didn't recognize anyone except Susan Pleshette. It seems like a common theme. Prior to this I was thinking that corporate interests would dominate the future and one corporation would fight other corporation in space for control of territory. And that is a common enough theme too with Dune and the TV series Dark Matter. I never bargained for the possibility that there could be another competing interest: aliens. I've seen some footage of UFO sighting, and it usually involves incredible technology that defy our understanding. But I recently heard that the US has missiles that go four times the speed of sound – which seems like an astounding advance. So where did they get that technology? Alien technology? I really have been amazed how so many people can be wrong about treating COVID around the world and, especially now with the high Chinese death rate. And Bill Gates wants mRNA to be in plants that we eat and wants to block the sunlight with airborne particles that forms a cloud to prevent global warming. I believe this is crazy stuff... so what is really behind this insanity? Something is afoot.

Actually, my brother had a Casio which is still under the couch where he lives, covered in dust. My brother and I used to get teased that we were the Schmenge Brothers playing polkas to whoever came to our house... and that was partially true because our parents were proud to see us perform for guests. We used to play polkas like “She's Too Fat For Me,” “Beer Barrel Polka” and others. It was fun but also very uncool – I mean Jimi Hendrix and Michael Jackson didn't play accordion! But it gave us our first step in music. We would also play mazurkas too, an east European favorite. My brother composed the French-sounding middle section and my mother would say we might be related to some Frenchman who ended up in Yugoslavia during the war. I don't know if it is true or not. And yet my brother pulled the French stuff out of somewhere that wasn't from the Schmenge Brothers' background. Incidentally, I had to fix some notes in the Equinox section that were wrong. So now it's fine and sounds alright.

Thanks Orphan!

The shadow looks like a shoe.

Yes, Tourist, you're a man of my heart when it comes to this tyrannical stuff from the Globalists and the WEF. The globalist's alliance is only to their own class. People like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and the Davos jet-set want to install a new Great Reset (as they call it), a kleptocracy that will govern the earth. And it is not a conspiracy theory because they publish what they want to accomplish – and that is that you will own nothing and be happy. It is very much based on the social credit system in China. These people were never elected by the people, but they are brazen enough to determine what the planet needs. Nobody appointed these people to anything, but they seem hell bend on determining what is good for the population at large. For example, they want us to eat bugs. Cattle are causing too much methane gas emission through their farts that threaten the climate, so we should be building bug farms everywhere for protein. But I bet Bill Gates is not eating bugs! They are threatening the farmers in Holland and in Canada by banning fertilizers that they claim are bad for the climate. There is so much lying going on in the media and government that I don't believe any of what they say in regard to this global warming threat. Now Global Warming is the crisis to activate more Draconian measures and mandates that will lead to the curtailing of our freedoms... and all in the name of SAFETY! If you want anything done just say you are doing it for SAFETY reasons and people comply like cattle and sheep. As with COVID, safety justifies everything: the lockdowns, the loss of individual freedoms, mandates on vaccination, mandatory masks, passports limiting travel, etc. COVID was the first trial run... Yeah, I read they want the cattle pastures to create cities in safe Holland, like the15 minute cities you describe. Our Prime Minister Trudeau is also going along with Klaus Schwab and so is the Biden administration with their Build Back Better. The future doesn't look that great unless Schwab is stopped. I think eventually it will be like Stars Wars where the EMPIRE wants to crush all freedoms. The storm-troopers are dressed in white, but they are really the bad guys. There will be resistance. Schwab looks like a Bond villain (Ernst Blofeld?) blatantly showing off his evil plans to dominate the world. I did a takeoff on him and Trudeau, using Mike Myers as Dr. Evil. Thanks for the compliment on Shine and Carl Douglas...

You may ask why did I call it LIVE IN THE AI Rage? Apart from the pun on Live in the Air Age, AI is all the rage today. With it comes algorithms that assess what you watch on TV, your location, your shopping habits, and your social media. And with algorithms comes a transhumanist movement that wants you coupled to a machine, or containing a chip, or uploading your brain to the cloud. Bill was very prescient with that one picture that has a head floating in the clouds. So close to 100 years ago – Metropolis was made in 1927 – people were thinking the same types of thoughts in their modern age. With that movie, we can see the same types of tyranny to control the people, the same kind of efforts to keep the masses marching along, uninformed and stupid. Today we have legacy media to keep us in line in thinking the right thoughts. That will be coupled with a digital currency to keep us compliant – otherwise, our banking and access to money can be shut off by the state, along with our electric car (a car kill switch proposal just pasted in the US congress). We will be hostage to the state. There will be no privacy as our lives will be constantly monitored. What made all this possible is AI. And some people want to be connected to machinery thinking they will become immortal. So this is what I have briefly laid out in this video using COVID as a recent context. I hope people enjoy it. Incidentally, the upside-down star suggests that machinery will win out over mankind. Yes, how do you control AI so that it doesn't become more intelligent and harm you? The inverted star also suggests Satan. I can go on about Satan, but I'll stop here.

Yup, country westerns are hurtin' songs, and you can feel the pain in my voice. That is... when my tongue isn't firmly planted in my cheek. I think it depends on what gods you whorship. You can be gifted in music, but if you disdain the god of commerce then you are beggin' for trouble. The god of music is a different god than the god of money and many people think if you have the god of music in your back pocket then you can do anything. Not so. Just look at Orpheus and the terrible troubles that befell him. Usually, musicians have no power. They are like children or like Blanche Dubois in Street Car of Desire... relying on the kindness of strangers. That is why patrons are important, even in our non-aristocratic age. Bill had a patron in John Peel and these people are very significant to get the ball rolling. I say the two things you need in the arts or in a general undertaking, are money and people, and if you don't know the right people your money can buy them. Yeah, so I actually wrote this song in a Walmart parking lot in Nashville while noticing that many musicians do the same when visiting Nashville. You can park overnight in Walmarts all over the states and that saves you a lot of expense when traveling from point A to point B. You briefly stay the night, and then you're on your way. You can't do this in Florida or the further south you go, because Walmarts won't allow it – if they did there would be permanent cities in every Walmart parking lot.

Good to see you back Bill, even under these conditions. I hope it's not like you only see certain people at weddings and funerals. I've seen Jeff once. And I know he was good friends with Tommy Bolin and was the last person Tommy saw before he kicked it in Florida. They were sharing a tour I believe. Jeff seemed like a very instinctive player, and he played with his fingers too – giving him a deeper connection to his guitar, so I think. His face always seemed very youthful looking and I could almost never figure out when a picture of him was taken. At 78 years old he might be one of God's most youthful-looking angels. I respect his playing though I never covered any of his songs... and I'm not sure why. He was up there with Clapton and Page, but I seem to gravitate more to those guys than Beck. Still, he was a ferocious and flashy player when he wanted to be. He had an enormous appetite for Jazz/Funk/Fusion, which was always challenging and, surprisingly, very nice to listen to. He has earned his spot in the Holy Trinity of Guitar Players and will be sorely missed.

Yeah, I've seen that concert on YouTube, and Page was struggling whereas Beck and Clapton were having a chuckle. On the Beatles Anthology 3, there was one track that had 102 takes. It surprised the crap out of me. I always thought they would go in around noon and come out finished for tea time. I don't know where I got the 200. You're probably right that GM kept the tapes rolling and those takes (many that were silly with the boys having fun) would be a high number.

Yeah, man, you have have a shit attitude. I'm asking questions not blaring out definitive answers. Get over yourself. Keep an open mind.

Hey man, shit can happen, where your seats are bad, the sound system sucks, and the keyboard runs can sound like the guitar runs. So yeah, who knows who is playing. This is also true for heavier acts like Yngwie Malmsteen.

I saw Jeff on his wire tour with Boston opening. He sounded like Jan Hammer and you never knew who was actually playing.

So what did they add in the studio apart from effects... like the shhhh sound? Why was Bill upset?

It just occurred to me that if they chose different tracks from different performances how would they link up the timing? You never play the song each night at exactly the same tempo. So if you took a track from a certain night where the tempo was slower it wouldn't fit with a night where the tempo was quicker. And this was before digital technology that allows you to do those kinds of edits today. Today you can speed up or slow down a track without it changing the pitch so that it fits in with the tracks you want. You can do miracles with digital editing... but back then they didn't have the technology to be able to make everything sync up perfectly. Also, through looking at the tab for the music, Twighlightcapers points out a whammy bar bend. So I'm curious to know if Bill played live with a guitar that had a whammy bar. I've never seen any pictures of that. And did he play with a delay pedal because there is a delay going on in parts of Shine?

I came across a photo that I was going to use on my rendition of his song Shine where it looks like Bill is looking through the neck of his guitar with one eye. It just occurred to me that this picture kinda means that you see the world through the helpful view of your guitar ... yes, it may be a bit of a stretch... but the guitar supports and shapes us in ways we would never expect normally. Bill's fingers are curled like eyelashes. On some level, the guitar mirrors what we see, like holding up a mirror to reality. As well, we can't underestimate what our body is saying unconsciously by the gestures it assumes. The material tokens and totems that surround us are invaluable guides to navigating our spiritual worldview. The material points to the immaterial. So the guitar is a powerful tool. We see that more clearly in some people rather than others. Bill is one of those people... a confluence, the nexus where the spiritual and material meet through the divinity of music.

Yeah, my son was upset that he couldn't play fast and therefore was a terrible guitarist... but speed isn't the be all and end all. I said look at Kurt Cobain who was an original guitar player, and he was never fast. You can have a Steve Vai, who can technically play circles around anybody, but I really don't care for his music. So there are many parts to guitar playing, and it not's a gun slinging attitude of who's the fastest. Then it's competition, which something else than music. So he cheered up and is still playing guitar. I like the Bowie quote.

Ok, I wasn't aware that there was a discussion on the issue. Nor was I aware that the tracks pre-existed on other shows. I guess Shine and other songs became a composite from the shows. I thought that Bill redid some tracks in the studio and that he was not happy about doing it. What leads me to think that way was that there were no little glitches or mistakes and the solos seemed flawlessly executed. As well, there was a great cohesive unity to the solos. Sometimes on certain nights, your solos wander higglety pigglety, and it doesn't come together that well. Or you just have nothing to say. Because everything sounded wonderful I assume he redid it in the studio. As well, there is a tap delay on the guitar in Shine that I don't think he used live. All that could have been done in the studio. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if he had redone the tracks in the studio or not. What is important is the final result and LITAA is a wonderful album. If Bill is upset it might be because, in the blue & jazz traditions, you go for the truth whether you play well or not. That is who you are. Again, I personally don't care if tracks were stitched together from different shows. It may be a Frankenstein of sorts, but it is a beautiful monster. And just to let you know it's been done by other artists like Eric Clapton. They had edited his famous Crossroad song from Cream's Live at the Fillmore and shortened it. As well, you can see on Clapton videos where one moment he has a cigarette on his tuning pegs and the next moment it is gone – which says they edited both the songs and the videos. So if I was Bill I won't worry about any of that. He should be happy to have produced a great album regardless of how it was put together.

Very good points. Playing live is a different kettle of fish and some musicians absolutely hate it. I remember reading that the concert pianist Glenn Gould hated it because he thought the audience was there to see him screw up. He likened it to a tight wire performer where the audience came to seem him fall. In other words, he had to play perfectly every night. Eventually he steered away from older classical music to modern classical that had a lot of dissonant notes. I always thought that was a way to make it seem like he played the piece perfectly because nobody could tell the dissonant notes from his mistakes. In jazz and blues the music is more forgiving. If you solo, and play some wrong notes, then play them again and people will think it is an arrangement. And then there is even playing “outside” where everything sounds wacked. But as long as you play with conviction and come in on a good note people will accept it – most people in the audience are there to love your playing and not be critical. Some people can be so critical of themselves that they don't even start playing an instrument. A lot of it is being in the right mood. If I go to jams I can't let the performer just before me affect me. He maybe a great performer but I can't let that unnerve me or start to compare myself to him. I have to focus on what I do and that is it. I might play just great or fall on my face, but it's not the time to think about it. You can't have doubts and should try to be relaxed (that's why some beers help). Yeah, most artists have insecurities. Read how John Lennon hated his voice and thought a lot of his songs were absolute crap. (Maybe he was flippantly saying that to get a rise... and maybe not!) Some artists never seem to see themselves in a good light and are always comparing themselves to others who they think are better. It even gets worse when people tell you how great you are, and you can't believe them. When performing you may think the night went like crap, but people are applauding, and you can try to put it off or dismiss it as, “Oh, they're just drunk.” But they still may have loved it! All you can see is where things didn't go right. So it's that sense of perfection that destroys what good there was of the evening. I can get down on myself because – and in one sense – that is a way to improve. You can beat yourself up because you are not where you want to be. The motivation is fear and shame (or the stick) that gets you to work harder at your instrument. You don't want to be embarrassed in front of your friends that you suck. The other motivation is the love of the piece of music that causes us to work to achieve that end (the carrot). We usually use both the carrot and the stick to advance. But guitar has taught me that people are complicated, and they do things for all kinds of reasons. For example, some people are naturally gifted and want praise, but when they reach the end of their talent and seriously have to work at guitar – then they put it down. There are a host of reasons why people do what they do. I think the older we get, the more committed to our loves in life... at least this is true for me in music. And I think it is true for you too with your art and music.

I don't have an agenda – I was merely commenting on what goes on with guitar playing. Maybe you don't play an instrument – that probably explains it in a nutshell.