I’m having a bit of a dry day today. I don’t really feel like writing or reading too much. I am trying to research a few things I have wanted to write about but somehow I just keep ending up back on YouTube.

Although I don’t really want a Dime signature, I am pretty sure my next guitar purchase is going to be a Dean ML of some sort. Here is a Guitar World video review for the Dimebag signature Cowboy from Hell I just watched on YouTube .

Apparently the tape is to keep the strings from catching on the pickups when Dime did his crazy dive bombs.

UPDATE: It is now 8:43am mountain time. Since this has already aired on the east coast you can catch a few video clips on the ABC website here.

Ok, who is skipping work tomorrow morning? I’m lucky enough to have the day off, so I’ll be at home. Good Morning America should air here in Mountain Time at 8am on channel 5. You can watch it on whatever channel abc is in your area.

I’m not a huge Mayer fan, but I’m a little excited to see what this Clapton guy is all about. Eric Clapton will be John’s special guest for the show.

But seriously folks, how can you have Clapton as YOUR special guest and not feel like a god among men. “Yeah, I’m going on the Good Morning America show tomorrow. What? A backup guitarist? Naah, I’m good, I’ve already got one. Eric Clapton AKA God is going to be backing me. He’s pretty good… I guess…”

John Mayer has been gaining in popularity over the last few years, and not just in the screaming lusting female-teenager demographic. He has gained a lot of respect from the guitar and blues communities, hence the whole Clapton thing (see above).

The singer, writer, blogger, stand-up comedian and shoe designer has also become a bona fide heartthrob. Since bursting onto the music scene in 2001 with his first major studio album, “Room for Squares,” Mayer has sold millions of albums, won five Grammys and broken hearts — sometimes famous hearts — in both hemispheres.

That first album featured the hit “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” rumored to have been inspired by then-girlfriend Jennifer Love-Hewitt. It won him a Grammy for best male pop vocal performance.

Source: ABC News

Ohhhkay holld on, John Mayer dated Jennifer Love-Hewitt? Seriously… her body IS a wonderland. That song just took on a whole new crazy kind of meaning for me. Every time I hear it now I’m just going to imagine John Meyer saying “yeah, I hit that”.

On a side note, Fender will be releasing their limited edition Eric Clapton Crossroads Stratocaster AKA the Sun Strat. The proceeds will go to help support Claptons Crossroads Centre. Crossroads is a rehab center created by Clapton in the late 90s.

One week from saturday the Crossroads Guitar Festival will kick off in Chicago. Clapton and Mayer will perform again, but this time it will be a full concert. Other guests include Jeff Beck, Cheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, BB King, Albert Lee, John Mclaughlin, Willie Nelson, Jimmie Vaughan, Steve Winwood, and more.

[Via Modern Guitars Magazine]

Summer NAMM will be kicking off July 27th, 2007 and running through the 29th at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. Once again I will watch from the sidelines in pure jealousy. As we all know the NAMM trade shows are only open to association members, and to be a member you have to either be a manufacturer or retailer of musical paraphernalia. Oh yeah, and if you work in the media too, then I guess you get to go. I guess I could be considered media right? Somehow I don’t think my personal blog would get me in the door.

If you happen to be going to Summer NAMM 2007 and you would be interested in providing me with details, photos, or whatever from the show, please feel free to contact me… ya lucky bastards.

I have had this starred for a few weeks now. Arch Enemy has announced the release date of their next studio album Rise of the Tyrant. The album is slated to be on shelves September 24th, 2007.

I love the last few Arch Enemy albums and I’m excited to hear this new one. I don’t have any cover art for the album as of yet, but the track listing is as follows:

RISE OF THE TYRANT
Blood On Your Hands
The Last Enemy
I Will Live Again
In This Shallow Grave
Revolution Begins
Rise Of The Tyrant
The Day You Died
Intermezzo Liberté
Night Falls Fast
The Great Darkness
Vultures

In related news, Christopher Amott has returned to Arch Enemy after a 2 year break. Christopher was an original member of the band, but decided to take a vacation from Arch Enemy in 2005 after recording Doomsday Machine. He took some personal time for himself, saw the world and now he is back to slay some more metal.

Christopher’s brother and band mate Michael Amott comments on Christopher’s return to the band:

“So, we are back with my brother Christopher on guitar—it’s a huge rush to have him back playing in his signature style. He’s jumped in at the end of the songwriting process for the new album and added some of his unique spice. I feel Christopher’s playing has matured and is more precise and even faster than before! Guitar fans are going to freak out at the stuff we’re up to on the new album!”

This has me so much more pumped for this new album. I am pretty sure it is going to rule all of life.

Arch Enemy has already set some dates for the album tour with more to come. No Calgary date on this tour yet, but I’m holding out for some updates.

Right now Fender is holding a contes to allow us guitar fans to win one of two John Mayer Fender Stratocasters. The first prize is the exact master-built Continuum Strat that John has been playing on his summer tour. The second prize is one Limited Edition John Mayer Signature Stat. There are only 500 of these signature Stats being made and this one will be signed by Mayer.

All you have to do to enter to win one of these is head over to Fender.com and create a Fender Profile on their website. Fender says the profile is to give you access to their online community, but I think it is so they can send you junk mail. Either way, I’m sad that this is yet another contest not available to us living north of the border. So, I guess I meant to say all you have to do is be living in the US of A and create a Fender Profile.

I have been following this story lately about YouTube pulling over 100 videos created by NextLevelGuitar.com that show people how to play portions of copyright songs. Apparently YouTube received a take down request stating that the lessons were a copyright infringement. I first read about it in the post Guitar Lessons Removed from YouTube in Copyright Dispute on Guitar MX Blog.

Reading on the Next Level Guitar forums I found out that the copyright claim was filed by ABKCO Records. If you aren’t familiar with their history read up on the Bitter Sweet Symphony fiasco. After reading that it is pretty obvious why Next Level Guitar isn’t planning on fighting this. Instead the site will release new videos that indirectly teach people how to play copyright songs. We will have to wait and see what kind of shape this takes.

So is it really illegal to teach someone how to play a copywritten song? I don’t really want to get into the logistics of copyright law, but I want to know where exactly the line is drawn? Are the videos infringing on copyright because they are teaching (thus taking away from sheet music sales) or just because they contain a derivative of copyright material in them? Either way it’s common knowledge that if anyone anywhere is making a profit directly or indirectly from a copyright material the record labels wont be very happy about it. There are thousands of videos on YouTube teaching people how to play songs on the guitar. I think the reason the Next Level Guitar guys were targeted was because they were using these videos to promote their guitar lesson website and were indirectly making a profit from the material.

Here’s something interesting though, Next Level Guitar has started a new channel on YouTube housing copyright free material and the channel is the most subscribed this week, most subscribed this month, and #2 most subscribed of all time. Thats pretty freaking impressive.

Justin Sandercoe from justinguitar.com has yet to run into any issues with his YouTube videos. His YouTube account hosts several different lessons for songs like Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and Cold Play’s Trouble. Justin is less obvious about making a profit from the music. He only asks people for donations to help keep his site running, which is far from a profit. On the other hand, Justin does attract people who are interested in hiring him as a personal guitar instructor. This could make him a target for copyright infringement complaints. I think he knows this though because he has taken some preventative action by moving all of his videos that contain copyright material to their own channel called JustinSandercoeSongs. So if or when YouTube cracks down on him, none of his copyright free videos should be affected.

This is a story that I am going to be paying close attention to over the next little while as I have been considering putting up some videos of my own. I would never look to make a direct profit from the videos, but the copyright holders may not care about that. I’ll have to watch what Next Level Guitar does to sidestep copyright infringement while still teaching people how to play their favorite songs.

After seeing IG tag Cary from Electric Guitar Review I now see that Cary has tagged me in this Eight Random Facts madness. So here we go, here are eight random facts nobody cared to know about Matt Van Stone, but will now know.

1. I recently moved to a new house and my phone is not working. I am currently on hold with Shaw technical support trying to get my phone fixed.

2. I do not have a middle name and that really shocks a lot of people. Most people assume I say that because I have some horrible middle name like Remus or something, but my birth certificate doesn’t lie. I have none.

3. Sandwiches are my favorite food. I like breakfast sandwiches, sandwiches at lunch, dinner, and as snacks. Whether it’s cold meat or PB and J, I never get bored of them. Ask my girlfriend, I have been feeding her them for two years now and shes sick of ‘em.

4. I was home schooled between grade 2 and grade 7 at which point I went back to public school. I realize now that I put way too much effort into high school. Kids… dont read this, but I still believe it was mostly a waste of time.

5. If I didn’t go down the computers/IT career path I probably would have become some kind of a wood worker. Wood working and Computers were my favorite two subjects in school. Playing guitar was my favorite outside of school.

6. I love cheesy horror movies. In fact, yesterday was Friday the 13th and I had a cheesy horror movie party! We watched Freddy vs Jason (not so cheesy) and Adam and Evil (VERY cheesy). Basically we went to the local video store and found the best worst movie we could find in the horror section completely going by title and synopsis. It was a toss up between Adam and Evil and Death Tunnel.

7. I used to be a closet GAP whore. On any given day I could be caught wearing at least one piece of GAP clothing, and in some situations only my socks and shoes were GAP free. I have grown out of that, secretly I miss the GAP, but I can never find anything there I want to wear anymore.

8. I can’t grow a beard because it comes in too patchy and that saddens me on a daily basis. It sucks to have to shave all the time, but it sucks even more knowing I couldn’t let it grow if I wanted to.

Well there you go. I hope you learned something interesting.

And now to pass the curse on, here are a few people I’d like to tag:
Dave from eightface
T.L. from indieguitarist
Wookie from GuitarToyBox
Rich from GuitarBlog

And since Cary, IG, and I all seem to read the same blogs I only have 4 to tag. But I would like to double-tag Lori from Play Like a Girl and J.P. from Strat-O-Blogster.