For those of you who know me, this post won’t come as much a surprise, but for those of you who don’t, well… let’s just say I have a mild fondness for the electric guitar and one of my all-time favorite guitar heroes would have to be Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.
Happy Birthday Jimmy!
So on this January 9th, 2010, I would like to wish Jimmy a very happy and special 66th birthday celebration. Having recently appeared in the film, ‘It Might Get Loud‘ (which I blogged about earlier, just click the link to the left) it has rekindled the interest and desire to have a tour which includes Jimmy. It doesn’t matter which form or shape it takes. It could be with or without Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, but at least some live music from Jimmy to satisfy the fans, including myself.
Of course, I could think of no better way to celebrate, than by posting some of the magnificient photographs of Ross Halfin. Without further adieux, here are some of my favorite images Ross has taken.
Enjoy!
Jimmy Page in Oakland, 1977
Jimmy Page from the early 1980s with telecaster guitar
Jimmy Page in 2009 posing with Les Paul guitar for a magazine cover
Jimmy Page in Los Angeles, June 2009 for premiere of the movie 'It Might Get Loud'
I recently posted something of an introduction to Twitter. In it, I introduced people to Twitter and asked a few questions to the SEO community. I still think people are struggling with where to start when they sign up though. I constantly get questions from friends and family on what Twitter is really about. It’s all about joining the ‘real-time conversation’ on any and everything that interests you. Such a vast collection of information may intimidate many people and I think this is why I’m asked the same question over and over, “What can I do with Twitter, what is it good for?”
Let’s Take a Look at Some of the Things You Can Do With Twitter
Try finding friends you already know first of all. There’s a great built-in tool that’s in Twitter called, Find Friends on Other Networks tool. If you have a AOL, Yahoo!, or Gmail account, Twitter can scan your contacts list and see if anyone you know is on Twitter that
you haven’t yet started following.
See a screenshot below:
There’s also an application online that helps you find who’s tweeting. It’s called Tweepz. There’s another one called Twellow and they both are very similar to a Yellow Pages site for Twitter. With either one, you can type in a topic you’re interested in and see who’s tweeting about that subject in your area and beyond.
The Tweepz.com search feature with 'SEO Denver' search entered.
The Twellow.com search feature shown above.
Yet another method of finding friends on Twitter is through Facebook. The Twitter Facebook App can inform you of which one of your friends is on Twitter and which ones aren’t.
Another great and often overlooked tool to find like-minded people to follow on Twitter is to use Twitter Search. See what people are saying in real time about a certain topic that interests you and begin following these people if you find their tweets interesting.
So as you can see, there are many different ways to find people to follow on Twitter. There’s also a few that I haven’t mentioned or tried yet, but feel free to do so if you so desire. These are WeFollow, Twubble and Twitterel.
This is how the Twitter for Facebook App looks like.
Find Local Twitter People You Can Network With
I found Twitter great for networking. Along with all of the fore-mentioned methods of finding people, there’s a few other methods to really find worth while people to follow and possibly network with. Twitter Advanced Search allows one to limit results to a nearby location. There’s also other 3rd party apps, such as TwellowHood and Localtweeps.
Connect and Stay In Touch With People on Twitter
Now that you know how to find friends and other people who may share interests similar to yours, try downloading a free Desktop or Mobile Client. Keeping up with your ‘mentions’ and ‘direct messages’ within Twitter is somewhat cumbersome and that’s why I personally use TweetDeck. It helps you keep track of everything going on with your Twitter account even if you have multiple account to take into consideration. They’ve even built in a nice MySpace and Facebook feature to track things going on there as well.
This is how TweetDeck looks for managing Twitter, Facebook and MySpace
People who are on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPod Touch can check out many of the iPhone Twitter Apps. There’s also web-based Twitter clients available that make Twitter easier to use on other Mobile devices such as Mixero and PeopleBrowsr.
SEO company and Web Design & Development studio collaborate
Our design & development studio recently completed a widget development project for a local SEO company here in Denver, Colorado. Together, we developed a strategy for creating the all-important backlinks to a Texas attorney’s web site. The group over at seOverflow here in Denver is quite a talented group of SEO gurus that assisted the Studio 119 Design & Development team with the preliminaries for creating widgets for the Jim Adler & Associates team in Houston, Texas.
What do these ‘Death Statistic Widgets’ do?
Good question! They simply track 5 different types of deaths across the United States. There’s a widget for Car Accidents, one for 18 Wheeler Accidents, one for Drunk Driving Deaths, one for Mesothelioma Deaths, and also one for Motorcycle Deaths. All five come in 3 different sizes; 300 x 250 pixels, 240 x 400 pixels, and 160 x 300 pixels. All perfectly suited to implement into your blog or web site. Each one respectively tracks the total death numbers to date for each specific type of death. Each day a new number is displayed and oftentimes these numbers are updated hourly using a javascript which deducts the current day, compares it to the national daily average of deaths and returns a total number to date for the specified year.
You can download these widgets at either of these two landing pages:
Yet another good question… and the answer is easy. ‘To Gain Valuable Backlinks to Your Site‘, simply put. In the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) community, we all know that if you are able to gain links back to your site you can gain some valuable exposure within the Search Engines. Strategically placing targeted keywords within your anchor text (the words that appear within the actual link on the page, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term) also help the spiders that are crawling your site help determine what your site is about and how they should categorize it. Changing up the anchor text is also a common task. Backlinks also function as a sort of voting system in that they indicate that someone has taken the time to add a link back to your site and find your site’s content valuable.
The Death Statistic widgets have appearing on each one of them 2 and sometimes 3 backlinks. Two anchor text links and one image alt tag set on the image link. So as you can see, we’ve placed these within the actual widgets in hopes that people will implement them into their blogs and web pages to give us our precious backlinks to our site. A very unique strategy in my opinion and one that also worked well with our previously developed Dex Yellow Pages widgets.
It’s all done in the name of ’Gaining Valuable Backlinks to Your Site‘.
John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin in action during the 1970's
Well, it looks as though the Led Zeppelin reunion tour won’t be taking place after all. As reported on the John Paul Jones web site on August 10th, 2009 he’s joined a new supergroup called, ‘Them Crooked Vultures‘.
The new group features Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl and no other than the legendary John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. According to the official Them Crooked Vultures web site, they are slated to hit the road in October already. October 1st, they’ll be in Austin, Texas at Stubb’s and then they’ll be at the Austin City Limits Festival on the 2nd. Those of you who are familiar with PBS television will probably be aware of this excellent musical showcase program and hopefully there will be a broadcast of the event and performance of the band sometime in the near future. Check more Them Crooked Vultures tour dates to see if they are coming to your town.
It looks as though the web site allows you to participate in a forum, purchase an official t-shirt, sign-up for a mailing list and also explore a Google Earth feature that I’m still trying to figure out. I installed the plug-in, but I just get zoomed into an unknown location in France I think and can’t navigate out of it?
Here’s an image of the guys hard at work:
Live performance image of Them Crooked Vultures
YouTube videos of Them Crooked Vultures
There seems to be a lot going on in this realm at the moment and I expect more to follow soon. The teaser video sounds great! Song is called, “Scumbag Blues”. No images of the guys in the band, all visuals of vultures walking around in a very graphical layout. Quite engaging!
I would strongly suggest subscribing to their channel on YouTube to keep up-to-date on what they are doing. Here’s the link to the official Them Crooked Vultures YouTube Channel. There’s some pretty cool in-studio material plus some live fan videos. Here’s a studio video:
And yet one more glimpse from a secret gig at the Brixton Academy on August 26th, 2009:
Pretty interesting sounds, but it probably puts the Led Zeppelin reunion tour rumors to rest, which is unfortunate.
Hello again! I posted about Ace’s arrival to the world wide web back in April of this year in a post entitled, ‘Ace Frehley finally has an Official Web Site!!!‘. And now the time has come to mention that his newly recorded album is slated for release in just under two weeks! That’s right earthlings… the Aceman has been hard at work preparing us for his latest endeavor. September 15th, 2009 is the date the new recording hits the streets!
Ace Frehley Press Kit for Anomaly
The new album / CD is entitled ‘Anomaly’. Ace has put out an electronic press kit… check it out here:
Or check out the commercial:
Different Packaging for the Album
Pretty cool stuff for collectors as there is 3 different packaging options. One for Walmart, one for Best Buy, & one that’s just standard, but they are all pretty nice. Take a look for yourself! Nice job by the graphic design team, I must say.
Walmart Packaging of Anomaly from Ace Frehley
The Walmart packaging of Ace’s CD contains an Ace autographed tattoo!
Best Buy Packaging for Anomaly from Ace
The above Best Buy layout is printed on silver stock, like the Double Platinum Album from Kiss!
Standard Packaging for Anomaly from Ace Frehley
Anomaly from Ace Frehley is also available on iTunes!
That’s right… you won’t get any of the fancy packaging pictured above, but at least you’ll have the latest from one of the most influential guitarists of our time. Ace Frehlely Anomaly on iTunes.
Track Listing
1. Foxy & Free
2. Outer Space 3. Pain In The Neck 4. Fox On The Run 5. Genghis Khan 6. Too Many Faces 7. Change The World 8. Space Bear 9. A Little Below The Angels 10. Sister 11. It’s A Great Life 12. Fractured Quantum 13. The Return of Space Bear (Dedicated to Tom Snyder and an iTunes exclusive)
Go out there and support our spaceman who has so kindly graced us with his presence on September 15th with his first album in over 20 years!
Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and the White Stripes’ Jack White together in a new film!
So call me dense or whatever you wanna call it, but this just slipped past me. I never even knew this was in the works, but once again, my following of the Ross Halfin web site uncovered this new film which is coming out soon. In Ross’ diary entry marked June 19th, he’s in Los Angeles with Jimmy for the premier!
The film is apparently about the history of the electric guitar as seen from the point of view of three significant musicians. The first being Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame, the second being the Edge from U2 and last, but not least, Jack White of the White Stripes. From the looks of the trailer, it looks like the film revolves around each individual guitarists personal style and approach to the guitar. From the looks of it, Headley Grange is visited by Jimmy and for those of you who are Zeppelin fans, you’ll of course know that the band recorded numerous time there and is especially noted as being responsible for the huge drum sound in ‘When the Levee Breaks’. Other notable bands also recorded or rehearsed at Headley Grange in East Hampshire, England. The song, ‘Black Dog’ by Led Zeppelin was named after a black Labrador Retriever which was found hanging around the during recording of their fourth album in the early 1970’s.
It looks like the film is scheduled for limited release in New York and Los Angeles on August 14th, 2009. There are some still shots viewable as a slide show at IMDB.com and here’s the trailer in HD below.
A recent magazine cover from the three guitarists in the film:
Jack White, Jimmy Page and the Edge
I will try to post more info here as it becomes available, until then, enjoy!
Ace Frehley, spaceman from the rock and roll supergroup Kiss, finally has an official web site! Ace has inspired many guitarists throughout the years and is now entering the cyber world via his newly launched web site and other various areas of the internet.
Ways to Follow Ace Frehley on the Web
I recently saw that he is now on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and even Twitter! He’s definitely out there making himself visible to the world. All of the various ways to follow Ace on the web are listed on his ‘Into the Void‘ page on his site.
His first video blog from April 2009 I’ll post here:
His band is in the studio now finishing up their upcoming release called ‘Anomaly’. Sign up for exclusive updates from Ace and his webmaster. Here’s an exclusive video of Ace solo tracking for the track ‘Pain in the Neck’ in his studio:
He’s also posted some really nice rare photos from his spectacular career. The official Ace Frehley web site photos section, called ‘12 pics’ has a few photos here, but I would suggest also visiting him on Facebook and MySpace to see some other nice images of Ace in action.
Recent Ace Frehley Sightings
Ace opening up the New York Yankee Stadium Hard Rock Cafe - April 2009
Ace at the New York Hard Rock - Halloween 2007
Ace Frehley with his new band - New Years Eve 2008
So there you have it. Ace is back and he told you so!
Update!!!
A recent interview with Ace at Amoeba Record Store in Hollywood, California. Check it out:
On April 4th, 2009 Jeff Beck was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio. Supporting him was none other than the legendary Jimmy Page! There are rumours Jimmy will make a few select appearances with Jeff on his current US tour, but check out these great clips of the two legends up on stage again. The two original Yardbirds together again! Wow!
Videos of Jeff and Jimmy at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Performance.
Here they are performing ‘Beck’s Bolero‘ and an instrumental ‘Immigrant Song‘.
You can’t imagine how excited I was to find out Dinosaur Jr have been in the studio recording a new album. Apparently, the title of the album will be ‘Farm’ and will be released on the Jagjaguwar label. The boys from Amherst, Maine have done it again! Created another collection of audio explorations for us all.
It looks like the tour will begin tonight in Portland, ME. Check here for more tour dates.
It looks like the tour will begin tonight in Portland, ME. Check here for more tour dates.
I got to see the guys back in 2007 and must admit, much to J Mascis’ chagrin (as I know he likes it when people complain about how loud they are), it was the loudest show I’ve ever been to… and I’ve been to quite a few shows in my time! Now they are back for another round with a new album to boot! I hope they plan to stop into Colorado on the tour sometime.
They were and still are, in my opinion, one of the best and most original Grunge bands to have come out of the 80’s and 90’s. There’s just something so tasteful about J Masic’s guitar playing that is unsurpassed. They were contemporaries with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Screaming Trees… just to name a few! They weren’t from Seattle, but they were well-respected by their peers on the west coast.
Dinosaur Jr as they appeared in 1987
A song entitled, “I Don’t Wanna Go There” from the upcoming release has been posted up to see the studio process of Dinosaur Jr. Just follow this link, Dinosaur Jr Studio Performance 2009 on the J Mascis web site. There’s also a video clip of them performing “Tarpit” in the studio along with a great extended video interview!
What’s really intriguing for me, at least, is to see J playing on his Fender Signature Model J Mascis Jazzmaster in these studio clips. It’s a way cool guitar and I’m lucky to say I’m the proud owner of one. Also worth watching, is the interview clip and the discussions on equipment as well as visuals of some of the gear the boys use. Excellent!
I wanted to post these video clips because I really find them interesting, but it wasn’t possible… didn’t find an ‘embed code’. However, I will post the YouTube video of J talking about the signature Jazzmaster. Interesting how he started out as a drummer (still is) and how he chose the Jazzmaster… he originally wanted a Stratocaster!
New Dinosaur Jr Session Material available for download! These a four songs available as a free download from the daytrotter web site. This is from a recording on June 9th, 2009. They perform ‘SEVERED LIPS’, ‘REPULSION’, ‘CRUMBLE’ and ‘BACK TO YOUR HEART’. Well worth the free signup for an account to get the downloads. The studio is called The Horseshack and is located in Rock Island, Illinois. Enjoy!
And while I’m updating, I might as well also let everyone know they should check out Dinosaur Jr on MySpace as they have some new material uploaded there… photos, videos and songs. Can’t wait until they roll through Colorado again!
And remember, the new album comes out June 23rd of this month.
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