Category: Uncategorized
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In Saturday’s video post, I mentioned that I still struggle with some barre chords when I play guitar (most notably B, my arch-nemesis). But I failed to mention a significant contributing factor: the arthritis in my old man hands. When I posted the video on my YouTube channel, I got some great advice from other…
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This Veterans Day, I want to take a moment to recognize the OG guitar player in our family, my dad, Paul J. von Ebers. He served with the US Army’s 66th Infantry Division in France in 1944-45. Here he is in the kitchen with his old acoustic guitar on his birthday in 1966: He used…
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Miniature replica of Joe Strummer’s famous Telecaster I’d like to think I know a lot about Joe Strummer. He is, after all, my favorite artist. Like a typical obsessive fan, I own every official Clash and Joe Strummer release in one form or another, except for some recent compilations. I’ve read a fair number of…
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My wife is in Florida for work this weekend, so, being the supportive husband that I am, I’ve been up early to FaceTime with her before she starts the day. (I’m in the Chicago area, so she’s an hour ahead.) Which means, aside from tending to two very needy cats, I have a fair amount…
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In honor of Corey Glover’s 61st birthday, I revisited his 1998 debut solo album, Hymns, today. I’m a huge fan of Glover and his main band, Living Colour, whom we saw very close up at City Winery in Chicago in 2017. It’s a small venue and we were sitting right by the stage. Easily the…
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This is a video I posted on my Instagram page on Friday, October 17 (which explains why I say “Happy Friday”!), but I thought I would post it here as well. As I explain in the video, Jail Guitar Doors is a great organization that provides musical instruments to incarcerated people to help with their…
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Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt, RDS Arena, Dublin, Ireland, May 2023. As I said in my original post, I write about music because music is a refuge. And, as it turns out, it doesn’t really matter what kind of music you listen to. It’s all a refuge. To say that I have eclectic taste…
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Elvis Ate Dynamite Good Bye Elvis That’s a common mnemonic device to remember the standard tuning for a six-string guitar, from top (low E) to bottom (high E). At least according to my old guitar teacher at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I think about that mnemonic all the time, in…
Elvis Ate Dynamite 