Back.

Hi there. Haven't been on here in a while, I feel guilty.

Actually, I probably wouldn't be on here right now normally, but as it is I'm as sick as a goat. I woke up around 4am, sweating like mad with my head feeling like it was going to explode. Now I've had some neurofen I feel a little better, but I've still got a very uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. Like I'm gonna throw up. I'd rather just get it over with so I feel a little better for once.

What sucks even worse is that I've fallen sick during my half-term break. Couldn't you have at least rescheduled my illness a week later, God? To add to insult, my mother wishes to cut my hair. *tut*.

But hey, at least I've started writing on here again. Hopefully I won't stop for a while.

DO NOT PANIC.

I WILL BE WRITING MORE. I WILL RETURN SOON. JUST DON'T WORRY.

Supergroup - well...

Hey there.

Right, so. First off - my guitar STILL isn't here. I'm going to be seriously angry if it doesn't arrive before my holidays are over, I mean - RAGE angry. THIS ANGRY:

ANGRYMETER:

Usually I'm this angry (since I'm a teenager): [llllllllll               ]

After the first guitar was sent back? [llllllllllllllll        ]

Now: [llllllllllllllllllllllllllll]

Anyway, onto today's topic. You may or may not, depending on if you keep yourself decent by updating yourself on websites such as ultimate-guitar or by reading magazines such as Classic Rock, know about this knew "supergroup" going by the somewhat strange name of Chickenfoot. I mean, funky name and all, but can it live up to the expectations?

Sorry, sorry, I should explain. A supergroup is the term labelled to a band formed with experienced and generally accepted to be awesome rock'n'rollers. For example, stick Flea, Travis Barker, Zakk Wylde and Ozzy Osbourne into the same band and you have a supergroup. Of course, there is absolutely no guarantee that the group will actually produce decent music together! In the example, the only two who would really mesh together would be Zakk and Ozzy, since they've worked together in the past and share the same style of music. Flea is all over the place, genre-wise - best know as bassist of RHCP, who have been through psychedelic, punk, funk, alternative... you name it, they've sampled it. Anthony even throws in rap in a lot of their songs. And Travis Barker is pure pop-punk/hip-hop, as shown by his journeys with popular punk band blink-182 and with his remixes of hip-hop/rap songs like Low and Soulja Boy.

So, Chickenfoot comprises of these members: Michael Anthony (bass), Chad Smith (drums), the great Joe Satriani (lead guitar) and Sammy Hagar (rhythm guitar/vocals). Recipe for success, right? Actually yes, it is right. Despite the fact you might imagine their tastes clashing, their chemistry seems to be brilliant - they actually look happy and fitting together on stage, bright smiles plastered over their faces, etc. Chad, drummer of RHCP, again has been through a lot of types of music, including socks-on-cocks. Sammy and Michael have both been in Van Halen at one point so they're on pretty level ground right there. Satriani is a surf-rock kind of guitarist, best known for his solo guitar work such as Satch Boogie, and his incredible technical ability. They're actually pretty similar, hence their great cohesion.

Want proof they're good? I'm sorry, but this riff is just SO addictive it's crazy.

Yes. Yes, yes and yes. With those three shocking yeses, I must go. G'bye.

Amazon Marketplace = bad.

Yes. It's been ridiculously long since my last post. A month is far too long for someone like me (someone awesome that is :D ) not to post on his super-cool, absolutely amazing blog. But it happened, for a mixture of reasons which I will explain.

Reason one: Also the biggest reason. I've been waiting for my damned guitar to arrive. Yes, it STILL ISN'T HERE. If I were anyone else I'd be laughing at myself right now, but I'm not someone else, I am myself. Therefore, I am not laughing. I am the exact opposite - a very angry little sod who is on the verge of going psycho and smashing household objects. I mean, come on. Guitar one that I was going to buy - from Amazon Marketplace - was an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, trans-blue flame-top finish. Very good looking guitar, and I was really looking forward to having it. Unfortunately, the knobhead who was the seller (remember this is Marketplace, essentially a less hectic version of eBay) decided to be a complete dick and not send my guitar. That's right, he didn't even POST it until my mum made around three e-mail complaints. Then, when it finally arrived approximately two weeks late, my mum decided to send it back again. I later found the action to be completely logical because the seller had a lot of recent feedback about items being faulty, but at the time I was so excited I was about to finally get my mitts on the LP, only to have it whisked away from less than five metres away. I went into rage mode when my mum came into the living room without the guitar in her arms and the words "I sent it back" coming out of her mouth. I was... angry. Afterwards, we decided in a change of guitar (again, yes) from the Epi LP standard, to the Epiphone Les Paul Lt. Edition w/ Bigsby tremolo. One of the reasons for the change was the tremolo - I'm just getting really interested in Satriani's technique, though I'll always prefer a Les Paul over something else. Satch uses a lot of tremolo in his guitar pieces, so I knew the Bigsby would be a great choice. However, today we received a note saying "The Epiphone model is currently not in stock, so you will have to wait a bit longer to receive your item. Thank you for your understanding and remember to leave good feedback on my Amazon account!" Yeah right. Why post something as for sale if you don't have it? That's essentially fraud.

Anyway.

Reason 2: Completely forgot it whilst typing reason 1.

Goodbye.

I CANNOT WAIT.

Believe it or not, the great, fantastic, awe-inspiring genius you know as Harry is actually fidgeting. FIDGETING. In his seat.

Hazard a guess why? Maybe I'm about to go and watch the entire nation of France cry when they find out snails are actually slugs, which are pretty much worms, which crap out soil. Gross. Or maybe I'm going outside to point and laugh at Britney Spears who just shaved her hair off a second time. (By the way, that hasn't actually happened, I'm just theorizing.) Or maybe even...

I'M GETTING A NEW GUITAR WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Okay, this will be complicated to explain... right, here goes. Basically, this is the list (in chronological order) of guitars that I was going to spend the money I receive from this blog on.

- Les Paul '56 Goldtop Reissue (£379)
- G-310 (~£150)
- G-400 (~£250)
- G-400 1956 Reissue (~£310)
- Les Paul Standard Plain-Top (worth £350, I got it for £250)

Yeah. I know, I'm a teenager, I'm undecisive. You can't blame me though - there's a massive selection that you're asking me to rifle through and pick the best from. First, I saw the LP Goldtop's finish and said "I WANT IT". However, I soon realised it'd have taken almost until my birthday before I'd have saved up enough money for it. So, being impatient (and, in hindsight I see stupid), I decided to set my sights on one of the cheaper Epiphones - the G-310. It's not a bad guitar by any means, but the finish is so boring and untextured. It's the one you'll see a picture of, the fully black one with chrome hardware and white trimming. Of course, I read a few reviews to check up on the G-310's musical abilities, and found it was inferior to its bigger brother, the G-400. As such, I decided to get that instead. Then I looked at a review for the '56 reissue, which claimed better tone, finish and action. It didn't cost a huge amount more (or so I thought at the time) so I decided to aim for that. THEN I saw the LP Standard, and realised why my first choice had been a Les Paul. Sure, the SG looks great - I still love the shape of that body with the similarly shaped pickguard, it's a beautiful guitar. But unless I could have had the '55 reissue (EVEN BETTER than the '56 one) I knew Les Pauls were better overall. That must've been the reason so many more artists are famous for their Les Pauls than SGs - take SGs. They're great, but the only truly famous musicians that frequently use/used them are Angus Young and Tommy Iommi. As opposed to the Les Paul - Jimmy Page, Slash, Jimi Hendrix (yes, he did when he was touring London before switching to the Strat), Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton (for a while), Ace Frehley, Billie Gibbons, Roy Orbison, Kirk Hammett, Mick Taylor, Joe Perry and of course, the legend Les Paul himself. That's just naming a few.

So, that would conclude this post. NOTE: It's not today's post, I'll be making another. Maybe even three - is it possible? I hope so.

WARNING: This is level 8 stuff.

Correct-a-mundo! This is level 8. By which I mean, my JFK assassination assessment which you can find below fetched a level 8 from my history teacher. It's actually pretty good, although in the end, when I had to print, I found it took up 7 pages and 2 lines. That's the longest essay I've ever written, which just goes to show how much effort I put in. I'd been working on it for around 3 weeks when I handed it in, and it still wasn't complete in my opinion. I missed out medical evidence and the Cubans, for example... I just didn't have enough time, especially as I had my English assessment to hand in as well. So, without further ado I introduce you to the most amazing and longest essay I've ever written.

EDIT: Dammit, the formatting when I copy-paste it into the blog is really screwed up, so I'll try to find another way to get that working so you guys can read what earned me a very satisfying grade. For now I suppose I'll have to entertain with a normal post.

Well, that was a bloody disappointment, wasn't it? Oh well. It's the summer, there isn't anything I couldn't care less about than the way the formatting of a 7-page assessment turns out. The weather in the UK is great nowadays - lots of sun, only rains in the early morning and... cock, I better go now. See ya.

School's Out!!

YESSSSSS!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. 7 weeks of non-school rock 'n' roll is something that induces random outbursts such as that one within me.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

There goes another one... ah well. Anyway, yeah. Last day of school was today, but it's doing it more credit than it deserves by actually referring to it as a school day - more like a half-day-of-messing-around-in-art-class-followed-by-an-assembly. However, there was a twist involved. Two of them, in fact. Actually, three of them. Cock, there's four in fact. I'll run through them in chronological order.

Twist number one - I twisted the front wheel of my bike. Not the tyre or anything, but the friggin' wheel itself. I was just riding along minding my own business (that business being going to Ben's house to collect him on the way to school) when a kid who goes to our school in year 7 called Tom rams into me from the side. Since he was head on and I was side on, he went over my front wheel, bending it completely and utterly out of shape. Instead of looking like this:

It looked more like this:

And no, that's not my bike actually. I just googled "bicycle wheel" and "bent bicycle wheel" and used some images from there instead... I'm just too lazy to take a picture of my own bike and bluetooth it to my computer. Besides, I'm helping the people at Google's careers by doing so, because... well, I just am. Anyway, at least I don't need my bike urgently for the next 7 weeks anyway and I can have a legit excuse for my mother to drop me off everywhere instead. Ho ho ho, happy days. Still, I bet she'll want me to take it to Halfords sometime soon anyway. Aw well.

So, that's twist one dealt with nicely. Numero two - when we got to school there were THREE PEOPLE there that had been off before because of suspected swine flu!! WOAH!! At first glance this might have been great, since one of them was Charlie, but actually one of the girls that came in still looked sick as a sick schoolchild... which she was, I suppose. She was coughing and sneezing all over the place, it was scary... but at least we got to see Charlie again. Me and him once again baffled everyone else with our guitar talk - discussing what guitar I was going to get in fact. I was speculating whether to get a 3-humbucker custom G-310 Epiphone or the slightly more expensive G-400, which also has a half-pickguard rather than the traditional full one on the G-310 and Gibson models. Charlie pointed out that the G-400 Vintage comes with EMGs, which give a richer tone than standards, but I countered with the fact that two of the three pickups on the custom G-310 were P90s, which also have a nice tone and can produce some beautiful distortion too. The heritage cherry finish on the G-400 is also much nicer than the factory black gloss on the G-310... anyway, yeah. That's how confused our friends feel whenever we discuss guitar.

So, trois. Like a lot of secondary schools, ours holds a "hall point" competition. Basically, students can acquire these hall points by doing various suck-up deeds such as volunteering for helping teachers, doing good work, bla-de-bla. (I got ten of these for my level 8 History assessment by the way :> ) Then, at the end of the term they are counted up and added to each hall's total. There are two halls at our school - Darwin and Nightingale. Blue and Red. I'm in Nightingale. The tradition at our school is that Darwin always seems to win the damned trophy at the end of the year. As a joke, me and some friends pretend to be in Darwin at the end of the year so we get to cheer when everyone else in Nightingale looks miserable. However, instead of tradition, Nightingale actually won this year. Of course, there was a draw-back - we had to boo instead. But it didn't matter, since nobody but saddos actually care about the trophy anyway.

And finally, twist four. This twist is the most recent, and it is that I forgot what I was originally planning twist four to be. So on that bombshell, I leave you with some funny quotes from Top Gear and make my hasty escape.

Or not, Youtube isn't working on my computer. So bye!