Welcome to Random Chatter Music, a blog featuring the ferocious, fun fretwork of Paul Gilbert, and the wonderful musical work of some other excellent artists.
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What can you find here?
A lot, and I mean a lot, of information regarding professional musicianship, guitar playing, and Paul Gilbert. Please, check out the site!
There are extensive interviews I conducted, and other materials posted here onsite with some great musicians. For bass guitar, there’s Craig Martini and Marco Machera, (in Italian we have Paela Zaccaria), for music education there’s Matt Warnock, for rock guitar and session work there’s Barrett Tagliarino, for drums there’s Jeff Bowders, and for vocals there’s Freddie Nelson. Other artists included (interviewed by others) are Billy Sheehan, Mike Szuter, Robin Trower, and Steve Vai. This list of musical perspectives continues to grow. Everyone has something great to offer, so please check it all out!
Regarding Paul: I have distilled 50 English interviews (plus added a few rare photographs) in to The Book Of Quotes, transcribed and distilled 9 of the 2008 VIP lessons (complete with tablature) in to The VIP Book, archived 23 interviews in non-English languages, documented three tours: Europe/2007, Europe/2008, and Japan with Freddie Nelson/2009 as completely as possible, added a section with reviews of Paul’s albums since 2005, added pages about some of the gear he uses to make his music: his pedalboard and his Ibanez PGM guitars, added a viewing link to almost every available “legal” YouTube video, archived about 4000 photographs, and posted exploitation-free links (no catch. really.) where you can buy most of his releases.
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About The Blog:
This blog is the product of a years’ worth of free or spare time. It is basically a snapshot in time. It’s done simply for fun. I don’t make any money from it in any way.
The blog began because I had accumulated “just slightly too much” information to be posted “all at once” to a friend’s blog, regarding guitarist Paul Gilbert. My friend suggested that I start my own blog. So – I did. Originally it showcased some older YouTube videos.
As RCM took form, it’s focus shifted sharply to “documentation of Paul Gilbert’s autumn 2008 European tour”. It became a repository for the translated concert reviews and live photo galleries I was finding and sharing with friends and acquaintances on a bulletin board. Readership grew steadily. It was so much fun to blog each night for an hour. After Paul’s autumn European tour wrapped up, I was faced with the agonizing decision: quit? or continue to find and publicize information? I chose to carry on.
The community of guitar bloggers was, and is, tremendously supportive. This upbeat community, a network of friends, continues to be a daily inspiration. The guitar bloggers and some of their readers began to view this site as a bit of an educational resource, which I wholly embraced.
During this time, I was contributing information to other websites. At some point in the history of each contribution, I was met with “I just don’t have time to add this…”. So, a large repository of “other” information, and other great artists, began to build on my hard drive.
I didn’t know what to do with all this information, but it was too good to keep to myself. As time passed, Paul’s 2007 European tour, and his clinic tours in Italy (2008 and 2009) were given similar treatment. A database of interviews and album reviews was added after an old acquaintance’s website was taken over by spammers. RCM then went full-circle: from starting as a blog about a few different artists, then focusing solely on Paul Gilbert, in about April 2009, it regained a slightly broader focus.
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Where Is The Blog Going?
It depends on two very important things.
What is Paul Gilbert doing as a solo or collaborative artist?
How much free time do I have?
I’m planning on adding some more exciting music perspectives in 2010: a couple of photographers, and other instrumentalists. Because many readers want and expect this to be “a blog about Paul”, I surely will not disappoint them. It’s a lot of fun to be some sort of strange hybrid between what essentially amounts to a biographer, and a music fan.
Currently, the blog is being worked on, organizationally. I’ve removed about 150 pages of information, to donate it to other fansites. I’m trying to conform to a more streamlined philosophy.
I’m excited for the future, and I really like what has been done so far.
Thank you for reading, and stopping by.
- Jenn
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