The world of music has a lot of landmark dates of births and death of outstanding musicians; and todat, September 18th, 2009 marks the 29th anniversary of an outstanding musicians passing..that musician is of course, James Marshall Hendrix.
A lot of musicians have made some sortt of mark on my life and my acted as a key inspiration but the music of Jimi Hendrix has made the biggest. I first off would not have even had the inspiration to play the guitar at a young age had it not been for the "Electric Ladyland" album and being blown away by the sounds he could make and the styles he utilized..not to mention his technique and his overall approach towards music. I was always scared to attempt to play his songs but as I grew older I eventually did and became a better player for it. I also discovered as I became more experienced of a player that I subconsciouslly used techniques that he did. The only one that I can verbalize is the use of fifths (not your standard subpowerchord but fretted bars..like playing both of the E and B strings on the same fret to create an exact fifth, being as how B is the 5th in the E formula) and just numerous other concepts that he trademarked.
But this isn't about me this is about Jimi. What always amazed me about Jimi is that he could not read muusic and did not knwo much about theory but managed to create everythign that he did. Granted a great deal of blues and rock guitarists did not know scales or much about theory (but all had a concept of the Pentatonic) Jimi managed to not only play up to speed with any electric guitarist at the time but show them things they never even thought of doing, even the ones like Pete Townsend and Jeff Beck, who were considered to be top players in the rock genre dduring the 60's. It also amazed me that Jimi didn't really start writing songs until the Jimi Hendrix Experience was formed in 1966...and he managed to create such beautiful pieces and solos. He was the epitome of so many things..psychedelia, blues, rocker.....I actually define him as a person and him as a songwriter as the epitome of the late 1960's...everything that was going on musically at that time he had hand in helping it develop.
Something sad to think about is that all of the memebrs of the JHE are gone. Jimi died today in 1970, then Noel Redding died in 2003 and finally Mitch Mitchell (who I consider to be the greatest rock drummer) died just last ywar...sad to dwell onit.Currently listening to "Are you experienced?" And hearing Mitch's amazing drum fills...such a shame they are all gone now. But that is the glorious thing about records, musicians are alwyas living through those recoridings, even if it is jsut for 3 or 4 minutes 
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Something that always angered me is kids that mock the legaxy of Jimi, saying this his stuff is way too easy to play and how he is overrated...and that angers me because though Jimi did innovate a lot he did not do the tapping and arpeggios later guitar virtuosos did..so young kids today learn these techniques and feel they are better then Jimi. Sure there ar eplayers that surpass Jimi Hendrix today..but when you think about it, he influecned the shredders that influenced the players today...Eddie Van halen, Randy Rhoads, Ritchie Blackmore, even yngqie Malmsteen and joe Satriani all site Jimi as their biggest influence...so though he may not be the best guitarist he is probably the most influential and every guitarist should atleast hold a respect for him even if they don't appreciate his music..but Jimi is my favorite guitarist...not jsut because he impacted my life the most but because he has a great style of playing that I love, a great sense for phrasing, incredible talent and..I just love everything about his style.
Today is the anniversary of the loss of a true legend...and not a year goes by where I don't dwell on it on how much he changed the world and what it would be like if he was still around...R.I.P. Jimi Hendrix...we miss you.
In other music news, Requeim Oblivion Played a pretty good gig last night at a local place...we get inside and the place looks gothic 
it was once a bar but now it is a club for local bands to play and every thursday they hold gigs..and we were ont he bill. We were set to go on second but were held up because one of the other bands had to take our spot for whatever reason. But it was still a great gig, met a lot of cool musicians, got our name out there and played a solid set..other then my clean channel acting up. We got through three songs and on the fourth my clean channel sounds really low....might be something wrong with my chrous pedal or cables...or maybe it might've been the amp (which wasn't my VOX it was our lead singer/lead guitarists Marhsall). But I'm sure the problem will get resolved soon, we're goign to try and play more shows in the future to get our feet wet..also start selling all of these demos and stickers we have. Overall, good gig.
UP THE IRONS!