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Six String Bliss: Get Involved!
16 tracks, the album covered a lot of ground.
Some of the TV themes covered include:
“Beverly Hills 90210,” “Mickey Mouse Club,”
“Magnum P.I.,” “Futurama,” “Hawaii Five-O,”
“Tales from the Crypt,” and themes from
Sanford and Son, Perfect Strangers, and
The Wonder Years.
Big Screen Bliss
Big Screen Bliss, the community’s third
compilation, devotes 14 tracks to famous
movie themes. Movies covered include: The
Breakfast Club, Footloose, Top Gun, Edward
Scissorhands, James Bond, and Star Wars.
At its heart, Six String Bliss is a podcast—and
a long-running one at that. The weekly podcast’s most recent installment (at press time)
is its 187th over three-and-a-half years. That’s
ages in internet time. And while they cover
all sorts of topics, from talking about general
guitar topics like influential guitar albums to
reviews and interviews, we’re most interested
in their community-built theme albums.
Scales of Horror
Six String Bliss’ fourth album, the Halloween-themed Scales of Horror, features just nine
tracks. However, it was the first of the albums
so far to require all original songs.
The site’s forum community has put together
five guitar-centric albums with Christmas,
TV, movie, Halloween and fuzz themes. The
albums are discussed and compiled through
the Six String Bliss forums, where forum
members can sign up to contribute a track.
After completion, each album is available to
download for free with high-resolution cover
artwork and full liner notes.
What the Fuzz
The site’s most recent album, What the Fuzz, is
based around a looser theme—fuzz. Each of the
album’s selections were required to incorporate
fuzz tones, although they weren’t required to
be from a guitar. Six String Bliss says that the 10
tracks came from five different countries, making for a truly international offering.
Here’s a rundown of the albums that have
been done so far. You can find and download
them on sixstringbliss.com by clicking on
Extras, then Albums.
Getting Involved
The Six String Bliss forum community is relatively small—225 registered forum members—
but is active and looking to add new members.
Forum members are currently proposing to do
two albums per year, giving contributors plenty
of time to work on their songs, and prospective
new members plenty of time to get involved.
A Blissful Christmas
The first album, A Blissful Christmas, features
10 Christmas tracks ranging from traditional
(“Silent Night,” “The Little Drummer Boy”) to
more modern classics like John Lennon and
Yoko Ono’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”
to original tunes. The debut album features just
five contributors, with the bulk of the songs
coming from Clint and Alicia Searcy (of pickup
maker Searcy Stringworks) and Jan Buchholz, all
of whom continue to contribute to each album.
The founders of the forum, “PT” and “Pipes,”
are active, along with frequent album contributors and newbies alike. To get information
on the site’s next album, click “Forum” from
the Six String Bliss website, and venture into
the forum’s main board, Six String Bliss, just
one click in (beneath the listing of sub-boards).
There you can check out old threads from previous albums to see how it works, or just jump
into the conversation.
sixstringbliss.com
Stay Tuned
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PREMIER GUITAR JULY 2010 41
