Brendan Mac's Guitar Blog

The Sun was vicious today!

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 21:06:05 +1000

Savage 40+ degree day! Insane and out of nowhere! Yesterday we get slammed at a jam session with some friends that lasted one song till the storm took out the power and now this the next day! Gonna be a long hot summer.

Check out this video of the sun, red and angry through the smoke from a fire somewhere

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So Lazy!!

Thu, 22 May 2025 11:51:57 +1000

I have been so lazy with this blog!! OMG! I need to put more effort into writing on it. I made this thing for a reason and have just completely been sidetracked with the world! Ive just noticed that someone made a comment on this blog back in February 2024 looking for lessons and it was the FIRST comment ever made too. Ive gotta stop being a such a lazy git haha. The idea was to move away from posting on social media and post here instead but the world dug its claws in unfortunately. Well ive walked away from social media useage, deleted Twitter/X, never use Facebook anymore except business use and only use Instagram from time to time.

Guitar Jam Tracks

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 11:59:56 +1000

Ive recently started messing around with some backing tracks for my students so they can practice their soloing, phrasing etc.. They are available at http://bmcguitar.com.au/guitar-backing-tracks

You can also see them on my person YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@BrendanMacsMusic

Jam tracks are great for simple practice and there is plethora of tracks on YouTube already but I thought I may as well add mine into the mix as well

The Best Guitar Riffs of 1985

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 08:21:32 +1000

Time for this weeks video! The BEST guitar riffs of 1985 This video was played by YouTuber guitarist, Ben Eller and you will love it. Check out some of these guitar riffs

Silver Ocean Storm - Architect Of A Dying Sun

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 21:39:50 +1000

These lads are a band that my band, The Cilikis, once or twice shared the stage with. They are the reincarnation of an old Brisbane metal band called Minus Life who split for some reason and re-incarnated as Silver Ocean Storm with an absolutely outstanding vocalist, Toby Skeates. This man sounds like Mike Patton from Faith No More, no word of a lie!

Tonight I have had some time off work so Ive been listening to their album, Architect Of A Dying Sun. Now I've heard this album a while ago in the late MySpace days and was impressed then, but listening again tonight has reaffirmed my opinion that these boys back in the day were the absolute duck nuts. Such a great production of musical art. I am blown away! This album is up there with some of the best metal releases you can hear, by far!

Have a listen to the entire album here, you wont find it anywhere else unfortunately other than CD and that is a shame! Come on lads, put it on the stream'ies!

It's Back! The Return of the Fender Bulletstrat

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 07:29:23 +1000

After three years or so, I have my #fender #bulletstrat back from a student who was using to learn on. Now for a clean, new strings, new #guitar #pickups and a different scratch plate maybe too. But first she needs a good clean for sure.

This will be a project of mine that Ive been wanting to do for a while now but I think for now just some new strings and clean will do nicely and in the meantime, hunt for some decent pickups. These aren't to bad but the top end is way to crispy, particularly when the strings develop that coating of oxidation, the string talk noise is blech!!!

Sunday Afternoon in the Listening Room

Sun, 23 May 2021 16:07:32 +1000

Today in the music listening room!

Mundus Intellectualis by Scatterbrain

Somewhere In Time by Iron Maiden

The Animation of Entomology by Blotted Science

Temple of Khronos by Spire

(Local Australian Black Metal band)

Stigmatyr by Amoured Angel

(Australian classic Death Metal band from Canberra)

Temple of Shadows by Angra

(Brazil)

Romain Goulon; Drummer for Necrophagist

Sat, 08 May 2021 21:47:39 +1000

Anyone who knows me knows that I am quite picky when it comes to musicians; especially vocalists and drummers. It takes a lot to impress me and NO, I'm not being some kind of a "muso snob" about it either! ...but.... when someone does comes along, there is something about what they do that grabs my attention. Their technique, their attention to detail, the mojo, something jumps out at me.

Some of those musicians are drummers like Marco Minneman (Paul Gilbert, Necrophagist, The Aristocrats, Steven Wilson), Bobby Jarzombek (Riot, Fates Warning), Mike Mangini (Dream Theater, Annihilator, Steve Vai), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Winery Dogs), Virgil Donati (Southern Sons, Steve Vai, Planet X). But I recently stumbled across this video from death metal band Necrophagist. I known of these guys since the early 2000s when I read about Muhammed Suiçmez the guitarist, who by the way has a smooth guitar technique.

I found this video of their new drummer (at the time), Romain Goulon playing the drums to their songs from the Necrophagist; Epitaph album.

Check this out and how in the zone / relaxed and accurate his performance is! THIS is why you PRACTICE YOUR BUTT OFF! Metal bands can be notoriously difficult on their musicians who audition. You cant fake this stuff as Lemmy from Motorhead used say.

Its players like this that get my attention somehow. The attention to detail, mentally relaxed, disciplined and super tight technique is mesmerising to me. Instant fan!

Friday afternoon guitar noodles!

Fri, 07 May 2021 14:35:01 +1000

Friday afternoon noodles before work on the guitar! Playing around with my new practice / jamming / song writing amplifier. A Fender Frontman 65R solid state amplifier. This is the effects chain.

Ibanez -> Boss BD2 -> Mooer Reecho -> Hotone Verb -> Rowin Looper -> Fender (Clean channel, T=3, B=5)

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Online guitar lessons

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:17:47 +1000

You can now connect to online guitar lessons via Microsoft Teams, Zoom or SKYPE. Other options are in the works such as Discord and Google Hangouts. More on that later..