December 10th, 2023

Homeskoolin’ Volume 261, Tom Bukovac, “Morning Meditations With Zenmaster Larry”

Chapters
00:00 - Early morning Zen video / Tuning autoharp
00:55 - Nashville tornado
01:30 - Ham sammich tuner and autoharp
02:15 - The Smokestack studio (Paul Moak) / Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton
04:30 - Tuning the harp / Bob Ross
05:13 - Uni-Vibe and Strat sold / Thanks / Body and Soul Instruments
06:45 - Back to tuning the autoharp
07:47 - "Women Who Rock" tv show / Cyndi Lauper story
10:00 - VCB / The Dreggs / Kid Rock
10:54 - Music City Bridge is primo
11:30 - Appreciations / Sizable donation thanks
13:00 - NFL bets


Notes
Get your brushes and your canvas kids…it’s time to paint with Uncle Larry.

December 12th, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Bonus.... “Are…You Going….To San…Francisco?”

Chapters
00:00 - Rehearsing Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
08:13 - Break & discussion
13:40 - The Band - The Weight rehearsal


Notes
Uncle Larry shares a few rehearsal memories from a super fun gig that happened in San Francisco over the last few days.

He got to see some old friends and play some good old rock and roll with some of his bosses, past and present.... and had an absolutely lovely time.

(and now, Tom Bukovac takes over speaking)

These clips taken from the Jimmy Irsay exhibit that happened on 12/10/22, in San Francisco CA, starring:
Ann Wilson, Little Johnny Fogerty, Stephen Stills, Buddy Guy, Kenny Aronoff, Kenny Wayne, Ebo, Tony Lucido, Mike Mills, Mike Wanchic, Danny Nucci, Stephen Barber, Jeffrey Gorman, Carmella Ramsey, Edgerrin James and others.

Special thank you to Paul Moak for letting me borrow his amazing sounding resonator guitar.
If anyone out there has one EXACTLY like this one for sale i will buy it.

Tony Lucido is filmed here playing the famed Alembic fretless bass that John Mcvie used on this little Fleetwood Mac album you may have heard called "Rumours". The fretboard is shiny aluminum....pretty cool bass. Jimmy bought it for a song.

Bottom line…let me say once again...i am SO thankful and grateful for all the cool places this instrument that i have worked sooooooooo hard at in this life has taken me....i will NEVER take it for granted. The magic equation that applies to basically everything in life....it's 99% drive...1%t talent.
Work ethic trumps EVERYTHING.


and way more importantly than all this, i want to say goodbye to a dear friend....Zak Godwin II.

see you down the road bro bro

October 21st, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Bonus, “Analawg Dawgs”

Chapters
00:00 - Building a song
08:58 - Prophet-5


Notes
Day 4 of a 7 day marathon session, where the Amazing Dawgs are re-united once again working on writing and recording a new Ann Wilson record at Smoakstack Studio in Nashville TN.

In this clip Uncle Larry does what any decent friend does when a guy is playing a pad on an old analog synth…he is working the cut off filter.

Amazing Dawg Paul adds some magic glue to the track on an old Prophet 5….while bandmates Amazing Dawg Tony and Amazing Dawg Sean look on in horror.

Zack Zinck absolutely KILLING it on the engineering gig....a top notch professional, and about the nicest, easiest guy to work with you could ever find on this planet.

There is no official “producer” per se on this record….so what you are seeing here is four hardened, brutally opinionated studio veterans who are all trying to function in a completely democratic fashion…which can be challenging at times….but so far so good.

Ann’s vocal on the track is muted during this filming, but you can hear an epic Paul Moak guitar solo at the end of this track, as well as some hypnotically adult acoustic piano stylings from a relatively unknown Youtuber from Cleveland.

August 22nd, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Volume 159, Tom Bukovac, “Window Or Aisle?”

Chapters
00:00 - Pink Floyd - Mother play through (David Gilmour)
00:46 - Finally home / Thanks
02:19 - Listen to actual song / Compare
03:28 - Lick lesson
05:10 - VCB (Viewer Comment Bin)
05:40 - "One who dies with the most toys..."
06:49 - "Don't be sad" / Spider-Man
07:35 - Montage / Old gear
12:20 - Podcast - Tony Lucido, Paul Moak
12:59 - Epiphone Casino / Gibson SG / Les Paul Goldtops
16:45 - Old Rickenbackers and surgery / Bass cap (old Marshall)


Notes
Lord it’s good to be home…sweet Jesus.

Check out the Amazing Dawgs Tony and Paul on this podcast here if you're bored…pretty funny stuff

August 12th, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Bonus “The Millenial Buzz”

Chapters
00:00 - Behind the scenes / Soundcheck
01:11 - "The offended language incident"
01:45 - Paul Moak pedalboard / Gear
02:48 - Tony's Bass
03:13 - AC30 / Gear cont.
07:45 - Drum insights


Notes
I thought you guys might appreciate this little illustration of exactly why most lifer musicians absolutely loathe soundchecks.

Soundchecks are always just a cacophonous labyrinth of disjointed rude sounds played by overtired people with bad attitudes and short tempers, whose only REAL concern is the catering.

But more importantly….please listen closely to what I’m about to say.

If there was ever any ONE LESSON that you all learn from any of these videos, let it be this my friends….

unless you are using Rockit Cargo or some other PROFESSIONAL gear transport company…do not EVER try to bring any of your own gear on an international trip….it is practically GUARANTEED to end in tears….and cost you a fortune while you’re at it.

We are just now getting Paul’s gear back from Germany…our poor manager Dave was stuck in Germany for 3-4 extra days trying to deal with the messy gear situation. They wouldn’t fly some of it back because the cases were oversized etc etc, which is strange considering they had no problem flying it INTO the country. As of tonight we are supposed to finally get most of it, but some of it is lost forever at this point.

The only real rule of flying gear international is that there are no rules….just rent whatever you can, and if you DO bring something make sure it’s something you don’t mind losing forever.

Special guest appearances in today’s vid by the crew guys
Steve (the drum tech)
Justin (Pauls keyboard and guitar tech)
Michael (our manager Dave’s son who runs the teleprompters
Matt (the amazing monitor guy)
Gary (the amazing front house guy)

Thank you for watching folks

August 11th, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Road Update, “A New Found Land”

Chapters
00:00 - Newfoundland tour update


Notes
St. John’s Newfoundland Canada….what a cool place.

Thanks for watching all this madness you guys….i think we might really have Tony talked into doing his own channel

August 8th, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Volume 157, Tom Bukovac, “Taken By Fierce Bliss”

Chapters
00:00 - Soaring intro playing
02:38 - Hello, everyone! / Home again and Germany
03:48 - Wacken, Germany show
07:23 - Uli Jon Roth
09:45 - Eleanor Jane thanks
10:51 - Change setlist?
11:38 - Lesson (song - Greed) / Power of music
13:30 - Transport gear? / Pedalboard


Notes
Back in the homeland after a long long journey, Larry recalls some of the highs and lows of the last few crazy days…the Session Man Abroad if you will….if you must….

Very sincere thank you to all of you for supporting the show…Uncle Larry’s small but mighty army is slowly approaching 70,000 members….and believe me, i know how hard it is to make the commitment of clicking on a video of an old guy teaching guitar when there are so many “shorts” on youtube of hot girls wearing yoga pants.

I appreciate all the kind words and all the kind donations…i truly hope that you all are learning things and that these videos help shine some light on the madness of the music business.

Mostly i hope they inspire all you people out there to accomplish the nearly impossible dream all musicians share….the dream where we ask the universe to provide us “a living” solely from playing an instrument.

Heres the tip jar links if you want to donate

Paypal is tombukovac@gmail.com

Venmo is @Tom-Bukovac-1

April 25th, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Volume 140, Tom Bukovac, “List Of Things To Do In The Morning”

Chapters
00:00 - Amazing playing as always
02:13 - Hey friends! / Writing tunes
03:38 - Time constraint vs experiementing with songs
05:58 - Open tunings
06:14 - Play a song over and over/ Tedious, long hours
09:41 - Strings / Open G Tuning
11:02 - Bar chord, hammer on lesson
11:48 - Devilish sounding guitar in Open G lesson
13:45 - Zeppelin-ish song for Ann Wilson lesson
14:29 - "It's all been done before" / Clever ways to make it fresh
15:14 - Great story about Reese Wyman / "Every note was new"
08:04 - The Devil's lick lesson


Notes
1) breakfast
2) put dishes in sink
3) brush your teeth and fix your hair
4) put your homework in your school bag
5) make sure you have your chromebook laptop AND the charger

And then…get out your ‘38 bone and get to work

Thank you guys for keeping the Homeskoolin’ dream alive….hope you are learning a TON from these videos….have you all visited the night time drop box at the musicians union yet?

Paypal tip jar is tombukovac@gmail.com

April 22nd, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Volume 139, Tom Bukovac, “Well How Big Ol’ Boy Was He?”

Chapters
00:00 - Passionate swirling playing with a flanger
03:09 - Ibanez Flanger (FL-305)
03:30 - Hey friends!
04:00 - Sessions with Ann Wilson and Tom's new song
05:15 - Collaboration is the greatest part of music
07:48 - Creative people
08:50 - '57 Gibson Les Paul Special and Music City Stud Finder bridge
09:15 - Musician Union drop-box idea
10:15 - Music City Stud Finder bridge
11:13 - Randy Newman - I Love LA
13:00 - I Love LA poly chords lesson / Genesis & Tony Banks
14:40 - Bass note with sliding 4ths and little rubs lesson
17:47 - Lynyrd Skynyrd - On the Hunt playing


Notes
A brief discussion on using triads over a single pedaling bass note to create "harmonic tension"

There have been many musical giants who have roamed the earth and conquered long before the time we are in now…we must always listen back and learn from those ancestors who learned/wrote and performed music before “the great distraction” took place.

If you are indeed getting something useful out of the thoughts conveyed in these videos, please support your local public television station with an honor system paypal donation at
Tombukovac@gmail.com
Or
venmo @Tom-Bukovac-1

February 17th, 2022

Homeskoolin’ Volume 129, Tom Bukovac, “Nantucket Hayride”

Chapters
00:00 - Amazing playing w/ a little Nazareth
01:31 - Hello, class! / Kids
03:15 - 60's movie soundtrack sound
03:41 - 3rd person talking
04:10 - VCB (Viewer Comment Bin) / Rock n Roll heart
04:47 - Clarity of voice when playing
05:35 - Bringing out the sound / Voice leading
07:08 - Putting out a peaceful calm
08:21 - Hatemail / Captain Caveman
08:47 - Trip The Witch merch
09:31 - YouTube - Vice Grip Garage
13:08 - Ann Wilson day 2 / Paul Moak
14:04 - D Chord and "Smoke on the Water"


Notes
A brief chat about surf music and a look into the always fascinating viewer comment bin.

August 13th, 2021

Homeskoolin Rehearsal Update….”Paul Has A Slight Gear Problem”

Chapters
00:00 - Tour of the studio


Notes
Tuesday August 12….in the midst of another inhumanely hot and humid Nashville day, we were fortunate to gather in a place where the air conditioning was working fine and the fridge was loaded for bear with rolling rock and space dust.

Even after all this time working with her, i gotta tell you folks it is absolutely surreal to kick off a tune and then all the sudden you hear THAT voice in your headphones.

Not so arguably the greatest female rock singer of all time.

I may have mentioned it before, but let it be known that Ann is an extremely cool sweet person with absolutely ZERO of the baggage or ego driven insecure diva horseshit that plagues many "artists".

As an eternal sideman, you gotta be careful who you choose to stand behind in this life…it’s a great feeling when you are supporting someone who you totally believe in as an artist and more importantly as a person. Cheers to you miss Ann!

May 26th, 2021

Homeskoolin’ Late Night Random Montage, "A Tribute To Your Good Taste"

Chapters
00:00 - String bending intro jam
01:00 - Hello, everyone! / Video setup
01:12 - Heart songs
01:55 - Magic Man tuning
02:27 - Session with Charles Kelly
03:05 - Ben Rector with Tom on guitar
03:43 - '55 Tele & Blackstar amp
04:05 - Magic Man playing & lesson
05:37 - Sessions video


Notes
A little mish mash montage of recent Uncle Larry related items....including a little late night Tele abuse and an ice cold Rolling Rock premium lager (which, as the box says, is a " tribute to your good taste")

Here's the Ben Rector tune....https://youtu.be/b0WqYVLBzwo

Part three of this montage features two of my dear friends....Troy Lancaster (guitarist) and Drew Bollman (engineer)....cinematography by Tony Lucido.

Homeskoolin merch available at www.guitarhouse.net
Paypal tip jar is tombukovac@gmail.com
Venmo tip jar is @Tom-Bukovac-1