John Shepp :: Blog

Johnny Shepp's Youtube Channel · 20 October 09

Recently I’ve been drafting songs for a future solo acoustic record, you can check here to see what’s new.

* * *

Anthem Challenge - My Bid · 29 August 08

Give a listen to my HNIC anthem submission, entitled Nikki

* * *

Crack Book Tales · 26 August 07

Like the Facebook? Well lately it’s been the bane of Rod Bruno’s existence, likely because he over-tickled his hundreds of friends, and brought the facebook’s mail system to it’s knees, caused massive floods and bridges to collapse, forcing DHS to shut him down.

But don’t take it personally if this happens to you, because Facebook is home to millions of us “socially engineered” souls, and they’ve likely read some Julian Huxley and are starting to choke the food supply. Like our loving government, sometimes when we go to the poking well a little too often, the Facebook is letting it’s computers become the cold arbiters of whether you get your crackbook fix or not. It’s only a matter of time before Facebook begins to tax those pokes and tickles, for the good of the environment. Here’s Rod’s bandwidth usage, sent to us by a
Facebook authority, on condition of anonymity.

In all fairness to Rod, he’s just doing what the crack book wants him to, adding multitudes of friends, sending out messages, pokes, tickles and using its many fun-filled applications. But Facebook’s IT department is getting freaked out, because bandwidth costs money, and it’s preventing their large NSA/CIA datamining centers from tracking future Facebook terrorists and plus, huge enterprise data centers like crackbook’s cost real money, well, funny Wall Street money actually, but you get the point…

So next time you go to poke or tickle, stop and think about it first. Learn to conserve a bit more so the good folks at Crack Book can fight evil terrorists.

Al Gore said it best when he opined

“There are many who still do not believe that Facebook poking is a problem at all. And it’s no wonder: because they are the targets of a massive and well-organized campaign of disinformation lavishly funded by Facebook terrorists who are determined to prevent any action to reduce the poking and tickling that cause dangerous bandwidth consumption out of a fear that their fun and amusement might be affected if they had to stop dumping so much messaging and tickling on the Facebook.”

* * *

Spinal Chord - Variety Telethon 1991 · 7 June 07

Spinal Chord was a truly integrated band – keyboardist/vocalist Sam Sullivan and drummer Dave Symington are both C4-5 quadriplegics who perform with the aid of customized midi mapping software. What you hear is all live, not a sequence, and there are no backtracks.

On guitar and bass are two able-bodied members, jokingly referred to by Sam and Dave as “Tabs”, or temporarily able bodied. They are Don Alder, long time session guitarist and member of Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion Tour, and bassist John Shepp, well known around Vancouver as a Producer/Engineer.

This footage is from the 1991 Variety Telethon, on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in downtown Vancouver and took place somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m. Minutes before, technicians dropped the computer which ran Sam’s keyboard mapping software and it broke into several pieces. A replacement computer was found up the block at CBC, but until the rig was pulled on stage, it was unclear whether John, who served also as band’s technical coordinator, would be able to get it running. It was a giant relief for all when Sam hit his first chord and Dave’s drums came in.

The two songs performed are from a CD Spinal Chord released around this time called “Why Be Normal?”- “We Only Kiss” and “Lady in White”, which Sam wrote about a nurse he encountered while in rehabilitation after the skiing accident that injured him.

* * *

Burnin' Tires · 26 April 07

In 2005 I put together this animated video for the Craig Jacks song “Burnin’ Tires”. The secret? Lots of Chickens and violence. Now it’s on YouTube.

* * *