Thursday, 13. August 2009, 22:18:48
rock'n'roll, paul, les, echo
...
I guess it will take a lot to top the death of Michael Jackson, but to me the death of Les Paul is more important by a considerable measure. He was one of the inventors of the solid electric guitar, he definitely, though unintentionally, invented the electric blues guitar without which... well, you work the permutations out, he came up with the tape echo machine, but most importantly of all, he invented multi track recording.
I can't imagine the direction music might have taken over the years without that guitar (Or to be more precise it's humbucking pickups with their ability to overdrive and sustain), the echo unit, and the multitrack studio. I'm sure everything he invented would have been invented by someone else at some point, but he invented them all within the space of a couple of years. No one is going to match that, all anyone has done since then has been to improve upon what he already came up with years ago. Can you picture the 60s without psychedelia, 10 minute guitar solos, or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? How about the 70s without guitar heroes and prog rock?
Les Paul may have been just an old jazzman with an electronic bent but his influence upon the music that we all listen to right up to this day will never be topped. Rest in peace, Les.
Saturday, 19. July 2008, 09:48:26
violence, rock'n'roll, pistols, guitar
...
As part of an ongoing discussion about the Sex Pistols on
Red's blog I mentioned how the guitarist and the drummer got started by stealing another group's equipment, something which, to the best of my knowledge, they have never made reparations or even apologised for. This in turn reminded me of one of my early guitars which got stolen.
Thinking back, that little Harmony Rocket II probably saved my life.
A guy off his skull on
something came into the venue we were playing and apparently asked the idiot on the door if he could sing with the band. The idiot says "Sure." Neither of them thought to tell us so the first I knew about it was when this guy leaps onto the stage, shouts "Tramp!" into the mike, and jumps off again.
This happened 5 or 6 times then suddenly he decided that if I wasn't going to be a Rufus Thomas to his Aretha Franklin then he wanted to sing more than one word and tried to wrench the mike away from my face. Naturally my first instinct was to grab it back, and suddenly I found myself losing a wrist wrestling match with a gorilla. This was when Macho Man decided to borrow my body. With one final massive effort I wrenched the mike out of his grasp and went on with the song.
For about 0.5 of a second.
Next thing I know the guy's back on the stage slamming his fist into what he apparently thinks is my stomach, the fact that I'm wearing a guitar seemingly having missed his attention. His fist hit the strings and continued on until it hit the pickup - and the screws that were holding it in place. Macho Man was incensed, his immediate reaction being to whip my guitar off and punch the guy's lights out right there on the stage, but he was already gone, running out of the hall with blood pouring from his hand and leaving me with no recourse but to make chicken noises from the stage.
The guitar was pretty bloodstained so I stuck a "This machine kills" notice on the pick-guard and polished the stains up to a nice lustre.
Suddenly I feel really bad about losing that guitar.
If I should ever see a Sex Pistol in possession of it...
He shall die!!! 
Monday, 8. October 2007, 00:55:25
guitar, music, practice
Because tonight's jam session was bought forward it was publicised to make sure that everyone knew. The end result of this was that there were 3 or 4 times more people there than usual so I only got to play 4 numbers. That's 3 to get the guitar set up and one short one because they were running out of time that didn't really count...
So when I got home I took the guitar out again, tucked it under my recidivist shoulder, or at least, the arm connect to that shoulder, and stood in the living room churning out oldies until mum pointed out that it was now 1:30.
It's a nice guitar, but it's best suited to rock'n'roll instrumentals.
Duane Eddy, eat yer heart out.
Saturday, 6. October 2007, 19:00:26
yarroo, guitar, physio, excercise
I went to see the physio about my shoulder. This was a return visit, previously she'd asked me loads of questions and given me some exercises to do.
She asked to see how I was doing with the exercises, then right out of the blue she asked "Have you played your new guitar yet?"
For a moment I thought she must be psychic then I recalled that one of the symptoms I complained about was my inability to get my arm over my new rock'n'roll sized guitar, the one I bought by accident. I told her I hadn't. The truth of the matter is that I never practise, I just go out and play occasionally, like maybe once every three or four years. Long time customers will remember me banging on about this ages ago.
"OK" she said. "I want you to play it."
What do you know? The blues jam sessions at the pub down the road got moved to tomorrow.
I'm positively cringing with excitement...
Sunday, 16. September 2007, 23:49:00
rock'n'roll, wha-hey!!!, music, guitar
...
I just got back from my first gig in years. I went along to the local pub after being informed that several old friends were going to be there for the blues jam night.
Now this is the sort of pleasure that had previously been denied me by the sheer volume of smoke that used to gather in these venues so when invited to go and sing something I took a stiff drink of ginger beer and made my way onto the stage.
Egad. I'd forgotten what a buzz it was to make music with a bunch of like-minded reprobatmusicians. I got to do 'Good golly Miss Molly' at the piano then later someone lent me a guitar and I got to go up and round off the evening in the style to which I was once accustomed. A splendid time was had by all, and if it wasn't I don't care because I was having enough fun for everyone, even if most of my applause originated from the table at which my mother, sister, and brother-in-law were seated.
You may not believe me, but people have been known to mock me upon occasion for still actually daring to play rock'n'roll. Apparently I should "Hope I die before I get old" and leave the young man's music to the young men.
Get stuffed.
This is my music, I've been playing it for most of my life. It may have been young person's music back in the day, but it's not now because we're all getting older and it's still our music. OK, we don't mind the younger generation having a go at it, but the next person to suggest that I have no right to enjoy myself like this will die. Hopefully a long way into the future when they're old enough to realise what rissoles they were to make the comment in the first place.
Just one more thing...
My fingers hurt...
Tuesday, 6. February 2007, 01:44:01
performance, guitar, music, arf arf
This is because as we all know, 'The Lord moves in mysterious ways', and so do I...
Apparently I have no control over my own body when I'm performing. I've long known that I have no control over my face which, unfortunately, lives in a world of its own. It's not happy being on my head either because people are always telling me to chear up when I'm perfectly happy, but at other times people I don't know will come up to me and ask "What YOU laughing at?" when I'm not laughing. This can lead to some very embarrassing situations, and since I'm not here to embarrass myself in front of the whole world-of-internet, I shall now return to the subject of my body.
It seems that friends, acquaintances, and people I don't know from Alfred E. Neuman have conspired to give the various quakes of my body descriptive nouns.
'The Elvis' is obvious, although in fact I apparently give naught but the merest twitch of the hips, it's the legs that go crazy, when I sing one beats out the time while the other beats out the rhythm.
'The Funk Walk' would seem to be a kind of stooped boogie that I do when I'm playing rhythm and really 'getting into the groove'. It was described to me as "Like half way to a Chuck Berry duck-walk".
'The Smirk' appears when I'm particularly happy about a solo. My legs anchor themselves firmly akimbo, a silly grin spreads across my face, and I begin to sway around from the hips up.
If a solo is going particularly well the smirk becomes 'The Sleepwalk'. Now this name makes no sense since what happens is I shut my eyes and stop moving completely.
Then there's 'The Sway', which is when I lean backwards so far that I almost fall over and have to step back to catch myself. It happens when I'm asked to play something I don't want to play. I am vaguely aware of that one...
Finally, there's 'The Hendrix'. This is when a solo is going badly, I start indulging in hystrionics and widdling and doing dive-bombs and playing really fast while throwing myself around the stage.
I did know about that last one, it seems to be happening a lot more frequently than it used to.
I was hoping that no one had noticed...
WIDGETIZE