Category: Music

G Things

Anybody want a Gmail account? I’ve got some invitations to give away. Also, if anyone wants into Google’s Orkut network, let me know. It’s pretty neat; it’s like Friendster but with more features and it generally is less buggy. I’ve started communities for Incredible Moses Leroy and Linus of Hollywood. So far there are only two members for each, myself and a girl named Jamie from Indiana. She’s got good taste in music. Her livejournal is here.

I forgot to mention, last Saturday I took my first guitar lesson in 14 years. Well, maybe 12 or 13 years, but the weird part for me is that, at 28 I have now been playing guitar for half my life. I feel like I should be better than I am. So I’m taking jazz guitar lessons from Perry Israel at Romco Drums in the Heights on alternating Saturdays.

I still teach students myself, and I just recently got an email from a remarkably attractive woman by the name of Pamela Manning who is looking for lessons. We’ll probably start next week.

Clapton, with an “L”

Yet another new Plog. Aren’t you the lucky ones? All pictures from last weekend’s excursion into the depths of Bryant.

Friday my dad took me to see Eric Clapton, and I was mightily impressed. Slowhand has still got it. I went in assuming he was over-the-hill – I just wanted to see the opening act, Robert Randolph (a gospel lap steel guitar player who rocks it out like Jimi Hendrix), but Eric still has the touch. I did find it interesting that he was rocking a huge arena with several tunes by Robert Johnson (from Eric’s new album of all Johnson tunes). 70 years ago Robert Johnson was playing those same songs in some rusty juke joint not far from Little Rock. A lot can happen in 70 years I guess.

Also Saturday I bought a couple of $3 kiddie keyboards. I’ve been running them through my guitar amp with various effects and they sound awesome!! I wish I knew what brand they were so I could buy more of them.

The Guitar Project

Finally, it is done.

Japanese Advertising Yearbook 1958

The picture is a little bright, but you get the idea. I think I’ve mentioned before that I got a book of Japanese advertising art from 1958 at a book sale at the Arkansas Arts Center. So impressed was I with these works that I wanted to put them on a guitar. When I purchased the $150 Ibanez in Dallas in March, I knew I had the perfect instrument for the job. Through much trial and error I settled on a process whereby I scanned in my favorite ads and a matte of the guitar’s shape. I arranged the ads inside the matte shape, stretching and resizing to fit the curves of the body. Then I printed them out in four pieces onto white contact paper. Contact paper doesn’t take ink well, so I put down a layer of transparent contact paper over that. Then I cut them out and stuck them to the guitar.

I played it at the Superflux gig at Cajun’s last Saturday; hopefully soon Steve will have the pictures over at superflux.cc.

From Merrie England

Thanks to the wonders of anonymous FTP (and my meager skills coding with Notepad – the Right Way), I’m typing this to you from the Mumford flat at Fernthorpe Road in South London. I have a bit of free time, as motivating Tara to rise and bathe has proved to be a near Herculean task. We were going to meet Angel at noon, but that quickly became logistically impossible so we moved it back to 2pm. Currently the weather cannot decide if it wants to be rainy or sunny – a dilemma with which it wrangles frequently. Last night I saw Michael Manring play at the Troubadour. Solo bass guitar – bloody marvelous (yes, I type British as well as speak it). Hopefully today I will meet up with Jan Cyrka as well.

Guess what? I bought yet another guitar. I had free time in Dallas before meeting up with Tara, so I stopped off at one of the large pawn shops in Dallas. And there it was, a black Ibanez RG7621 7-string (exactly the same model as I own, but I had mine painted all swirly). The price tag: $150. Mind you I bought my RG a few years ago on ebay for $400. They listed for around $700 as I recall. And if my father instilled anything in me, he gave me a congenital disability to pass up a good deal. So I bought it. No case, so I asked if I could take some tools with the deal. They had a big table full of crusty tools from which I took wire cutters, a screwdriver and a hammer (I needed a hammer for the apartment and I needed the screwdriver in case I had to take the neck off to stick the instrument in my backpack). I then moved on to my rendezvous point at Guitar Center where I purchased a cleaning kit and some strings. I sat in the GC parking lot clipping off the strings and cleaning off the caked layers of finger muck. The guitar was made in 1999, and clearly had not been cleaned since. Eventually we got to the airport and I inquired about closet space for the instrument, and there was room to be found. So naturally I had to surrender my wire cutters and screwdriver to the nice security people. Oh well, they were free. So there I was walking around airports with my luggage and my stringless guitar. And did I mention that British Airways absolutely rules? They have the best in-flight meals and the best entertainment options – multiple movie channels, multiple audio channels. Mostly I listened to the best of REM, the Best of Tori Amos, and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.”

I went to the Tate Modern Gallery yesterday to witness the last days of the Weather Project. It is an amazing sight to witness, as were the Picassos and Rodins and Pollocks. We capped the day with a fine dinner atop the museum.

Aside from all the things to do and see, I’m mostly just enjoying being back in London. It still feels comfortable and familiar. Maybe I’ll tell you more as the week progresses.

Reflections on Frank Zappa

Sometimes there are signs that life is improving, even in the face of long-lost tragedy. I’m speaking of course of the fact that, on the 10th anniversary of his death, Frank Zappa is on the cover of two major magazines. Mojo (UK, natch) and Downbeat both recently featured Frank on the cover of their magazines. God bless them. People need to be reminded of who Frank was.

Frank Zappa could have had no other name. “Frank” is a synonym for “honest,” and there is no other more honest musician in the history of popular music to my mind. Everything Frank did was unique, creative, and honest to who he was. He was incapable of inauthenticity. Of the many stories Steve Vai likes to tell of Frank, I have two favorites. The first was about a time when Steve was working as Frank’s transcriptionist and was working on a piece that could’ve been written in either 2/4 or 4/4 time. Publishing rates being dependent upon the number of bar lines, Steve asked Frank if he wanted to call it at 2/4 to make some extra bank. Frank said “do it the way it needs to be done. I don’t need to make money like that.” The second story was in the early 80’s when Frank was working in his studio and his secretary told him Rolling Stone magazine was on the phone and they wanted to put him on the cover. Frank said, “why should I help them sell magazines? Tell them no.”

What’s cooler than being on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine? Turning it down.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Frank, printed in the January issue of Mojo:

“Artistic and cultural taste in the US is dictated by a 13-year old named Debbie from a God-fearing, government-trusting family of white folk from the suburbs. As a result, any artist serious about their work might well pass around a jug of cyanide-spiked Kool-Aid, like they did at Jonestown, and kiss their art goodbye.”

We still miss you, Frank.

Goody Had It

Merry Un-Christmas to me! Bowing to the competition of either Wal-Mart or the recent industry downturn due to music downloading (or maybe both), Sam Goody has closed its locations in both Harrison and Arkadelphia. The day after Christmas, my friends Lance, Kevin and I went to check out the storewide 70% sale at the Harrison Sam Goody. Much of the store had been ransacked, but there was plenty left of the sort of music most Harrisonians avoid. Naturally that tends to be the music I like. So I went just a little crazy:

Ween – Quebec
Rufus Wainwright – Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright – Want One
Tori Amos – A Sorta Fairytale single
Cave In – Tides of Tomorrow
The Neptunes – The Neptunes Present…Clones
Run D.M.C. – Run D.M.C.
The Get Up Kids – Something to Write Home About
Liz Story – Solid Colors
Guster – Keep It Together
Prince Paul – Politics of the Business
Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica
Thursday – War All the Time
Jurassic 5 – EP
The Mars Volta – De-loused in the Comatorium
Queensryche – Tribe
Radiohead – Amnesiac
Coldplay – Parachutes
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys – The Best of Bob Wills (20th Century Masters)
Eric B. and Rakim – The Best of Eric B. and Rakim (20th Century Masters)
Antonio Carlos Jobim – Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Finest Hour
KRS-One – Kristyles
Kool Keith – The Lost Masters
King Missile – Happy Hour
John McLaughlin – Thieves and Poets
Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek – Reflection Eternal
Ben Folds Five – Brick single
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil Remix
Atomic Opera – Penguin Dust
The Who – Who’s Next (Deluxe Edition)

Some of the discs were also purchased at Movie Gallery’s 50% off music sale. But it doesn’t stop there! No, I also got an old Voltron VHS and 4 DVDs:

Bend It Like Beckham
Utopia Live in Columbus, Ohio 1980
Mr. Show – The Complete 1st and 2nd Season
Yes – Symphonic Live

Requiem for a Guitar Shop

Atomic Guitars is closing its doors. For those who don’t know, Atomic is the place at the end of my street where I can walk to get my strings and play the vintage amps and weird guitars. Johnny Adams is the proprietor, and this ends his 6-year run of selling the funkiest stuff in town. He cites a faltering guitar market in general and the recent takeover of all things instrumental in town by Banjo Center and Sigler Music (which appears to no longer have an actual website) as the culprits. Incidentally, Guitar Center is now number 1 in Google for the term “banjo center” thanks to clever Google Bombers like me. Perhaps you’ve seen the handiwork of Google Bombers on terms like "failure."

Within the last year, we’ve now had four local music stores go under: Stonehenge (Geyer Springs), Music Makers, Maumelle Music and More (where I taught), and now Atomic Guitars. Clearly it’s a crappy time for guitars and for anyone who’s not a chain.

So, to help Johnny out, I bought a 7-string pickup, several packs of strings, and another guitar. In my defense, it was $50 and red. It’s a Kay, but it plays and sounds really great for an old cheapie. It’s crusty and rusty and needs a good cleaning. It’s going to be my project guitar. I’m going to cover it in Japanese advertisements from 1958. I bought a Japanese Advertisting Yearbook at a book sale at the Arkansas Arts Center a few weeks ago and the artwork tripped me out. It’s an amazing blend of East and West. More art than commerce to me. It reminds of the sort of thing Douglas Coupland covered in God Hates Japan, only 40-odd years removed and thus far less frenetic and much more balanced. Pictures coming eventually.

Only a Penitent Man Will Pass

It’s time to get thankful.

I’m thankful for lightningfield.com. I’m still digging through this man’s photolog and enjoying every minute. It’s addicting. It’s feeding a hunger I didn’t know I had. Plus it gives me great links like Ghost Town Gallery and Defunct Amusement Parks and a geographically accurate map of the London Underground and Jeff Bridges‘ entirely hand-written website.

I’m thankful for Blue Man Group who are expanding the boundaries of art and contradicting Sammy Hagar‘s theory that there is only one way to rock. They are also responsible for the amazing Exhibit 13.

I’m thankful for the music section of the Laman Library because I never would have heard Stereolab’s Dots and Loops without it.

I’m thankful for my job, despite the lack of windows in our office now.

I’m especially thankful that Natalie lets me kiss her on a regular basis. I think that means I’m her boyfriend. She’s amazing.

Of course I’m thankful for all the typical stuff: remarkably not-lame parents, family, friends, apartment, health, wealth, etc.

An Unfortunate Confluence

Why does the universe hate me?!!

I’ve waited almost two months for this day. Already irksome is the fact that Fate has conspired to bring two great shows to my town on the same night: the Incredible Moses Leroy and John Mayer. I should mention that these two acts are responsible for recording two of my favorite albums of the 21st century. Playing it safe, I chose the Incredible Moses Leroy.

Chris, Heather and I get to the venue, Sticky Fingerz, at 7:15 or so, to grab some food and get good seats. Most shows at Stickies start between 9:00 and 9:30, so that’s a good plan, right? Wrong. Nothing was even set up onstage until 10:00pm or so, and the opening act, Lucious Spiller, didn’t start until around then. So between 7:30 and 10:00 I’m sitting with my people watching ESPN college football highlights. Twice, because they loop evidently. I kept seeing the same plays.

Eventually, the John Mayer crowd starts streaming in a little after 11:00. D’oh!! My friend Randall went to the show with 6th row seats he bought from a guy outside the arena. He made it to Stickies just in time. Fucker!

The band comes in and sets up around 11:00, and plays from about 11:30 to 12:15 or so. That’s it. I had plenty of time to talk to them, and their reasoning was that the crowd wanted dance music, not their stuff. No real Moses Leroy fans there (except me, Chris and Heather and the table of people I helped bring in). I did get an autographed CD, and Ron, the lead singer and songwriter, gave me his email address. So that’s cool.

My friends go off elsewhere to continue drinking. I go home, but as soon as my shoes are off, I realize I forgot to pay my tab! So I go back to Stickies and get that done. I should’ve tried to convince Ron to go hang out somewhere, but he had some chick begging him to go to Discovery…I think he just wanted to chill out on the bus. Oh well.

Epilogue to this debacle: PBS aired John Mayer with Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm section – a show I actually thought would be really cool before I even knew it was happening) this same evening. I had set my VCR to record it, but evidently I failed to properly program the show, so it didn’t catch it.

AAAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!! Colonel Klink why have you forsaken me!???

Of Sound Mind

I bought some old issues of Bass Player Magazine recently at Banjo Center for $1.99. In one of them I found this marvelous pearl of wisdom from iconoclastic producer/bassist Bill Laswell:

“Hundreds of years from now musicians will be laughing at how stupid we were, thinking about category and genre and style and territory and culture. It’s sound!” – Bill Laswell