tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86609256504284045892024-03-13T08:16:33.342-07:00David Mead – Talking GuitarsBlog by UK acoustic guitarist, author and journalist David Mead covering all things guitar-related<br>
Visit my website: <a href="http://www.DavidMead.net">www.DavidMead.net</a>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-499496409371827462014-07-17T08:38:00.000-07:002014-07-17T08:38:14.544-07:00Johnny Winter: 1944-2014<div style="text-align: center;">
This is an interview I did with Johnny when he played in London back in the early 1990s. </div>
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It was originally published in Guitarist magazine.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Texas Special</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins, Billy Gibbons, Johnny Winter... The chances are, when you think about Texas blues guitarists, you’d be hard pushed to find a common denominator between them in terms of style. Each flies the Blues flag in his own unique way, but all the while there’s a perceptible epicentre, which nevertheless fights shy of any real definition... “There are so many different styles of Texas music,” says Johnny Winter. “You would know immediately if you heard a Delta song. And you know right away when you hear a Chicago blues song and you know if it’s a New Orleans song. But there are so many different styles in Texas and I think that’s what I liked about growing up there; you could just hear so much stuff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“You had to be able to play a lot of different things in the clubs or you’d get killed! You had to play Cajun music - the French Cajun two-steps - and in parts of Texas there was a lot of Mexican music, and of course there was the Louisiana and New Orleans stuff as well as jazz and country. You can’t get away from country.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Visions of The Blues Brothers’ rendition of Rawhide apart, this experience of running the gauntlet of various Texan styles seems to have benefited Johnny… </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“All that stuff just kinda blends into blues, but it is real hard to compare someone like Blind Lemon Jefferson to Albert Collins. Then there’s people like Lightnin’ Hopkins and T-Bone Walker; there’s a lot of difference in the Texas musicians. It’s real hard to listen to someone and say, ‘Oh yeah, this guy’s definitely playin’ Texas music.’ But there are just so many different styles of music involved; you don’t know what you’re going to get with a Texas musician. But it’s usually going to be a pretty well-rounded thing. I think that’s probably the one thing: Texas music has just got more variety to it than the Delta stuff or Chicago or New Orleans. But it sure was a great place to grow up - you heard all kinds of stuff on the radio…” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas in 1944 and began playing clarinet five years later. Before long he had switched to ukulele, and graduated from there to guitar at the age of eleven. His first group was a vocal duo with brother Edgar, very much in the Everly Brothers tradition. By the time he’d reached his teens, Johnny had been exposed to rock’n’roll…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“That was the most exciting time! I was about 15; I made my first record and I started playing in night clubs and I had my first drink. It was a real exciting year; all the stuff was brand new and you could be driving to the gig and hear your record on the radio. I was just a little kid, living at home and going to school - 15, but boy it was real exciting. You’re out there playing for people, you’ve got girls chasin’ you and stuff... Now that was real nice! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“The first CBS record, ‘Johnny Winter’, is one of my favourites. ‘Progressive Blues Experiment’ was another. I made a record with Sonny Terry, called ‘Whoopin’, that I also like a lot. There are a few others, but those records are the ones I enjoyed the most.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Do you still enjoy playing live?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> “Oh yeah! To me that is the most enjoyable thing: playing and having an audience involved in it. Making records is a lot of fun, too, because you know that you have it there forever, and after you’re dead, hopefully, people are still listening to it. That’s nice, but you still don’t know what people think of it until you put it out. So it’s just not quite the same as playing for people, so I guess that is my first love.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Do you still enjoy the travelling? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Probably not as much as I did when I was a kid; the travelling part is hard. I guess what I would really like is if I could get my own club and have everyone come to where I was. It’s still interesting, but not like those first few times outside the States when I’d go sightseeing - y’know, checking everything out. Now I’ve been most places it’s just like going to work and doing your gig. Sometimes you don’t know if you’re in Philadelphia or in London or California or wherever; crowds don’t really change that much.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Do you think your style has changed much through the years?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yeah, I think so. Not a lot, but I keep changing. Hopefully I also keep progressing, or really there’s no reason to keep going. In fact I’ll change with the last record that I heard; if I hear someone I really like on a record, or even at a gig before I play, then the chances are I’ll be playing some of his licks. I’ve gotta be real careful about listening to tapes before I go out there, so I don’t put on something too far out.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Another aspect of Johnny’s playing is his slide work. Who were his early influences in this quarter?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Son House were the first people that I really heard. When the ‘Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues’ album came out, that was one of the main things that made me want to play slide. Early Muddy Waters stuff: his stuff was the first slide that I heard and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know if someone was playing steel guitar; it sounded like they were fretting the guitar and slidin’. I’d never heard anything like that before. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Eventually, just from listening to albums you could tell what tunings they were using, because a lot of them weren’t using a regular tuning, most of them would tune to a particular chord. There are so many good people now, but back then they were definitely the big three - although of course Elmore James was in there too.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Your own slide guitar style is pretty unique; do you use glass or metal slides? “I use a metal slide. It’s a piece of pipe that I got at a plumbing supply place; I bought a twelve foot piece of pipe and had it cut into pieces a little over an inch long. Even today I still can’t find one in a music store which fits my finger. I use it on my little finger. When I first started playing, there wasn’t anything like that in the stores. I tried a lot of things, like test tubes and lipstick holders and medicine bottles; I used the crystal in my wristwatch - all kinds of things. Then a guy in Denver called up and told me that I should go to a plumbing supply place and try a piece of pipe, because that way you can find one that fits your finger, and I’ve been using the same slide ever since 1967, I believe.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Have you ever tried the traditional approach of snapping off a bottle’s neck?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yeah, I’ve tried a few bottles. They were always a little bit big and I just liked the metal a little bit better. I just think you can get more sustain that way. But I love the way Ry Cooder sounds, y’know; he uses bottles and just has a great sound.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">During the late seventies, Johnny collaborated with and produced albums for the legendary Muddy Waters, and in so doing was almost single-handedly responsible for the great bluesman’s comeback. What are his most outstanding memories of Muddy? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Just all real good memories. Muddy was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and yet you wouldn’t guess that he would be such a sweet guy. His records were so earthy and you can’t imagine such a nice guy singing all this nasty music! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“But a lot of times Muddy used to say, ‘You should have seen me when I was young, I was a real hell raiser!’ I’m sure he was, but the last few years when I knew him he’d gotten a lot of respect from people and he wasn’t having to struggle any more, and I think he knew the people loved him and he liked that. He was real glad that he was getting some acceptance. I didn’t see any of that crazy side that he always told me was there. I was told stories about him and I know that he was pretty much a hell raiser, but when I knew him he was just a really nice guy. He was also a very firm bandleader; he didn’t take any shit. If he didn’t like something, he’d let the musicians know exactly what he wanted or expected from them. But he was real good at being nice and diplomatic at the same time. He didn’t have to scream at people to get his way; he just told them and he knew that they knew they had better do it that way or there was gonna be trouble!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You played with John Lee Hooker, too. Would you say there was a marked difference between him and Muddy?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yeah. Although they were both Mississippi bluesmen, with John Lee you’d never know when he was gonna change chords. He’d sing until he got tired and he’d start playing guitar and then he’d do that until he got tired and then he’d sing again. It wouldn’t be what you might think of as being in time, and so you really had to listen and be real careful, because John Lee was gonna play his stuff and you better fit into it because he wasn’t gonna fit in with you! But I was real familiar with his records and so I knew it was gonna be that way; in fact it was really kinda fun to have to take a guess at when he was gonna change. But their music was really deep blues, Mississippi Delta stuff, and so the feeling was the same, although they went about it differently... They both had real distinctive styles.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Johnny’s albums are a mix of blues standards seasoned with few of his own tunes. I wonder if he prefers arranging songs to writing them…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yeah, I do. But also I just don’t like the songs I write as much, usually. I just have a hard time writing songs; it’s just not what I do real well. If I felt like I could write enough songs for a record that were good, I would, but it’s not where my real talent is. I wish I was a better songwriter.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Throughout your career you have veered away from the blues into other areas. Are there any areas that you still want to explore, outside the blues framework?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Well, of course, I’ve played some rock‘n’roll - stuff like that. The only other thing that I’ve thought I might do one day is do a country album. I’ve grown up hating and loving country music, too; sometimes you just didn’t want it to be there ‘cos it was the only thing you’d hear on the radio in Texas, before rock‘n’roll. But I think I could make a good country record. Someday, if ever I found the right producer and a label was interested, I’d like to give that a shot.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Is there anybody around now that you would like to play with, having had so many and varied collaborators in the past?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Man, I’m sure there are...” he says, thoughtfully “But most of the people I’ve either played with already or they’re dead now. I’m always on the lookout for the guys who are around. I guess the fifties was my favourite period for the blues and so the guys that were making records - most of the Chicago people who were playing in the fifties and who are still around - are the ones that I am always interested in playing with.” </span><br />
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David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-90924984665860816882014-04-15T05:48:00.001-07:002014-04-15T05:53:52.389-07:00The Making Of 'Waterfalling'… And What Went Wrong!Well that's a grand title, isn't it? The only reason I used it is because there is a story to share and I thought that it might be of interest to a few people out there who are, like me, experimenting with the labrynthine world of audio/video production aimed at public consumption…<br />
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So, first of all, here's the video. I tried to do everything as simply as possible - I used my iMac's video camera, no special lighting or anything, and recorded the audio using a Zoom H4n: mics aimed at the 14th fret from about a foot away and the Headway FEQ pick-up on my Custom Fylde Falstaff acoustic guitar plugged into one of the input jacks. The intention was to mix both signals together in order to get the best of both worlds, synchronise audio to video and voila! Well, that was the intention, anyway…<br />
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<iframe width="480" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RtyIImp3pBo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is Take Three, to put things into perspective. I was satisfied that the performance was suitably error free, apart from one note that didn't fire. And it was an important melody note, too. Never mind, I was sure that I could find my inner Speilberg and fix it at the editing stage. Onwards!<br />
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Fortunately the errant note was repeated elsewhere in the tune and so all I had to do, on paper at least, was to grab the audio from elsewhere in the soundtrack, copy and paste it in the appropriate place and pretend that the whole thing never happened. I mean, that's standard practice in Hollywood, right? I'm allowed a little editing, aren't I?<br />
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Everything went according to plan… well, almost. I edited the audio, replaced the missing note with another from later on in the piece - and then realised that I'd only edited the pick-up feed and not the mics. And do you think I could re-edit and get the two separate feeds to sync up? The answer was a frustratingly resounding "no". So, what to do? My choices were these:<br />
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1) Re-shoot the video<br />
2) Use the pick-up/mic mix with the note missing and hope no one notices<br />
3) Use the edited pick-up feed only<br />
4) Buy a farm, raise sheep and stop fantasising about being a musician<br />
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After much torturous vacillation I elected to go with Option 3 and ditch the mic signal completely. It's a shame because the audio is really only telling half the story - and the Fylde is such a fabulous instrument that I felt I wasn't doing it justice by using only the pick-up track. Nevertheless, I went ahead with it and this is the result.<br />
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After telling this story on a couple of guitar forums, I had a few sympathetic souls saying that it was a shame that they couldn't hear the mic feed, as it would represent the guitar's 'natural' sound. So, I edited a small section of the audio and posted it on Soundcloud, which you can listen to here…<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="400" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F142332592&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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All well and good - plenty of people told me that they liked the mic sound - actually preferring it to the pick-up only signal. But a few still weren't satisfied and asked if I could post the mic only signal without any reverb or compression. So I did - and you can listen to it here…<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="400" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F144545380%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-ds64U&show_artwork=true&secret_url=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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Now I realise that this particular post has got incredibly nerdy, but there's nothing wrong with that. In the past I've always had someone else edit video/audio for me and this video represents my first outing as DIY video maker. What have I learned? Hmmm, experience is the best teacher, I guess. Next time, try harder…<br />
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Thanks for listening!David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-38959651111458859022012-05-02T07:34:00.000-07:002012-05-02T07:34:19.167-07:00New CAGED Guitar Phone AppOver the past few months I have been co-developing a phone app with <a href="http://www.leafcutterstudios.com/" target="_blank">Leafcutter Studios</a>. The idea is that the app teaches the CAGED system for learning the guitar fretboard. If you've not heard of it, the CAGED system takes five basic chord shapes and orientates everything from there – it really does accelerate your learning; I was introduced to it by the legendary jazz guitarist Joe Pass way back at the beginning of the 1980s and it increased my knowledge of the fretboard almost instantly.<br />
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We've employed some games in the app that test your fretboard knowledge in a fun way and we've even included a facility to view the fretboard diagrams in a left-handed configuration!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G7ZtbPWbDSU/T6FEOHdPUsI/AAAAAAAAAFI/3jda0hal58o/s1600/iphone2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G7ZtbPWbDSU/T6FEOHdPUsI/AAAAAAAAAFI/3jda0hal58o/s320/iphone2.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
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The app is available for both <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leafcutterstudios.caged" target="_blank">Android</a> and <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/david-mead-caged/id520544492?mt=8" target="_blank">iPhone</a> users and costs $1.99.David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-42409487363909861132012-04-06T07:27:00.000-07:002012-04-06T07:27:52.956-07:00Jim Marshall: 1923-2012I thought I'd write a short tribute on the passing of Jim Marshall from a purely personal point of view, recalling when it was that I switched over to using his amps and why.<br />
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Back in the 1980s I was playing in a pub band whose missions in life were simple: to have fun and to tackle some of the more demanding music that were favourites of the individual members. So our repertoire consisted of tunes by Tower Of Power, Steely Dan, Sting (in his jazzy first solo album days) as well as crowd pleasers like ZZ Top, Clapton and Stevie Wonder.<br />
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In any case, on this particular night we were playing at a pub in Sudbury, Suffolk and I had taken along my current 'rock' amp which was a transistor-powered Sessionette SG75 (Jan Akkerman had one too!) which I was very happy with as it provided just about everything I needed from a sweet clean sound to powerful overdrive via twin channels.<br />
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Meanwhile, back at the gig, the band steamed into 'Rosanna' by Toto. I had practised the solo up and was ready for launch after the keyboard solo in the middle of the song. At the appropriate moment, I hit the 'overdrive' footswitch and went for it. Trouble was, the dynamics had picked up to such an extent during the keyboard solo that my amp had nothing left and I doubt if anyone actually heard the solo I'd spent ages working on so diligently!<br />
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Needless to say I was pretty downcast by the whole affair and so the very next day I did the only thing I thought would solve the situation: I went out and bought a Marshall JCM800 50watt combo that stayed with me as my primary rock amp of choice until three years ago by which time my change to acoustic playing had relegated the amp to a lonely existence at the back of a cupboard.<br />
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As far as I know, it is now in Poland somewhere (because it was a Polish guy who bought it when I sold it on eBay) and doubtless still rocking loud and proud!<br />
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So thanks, Jim: you really helped me turn it up to eleven.David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-53484261600916554812012-02-23T05:20:00.001-08:002012-02-23T07:52:56.579-08:00A New Guitar And The Headless Video!It's always an exciting time when you receive a new guitar. Well, for me it is anyway; others may suggest I seek help – and fast. But I'm harmless...<br />
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So at the end of last year, I had the pleasure of unpacking a brand new hand built acoustic guitar. It's a Fylde Goodfellow – a stablemate for my other acoustic which is a Fylde Falstaff – and a lovely little instrument to play.<br />
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For the enthusiast, basically it's an 00 body size with a cedar top and sapele back and sides plus a Honduras mahogany neck with a rosewood board. The on-board electrics are a Headway FEQ system.<br />
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But enough about vital statistics, you want to hear what it sounds like, right? OK, but first I'll just tell the story of how we recorded this video... It's headless because essentially this was the feed from Camera 2; for some reason Camera 1's feed was too dark to use and so I thought that nobody would care if they couldn't see me gurning for the world, they'd be more interested in looking at the guitar. So we let it go through.<br />
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Sound-wise, what you're hearing is mainly the Headway pick-up with a little ambient 'room' from a Zoom H1 (which picked up a passing motorbike towards the end). The eq is flat and we added a little Lexicon reverb just to make everything a bit more sonically cosy.<br />
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So here's the Headless Guitarist playing a track from my first album 'Nocturnal' entitled 'Time Together'.<br />
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<iframe width="400" height="233" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5hF2cc6daX0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-51431362198677390242012-02-13T08:00:00.000-08:002012-02-13T08:07:21.469-08:00A Night At The MoviesI thought I'd share a few videos that I've hung up on You Tube recently... So if you'd like to settle yourself in the upper circle, let's dim the lights and get on with it.<br />
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The first features guitar legend, good friend and fellow Elixir String endorsee Martin Taylor and myself engaged in an impromptu jam at last year's London Acoustic Show. The story behind this one is that I'd just got off a train and been hurried into a very hot stuffy room (the windows were shut because of the filming and it was a surprisingly warm September day) and told to 'play something'. That's why I look a little hot and bothered!<br />
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Anyway, this is the result...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="243" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nW9StVrOEuU" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Our next presentation is from the same video shoot which finds me talking to Martin about the use of partial capos – a composing device to which I am particularly, erm, partial...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="243" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Bq2hUer1NIU" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Speaking of partial capos and moving swiftly on, the next video was recorded at The Glee Club in Birmingham last year. The sound is not as good as I would like and it was very dark in the club, but the rawness and general low-light artiness kinda makes up for it... The piece I'm playing is entitled 'A Stranger's Tale' and you can just about make out a G7th capo over the four bass strings if you look really hard...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="243" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kejbRBT3KAY" width="420"></iframe><br />
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I played this gig with my fellow acoustic troubadour, the very excellent Ben Powell. One afternoon recently we engaged in a fit of trial and error with iMovie and produced a sample of the 'in the round' show we do together. Ben's playing his custom Patrick Eggle Saluda and I'm playing a Custom Fylde Falstaff. Oh and we're available for hire!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="243" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qh-laI-g7aw" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Finally, let's go back to where we started; the London Acoustic Show last year. Another feature of that (very busy) day was that I played a set on the Elixir Strings stand. The full performance was filmed (but I haven't as yet seen it) but here is a short extract filmed by my son Tim on his phone. It gives the flavour of the day, anyway!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/D9nUvb6SCs4" width="420"></iframe><br />
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So there you have it: the lights have come up and impatient-looking cinema staff are cleaning up all the spilled popcorn.<br />
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Thanks for watching!David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-30202722332629016782011-11-20T07:37:00.000-08:002011-11-20T07:37:33.708-08:00'So What Sort Of Music Do You Play?'As you can imagine, this is a question that comes up quite regularly in any musician's day-to-day existence… and it's getting harder and harder to answer. The reason, I think, is that we have become so fond of categorisation in music – and, worse still, many of these convenient little compartments are subject to further division into subcategories.<br />
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I play what I think is termed as being 'acoustic fingerstyle' guitar. That's what I and various other practitioners call it anyway; trouble is, no one seems to understand what it actually is. I've had some people say to me, 'Oh, you mean country music?' or 'What, like jazz?' and neither is right, as far as I'm concerned.<br />
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It's the same in record shops. If you play within the remit of this particular musical niche and are lucky enough to have attracted record company support, you're quite likely to find your CDs stored under 'World', 'New Age' or 'Jazz'. Furthermore, in the digital domains like iTunes, eMusic and their like (where you yourself have little or no control regarding which category your music ends up under) there's no provision for acoustic fingerstyle. My CDs have been placed under 'Relaxation' or 'New Age' or 'Music For Meditation' and, as far as I'm concerned, it's not anything like. Certainly, if I was going shopping for CDs by Michael Hedges or Pierre Bensusan, looking under 'new age' or 'world' wouldn't be my first port of call.<br />
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Things used to be a lot more simple. Once, I'm told, your music was either classical, commercial or folk. Take it or leave it. The definitions were easy to understand: classical was anything involving orchestras or ensembles playing Bach, Berlioz or Beethoven, commercial was pop and rock and folk was... well, everything else.<br />
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Under this form of categorisation I'm a folk musician in that I don't consider myself a part of music's commercial landscape. Seriously; ask my accountant. <br />
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It's easy to think that this is really a trivial problem and unlikely to have too much of an impact on a career; after all, does it really matter where your music is filed in the public consciousness? Well, yes it does. The problem reveals itself when you try to get gigs, for instance.<br />
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If you play in a blues or a covers band, it's likely that you'll be able to make a promoter or club/pub owner understand what it is you play much easier than I would. Blues? What? Like Muddy Waters, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton – that kind of thing? Covers band? What? Rock covers? Queen, Bad Company, bit of Supergrass, Elbow thrown in for the students? Deal done. But 'acoustic fingerstyle'? What's that?<br />
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You see my problem. I guess it's a matter of time before we acoustic minstrels find a home under one roof or other. It may be that a champion will reveal himself; someone will have a hit with a film theme or something and immediately afterwards everything reboots and we can say, 'You know, like so-and-so...' when asked the inevitable question.<br />
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But until then, it's a no man's land of misunderstanding.David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-30364037494664159252011-08-03T08:48:00.000-07:002011-08-04T04:14:50.289-07:00The Wonders Of The InternetJust trying to set up a selling account for my website and it's driving me mad!<br />
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Thought I'd share that with everyone...David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-77807914516205583662011-07-14T06:27:00.000-07:002011-07-14T06:31:02.489-07:00Hard ShoulderAs around .0000001% of the world knows, last September I released my second album of acoustic fingerstyle guitar tomfoolery on the public at large. Obviously, in such circumstances, the thing to do is to get oneself onto the touring/gigging circuit and make people aware of its existence. After all, success in the music biz is only around 10% having a good product out there, the other 90% is down to letting people know about it.<br />
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All well and good, then. But, as everyone knows, the best laid plans of mice, men and acoustic guitarists oft go awry and in January of this year I began getting pain in my left shoulder. Worse still, it all felt very familiar and I knew what was coming…<br />
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Anyone heard of a condition known as 'frozen shoulder'? The medical name for it is 'adhesive capsulitis' and it works its evil magic by gradually paralysing the shoulder joint and rewarding you with a bolt of very serious pain every time you try to move your arm. Not good for playing guitar, then.<br />
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To make matters worse and to illustrate the bitter irony of the situation still further (I'm not after sympathy here, honest) I'd had it before in the other shoulder back in 2003 and so I knew that it's effectively a very long slog in terms of recovery time as the condition can last between eight to 18 months.<br />
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There's nothing doctors can do except offer sympathy and any painkillers you choose. I chose Tramadol, because they worked last time, but despite the fact that they numb the pain quite effectively and allow you to drift off into sleep, they also have nasty side effects – even more so when you stop taking them.<br />
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It's now July and I'm only just getting most of the movement back in my arm (it never fully returns) and experiencing little or no pain and so it's time to get back out there. Taking seven months off sick when you've got new tunes to play people is nothing short of a disaster, which is why I've chosen to re-release 'Arboretum' on my own label and kinda start all over again.<br />
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So, as I type, the album is being pressed onto those silver shiny discs that some of you might remember and at the same time being delivered in digital form to all the usual outlets on the internet. There are even dates in the diary, starting with a gig at this year's London Acoustic Guitar Show at Olympia. Sunday 11th September on the Acoustic Café stage at 2.30pm, to be precise.<br />
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Now, with a seven month lay-off behind me, the only thing I have to do is get back to practising like a maniac to restore the strength in my left hand and arm – and trying to remember all the pieces!David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-11961042306189085312011-04-28T08:14:00.000-07:002011-04-29T08:21:25.848-07:00O.K. So We're Not Exactly Radiohead...Depending on who you happen to be talking to at the time, the current state of the music industry is either<br />
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a) A right bloody mess<br />
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Or<br />
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b) A fertile landscape ripe for entrepreneurial derring-do<br />
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The followers of answer 'a' will quote you statistics about the slow and painful demise of the CD as a platform for music and how piracy has spoiled things for everybody, whilst the 'b' camp is the exclusive domain of the web gurus and sundry other optimists.<br />
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So who is likely to be right?<br />
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Well, one thing's for certain; the world would be a poorer place without music – either live or recorded – and so it's definitely going to survive all of this. The question is how?<br />
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There are folk out there who believe that the future of live music is a thing which is not under their control, but I think it is. You'll have guessed that I tend to follow the 'b' thinkers and so I'm going to set out one way – and I'm sure there are many more – whereby music lovers all around the country (and most likely the world) can shape the future by taking back some of the control.<br />
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I currently work as part of an acoustic instrumental duo with another guitarist called Ben Powell. At present, we're trying to put together some gigs for later on in the year when we can get on the road and come out to play for people. My idea as to how this might come about is to ask people who enjoy our kind of music (and you'll be able to sample some at the end of this sermon) to get in touch with us and tell us about venues in their particular area who put on this type of music.<br />
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I understand that there are loads of places across the UK where a room above a pub, a cellar, village hall, arts centre or community area is set aside on a regular basis to host live music. They're not necessarily known on the national circuit because they're small, off the beaten track, run on a tight budget and generally don't get a look in when more renowned artists go on tour. But as far as we're concerned, all it takes is a contact, either in the form of a phone number or email address and we'll make the arrangements to turn up and play.<br />
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We're not Radiohead. We don't have legions of fans. We don't insist on four figure fees and five star accommodation. But we put on a good show, people enjoy themselves, the venue sells some beer (and a fruit-based drink for the ladies), the promoter earns a bit, we earn a bit and so everybody wins.<br />
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We'll even give a pair of our CDs and free entry to people who give us contacts that turn into gigs. How about that?<br />
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So here's the commercial. First of all, here's a video of me playing a track from my album 'Arboretum'. It was recorded live in the studio and so what you see is what you get:<br />
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<iframe width="480" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BMlR6olBJns?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br />
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And here's Ben, playing a track from his album at this year's Celtic Connections in Glasgow:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tWWDqcEmSoE?fs=1" width="480"></iframe><br />
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If you think that you might be able to put us in touch with a venue in your area, please drop us a line by clicking <a href="mailto:info@davidmead.net">here</a>.<br />
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Hopefully, we'll see you on the road!David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-56905675146616803622011-03-04T07:20:00.000-08:002011-03-04T08:00:37.853-08:00Highway To Hello?As a part-time scribbler for magazines, I get sent press releases via email on a daily basis. Recently, I've been noticing that many of them are worded very similarly. So allow me to give you a glimpse into the inbox of a calloused, highly cynical hack for just a few moments. A typically worded email goes something like this:<div><br /></div><div><i>Introducing [insert name here; always someone you've never heard of, commonly female and usually coyly misspelt like 'Kandi' or 'Syndii'] an amazing new voice on the R&B scene! Her latest single [insert almost literally anything] was voted 'Most Exciting New Thing' by radio station WXBJ.com [i.e. an internet-based radio station with around 17 listeners]. 'Kandi' [or whoever] will be performing [i.e.'miming'] her new single at [insert name of tiny backstreet, London-based clubette] on [probably next week]. RSVP to reserve a press pass [or not, we're not exactly expecting a stampede]. Free bar [this is the clincher – journalists are inveterate alcoholics].</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Now I'm all for new talent breaking through, but I wonder where all these young divas are coming from; and, more importantly, who is fronting the money for a professional PR company to distract us merry inksters away from on-line gaming and internet porn for long enough to give a damn? Anyone who has ever tried to release something into the vast emptiness of hyperspace (where no one can hear you scream, let alone play anything nice) will know that it takes a small fortune to launch an artist these days. The figure was recently put at $1M by some overpaid researcher at the BBC and that money has to come from somewhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing for sure, these would-be pop princesses (not forgetting the occasional prince) are coming from somewhere and I'm pretty sure that it's no longer the club scene like it used to be in the perceived 'good old days'. Their press pictures don't reveal them to be road-weary chanteuses; more like fresh-faced debutantes that you wouldn't think twice about introducing to mother. So is there an academy, an agency or whatever who try the well-worn principal of 'some of this sh*t has to stick' knowing that they only need one hit on their hands to pay for their rabid entrepreneurialism across the board? </div><div><br /></div><div>It's beyond me...</div>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-53956877078374844722011-01-13T06:54:00.000-08:002011-01-13T07:46:06.541-08:00HMV And A Dying Breed...I'm sure that many will have seen the forecast of store closures from record retail giant HMV in the press recently. I believe the first estimate was that 60 outlets were due for closure but recent updates have put this figure nearer 40. Of course, we can see this as just another nail in the coffin for our friend the CD as downloads, legal or otherwise, begin to dominate the music consumer consciousness. But is that the whole story?<div><br /></div><div>OK, stores close every day and it could be said that it's all part of a kind of natural selection out there in the retail jungle, but a casual comment made in today's press made me wonder if HMV have fallen victim to their own ambitions.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>If, as I suspect, HMV's strategy was to dominate the high street by elbowing out the smaller independent record shops then they really shot themselves in the foot when they began realising it. The past 12 months or so has seen stock reduced across HMV stores to the effect that you don't have to wander too far away from the beaten track to find that the album you want on the day isn't any longer available on site but subject to a <i>'sorry, but we can order it for you'</i> initiative. And if you think I'm talking about wanting an album by some obscure 1960s folk artist, I'm not; my local HMV didn't have any of the 60 plus albums by Frank Zappa in stock last time I looked!</div><div><br /></div><div>This can't be helping, surely? Up until now, artist back catalogue was big business and there's no reason to believe that this trend has changed. Consumers with mammoth vinyl collections are probably still replacing treasured albums on CD to this day and it's quite likely that a lot of these purchases are on spec impulse buys. I've been in the situation myself when I've seen an album from my past for sale at £3 in a shop and a combination of pure nostalgia and the sense that I'm getting a good deal has witnessed me walk out with it in a bag. </div><div><br /></div><div>I know that downloading music is probably the future, but I personally mourn the demise of the old curiosity record shops and their hoard of treasure.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-64611161970343469482010-12-11T07:42:00.000-08:002010-12-11T08:27:34.726-08:00Frank Zappa Interview: March 1993<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Frank Zappa would have been 70 on the 21st December 2010. In order to mark this in a very personal way, here is a transcript of the interview I did with Frank on March 23rd 1993 for <i>Guitarist</i> magazine. His album 'The Yellow Shark' was due for release and his ongoing health situation meant that the interview couldn't be scheduled in advance as normal; in fact I had only two hours' notice on this occasion. It was an honour to speak to a man whose music had given me so much pleasure over the years and the resulting interview was one of the most memorable of my career as a music journalist.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">The interview was carried out on the telephone. At the time, Frank was working whenever he felt well enough to do so. I was aware that he was doing me an enormous favour by taking the time away from the studio. In fact, our conversation began with something of a reminder of this fact from the man himself...</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“We’re right in the middle of a session here and so I’m taking time off to do this,” he said. I got the impression that he really didn’t want to be talking me at all, but I was genuinely a fan of his music and didn’t want to think that I was just another career journalist and he was just a notch on my CV.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">I had heard an excerpt of the new album on BBC 2’s Late Show - a track called ‘The Be-Bop Tango’ which originally featured on Zappa’s ‘Roxy And Elsewhere’ album and told him so - adding that it wouldn’t be the same without the girl from the audience on the original track who says on mic, ‘I’ll do anything you say, Frank…’</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Heh heh - what was her name? Lana!”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">After this, Frank relaxed a little. At least he knew I’d listened to at least <i>one</i> of his albums. I told him I was going to ask some guitar related questions…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, there’s not anything guitar related [on ‘The Yellow Shark’] although there’s a guitar player and a mandolin player in the Ensemble Moderne [the classical outfit who had recorded the new album].”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What attracted you to the instrument in the first place?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I liked the way it sounded.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’ve cited Johnny Guitar Watson as an influence before.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I used to listen to him all the time,” confirms Zappa, “and I used to listen to Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">So it was the latter end of the 50s blues period that first got you interested?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’ve spoken too of an interst in 50’s do-wop records.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes, I like that music.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Mixed together with your interest in classical music as well - it’s a fairly bizarre combination.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I just listened to it and liked what I heard. It became my musical world.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">The first piece by Edgar Varese you heard was…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“‘Ionisations’”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’ve always been interested in percussion?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah, in fact the piece I’m working on now is all percussion. It has some synthesiser sustaining things in it, but 99% of what’s being heard in this piece that we’re working on today is all different kinds of percussion instruments.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">I remember you saying on a radio interview once about writing ‘percussive harmony’.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Oh sure. You can write rhythmic dissonance or you can write the equivalent of rhythmic consonance, too. What I would describe as a dissonant rhythm is 23/24, where things would rub up against each other in a dissonant way in just the same way that notes that are a half-step apart have a certain tendency to twinge your ear. Rhythms that are fractionally off from each other create another kind of linear dissonance. A consonant kind of rhythm would be like march or disco music where everything is ‘boom, boom, boom…’"</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Common time like 4/4 or simple 2/4, you mean?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What did you learn from Johnny Guitar Watson records? Was it the pentatonic approach? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, you know, what Watson was doing was not just pentatonic scales. One of the things I admired about him was his tone; this wiry, kind of nasty, aggressive and penetrating tone, and another was the fact that the things that he would play would often come out as rhythmic outbursts over the constant beat of the accompaniment.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva"> Is that something you tried to incorporate into your own playing? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes. It seemed to me that was the correct way to approach it, because it was like talking or singing over a background. There was a speech influence to the rhythm.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What was the first guitar that you had? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It didn’t have a make on it - it had been kinda sandblasted. My brother got it for $1.50 at an auction and it was an archtop, f-hole, ugly motherf***er with the strings about a half-inch off the fingerboard.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">That’s usually a good sort of guitar to start with…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It builds your wrist up…”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Everything you play afterwards feels like going downhill after one of those.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Heh heh, yeah. My father had a guitar which he kept in a closet, but I never played that. I didn’t really decide to mess around with the thing until we got this god awful thing at the auction. That’s why I liked it - because it was so tinny-sounding. It was just an acoustic guitar, but for an acoustic instrument it was moving closer to the direction of that wiry tone I liked with Johnny Guitar Watson, especially if you picked it right next to the bridge.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Did it have one of those moveable wooden bridges that wrecks the intonation? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I had no idea what intonation was! I didn’t find out for maybe five or six years that you even had to think about things like intonation It was bad enough just tuning the damn thing up with the pegs, let alone worrying about whether you’re going to be in tune at the octave.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">When did you make the move to electric? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“The guitar my father had was a round holed guitar of anonymous make and I stuck one of those DeArmond sound hole pickups in that. So it would be one of those bad-sounding magnetic pick-ups that you stick in the sound hole of a normal acoustic guitar. It would merely amplify the acoustic sound - so it wasn’t a real electric guitar. I guess it was around four or five years later that I actually got an electric guitar. There was a music store not far from my house, and I rented this Telecaster for $15 a month. Eventually I had to give it back, because I couldn’t make the payments on it any more.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Were you ever in High School bands? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I had a band when I was either a sophomore or a junior in High School I actually started off as a drummer, playing in a band in San Diego, but that didn’t last very long.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">A lot of guitarists started out playing drums - like Eddie Van Halen, or Extreme's Nuno Bettencourt, both of whom seem to have developed solid right hand techniques as a result. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, I don’t know whether I could vouch for that because I wasn’t a very good drummer! My main drawback was that I didn’t have good hand-to-foot co-ordination. I could play a lot of stuff on the snare and the tom-toms and the cymbal and everything, but I couldn’t keep an even beat on the kick drum while I was doing all this which was one of the reasons why I was no longer employed as a drummer - nobody could dance to it.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">This is something that obviously didn’t translate onto guitar with hand-to-hand co-ordination. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah, hand-to-hand I’m fine. The only thing I had to co-ordinate with my feet was the wah-wah pedal and turning little stomp boxes on and off.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">How would you sum up your guitar style on the early Mothers recordings? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It was okay, but back then the guitar wasn’t a featured instrument in the way it was on the later albums. As far as a precedent for it... I don’t think there was anything you could compare it to; it was the only way I knew how to do it. There was no reason to do it another way, and anyway, everybody else was doing it the other way.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">The rock guitar influences that are the most common are the ‘60s icons, players like Clapton and Hendrix... </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“When ‘Freak Out’ and ‘Absolutely Free’ were done, there wasn’t any Hendrix. We met Hendrix in the summer of ‘67; he sat in with us at the Garrick Theatre, so we’d already made those albums before I even knew that he existed. But Mike Bloomfield was a popular guitar player, he was in the Butterfiled Blues Band. I saw Butterfield when they came to Los Angeles, but I don’t own any of their records.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Actually, I think my playing is probably more derived from the folk music records that I heard; middle Eastern music, Indian music, stuff like that.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What specifically?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“For years I had something called ‘Music On The Desert Road’, which was a recording of all kinds of different ethnic musics from different places in the Middle East. I used to listen to that all the time - I liked that kind of melodic feel. I listened to Indian music, Ravi Shankar and so forth, before we did the ‘Freak Out’ album. The idea of creating melody from scratch based on an ostinato or single chord that doesn’t change - that was the world that I felt most comfortable with.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You prefer to improvise over a single chord vamp.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“If you listen to Indian classical music, it’s not just pentatonic. Some of the Ragas that they use are very chromatic, all sustained over a root and a fifth that doesn’t change, and by using these chromatic scales they can imply all these other kinds of harmonies. The chords don’t change; it’s just the listener’s aspect that gets to change, based on how the melody notes are driven against the ground bass.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">That sounds like a parallel with your own guitar improvisations, where the band plays a fairly straightforward rhythmic vamp, and you insert dissonance via the solo - you use a lot of chromatic tones and whole tone scales in your solos. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, you stick them in where you think they belong when you think they belong. Sometimes you guess right, sometimes you guess wrong. The most dangerous thing is improvising with a band and thinking ‘Okay, now’s the time to play that diminished scale,’ and somebody in the band is thinking, ‘Now’s the time to play a major chord.’ Those kinds of accidents do happen...” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Your guitar style underwent a marked change around the time of ‘Overnite Sensation’. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That was partly because of the rhythm section, and partly because of the equipment I was using. I imagine that anybody’s guitar playing would change if one day your keyboard player was Don Preston, and suddenly the next day it’s George Duke - know what I mean? Or the difference between (drummers) Jimmy Carl Black and Chester Thompson - that certainly made a difference. Or the difference between Roy Estrada and Ton Fowler. When you have a completely different rhythm section with a different musical perspective, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">So things became tighter?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Much tighter and harmonically much more interesting because George is a more interesting keyboard player.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">It was you who got George Duke into playing synthesiser, wasn’t it?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I had to almost strangle him to make him do it! Up to that point, the closest he would get to a synthesiser would be to use an Oberheim ring modulator that he would plug his Fender Rhodes into and every once in a while he would jerk the handle on it and get some sort of a metallic sound out of his Rhodes. It took quite a bit or persuasion to get him to pick up an ARP Odyssey. Also, I knew he had a really nice voice, but it was hard to get him to sing and now he sings all the time.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">There have been many musicians that have gone through the various manifestations of the Mothers and you later bands who have come to prominence. There’s a parallel there perhaps to the Miles Davis bands - almost like a music college or finishing school.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, if you come to it with that attitude, then it’s true - you can derive a lot of information from doing the job. However, most of the musicians look at it as just a way to earn an income. It takes an exceptional musician to work in the band and to really appreciate the type of training and information that is being delivered during rehearsals for the show. So you can either learn a lot of different things in the band, or you can just learn your part, play the gig and pick up your paycheck. I’ve had both kinds.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’ve had some remarkable musicians in the band; Steve Vai being a fairly obvious example. But Chester Thompson, Adrian Belew, Scott Thunes, Arthur Barrow…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Terry Bozio - he was here yesterday for a visit…”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Now you always cite his playing on ‘Hands With A Hammer’ from Vol 3 of ‘You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore’ as a near perfect drum sound.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s true and you know it was recorded with just one of those AKG Dummy Head microphones and a C24 - there’s no close miking on the set at all. It’s all just ambient miking. It’s really a fat-sounding kit.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">If we can move back to that radical change in your guitar sound…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It also changed because I started playing an SG.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Was this your custom built one?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“The first one I had was stock, I got it second hand. At a gig in Pheonix, Arizona this guy came up to me after the show with this hand-made SG and he said he would like to sell it to me and I played it and liked it and bought it for $500. As a matter of fact, Dweezil’s guitar roadie was just here and he’s taken it down to get it strung up with really light strings.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">So you could put the difference in your guitar sound down, at least in part, to a new instrument?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Not just a different instrument, but also different amplification because prior to that time I’d been playing either a Gold Top Les Paul or a Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster, which was a large, fat, three pick-up jazz guitar which really had uncontrollable feedback. I was playing through a Fender amp or an Acoustic amp with a fairly nondescript tone - I just didn’t have enough money to invest in new equipment. But by the early ‘70s I was playing this SG, and I switched over to Marshalls, and started playing through a device that a friend built for me, which had compression, phase shifting and some other little specialities.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Wasn’t there a control you had fitted to one of your guitars which acted as a sort of parametric eq?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That came later.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">In the past, you’ve quoted ‘One Size Fits All’ as being your favourite album. </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well. I think it was probably a good example of what the band with George Duke and Ruth Underwood could do. I think it’s a good sounding album, representing that group.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Volume 2 of ‘You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore’ features that band live in Helsinki…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yep.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">…and the full version of the solo from Inca Roads shows just how dramatic your editing was on the ‘One Size Fits All’ version - where did you pick up your editing technique? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I started around ‘62, before The Mothers, when I was working in Cucamunga.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Those were all razor edits - literally cutting up the tape? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s right.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">But everything’s right on the beat. You’d never know that you’re not hearing the complete story. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I’m a pretty good editor...” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What about your technique of editing together a song from completely different performances - even different bands? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“They come in on the beat!”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">I was thinking of the ‘Ship Arriving Too Late’, from the ‘You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore’ series.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Oh yeah, where it goes from the 84 to the 82 band?”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">How much time does an edit like that take? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, it took years. I worked on it for five or six years.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’re also a fearsome archivist of your own material…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I do have a large vault with material in it.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Any idea how many hours of material it represents in total?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Heh heh, No [laughs]. There’s mountains of stuff in every format from little five inch reels of quarter inch tape a 1 7/8 IPS all the way up to digital video and all stops in between.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’ve also taken live backing tracks and superimposed studio performances on top - for instance, the ‘Sheik Yerbouti’ album... </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes, but I’ve gone in the other direction, too. For example, ninety percent of the guitar solos on the ‘Joe’s Garage’ album were from live shows, pasted on studio tracks. In the studio, they called it the ‘Ampex Guitar’ - I had all these quarter-inch tapes of guitar solos that I liked from the ‘79 tour, and when we went into the studio to do ‘Joe’s Garage’, I would just go through my files to see what key a certain solo was in, and just experimentally hit the start button on the playback machine and lay it onto the multi-track.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Didn’t you have trouble with tuning variation? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, we did that with a VSO. We did have to wiggle the pitch around to make sure it sounded like it was in the right key.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">At one time, the live band used to tune to the vibes as a source of fairly constant pitch, didn’t they?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah, when we had vibes in the band. Remember, we were on the road long before there were Peterson strobe tuners. If you tuned up to a piano that happened to be somewhere on the stage, there wasn’t any guarantee that the piano itself was in tune. So, for the first five or six years of touring, it was really a crap shoot as to whether you’d be in tune with anything.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You overdubbed the guitar solo on ‘The Purple Lagoon’ from ‘Live In New York’, because you recorded it on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and had to fill the gap where John Belushi did an act as a Samurai bebop musician. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes, that’s right, although he didn’t do that act in the regular live show. I overdubbed it with a home-made SG through a Pignose amp and an Eventide Harmoniser set at 99.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Can you remember which guitar you used?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah, it was the hand made SG.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">How did you come to own the fire-damaged ex-Jimi Hendrix Strat? </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, there was this guy named Howard Parker - they called him ‘H’ - who was Hendrix’s roadie, gofer and general assistant. He stayed at our house for a couple of months in the late ‘60s, and he had this guitar which Hendrix had given to him - I thought it was from the Miami concert. He gave it to me and we had it hanging on the wall as a decoration for years and years, and then I met some guys who were capable of putting guitars back together, so I had it done.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">When I spoke to Dweezil he said that you still have the original neck.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah, somewhere around here…”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Does it have an individual sound?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes, it did have a sound all its own, especially after it was reconstructed, but that sound was not what you would expect from the Hendrix guitar. It didn’t sound like all the Hendrix guitar solos you’ve ever heard. It was a different kind of sound.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">It’s gone through various pick-up transformations as well, hasn’t it?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah, it used to have a chrome scratchplate and it had, I think, at that time a Barcus Berry in the neck and also a preamp…”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Didn’t you use that guitar on a couple of tracks from the ‘Shut Up And Play Your Guitar’ set?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“If it’s in the liner notes, it’s true, but I can’t remember off hand. I didn’t play it that often because one of the characteristics of that guitar was it liked to feed back unless you were in exactly the right environment where you could stand in exactly the right relationship to the amplifier.” </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What was the story behind the 1988 band? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Actually, it didn’t start off large and get smaller - it started medium, and got large. It was a 12-piece band, and an argument broke out between Scott Thunes and just about everyone else in the band apart from me and Mike Keneally. The others all decided that they hated Scott’s guts; it was very weird. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“We were almost at the end of the European portion of the tour in the early summer of ‘88, and we had other dates booked in the United States - big, outdoor, high-paying gigs, but because most of them refused to go onstage with this guy, I had to cancel them all. There was no time to replace anybody at all, no breaks in the tour to rehearse anybody new, so I just had to break it up.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Was that one of the formats of the band that you were most happy with? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“WelI I was very happy with it and also the audiences really liked it too, and the reviewers thought it was a great band. It was unique because it combined a very strong five-piece horn section with all kinds of electronic stuff, with effects on the percussion section, on the drums, multiple keyboards - a very interesting blend of this horn harmony and very strange sound-effects.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">I missed seeing the band on that tour. I was on the way to Scotland the day you played Wembley…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Wembley was the only concert on the tour that got a bad review! Someone wrote that we were all too old to play rock’n’roll. But all the rest of the reviews, even Rolling Stone writing about our performance in New York City, surprisingly gave a good review.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">The resulting live CD of that tour - ‘The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life’ - is testimony to that. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Think about it, there are no overdubs on that, either. All those little effects and things coming in, that’s just the way it was on the live show.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You’ve got sampled dog barks and stuff on that - was that the Synclavier?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yep.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Were you generating that from a keyboard?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“There were three stations generating samples: there was Ed Mann, who had this whole vocabulary of dog barks and bubbles and weird shit, then there was Chad Wackerman who had all these strange percussion things hooked up to a big rig, and then there was the Synclavier which I could play when I wasn’t playing the guitar. There was a MIDI link between the other two stations and the Synclavier so that thay could trigger Synclavier samples while something else was going on.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">So you played your parts on keyboard?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes, I sat down and played the keyboard.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Did you ever try using a MIDI guitar to control the Synclavier? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yes, but I couldn’t make it work…”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Was that to do with your playing style?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, I think in order to make it work, the detector only wants to hear the vibrations of a single string, and if you’re not constantly damping and muting and doing all sorts of gyrations, then the detector can’t really read accurate pitch. So if you’re playing on the top E string and you’ve got an A string ringing or something like that, it tends to f*ck things up. So you have to worry about damping the other strings while you’re playing and it’s just a technique that I’m not very good at.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">You pick with a lot of upstrokes…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It’s just the way I learned.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">A lot of people will pick ‘downstrokes heavy’, but using a lot of upstrokes is fairly unique.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It’s just the way I learned…”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What’s your attitude towards the guitar now? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I seldom touch it. I was doing a little overdubbing here in the studio, but I don’t have calluses anymore. In a way, I think I used to be a guitarist, but not any more.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">How do you feel guitar-playing is going at the moment?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I don’t think there’s much on the street that interests me. I mean, there are certain guys that I admire because they play well and they play musically - I like Jeff Beck and I like Allan Holdsworth and Michael Hedges. These people are all real geniuses at what they do. And I can’t remember the guy’s name - one of the heavy metal groups - I heard him play a solo that was just wonderful - really interesting stuff. But I can never remember the name of the group or the name of the guitar player! I just saw it whizzing past the channels on MTV.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">What interested you about it? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, it was the whole approach to the solo. The tone was great, the intervals were great and it wasn’t the usual thing where a guy will just weedle away on any kind of scale that he thinks he can get away with in the middle of some fast, fuzztone background. This really had some thought to it.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva"> The Steve Vai-transcribed ‘Frank Zappa Guitar Book’ is amazingly complex-looking stuff... </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It’s even more amazing when you get him to tell you how he did it!”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">He said he didn’t slow it down.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“He couldn’t slow it down. He was taking it off a cassette machine.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">He must have an incredible ear…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yup. [laughs]”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">There’s a song you did called ‘The Jazz Discharge Party Hats’; I heard that when Vai was playing with you, he wrote out your skat-singing vocal part, and then overdubbed it on acoustic guitar.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s right.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">That’s frightening!</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s right!”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva"> And was it 100% accurate? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It’s not 100% accurate, as a matter of fact, because if you play the pitches of his transcription without the vocal, there are certain things that just sound a little bit weird. I’d give it 99%, though. I don’t think there is anybody wandering around that knew they could do something like ‘The Jazz Discharge Party Hats’ unless some other lunatic said, ‘Do it’.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“When you’re transcribing something to publish in a magazine, that’s one thing. But when you’re transcribing it and you know that within a day or so you’re going to be overdubbing on the track, and you’re going to be sight-reading your own transcription, and it’s got to sync up exactly with what’s on the track - that’s when you’ll really know whether you’re a good transcriber or not. But that’s how he did it; he wrote it out, he came in, we turned on the tape, he read it and he did it in two or three takes. He even put in a string-scratch for when I laughed! I went ‘Huh, huh, huh’ and he’s got that little ‘scrape, scrape, scrape’ in there. He nailed <i>everything</i>.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">He got a lot of criticism for doing the big rock thing with Dave Lee Roth and Whitesnake.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“He should be able to do whatever he wants. If he wanted to go country and western he should do that, y’know?” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">It’s interesting that not all the members of your bands have been able to read music... </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s right; maybe 10% have been readers, but the rest of them all had to learn it like a parrot.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">There seems to be a free exchange between your ‘orchestral’ pieces and your ‘rock band’ pieces. The transfer of ‘The Be-Bop Tango’ on ‘The Yellow Shark’ from band to orchestra is one example... </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, look at it this way; they’re pieces. Pieces of music that have harmony, melody and rhythm and some sort of an idea that makes them go, and the rest is just a matter of orchestration.” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">How did you acquire your skills as an arranger?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Trial and error.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Did you have any formal training in harmony?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Uh, I had a couple of classes early on. When I was a senior in high school I was an incorrigible student and one of the people in the office decided that maybe I would be socially better adjusted if I was given the opportunity to study something that I was actually interested in. So they arranged for me to go to the junior college to take a harmony course, one hour a week; that lasted for two or three months. I was studying out of the Walter Piston harmony book and I found it really boring. I probably finished up with a D grade, or something like that. There wasn’t anything there that I thought was going to be useful for what I wanted to do. I didn’t like the sound of the musical examples, I didn’t like all this f****ing Roman numeral horseshit that you have to deal with. Still, I guess it was better than putting up with the stupid classes they had at the high school.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Is there a way to teach music in a constructive and ‘student friendly’ way? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“I think that it’s kinda useless to teach it, because what are you going to do? A person gets out of school, how’s he going to earn a living? In order to make money doing something that you call music, what you wind up doing to earn a living is not music - it’s shit! So why bother to teach them anything? It just seems so redundant to teach composition or harmony, when the people who will make the most money will come out of a metal shop or something like that, do something sub-mongoloid and make a fortune out of it.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">So you still stand by your quote of a few years back when you said that the average American wouldn’t know good music if it came up and bit them on the ass?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s right. But I mean, it’s not their fault because they haven’t been exposed to anything other than the commercial stuff that is the non-stop stream of shit that comes out of the media.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">No ready solution, then?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, how can you draw a conclusion about music unless you’ve heard a wide range of it? I think that the most useful thing that could be done in school is to put more emphasis on music appreciation and make sure that people, whether they’re going to become musicians or not, get to hear music from different cultures, music from different eras, different periods of classical music - something so that thay have some kind of a home base of knowledge from which they can make personal decisions.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“The cost of the music education course is so small compared to what it costs to buy new uniforms for the football team and the rest of the shit - and yet most schools in the United States don’t even teach it any more.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Really?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“That’s right. I mean, I was lucky that I was in school at a time in American history where they not only had music appreciation courses, but had record libraries at the school. Even in the little towns where I lived you could go in and have access to a large portion of the Folkways library. If you wanted to listen to music from Tibet, or wherever, just go in there and find out what it is... Not any more.”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">There was a story about you finding something in a harmony book that conventional wisdom said should never be done and you tried it and liked what you heard…</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It wasn’t a harmony text book, it was a counterpoint book. It was on the first page and what it said was, ‘You may not write the following intervals.’ The intervals were F and A, a major third, expanding to E and B, a fifth. It also said you could not write G and B, a major third, expanding to F and C, a fifth. So I played these things on the piano and said ‘Why? Why can’t we do this? This sounds great!'”</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">And so you closed the book? </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Yeah - I mean, I figured that if on the first page they were telling me that I would have to be going against something my ear immediately liked, then why should I learn the rest of that stuff?” </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Tell us about the projects you’re working on at the moment. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Well, there’s ‘Civilisation: Phaze III’ and the idea for that is to put it on stage as an ‘Opera Pantomime’. All the music and the sound effects will be included in the compact disc, so what you’d see on stage would be a dance pantomime manifestation of the action and the music. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“It’s due to be performed in Vienna in May of ‘94, but I’m still waiting to find out whether it’s actually going to happen. We got a fax from them yesterday - there’s been a meeting between the organiser and three of his partners who are talking about financing the thing, but I don’t have a contract with them yet. The CD is already done and finished, but I don’t know about a release date yet. If the performance in Vienna comes off on time, then I’ll hold the CD up until February of ‘94. But if they’re not going to stage it, then I’ll probably put it out in September.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“Another project I’m doing is called ‘The Lost Episodes’, which is a collection of unreleased studio cuts - quite early ones. Some of them come even from before Cucamunga. And that includes film soundtrack, ‘Run Home Slow’. </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">“And what I’m working on right at the moment is a Synclavier album called ‘Dance Me This’, which is designed to be used by modern dance groups. It’s probably not going to come out until next year.” </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva">Happy birthday, FZ.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Geneva; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> © 1993 David MeadDavid Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-29624371346052093012010-11-22T06:23:00.000-08:002015-03-09T10:29:43.298-07:00The Art Of ArboretumWhile I was recording 'Arboretum' ideas for a cover image kept running around inside my head. I wanted something that represented the music and acted as a suitable illustration for the title. We did quite a few mock-ups along the way and, seeing as these are unlikely to surface elsewhere, I thought I'd share some of the design concepts that didn't make it through to the final cut.<br />
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My first idea was a sort of 'secret garden' where a gate in a wall was open, revealing a woodland beyond. A bit like this...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Gateway.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Gateway.jpg" /></a></div>
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The album title would have been on the wall to the gateway's right hand side. The back cover would have been a similar picture but taken at night with the gate closed. I abandoned this idea after a visit to a bookshop where I found similar pictures on quite a few book covers. The cliché alarms went off and I went back to the drawing board!</div>
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Next, a visit to an actual arboretum yielded a picture of a really lovely tree with the sun glowing behind it. We decided to digitally enhance the picture and tried out this format...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Four-Trees.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Four-Trees.jpg" /></a></div>
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I liked it, but it didn't quite 'make it' if you see what I mean. The final blow was struck when we found out that the arboretum didn't permit the use of images of their trees for commercial purposes without charge. What can I tell you? The budget was tight...</div>
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Next, I went through loads of pics of trees that we'd been taking for months and decided that I'd mess around with a few. This heralded in the 'reflection series' where I took an image of trees reflected in water and messed around it. At this point I knew I wanted a sunrise and moonrise theme...</div>
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Sunrise...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Red-and-Sunny.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Red-and-Sunny.jpg" /></a></div>
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Moonrise...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Moonlight.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Moonlight.jpg" /></a></div>
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And variations...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Sunny-reflections.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Sunny-reflections.jpg" /></a><br />
<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Reflections-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Reflections-2.jpg" /></a></div>
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I decided that, although we were going along the right lines, the resulting images were too sinister. I was going for 'mystical' or even 'magical' and so I had to look again. I came across an image, taken ages ago on Solsbury Hill (as in the Peter Gabriel song) and began to mess with it.</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Sunrise-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Sunrise-2.jpg" /></a></div>
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After a lot of trial and error with Photoshop, I came up with twin images for sun and moonrise...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Sunlight-small.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Sunlight-small.jpg" /></a><br />
<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Moonlight3-small.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Moonlight3-small.jpg" /></a></div>
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These images seemed to fit with the music and so it was just a question of finding a suitable canvas and font. I tried to make the lettering on the front of the album look like twisted wire – a sort of 'wood and wire' concept – and ended up with this for the front...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=Front-cover-webby.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/Front-cover-webby.jpg" /></a></div>
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And this for the back cover...</div>
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<a href="http://s253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/?action=view&current=6-Cover-back-webby.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh50/WilyFaux/6-Cover-back-webby.jpg" /></a></div>
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So there you have it – a DIY album cover! All the original pics were taken by Carol Farnworth.</div>
David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-70034386606474511502010-11-03T08:33:00.000-07:002010-11-03T09:03:02.780-07:00Simply BeautifulI once had the pleasure of attending a recital given by the classical guitar maestro John Williams. Around half way through, JW began to play a student piece – something I had myself studied during a brief flirtation with the classical guitar back in the 1980s. At first I couldn't work out why a world-renowned virtuoso would be playing something from the Grade 4 repertoire. It seemed a bit odd somehow...<div><br /></div><div>Afterwards, having had time to think a bit, it all made perfect sense: there's nothing wrong with anyone playing simple music beautifully, irrespective of their perceived 'ranking' in the world's hierarchy. For one thing, there would have been students present in the audience who were studying the piece and who would have benefited greatly by watching an acknowledged master interpret it. </div><div><br /></div><div>But to many, 'simple' means 'demeaning'.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's probably something that many of us forget. In many ways, we want to take on some complex, difficult music to mark out our territory – 'Look at me, I can play <i>this</i>...'. And it's quite probable that the real reason behind it all is that our own insecurity demands it. An opportunity to psychologically rise above the rank and file and take up residence in the exclusive and hallowed domain of technical brilliance. </div><div><br /></div><div>John Williams' performance that night made me realise that the real trick is to be at peace with your own level of musical accomplishment at which point you are truly, spiritually free to play music without any consideration given to its technical demands.</div><div><br /></div><div>And in so many ways, that state of mind is more difficult to reach than any advanced technique...</div>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-35574276115920513732010-10-25T05:26:00.000-07:002010-10-25T06:44:14.894-07:00Digital Downloads – The Future Or A Musical Limbo?Debate is rife in the record industry at present as to how people are going to buy the music they want to listen to in future. Opinions differ, but the only certainty is that no-one actually <i>knows</i>...<div><br /></div><div>The Pink Floyd's Nick Mason went on record the other day saying that when his band was formed it was a much more cut and dried affair; if you wanted to hear The Floyd play 'The Dark Side Of The Moon', for instance, you either bought a concert ticket and went along hoping they'd play it or you purchased the vinyl. You might be lucky enough to hear it on radio if you were happy with the somewhat Russian Roulette nature of that medium, but that was about it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, of course, the options are seemingly endless; digital music is everywhere and a perfect fit for the fast food generation. But whether people will ever be at peace with owning something that has no actual physical presence in their lives is another question. </div><div><br /></div><div>I attended an interesting talk with bookshop mogul Tim Waterstone the other evening and he said that people have been predicting the death of books and magazines for almost as long as he has been in the business and yet, despite dedicated digital readers like Amazon's Kindle, books are still selling well and giving no sign of becoming an endangered species any time soon.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll hazard a guess that it's going to be the same for music; despite the convenience and instant gratification of digital downloads, there is a generation out there who still prefer their music in physical form. After all, something that you can't hold in your hands might just be perceived as being of little real value; we always had the option to copy LPs to cassette and yet the question of piracy has only really become a serious concern in this digital age. </div><div><br /></div><div>So is it possible for the recording music industry to move forward without its silver spinning discs? Evolution without revolutions? I somehow doubt whether change – when it comes and whatever guise it takes – will be as radical as some pundits believe. </div>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-12159356819091258242010-09-20T07:25:00.000-07:002010-09-20T07:58:44.882-07:00It's Alive!Today sees the official release of my new album 'Arboretum'. It's been a long slog and much has happened since I last mentioned its recording in this blog.<div><br /></div><div>So basically, in order to give you a brief summary; the last session was held on May 14th and this was to lay down the strings on a track called 'Almost Lost At Sea' (see the video in the last blog). We recorded a passable string section, but also captured the MIDI so that when the album was sent for mastering at Adam Crute's studio he had optimum control. In fact Adam was a real star and ended up replacing the string sample I'd recorded with a far more realistic one and the result is amazing. Thank you Mr C!</div><div><br /></div><div>After mastering, the album was sent up to The Guitar Label HQ in Perthshire and the download site was organised. </div><div><br /></div><div>At present, it's possible to download high quality WAV files from my website order page at <a href="http://www.davidmead.net/order">www.davidmead.net/order</a> – some MP3 files are included in the download too so you can pop them straight into the iPod of your choice and begin listening.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also wrote out three of the tracks in TAB and these are available as a download, too. The tracks are 'Almost Lost At Sea', 'Come Find Me' and 'Waterfalling'. There will also be three short tutorial videos available soon which will show me taking you through the more difficult sections in glorious hi-def video.</div><div><br /></div><div>So there it is, then: after nearly two years in the making 'Arboretum' is now available. I'm hopeful that I will soon be putting together some live dates so that I can get out on the road and play the material in concert. You can hear four of the tracks now in the player below and download a free track by visiting my website...</div><div><br /></div><div class="topspin-widget topspin-widget-bundle-widget"> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="400" width="430" id="TSWidget36687" data="http://cdn.topspin.net/widgets/bundle/swf/TSBundleWidget.swf?timestamp=1284973254" bgcolor="#000000"><br /> <param value="always" name="allowScriptAccess"><br /> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://cdn.topspin.net/widgets/bundle/swf/TSBundleWidget.swf?timestamp=1284973254"><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="theme=white&highlightColor=0xf46f2c&widget_id=http://app.topspin.net/api/v1/artist/3079/bundle_widget/36687&theme=white"><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /> </object><br /></div>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-61012233790666707812010-09-18T07:06:00.000-07:002010-09-18T07:16:55.346-07:00Almost Lost At Sea...I can't remember when it was that I first began to document the development of my new album 'Arboretum'. I think it might even be around two years ago – time flies, dunnit?<br /><br />In any case, the album is now finished and available as a digital download via my website at <a href="http://www.davidmead.net/orders">www.davidmead.net/orders</a>. You can download a free track and listen to four sample songs, too. <div><br /></div><div>I thought I'd celebrate the launch by posting a video of a piece on the new album called 'Almost Lost At Sea'. Rather than showing me sitting there playing the track, the music acts as a soundtrack for the story that inspired me to write the song – in the manner of many Hollywood teaser-trailers.<br /><br />In any case, I hope you like it...<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eIrnBFu8JFM?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eIrnBFu8JFM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /></div>David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-14904015154733768912010-02-16T07:53:00.000-08:002010-02-16T08:22:00.773-08:00Having An 'Off Day'...Let's face it; we can't expect to be on form 100% of the time when we're involved in something as complex as making music. Especially when it comes down to recording an album – after all, posterity has a long and rather unforgiving memory...<br /><br />I had a studio session for my new album recently where I was down to record one of the most demanding pieces I've written so far. Why demanding? Well, it involves playing over virtually the whole fretboard so there are a lot of position changes, it's quite fast (138 BPM, if you're interested), it changes key in the middle and loads of other yippy-eye-oh-fol-de-diddle-all-the-day type of fingerstyle skulduggery. I'd deliberately booked a whole day in the studio because I knew I wanted to get it right and if that meant doing 25 takes to get a good one, then fair enough. <br /><br />As it turned out, I discovered quite early on in the session that I wasn't having a good day. Having practised the track beforehand until my fretboard screamed for mercy, I was sure I was ready to record it... Trouble is, I just wasn't 'in the zone' mentally. My mistake was to plough on with grim determination; by the end of the afternoon I was literally playing takes with gritted teeth and, as I've said in most of my books, if there is any tension in your body, you're like a machine beginning to seize up and you're definitely not going to be capable of putting in a good performance.<br /><br />If you want the full list of excuses (and if you don't, please skip this paragraph) then I could say that my car had exhibited a worrying tendency not to start earlier in the week; my computer – which I obviously rely on for a great deal of my work – was beginning to behave rather strangely and I was sufficiently distracted to the point where I couldn't get that sublime head-to-heart-to-hands connection necessary for putting in a good reading of the piece concerned.<br /><br />I could have saved myself a great deal of soul-searching angst if I had remembered some very good advice given to me once by a very well-known musician: 'Everyone has bad days,' he told me. 'The trick is to save yourself a lot of grief by recognising that you're not on form early on in the day, forgetting about it and going down the pub instead.' He was right. There's always another day – it never does you any good to beat yourself up over circumstances that you haven't much control over. <br /><br />Battle will recommence at the end of this week... and this time, I know I'll nail it!David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-241172611840908592010-01-25T06:11:00.000-08:002010-01-25T06:35:30.384-08:00Nailed It...Now I'd be the first to admit that I take girlie care of my fingernails, particularly on my right hand (the left hand nails are cut back very short). The reason for this obviously has a lot to do with playing fingerstyle acoustic guitar, but it also has a lot to do with hand position...<br /><br />Let me explain: my right hand tends to adopt the 'classical position' when I play. This means that my fingers are virtually perpendicular to the strings, whereas a lot of fingerstylists tend to angle their right hands towards the bridge. This means that my fingernails have to be quite long on that hand – I'm not absolutely sure why this is, but you can be sure that I've experimented with all lengths and settled on one. Trouble is, it happens to be the one that leaves the nails most vulnerable to accidental breakage!<br /><br />Around a week ago, I had another session for my album and spent the day making sure my right hand didn't do anything heavy duty enough to break a nail. About an hour before the session, I noticed that – inexplicably – I'd managed to tear the nail on my middle finger. I still don't know how I managed it because my nails are actually very strong, but whatever... I was in trouble.<br /><br />Sure, I can play with my fingertips, but if you're in the middle of making an album and want an even consistency of sound over all the tracks, altering your right hand technique temporarily causes more problems than it solves. So I was stuck. In fact, I had to resort to the oldest remedy in the book: glue. A healthy dollop of glue on the nail, hastily dried underneath a lightbulb, got me through the session without further damage (or sonic irregularity) but I have since had to cut the offender down to size.<br /><br />I'm investigating acrylics as a solution to nail damage as players I know who use them tell me that the nails retain and almost Wolverine level of strength with only a bi- or tri-weekly application. It looks like things are about to get even girlier!David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-16685282979323987602009-12-29T07:46:00.000-08:002009-12-29T08:31:18.655-08:00The Worst Gig Ever...It's completely true that whenever musicians get together, conversations often begin, 'I did this gig once...' followed by a tale excerpted from the many mishaps that have occurred whilst on the road. I have to say that it's all delivered with relish – somehow, it's generally acknowledged that these personal disasters just increase your general ability to cope. A kind of 'If it doesn't kill you, it's making you stronger' philosophy. <br /><br />Well, I've had some experiences on the road that I wouldn't care to repeat in any great hurry. The worst were definitely way back in the mists of time when I was still working in a semi-pro dance band. I won't mention the name of the group just in case you were in the audience one night and are still bearing a grudge...<br /><br />Anyway, we arrived at a venue one night and asked if there was somewhere we could change. We were trying hard, you see, and actually took different clothes to change in to for our time on stage. In my case – and remember please that this was the 1970s – my stage apparel consisted of white Levi jeans (which might have even been flared) and some sort of groovy T-shirt with, ahem, cowboy boots. Yes, I know: I have since sought help. <br /><br />In any case, the manager of the 'joint' directed us to the gents' toilet as a place we could use as a dressing room. I think a couple of us went to get ready while I went to set up my gear. When my bandmates came out they warned me to be careful when I went in to change because the floor was 'very wet'. Now I won't go into detail about what the exact composition of the liquid on the floor was, but I'm thinking that your imagination can probably do a fine job.<br /><br />So I had to change into these tight jeans (look, I was going through my Jeff Beck period, ok?) and boots whilst standing on a toilet so I didn't accidentally transfer any of the floor's 'wetness' to my clothes. I believe I drove home still wearing the white Levi's that night, not wishing to repeat the experience of the high wire balancing act I'd had to endure earlier. <br /><br />So what exactly did I learn from this experience? Well, the next time we played that venue, I left the cowboy boots at home and took a pair of wellies instead...David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-37832240128968220742009-12-18T07:14:00.000-08:002009-12-18T08:03:39.912-08:00Number One Or Number Two?I should think that just about everyone who gives a damn knows about the controversy surrounding this year's Crizmuz number one: will it be Joe McElderry or Rage Against The Machine? The pro-RATM campaigners on Facebook want to make a stand against the predictability of another of 'Simon Cowell's X Factor karaoke puppets' taking the slot, but is it a point that's actually worth making?<br /><br />Before the dreaded X Factor came along Crizmuz number ones were always a mix of saccharine-laden sentimental hogwash or ludicrous kiddie songs and I don't think anyone took them at all seriously apart from the record companies who were, as usual, thankful just to see their profits soar. Then, when Cowell took over, the whole thing became organised like a military operation – the X Factor final is always positioned just before Crizmuz and, after three months of intense TV exposure, the winner is generally a dead cert to take the top slot. It's sheer marketing genius; let's face it, with that kind of exposure, just about <span style="font-style:italic;">anything</span> could be number one – and Simon Cowell says that the Facebook crowd are being 'cynical'? I would have said that it's more 'mischievous' than anything else and if the Facebook anarchists are successful then it might prove that not everyone likes being manipulated. But it will be a short-lived victory – the whole thing is set to be even larger next time around; for 2010 I hear that Cowell has his eyes on an internet campaign with an X Factor final in a stadium somewhere...<br /><br />So even if this year's battle is successful, I don't think it's a winnable war, in the long term, to be honest...David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-3576542498319233852009-12-04T07:33:00.000-08:002009-12-04T08:03:29.975-08:00The Boyle EffectI have to say that I greeted the news that Susan Boyle's CD has set records for mega-sales on both sides of the Atlantic with a broad smile. Why? Well, people who know me well would fight each other to be the first to tell you that I'm not at all optimistic, generally speaking; but I think that this phenomenon might just send a very important message out to record companies and music moguls alike... <br /><br />The message would read something like this... You can create boy bands, girl bands and airbrushed teen divas (of both sexes) all you like, but every so often the public is going to come face-to-face with raw talent and find that it's actually superior to your short-term media sensations in almost every respect.<br /><br />If it is indeed true that the public gets the music industry that it deserves then surely Susan's success – not only as a performer but as a fully saleable entity – has got to represent some kind of turning point? I've said before how I miss the innocence of the 1960s and early 1970s where anybody could get into a band as long as they had the required talent to play their instrument to an acceptable level. It didn't matter what you looked like or even how many years you had on the clock – if you were good, you were in!<br /><br />When I interviewed Eric Clapton for Guitarist magazine back in 1994 I asked him what it was like to be a musician in rock's formative years and he told me: "Well, anybody that had any idea of how to play any instrument could just about hold their own because there was no competition - there was no one around. There were only a handful of bands, and anyone that could play Sam and Dave was OK. When I started out, Stax and Motown were in the clubs and anyone who could play those songs, any drummer who could play that feel, or anyone who could approach that, was a master."<br /><br />Doesn't that sound like a healthier music scene to you? The only filters were talent and dedication rather than the whims of music industry tzars with their eyes set on another get rich quick gambit.<br /><br />Realistically, I don't expect the industry to change overmuch – but if Ms Boyle's success makes them think a bit it will be enough for me.David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-21488847705646457332009-11-18T07:26:00.000-08:002009-11-22T17:45:59.945-08:00If You Go Down To The Woods Today...We're probably all aware about the various campaigns across our planet to conserve and preserve nature and most of them are absolutely right and proper. However, some, fighting under the general banner 'save the rainforests', are, methinks, taking things a tad too far...<br /><br />In case you hadn't heard, the Gibson guitar corporation – arguably one of the most famous makers of musical instruments in the world – was raided yesterday by the feds; and they were looking for... wood. Yep, wood. Now, I admit that I don't know the ins and outs of this particular instance, but I gather that it revolves around whether some Madagascan rosewood the company are (allegedly) using was imported legally. It's a grey area, apparently, as the Madagascan forests are of prime concern to conservationists, but the country's new president seems to have upset the apple-cart by proclaiming the export of this very sought-after wood perfectly legal. Or something. I'm not really here to speculate on this case in particular, more the clamp down on the use of so-called 'naughty wood' in the manufacture of guitars in general.<br /><br />I've watched from a distance as the whole debate of what you can and can not use as a bodywood these days has raged and, somewhat predictably, turned into a bureaucratic mess of muddled thinking. Fair enough, let's stop the illegal cutting down of trees in South America by legislating against its use in furniture and musical instruments – but what about instruments that were made well before the conservationists began to raise the red flag? I personally own an instrument which contains Brazilian Rosewood – the naughtiest of all naughty woods – but it was cut down prior to 1941 and I have a certificate to prove it. Trouble is it's only effective in Europe. If I want to take the guitar to the US I have to apply for a certificate so that I can get the guitar through customs without having it seized – and that takes 90 days, apparently. The onus is on the owner to prove that the wood used in his or her instrument is legal and, as you can imagine, that's a tough call in many instances.<br /><br />The interesting thing is that violinists, cellists, viola and double bass players all use bows made from a very rare and extremely naughty wood (pernambuco from Brazil) and at first, the 'wood police' were on standby to pounce on any unsuspecting orchestra's string section with sap-lust in their eyes. Trouble is, they were outnumbered and, realising that they would have to seize virtually every single bow on the planet, decided to give this particular wood immunity. Not fair, right?<br /><br />So, your 1958 Martin Dreadnought with Brazilian rosewood back and sides will be impounded unless you can prove that the guy who cut the tree it was made from had legal rights to do so, but the symphony orchestra walks straight through customs without a care. See what I mean about a bureaucratic mess?<br /><br />It needs sorting... soon. Guitar manufacturers are doing their bit by sourcing sustainable woods but vintage and 'old wood' guitars are never going to go away and so they need some sort of agreement here, too. And what are the wood police going to do with all their impounded instruments? Burn them? It makes me shudder to think about it...David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660925650428404589.post-54658868994874253102009-11-05T06:47:00.001-08:002009-11-05T07:09:18.304-08:00Studio Log: Days Three and FourI need to fill in a bit of background to this studio log entry. Bear with me!<br /><br />Sometimes a composition takes years to come to maturity. A long time ago, I'm guessing that it would be around three years ago, I went over to the studio to record some music that I hoped to punt to an agency who deals with film music. One of the compositions I took with me back then proved too hard to 'let go'; I felt it had a bit more life to it than to see it spend its days waiting for a director to pick it up and use it for some anonymous purpose. I came over all possessive, y'see...<br /><br />So when I knew I was recording a new CD, I immediately thought of this particular tune and how I should seize the opportunity to at last give it wings and let it fly. But its metamorphosis wasn't quite done, because when I said I wanted to use it, producer Martin Holmes said he thought I should play it on classical guitar as per the original session and not on steel string as I had intended. The thing is, I've been playing the tune on steel string for the past three years or so and so I had got used to hearing it that way, but Martin's major point of reference was those original sessions.<br /><br />Now, never let it be said that I don't respond to ideas and so I practised the piece on nylon string (an Admira Elena-E) and went over to the studio to record it. It turns out that Martin was right; the fragility and vulnerability that the classical guitar brings to the piece breathes new life into it.<br /><br />So far so good, but there was another element on those original sessions. Back then, I was in the studio with a double bass player called Ken Knussen, someone I've known since we were at school together. We both had professional music in our sights back then but Ken went into classical music and is now a very busy freelance player. So I called Ken and he was able to fit a session for me into his incredibly hectic schedule.<br /><br />We haven't mixed the recording yet, but it's safe to say that the piece which has the working title 'Come Find Me' has changed yet again, Ken's bass offering another dimension, not to mention a new counter-melody.<br /><br />I'm wrestling with the idea of expanding it still further by adding strings, but we're adopting an 'acoustic only' policy and so it's quite likely that we'll be wrangling some faded-in guitar chords to sound like a violin section instead.<br /><br />I think it will sound grand and can't wait to get back over to the studio to add the final touches.David Meadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11699019741527231579noreply@blogger.com0