Behind the wheels of steel.
Aug. 27th, 2006 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Looks like I'm doing spinny things at Neon tonight.
In other news, there were a couple of quite nice articles in the Guardian this week. It used to have (by reputation, at least) the worst coverage of pop music among the broadsheets, but it seems to have picked up a lot since the days when a truly dunderheaded review of a Silverfish concert was the only thing ever to provoke me into writing them a letter (with "not for publication" on it, probably rather arrogantly). I think I first noticed this when they pulled of the coup of getting an interview with Nigel Blackwell.
Anyway, this week there was this article by Bernard Butler about playing guitar. Among other things, he says "I don't go into guitar shops often. They are notoriously full of arseholes." It's a good one. In the paper it had pictures of eight guitarists at the top. Only one was a woman, but that's probably something to moan about another time. Bert Jansch had an unidentifiable flat-top, Jack White something odd in red and white, Hendrix a Strat, Page a twin-neck Gibson . . . and the other four (Keef, Hynde, Marr and Butler himself) are all playing Telecasters. I wonder what happened to all those horrible poodlerock guitars with droopy pointy headstocks people bought so many of in the eighties? I know
nevla owns a fair proportion of them, but where are the rest? I haven't seen an Ibanez Steve Vai in about ten years.
The other one was this piece about road songs, and looking for British ones in particular. I like it partly because it settles on Billy Bragg's version of Route 66 ("A13 - Trunk Road to the Sea") as the definitive example, and also mentions It's Immaterial's "Driving away from home", probably the best song about the M62 ever written.
In other news, there were a couple of quite nice articles in the Guardian this week. It used to have (by reputation, at least) the worst coverage of pop music among the broadsheets, but it seems to have picked up a lot since the days when a truly dunderheaded review of a Silverfish concert was the only thing ever to provoke me into writing them a letter (with "not for publication" on it, probably rather arrogantly). I think I first noticed this when they pulled of the coup of getting an interview with Nigel Blackwell.
Anyway, this week there was this article by Bernard Butler about playing guitar. Among other things, he says "I don't go into guitar shops often. They are notoriously full of arseholes." It's a good one. In the paper it had pictures of eight guitarists at the top. Only one was a woman, but that's probably something to moan about another time. Bert Jansch had an unidentifiable flat-top, Jack White something odd in red and white, Hendrix a Strat, Page a twin-neck Gibson . . . and the other four (Keef, Hynde, Marr and Butler himself) are all playing Telecasters. I wonder what happened to all those horrible poodlerock guitars with droopy pointy headstocks people bought so many of in the eighties? I know
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The other one was this piece about road songs, and looking for British ones in particular. I like it partly because it settles on Billy Bragg's version of Route 66 ("A13 - Trunk Road to the Sea") as the definitive example, and also mentions It's Immaterial's "Driving away from home", probably the best song about the M62 ever written.
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Date: 2006-08-27 08:21 pm (UTC)Only one you need :)
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Date: 2006-08-27 08:25 pm (UTC)"I'm going to Texas. . . ."
I wished I was in bloody Texas.
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Date: 2006-08-27 08:30 pm (UTC)And I turn to her and say, "Texas!"
She says, what?
I say, "Texas!"
She says, what?
They got big long roads out there
Warm winds blowing [...]
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Date: 2006-08-27 08:35 pm (UTC)he has moved on to something else..too technical for me
raymond(the Yamaha Fg and Epiphone acoustic lover)
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Date: 2006-08-27 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-27 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 10:06 am (UTC)amazing when 30 is considered late. It's especially irritating given that guitar magazines typically feature guitar icons from the 60s on the cover (Page, Hendrix, Dylan, Clapton, etc.) One day I'm gonna get my guitar and write a song about ageism :-)
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Date: 2006-08-28 02:46 pm (UTC)Guitar icons from the 60's who were already hugely famous by the time they hit 30...if they lived that long. You'd be hard-pressed to find a famous guitarist who took up the instrument after the age of 20.
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Date: 2006-08-28 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 04:32 pm (UTC)I just think that people are discouraged from even starting something if they are over the (arbitrary) age of, say, 30, which is a pity as they could achieve a lot if they only got started and put in a bit of practice for a while.
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Date: 2006-08-28 05:04 pm (UTC)The thing about taking something up is you shouldn't specifically be doing it in the expectation of being worldbeating at any age.
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Date: 2006-08-28 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 10:44 am (UTC)A good Tele's hard to beat...unless you're trying to do any maintenance on the bugger...
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Date: 2006-08-28 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 02:00 am (UTC)So who are the great contemporaray guitarists? Jack White is good but not great and most of the other names I can think of have been around for 20 years already (Chuck Prophet, Neil Hagerty, etc)
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Date: 2006-08-29 11:09 am (UTC)BC Rich (makers of the Warlock guitar) expanded their catalogue a year or two ago with some frankly daft guitar shapes.
Regarding the 'normal' guitars, i played a telecaaster once and hated it and really can't get on with Gibson guitars either.
Besides, pointy is good :)