(I’ll be taking a break from writing the Friday update for a couple of weeks, but will be regularly updating the progress pictures on the builds page and doing the usual Facebook posts.)
New Music.
The feeling of new music is like fresh, hot, cheese pizza. It never gets old. It’s a mix of new discovery and rediscovery, sometimes more one way to hear music that is new to you but relate it to other textures and sounds and influences you’ve absorbed; and sometimes the other, to come back around to an album after years and hear it with your “now” ears. There’s always a layer you didn’t hear or some words or emotional content that didn’t hit you before. It hasn’t changed; you have. It might have caught back up with you, but you may have finally caught up to it. And then, of course, something that hits you like your first nopales breakfast taco… “How did I not know this exists?”
Here are some recent “New (and new again) music” moments…
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream. I hadn’t listened to it in quite some time, and was blown away by the brilliance, emotion, and textures of the album as a whole. A few of the songs had been played to death on the radio back in the day, but with distance, they settled back in as pieces of a whole and showed their previously missed layers as well. I remember the whole ‘90s rock music scene and its shift, and though it was great then, I never would have thought this album would be the standout of the era decades later. The mix of noisy and sublime, soft and loud, the blistering and the orchestral, the Butch Vig production, and the strength and content of the material… it required a light dimming play all the way through on a stereo with big speakers, and it earned every minute of that chunk of time from my life. Like Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon,” having heard it this way, I’ll never hear it the same way again.
More albums… some reggae CDs that were sent to Maggie years back. Maggie is a mostly Blue Heeler who is sentient beyond her species. The way she behaves most of the time… she is aware we share an overlap in our perceptions and deliberately interacts with us there. She loves to kick back on the couch and listen to music – she likes jazz, but she LOVES reggae. Years ago I posted that and a client who was upgrading to music files sent her (via Birdsong) a whole box of great reggae & dub CDs! We have enjoyed them for years, and I have crates of CDs that rotate out and back in… and my memory for some things sucks, so it’s like finding new music all over again. A recent musical library shift unearthed a handful. I can’t remember who the client was at this point, it’s all kind of a blur back there, but I salute you every time I play one. (Sound System International Dub LP; Prince Jammy Presents Strictly Dub; Aston Barrett Family Man Dub; Children of Jah, the Chantells & Friends 1977-79.)
The ’77 Ibanez Howard Roberts guitar. A copy of an odd ‘70s Gibson model with a tailpiece I like better (plus I have a thing for Ibanez hollow bodies – especially ‘70s script-logo stuff), a model as a whole I could never not look at but only recently became beautiful to my eyes. It’s a strange combination of post-war “175” jazz guitar shape, with an early 1900s mandolin-shaped soundhole instead of the F holes, plus Nouveau, Art Deco and “‘60s modern” touches, all on the same instrument. I knew I wanted one in wine red, and I like things with a little honest wear ‘n tear on them - I like it aesthetically and functionally it proves their worth as a tool. The one I found had its full-size floating humbucker replaced with a mini from a Johnny Smith. Where exactly in my arsenal this would fit I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t sure about the replacement pickup, but it has become THE main jazzy clean guitar I have, and truly one of the most beautiful sounding instruments I’ve ever heard. That side of things I play tuned a step down and with heavy flatwounds – set up that way it absolutely came to life. This is why, if we’re not painting life by numbers, there is some exploration involved. That’s how you find the new music in it.
“How did I not know this exists?”
Sivuca. I love this album from 1973, all the way through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra8IbQ7-vcc&ab_channel=rsinatra.
Also, an incredible album of music by Howard Wales & Jerry Garcia called Hooteroll.
And… music for the mouth… poblanos con queso tacos.
Jim Mullen. A Scottish jazz guitarist with an odd thumb-ONLY technique, whose note selection and phrasing – “what he has to say” – I’m grooving on very much. Until last week, I had no idea he existed. Now, notes he made in passing years ago are bringing more magic to my life… this is what we do as musicians; this is what we contribute to as artists. It’s as close to magic, as much divine blessing as we get to give. We diminish over time; our world may look like it does too. But the good ripples? They can pop back up randomly and be just as powerful then, wherever they find another moment, as they ever were. Sometimes even more so. Never doubt their validity, and choose your notes with care. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llM7Rx7Mtbk&ab_channel=palanzana
And speaking of jazzy guitar, I’ve been getting way into Andy Brown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjoD_Wsd43U&t=57s&ab_channel=AndyBrownJazzGuitar This guy just paints a chapel every time he picks up a guitar.
The Mora Eldris. In my line of work there is a fair bit of carving going on, some of which can be done a few different ways – and, like any task, experience brings us workarounds that help it happen more efficiently. Every now and again a new tool appears to answer a question like a new song fits an old mood. There are legends in the electric guitar making world of the Mexican luthiers in the back room of the original B.C. Rich workshop in California in the ‘70s. A bench, a gallon of water, some chisels and a handmade carving knife, and these guys – who Bernie Rico brought up from Mexico – would carve you out an incredible guitar in hours. They made knives from old files and chop saw blades. I am fascinated by this. Well, one of the tools always on me is a Mora Companion, a fantastic all-purpose knife by Morakniv of Sweden for wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. Simple, sturdy, supremely well designed, and not that expensive at all. So, I’m a Mora fan… Mora less (groan). When I saw the Eldris knife, it looked a lot to me like – you guessed it – the Mexican luthier knife; a bit sturdier than a small carving knife, but smaller than a camp knife. So I bought one and am looking forward to working it in where I can. Hey - when it comes to good tools, the Mora the merrier! AHAHAHAHA.
My friend Dennis Dillon. Dill is a guy I’ve known for a looooong time, since the Cape Cod days. The first guitar maker I ever met; I couldn’t believe it. “You MAKE guitars?” But he’s also a guitar historian, great player, and complete eccentric. A total character. He had more of an impact on who I have become than he realizes, and his picture hangs in my shop. There are years nobody hears from the guy, and then, in some moment of brilliance, there he is again. And now, in a moment of brilliance, here he is again! This is gold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmqDUinePGo&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=WellfleetRecreation
Just for kicks, here’s Dennis on lap steel & vocals from 1982 doing probably the best version of “Teenage Nervous Breakdown” you’ll ever hear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnK4pfRDblw&ab_channel=JohnCline
Not too long ago, I jammed a full set of material for the first time in YEARS. This guitar? The Strat copy that started me tinkering in the late 1980s. It’s been reconfigured & rebuilt a dozen ways. The lessons I learned from it are in every Birdsong…
And, of course, new basses. Here are some that left the nest recently… I know my hands play a major role in their transformation, but I don’t exist walking around seeing it like that. Most of my perception is tied up focusing on the lists and tasks, on serving what is happening in the moment. In that, I’m just another tool in the workshop. I try to keep myself sharp, but am amazed at the front row seat I was gifted to watch these change from wood and components to instruments. There is still mystery and magic in the process and what they become, and it feels from here as though I merely guide it.
Be well, stay healthy, and feel inspired.
Listening to: Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream, also the Lull EP; Bloom Big Block; RL Burnside Well Well Well; LOTS of reggae, George Harrison The Quiet One 1987 documentary & interview; John Scofield Trio LIVE En Route; Neil Young Zuma.