Greetings familia, time for a Friday update! Hope things are well with you, and you’re staying cool inside and out.
Good luck to whoever won the billion dollar lottery, and I mean that. You’re going to need it. Obviously, if you so choose, lots can be impacted before you peel out the driveway with that last million or two never to be seen again. The potential is astounding but the last thing on earth I’d want to be is famous everywhere for is suddenly having a billion dollars. There’s no hiding from that unless you spend most of it hiding from it. I’d try a few million, though… heck, a few hundred grand and I’d be all set. I’d just play music and road trip and carve out http://www.sbeckwith.com/daquila guitars ‘til the money ran out, and try my best to time it with the last downbeat.
Speaking of, we lost Robbie Robertson and Sixto Rodriguez (an amazing story, the “Sugarman” documentary) this week. Remember the artists and musicians who impacted your path and offer their spirit some music from your essence. Create in their stead. Feed some hunger in their place. Pass something along in their honor. Their ripples now live in us, through us, by us. I do that and play their music while I build your guitars and basses, their vibrations going into the pores of the wood and in with the threads of the screws.
On that note, notes on the batch of Sports! (“Batch of Sports? I saw them open for Bob Seger.”) They are being pair-crafted, two at a time. These are the latest version of our take (as short scale specialists for 20 years) on the guitar-scale “pocket bass.” Ours are HUGE sounding, easy playing little basses with no weird strings or electronic quackery or odd tuning. They fit wherever, you take it out, and play your gig. Simple. Two walnut beauties are in finishing just waiting for their necks, the next two – a poplar “Special” and red & black double topped alder, have made it through routing and shaping into sanding. The two on the shop bench now are “wild woods” getting embellishments in their natural character… the walnut real turquoise in the radiating checks from its knot, and the pecan a mixture of turquoise and amethyst. All can be watched on the BUILDS page. Two of these – the wild walnut and the poplar, are inventory builds worked in with the orders. Want one?
So, last weekend I took a few adventure days and set out on the winding two lanes of Texas headed west and south. I dubbed it the Love Supreme trip, beginning with that John Coltrane album as the opening soundtrack. I wandered through such places at “Stonehenge 2” around Ingram (which also has a couple of Easter Island heads - hey as far as I’m concerned, the Moai the merrier), and Sonora, and into Del Rio – having a great conversation with Border Patrol on the 2-lane headed back. They were cool. I was the guy who looked like a “Coyote” all roadworn, bearded, with a bandana around my neck, and a pack and bedroll in the back of the car. Hey, I roll prepared! I didn’t mention the tent. But what great miles through the deserted open areas. A few degrees cooler and I’d have car camped under the stars – there were many places to pull off and in and go unseen for days. There is something out in the nothing some souls are called to. That’s where we reconnect and recharge. That’s where we connect to That Greater. Temple in its purest form. The desolate hills and valleys revealed themselves in scenes to flute & tabla music from India and the sonic meditations of Alice Coltrane. By Sunday evening I had ended up back in Austin watching jazz and eating pizza at the Love Supreme pizza bar… get the Margherita pizza with the side of Calabrian chiles. Thank me later. And go check out jazz guitarist Jacob Wise wherever you can. He had Alex Bilodeau on upright bass, and these guys were fantastic! So much music in this world to enjoy, I can’t imagine spending most of my time bent over differences or immediately going full rail against what’s different to me. When music opened me up, it opened me up to being more open than closed. Something about the good vibration of sound speaks to my deepest and highest; same for life. Go eat some pizza and feed your soul - everything here isn’t to be taken equally as seriously.
Throwback Thursday. It was 1987, I was 18. My world was about to turn into a big adventure, but I didn't know that. All I knew was I was committed to the path of music and wherever it would lead me. I was pumping gas on Cape Cod when a customer I'd chat about music with came in in his Peugeot sedan. "I'm listening to the new Robbie Robertson album, which is an absolute masterpiece," he said. Part of my devotion to the path was to take such statements from older people who knew more as seeds. I didn't know who Robbie Robertson was. I didn't understand how groundbreaking The Band had been. It wasn't my bag and I didn't have that kind of depth to my musical awakenings yet. But I bought a cassette of that album without knowing anything but that it had moved someone to say that about it, and listened to it, accepted it as it was, and enjoyed what I enjoyed of it. That simple.
Now I like it more, along with other amazing works of that time - like Peter Gabriel's "So", for example. But by merely embracing this that meant something to another, more seeds and artists and music and threads of influence and inspiration were brought into my life. And this has been my constant higher education, the garden that has grown anything of worth I have done, and remains my river going forward. So, on this day, I dedicate those ripples to the man in the Peugeot, to Robbie Robertson, and to all the teachers who seem to appear when we are ready. I got home from my little journey and shaved, just to make sure that young guy is still in here, still up for the adventure. He is.
Before I left on my little jaunt, I handed in Vol.4 of The Audio Notebook. This ongoing release of a lifetime’s worth of songs is happening here: https://jennifinlaypromotions.bandcamp.com/album/audio-notebook-vol-3 Vols. 1 - 3 are up, please download to help keep the project going. I have about 30 more volumes to go! A reminder that my books, including A Craftsman’s Path, are here with links: http://www.sbeckwith.com/books.
Thank you for your interest in anything I have to say in words or in wood. Warmest wishes whoever you may be and a blessed now time to you wherever you find yourself.
Listening to: Oliver Nelson, Blues and The Abstract Truth; John Coltrane, A Love Supreme; Maharishi Gandharva Veda Vol. 16 no. 5 - Raga Puriya Dhanashri; Richie Havens, Grace Of The Sun; Alice Coltrane, A Monastic Trio.