Recently, I watched a good documentary by Werner Herzog called Encounters at the End of The World. I watched it in December in our family room, and it is usually very cold in that room, which was apropo since the movie is about Antarctica.
We have this wonderful Netflix account so that we can watch movies through using our children’s Wii Nintendo machine that I have been using a lot. I personally do not have a lot of free time and one of the things I hate is renting a movie from Netflix and finding out is a complete and total dud.
With this on-demand movie feature I have been watching tons of good interesting and fun movies, which I hope to review more in the future in several essays.
I would highly recommend for anybody who is a movie buff and who really does not have a lot of time and really wants to watch movies in TV programs but they want to watch when they want to watch.
But back to the essay…
Now, I am aware that the Werner Herzog is a very famous and influential filmmaker, but I really did not know all that much about him except for the documentary Grizzly Man, which I could not watch all the way through because I just found the whole concept of a man living so close to bears and finally getting eaten, not that really compelling of a story. (That’s kind of what happens, isn’t it?)
The only other experience that I have with Werner Herzog is an essay that I had read by Chuck Klosterman in his recent book Eating the Dinosaur where he talks about different perceptions of truth using Werner Herzog, Ralph Nader, and Weezer all in the same essay. He mentions Herzog, specifically referring to his movie FitzCarraldo (a movie I have never watched and don’t really have an intention to do so) in the context of how some people haev a very expanded and metaphorical concept of what truth really is. Herzog uses the the “elastic.”
It is an excellent essay by Klosterman and I highly recommend that book and in fact, I am planning on doing a review on Eating the Dinosaur and Chuck Klosterman’s writing in the future as I feel that it embodies kind of heart and soul of what Eyeball Brain is all about.
But anyway back to Werner Herzog, I decided to click on this movie on the Netflix account and to see what it was all about and in the beginning it was really weird.He talks about going to Antarctica and he mentions he wonders why chimps do not enslave goats and ride often to the sunset. It was definitely weird--absurd really. why on earth would anyone think about that kind of stuff? Is this some kind of joke or something? I was afraid I was going to end up with something like Grizzly man--watching a hour of the movie to find out that its really cold in Antarctica and thinking what kid of a lunatic director is this anyway?
But I did watch the movie in full and it was really a compelling and thoughtful movie. Werner Herzog’s very interesting way of finding interesting people asking them interesting, almost absurd, questions ultimately bringing out important philosphical and existential concerns about human beings. He does it in an subtle and many times funny way.
He interviewed the penguin expert who has been studies penguins in Antarctic’s for over 20 years. The first question he asks the penguin expert is a penguin do you see any gaitpenguins. What a silly question! I thought, but actually the penguin expert actually did answer that question by saying he had not seen any gay penguins but what he had seen was threesomes where there were two males and one female and what they called prostitution because female penguins will steal rocks to may their nests from other males and sometimes with being very feministic to the male and allowing the male to copulate.
Wow, I thought that is kind of interesting and then he asked me another question, which I thought it was even more silly than the first question. He asked do penguins ever go crazyand say meaning specifically did I ever have enough of being penguins because it’s such as brutal existence for a penguin. The penguin expert did say that some penguins do become disoriented and he showed one penguin that was actually running towards the mountain ranges in Antarctica through a certain depth almost committing suicide so in a real puffy way Werner Herzog has asked a very important existential question, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Herzog interviews a host of very interesting characters, peripatetic philosophers, volcanologists, green house workers who are former linguists, and several scientists who perform underwater dives to examine the life under the ice shelf in Antarctica. This particularly is visually stunning. The animals are so spooky and creepy looking and underwater, there are some of the most astonishing landscapes that I have ever seen. Really, in many ways, it’s wilder than the wildest computer generated graphic from a horror movie.
I was very impressed by this movie, and I would highly recommend it. Here is a clip from one of the most interesting characters in the movie, Stefan Pashov, who actually got me into reading the philosphers Alan Watts, who is an EXCELLENT philosopher and lecturer, who I hope to write more about in future blogs. It’s a worthwhile movie, in my view just for that. Pashov’s view of life, as he states it, is so universal, poetic, and sincere. Amazing…you find this in Antarctica…of all places!
First of all, Bo Diddley was cool. He was just damned cool, anyway you look at it.
But what is being cool anyway? We all kind of know how to recognize it, and more importantly, we also know how to distinguish it from fake cool--or what I would call being a poseur. That’s when you manufacture the stylistic elements of cool, but there is no substantial value beneath any of these elements. It’s just a mannequin in a store window. It’s the product and not the person.
It’s definitely one of those things that philosophers don’t write enough about, really, but they they should! After all, the Hegelian dialectic is really stupid and boring when you compare it to someone like Bo Diddley. But being cool can be an important philosophical subject.
When you think about it, being cool is having an attractiveness, or beauty that is not superficial, but is a result of some real enduring and identifiable quality. It’s not charisma, and it’s not a pretty face. It’s what you are because of what you do. Its beauty with virtue, and what’s more philosophical in nature than that. That’s why people want to be cool and identify with those who are. Likewise, its also why we react so strongly against those who are just faking it, too.
I think Artistotle’s concept of arete, or virtue that he describes in Nichomachean Ethics, may actually be more like cool than you think…But this is not an essay about Artistotle, and you can read that for yourself if you want!
Let’s try to briefly define the spectrum of cool that Bo Diddley existed on. As I see it, there are infinite permutations of the elements of cool--sort of RGB color mix and match, so by no means is this a final statement or thesis. It’s just some ideas to bang and bounce along with.
Bo seemed to capture specific elements from one spectrum of cool, specifically those relating to the development of individual character that is audacious and outlandish, that is based on joy and having a good time. He also did this with some irony, as I will mention later, as he used a little geekiness to make himself cool.
Compare that to someone like Muddy Waters, who I use as an example as he and Bo are contemporaries, and both recorded for Chess records. Muddy’s cool is mystical, enthralling, dangerously appealing cool. It’s kind of an aloof cool in one way, and it is undeniably sexual in its energy. A primal magnetism which exists at one end of the spectrum of cool. You can identify this too by its poseurs like James Bond and The Most Interesting Man Alive. Don’t get me wrong, I like James Bond Movies, but in regards to the definition of the type of cool I am talking about they are spoofs because they are completely superficial caricatures of cool, and not real to boot!
Bo Diddley, on the other hand, is the outrageous, experimental, audacious cool. Its what one Wild-Turkey slugging journalist from Louisville (pronounced LOOL-ville) would call Gonzo. Its anything goes, and the wilder the better. That is a lot of what Bo Diddley is about, and frankly, it’s cool. I mean most others would look silly on an album cover like this, but with Bo there it makes it one my favorite album covers of all time.
I love that custom Gretsch too. There are also some great and classic cuts on this album:
Sixteen Tons (a great version of a old folk classic!)
Really, in someways, Bo was also a geek, as is demonstrated in this pic (below) and also, captured that audacious aspect of cool using the geek get-up to create irony and humor, which I think is critical component of making outlandishness work over the long haul.
You have to not take yourself so seriously. He does remind me quite a bit of Buddy Holly in this pic, or does Buddy remind me of Bo? Either way, in my view Buddy and Bo were significant figures in rock and roll. They helped defined its mores as significantly in some ways as Elvis, I think. Maybe not as much influence, but their particular contribution as certainly part of the basic language of rock--even today!
I think Bo had to use a lot of humor and stunts because he was really not that great of a guitar player. Listen to one of his classic songs: Before You Accuse Me.
Is that good guitar? Well, its cool, (the intro lick is classic), but a little painful to listen to as you aren’t sure if the guitar is really in tune, and if Bo meant to really hit that note!
And really, that’s one the great thing about Bo Diddley if you can believe it--he was simply not that great of a guitar player--in fact, he was barely passable, but that’s okay. There are many great musicians who are not virtuosos in the history of music. Bo Diddley has this great gift was for showmanship and individuality. He tried so many different things that were so unusual and ahead of their time, like having a female guitar players, and I believe she played maracas too.
But more importantly, regarding the music, he knew how to catch and hold onto a groove. Let’s not forget he is really the father of one of the most influential grooves in all of rock and roll music. This is what you hear on I Want Candy and the Who’s Magic Bus. Very simply put it IS the Bo Diddley, and it is about the most easy and most fun lick to play on a guitar. You need no talent, but if you play with feeling people will dance! And here is Bo on an early Ed Sullivan episode playing his signature song:
Obviously, there is much more to explore with Bo Diddley in regards to his music, and even his name! Bo Diddley is a play on words for a Diddley Bow--an awesome one stringed slide guitar you can make at home with just a few items! See my entry It Might Get Loud, a Review.
Of all the great guitar players that nobody knows much about (but should) I think Magic Sam tops list in my view. Magic Sam, a legend of the west side of Chicago, was to me a great sound of the blues who died way too early. It seems as though he was just beginning-he just played the Ann Arbor Blues Festival and began to tour, not only in America but also in Europe, and sadly he died of a heart attack in 1969. He was only 32.
Sam’s licks were groovy and intense and he could be both smooth and feverish, and with the addition of a slight reverb with a heavy tremolo on his amp, Magic Sam had a very distinctive tone. He started recording for the Cobra record label in 1957, started to make quite a name for himself. Here’s an example from YouTube but I think you’ll like from German TV which is way, way, way cool:
I mean what the hell is more awesome than that?I mean, that is authentic, soulful, and sincere.
One of the very interesting things about Magic Sam that most people don’t know about is that he was very good friends with Otis Rush. In fact, they shared a guitar together.
Yes, I know, one plays lefty and one plays righty. It’s not just how the picture is taken. Otis played the upside down method utilized by the likes of Albert King. Awesome story--totally blues.
By the way, as you might knowEric Clapton was heavily influenced by the recordings of Otis Rush from the late 50s early 60s, the Cobra record label, and if you own the famous Blues Breakers album with Clapton on it, you probably already know that there is a version of All Your Love on that album which is excellent. But wait! you’re thinking, the Magic Sam do a version of all your love which is a completely different song? If you are a music geek like me, then you love noticing this sort of stuff. It’s really what drives you-to share this with other people-and also covers up the fact that you can’t play your guitar even 10% as good as any of these guys.
This is the album you must get if you want to know anything and everything you need to know about Magic Sam. I would highly recommend it that you get it on vinyl with a good speaker system because you will be impressed by both the subtlety and the intensity of the tone. It’s recorded on Delmark records, whose owner is Bob Koester, and you can still and you can subscribe to their magazine if you are a music enthusiast and order tons of vinyl you would not find otherwise. A lot of people consider West Side Soul one of the best electric blues albums ever released. I think they’re right. Unfortunately, its quite hard to find on MP3 in a form to share with you, so I would recommend getting a catalog from Delmark or visiting the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago to get your copy.
But I will leave you with a few great tracks before I end this entry:
This album is a real treat for any music fan. it’s just Magic Sam and his guitar. one of the things I have a problem with is that although I love the concept of multitrack recording and high-end production techniques, sometimes I feel that the production can drown out the music, which is a shame because it’s the music that ultimately counts. Sam Phillips understood this as he would allow takes that had obvious mistakes in them go to production because they captured the essential emotional feel that was critical to the song. That’s why I lie like live albums so much because they are hit or miss, and when they hit, they hit big time. it’s one of my philosophies of music which I hope to share in future blog entries: critical emotional content trumps flashy production every time. The best producers often simply know how to turn on a mic and walk away. Robert Johnson albums were like that, and Johnny Cash’s American recordings were all about that. That’s why I hail a guy like Rick Rubin so much-he gets it. Johnny Cash was so overproduced in the 1980s but really a lot of that stuff simply just sucks, but American recordings volume 1 is an album that still gives me chills because Johnny Cash comes through. Give me time is a lot like that as well because you get to really feel a lot of the essence of Magic Sam, which is great not only for a blues fan but for anyone.
This is a great song. It is even greater when you learn what it is all about: The Stockyards in Chicago. I liken it to The Midnight Special–most people love that song, even they don’t know what it is all about. (By the way, its about Huttie Leadbettter’s aka Leadbelly take on prison life and the Midnight Special is term for a governor’s pardon–but that’s for another blog entry!)
The Stockyards are one of the most iconic and enduring aspects of Chicago’s history–after all the City of the Big Shoulders, according to Carl Sandburg was also hog-butcher to the world in the same breath! They inhabit a huge psychic space in those who are familiar with this city and its past, and they helped define it in many ways. The city of Chicago is still a great city in many ways, but often looking back, even though many things have changed for the better, a lot of great things have also gone away too in the process. The Stockyards were certainly one of them.
The heart and soul of Chicago, in my view, is its muscial legacy. I understand that I will probably incur some debate in this regard, and perhaps it will be heated. Indeed, there are many other enduring legacies in the history of Chicago, but I still believe the greatest and the most enduring is music-specifically the blues–and those aspects of the city which helped develop it.
As like the auto-industry brought poor blacks from Mississippi to Detroit and steel workers to Gary, IN, the killing floor, as it was called, brought many up to this great city for a better life than a sharecroppers. And if the Stockyards filled such a large and powerful place in the history and development of this great city, then who better to write a song about them than the larger than life Howlin’ Wolf.
Chester Burnett a.k.a. Howlin’ Wolf was a towering man whose voice matched his nickname. Perhaps after Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, there is probably no other figure who has as mighty of a presence in the blues as Howlin’ Wolf. His impact as a singer as well as a songwriter is undeniable. I think he is in many ways the archetype for a powerful male voice belting out the modern, electric blues and as a result, his influence on rock musicians particularly in the development of a blues rock form embodied by the likes of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and others is hard to deny. He was an extremely dominating figure on stage with a commanding presence–convincing, authoritative and compelling among many other traits. But overriding above all of these traits is the Wolf’s intense emotional directness. It’s ultimately human as a result. I think that any front man in today’s rock or blues who can connect in this way with his listeners takes a strand (if not the whole rope!) of inspiration from the Wolf.
I hope to write more about the Wolf in the future. I don’t think it can be avoided, but let me first share some of the different version of Killing Floor that I think you should definitely be aware of.
This is the picture that is used on the chess reissue of the real folk blues. This is an excellent album that contained the original version of Killing Floor. This album also contains some of the other Howlin’ Wolf classics such as 300 Pounds of Heavenly Joy, Built for Comfort, poor boy, Sitting on Top of the World, And Natchez Burning. It’s a great album to start with if you’ve not heard anything by Howlin’ Wolf.
Recorded under the chess record label in the early 1970s, the London sessions include the likes of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The Wolf didn’t think too much of these young guys, didn’t think that they were very good musicians. They spent a lot of time drinking and doing drugs and sleeping in the studio. And the Wolf, at this stage in his career, slow down by heart attack and kidney disease. He would die only a few years later. In spite, of this great disconnect during recording sessions they did cut this version of Killing Floor which I think is adequate but certainly not special.
Albert King also included a powerful cover of the song which was very stripped-down and amenable to blues rock interpretations. As I mention later, Eric Clapton, as I understand it, saw the possibility of the song being transformed into a rock version/blues rock version that could introduce many people to the idiom of not only blues but rock-and of course be a hit! It’s a cool version…
This, as many Jimi fans know, is the version of the song Jimi worked on at the suggestion of Eric Clapton, who thought it would be a good song to translate into the blues-rock idiom. Jimi took it to a new level here, and at the Monterey Pop festival where he played in live in front of an American audience for the first time after becoming popular in Britain. That’s another great story by the way-how Jimi could not find any success in the United States, and how he had to travel to Britain under the guidance of Chas Chandler. Another time though for that…
Recently, I really got into Tony Joe White, I wanted to share my new found love for his music with you today on this blog post.
Tony Joe White is generally considered the father of swamp rock, which is an amalgam of blues rock set in a rural backdrop of Louisiana, where Tony Joe is from. And he is the real deal, as they might say. One of seven children he picked cotton and raised corn (that was made into corn liquor) in the land of the alligators and swamps cypress trees and bayous.
Most people know Tony Joe from his hit in the late 1960s “Poke Salad Annie,” but really that’s all they know about him, and to me that is, as they would say down in Louisiana, a low down dirty shame. What a cool song Polk Salad Annie is
Tony Looks pretty cool performing it in 1968 as well. I am not sure what show this is on.
What’s interesting is that Poke salad (pictured left), one is also known as pokeweed is essentially toxic to eat--poisonous, in fact! You have to get the leaves early in spring before they turn a red color and then you still have to boil them for a long period time before you can eat them. Apparently this neutralizes the poison. Once you realize this, the nature of the song, specifically the dangerous nature of Poke salad Annie herself, takes on a new and interesting level.
Tony Joe White’s great strength in my view was his ability to tell his wonderful folksy stories and inject a great deal of humor in the process. Because he is from Oak Grove, Louisiana and he does have a very thick southern accent he has this really distinct sound as a result. Plus, he also uses some very interesting turns of phrases and colloquialisms that you don’t see in standard conversational English. It’s really quite endearing, and it’s important note that it’s real-as real as it gets. After all honky-tonk women is sung by a guy who went to the London School of Economics. Even though it is a great song, does Mick Jagger really know anything about honky tonks or is he just talking about an idealized version of what people think and would like a honky-tonk and honky-tonk women to be like?
Finally, I think that the song Copper Kettle is an excellent song not only because it sounds good but, as a person who likes to occasionally drink whiskey, it is spot on. Distilling whiskey in a copper kettle is definitely something that whiskey aficionados prefer as opposed to stainless steel because of the chemical reaction that occurs between the heat the alcohol in the copper releasing some very aromatic and ultimately flavorful esters. In addition, to this, there are many other wonderful images that Tony creates in this song about bucolic southern life from his point of view.
There is generally a mythology that goes along with southerners distilling their own spirits whose narrative involves low intelligence type of hillbillies brewing alcohol that ultimately makes you stupid and blind. But I think it important thing to remember is that the great world of single malt scotch started out that way as well. Do you think Adam Smith and David Hume drank scotch whiskey? No, it was a low brow liquor associated with the Highland clans that were uncouth poor lawless and just plain crazy. Hume and Smith drank wine, claret specifically.
Doesn’t sound much different than a bunch of southerners brewing whiskey in their backyard, does it? But it’s actually a complex process, and there’s a lot of subtlety to it. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were the first to realize this when they went on their hunting vacations in Scotland and sampled some fine scotch whiskey. Since then Scotch whiskey has never look back. In the same sense, some of the American whiskeys are also coming into their own, but the uniquely American mixtures of Southern Rock idols and their Jack Daniels is also kinda cool too. Tony Joe knows about this too.
Recently, Learn Out Loud, a service I used to download books on tape, republished the classic 1971 Rolling Stone interview with John Lennon. Not the interview itself, mind you, but the tapes that were made during the the interview by founding editor Jann Wenner. I highly recommend it for any fan of John Lennon and music. Learn out loud is a great service and they have a lot of free downloads like this one and some excellent audiobooks at very reasonable prices!
One of the things that John said was that the Beatles classic song Yer Blues from the White Album, although its message was sincere, was a bit of the satire of the British blues scene during the 60s. I think that made me begin to think about what it really means to be authentic, and connect with your audience ( which I hope I’m doing now). If you read some of my earlier blog entries, you know that I talk about Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Clapton. Albert King, as you might know by now, is a favorite of mine, and I think he is an important father/definer of the modern electric guitar.
The way Albert King plays his guitar is really as an extension of himself-his soul really when you think about it. Even though they could technically be any instrument, it is the electric guitar. I think this has to do with several facts about the guitar: #1 the instrument itself is highly expressive because you can use your fingers to bend to different notes that are both chromatic and non chromatic. You simply can’t do this with the Piano. The note is the note. #2 With amplification and effects, the guitar can assume a wide variety of sounds they can be easily manipulated through your tone controls, a pedal, or the amplifier itself. This is really the unique thing about the guitar, that is the modern electric guitar, that makes it such a powerful instrument. It has so many possibilities that it really can express, as close as any musical instrument can, the inner feeling of that particular individual person. I know, any instrument can do this. But there is something magic and powerful about the guitar, and Albert King was certainly one of the first people who captured that power playing it.
As I’ve noted previously, I thought Stevie Ray Vaughan was about as close as you get to capturing the essence of Albert King. He got it, and he still sounded like Stevie. That’s what I think the key is. You can go on YouTube now can find about 50 guys who sound exactly like Albert King when he is playing. But you don’t have to be a music fan to figure out these guys are just copycats, and there really is not much to them. It’s nice, and it’s nice to listen to, and I will grant that they are in all likelihood much better musicians and guitar players and I am. But even though they may capture the technical aspects of Albert King’s playing, Stevie and the one who really understood his essence. That’s really hard to do, I think.
Eric Clapton comes into the fold, in the early 1960s, like many of his contemporaries, with a deep love and respect and fascination with the blues. But as John Lennon says on the tapes in his interview for Rolling Stone that even though he had listened to all the same stuff that Eric Clapton, and others, such as the Stones had listened to, he knew that wasn’t going to be possible to sound like Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf. So they created this idiom of British blues rock, and Eric Clapton was really at the forefront of that with the blues Breakers and the Yardbirds and even Cream to an extent. Some of it was just excellent. I love the version of Hideaway that Eric Clapton does. I also think All your Love is a classic as well. But as you know some of it was not so good, certainly it has been forgotten because it is just a white boy being lost in the blues, and not in the good sense of that phrase. Lost means you haven’t got a clue in this case rather than lost meaning overwhelmed by this great force called the blues-that’s a good way to be lost in the blues, I think.
So, I think it’s pretty funny and clever but John Lennon reveals that to an extent Yer Blues mocks the British blues scene in his late 60s. And so, it’s spring becomes rather paradoxical. It is a sincere song on one level, that is its message, but on another level it’s a bit of a mockery and its extreme-suicidal actually. But still, among Beatles fans, and especially John Lennon fans, it’s a total favorite. I love this song. That’s the great thing about the Beatles I think. They really played so many subtle games with the idiom of pop music and really made it an art and so many levels-something that can be otherwise droll, banal, and utterly forgetful. I still love the song though… Even though it’s probably making fun of someone like me!
I don’t really want to knock the Saab brand, but I kinda do. As you might have already guessed, when it comes to cars, I like the big American pigs, Cadillacs, Buicks, Pontiacs, etc.
When we were growing up, my mom had an awesome 70′s Pontiac, that was silver on the outside, and had a plush purple interior. Unfortunately, some vandals burned it in our parking lot when I was a kid. This was in the suburbs! I still remember that morning when I looked outside my window on a Saturday morning, and I told my mom her car was on fire. She went out to try to put the fire out with a garden hose, while I called the fire department. Yes, she actually ran out to put out the fire with a garden hose. Looking back on it now, it damned funny to think about, but at the time, if the gas tank blew up…who knows. She was lucky, for sure.
But back to Saabs, they seem to me the ultimate elitist vehicle. I am sure they are not, but they sure seem to be. It always seems people who tie sweaters around their body instead of actually wearing them drive these cars. But who knows? I might find myself driving one these cars in the future, since I know what an Arnie Palmer is, and like drinking them quite a bit.
But inside, I have always secretly feel a little like John Daly, and so I would want to drive down Sheridan road at about 11:30 playing these songs. It would be worth it to see the police officers expression as he pulled me over for playing my music too loud.
The Black album is an excellent album by Jay-Z. It is produced my Rick Rubin, one of my very favorite producers. To put it simply: I wish I was Rick Rubin. He has produced so much excellent stuff, and he has his finger on the pulse of what is not only cool, but what is sounds awesome. This album was “mixed” with the White Album by the Beatles (also one of my favorites) by DJ Danger Mouse to get this cool mix.
Now, that congress is considering a value-added tax (VAT), or the so-called national sales tax, I think it would be wise to remember why the Beatles and the Rolling Stones left England to stay in America. George Harrison’s famous song Taxman, was just that–a song complaining about high taxes.
Here is a fun link from the Beatles Cartoon. I just love how the cartoon captures all their moptop moves! Also, listen to the cartoon voices. Sound familiar? Should if you spend as much time watching Rocky and Bullwinkle as I did as a kid (and as I do now with my kids!):
In the late 60′s and 70′s, the marginal tax rate was over 90%–yes, that’s right 90%. That means that out of every 100 dollars a person made (or pounds as it was in England), 90 dollars of it was the goverment’s. In fact, that was the impetus for the Rolling Stones to leave England, in the early 70′s. They simply couldn’t afford to pay their debts on their private contracts as well as their taxes–the rate was 93%. This indirectly may have been a good thing for a Stones fans, and it resulted in them leaving England and moving to France where they recorded their now classic double album “Exile on Main Street.” It is an amazing album, and the documentary about its making is also worthwhile for any Stones fan, if only to reinforce the awe anyone has when they see Keith Richards alive in 2010. They did a lot of drugs for sure, but they also created a heap of great music as well.
Here is a guitar lesson of one of the most well known songs on Exile, Tumbling dice. Played with a capo in open G tuning. It is nice lesson that shows the magic tricks of Keith Richards. Remember guitar wonks: “Always have a telecaster with the high E missing laying around!”
My personal belief on the VAT? Well, all I can say is that if it comes, we won’t have any great bands coming from England to live in the United States for awhile.
Here are some Amazon Picks from my carousel for this entry, including a hot cover of Taxman by Stevie Ray which I love, and you will too. And something for the dads to buy their kids that the dads will actually like to watch. That is one of the best parts about being a parent, no doubt!:
For me, this is one of the foremost White boy lost in the Blues tracks of all time, and of course, a blues standard. As the story goes, Hound Dog Taylor was messing around with a riff, which Freddie King stole, penned Hideway, and made it his signature song. What’s interesting about the song is that most blues is played with a minor pentatonic scale over a major chord progression. The signature lick is a major pentatonic lick. It sounds happier, as that’s what the major pentatonic does. It also has these wonderful interludes where for instance, the the Henry Mancini theme from Johnny Gun is played, although many variations have been played by many artists.
Hideway, as I have been told is a classic and classical, it HAS to be played the right way, or it’s not Hideway. Although, there is some wiggle rooms, as with all Blues, there is really not all that much. And it is deceptive as it is both easy to play and hard to master, because it just has this feel that not only you have to master, but the other guys you are playing with have to get. If there is any song that really whets my appetite for the Blues, this is it. One of the major White boy lost in Blues tracks.
If you were a white kid in the 60′s, as I have been told by Elvin Bishop in a interview (who happened to start playing with Hound Dog Taylor on the south Side of Chicago), everyone had to know how to play Hideway, and in Elvin’s case, Hound Dog, even though he is famously credited with pennning the lick, could not play the song. It was the easiest way to get in an real authentic south side blues band, which were simply EVERYWHERE on the sound side of Chicago in the 60′s and 70′s. It is a time I am not familiar with except for the music, but I would have liked the chance to see the Home of the Blues, when its moniker match its content. ENJOY!
Here is a nice funky seventies version from one of the three kings of the Blues, the Texas Cannonball, Freddie King. Though not his best album, it is funky and a must for the fan of Freddy and the Blues in general.
Here is the Texas Cannonball, on YouTube. He is the guitar stud I can only dream of being. I wish I could be that cool! Henry Mancini would be proud! And what about the Go-Go dancer on the piano–that is just out of site, baby, farout and way cool!
And of course, really my favorite non-Freddie King version, Clapton with the Blues Breakers. You will see a million guitar geeks try to play this version on You Tube, because when Clapton played that red ES-335 with through a Marshall stack, he was a Blues GOD! Absolutely one of my favorite songs of all time: it always puts me in a good mood–even though I can’t play it well.
There are obviously countless versions out there. Here are some Amazon Links of some of the versions I have included here, and some other ones I recommend listening to, including some of my favorite Freddie King albums, as he is one of my absolute Blues heroes on the guitar.
It is a magic song for me. I never really get tired of hearing it, and what other players bring to it. I hope you enjoy it as well! Here are some Amazon picks I think you will really love:
Also, if you want to read more about the Blues, and learn more about Freddie King, in general, I recommend :
If you love music, and I certainly do, you might have already seen the Davis Guggenheim documentary that features The Edge, Jimmy Page,and Jack White.
At first glance, I thought: “Hmmm. I wonder how that’s going to work.” My thought was, as you might guess, that it would not work and it would end up being clumsy, tense, and hard to watch. After all, Jimmy Page is a high-level rock guitar god, defining the genre with his fiery,overdriven blues licks played a low-slung Gibson Les Paul, not to mention his physical appearance, which is a mix between lurid sexuality and a mythic royality from an ancient eastern kingdom.
The Edge on the other hand, I have never considered an great technical guitarist, certainly not when compared with Jimmy Page. I have always admired The Edge’s ability as a sound and tone innovator, using a wide range of subtle effects on his guitar to develop a really distinct and singular sound is sonically complex and interesting, and of course, the driving force behind U2′s distinctive sound.
And Jack White is a someone I knew very little about before I saw the movie, and in fact, I wasn’t even really sure that he played the guitar at all.
But the movie definitely delivers in many ways, and it is fun to watch for any music fan. It also changed some of the perceptions that I had generally held about both Jimmy Page and The Edge.
I had never really heard Jimmy Page speak before the movie, and I didn’t realize really what a soft voice he has. In a strange way it is a sort of a reverse DJ kind of phenomena, in the sense that most people are surprised when they see a DJ for the first time. (Usually in a bad way–you’ve got a face for radio is a common saying for a reason).
Likewise, with Jimmy Page: Here is one of the all time flaming guitar gods of rock and he appears to have a soft lisp in his voice. Certainly not disappointing but weird for sure. Though I understand it is not reasonable to assume that a guitarists style he plays would match his voice, it seems intuitive to assume that it actually would.
What also is interesting is to learn is how Jimmy came from the same place muscially a lot of his colleague in the who, the beatles, the kinks, eric clapton, and the rolling stones came from. Though each of these bands is quite different, they all were built with skiffle and Link Wray. The Link Wray makes sense for Led Zeppelin, but the skiffle not so much.
It’s pretty amazing to see Jimmy Page in this video, and then imagine him shirtless with long hair playing his Les Paul with a violin bow. I love the thought.
To me, though, learning more about The Edge was the best part of the movie. One thing that I continually remind myself is that music is more about virtuosity–it is a feeling and a mindset. It is music more about than just playing notes in the traditional way, and in many ways, the Edge embodies this because he is not a great technical guitarist in the traditional sense, but of the 3 guitarists portrayd in this movie, he is probably the technically most gifted in every non-traditional sense.
His sense of soundscapes creating mood and feeling that is honest and something people can deeply relate to is really unparalleled in many way. Yes, the Edge is an effects guitarist, and he relies on technology, and most people feel that technology cheapens music. But the Edge really shows the other side of technology, which is exciting, dynamic, full of potential and can bring out the best of what music is because it never forgets the heart and soul that is at the center of it all.
You see, The Edge is just a great guy, and that really shines though in the movie. He appears to be what he appears to be, and there is nos ense of pretention about the way he talks and acts.
For me, though, the most interesting aspect of the movie was learning about Jack White. I really didn’t know that much about Jack White at all before I saw the movie. I knew the White Stripes, and I also knew the song about school friends (don’t even know the title) that is the opening theme of Napoleon Dynamite. I liked the movie, and I liked the song too. I thought it was a good little song, but not much else, and I thought Jack White is a new punker for the whipper snappers, so to speak, really beyond me, muscially, in many ways, and to tell you the truth, I had no idea why he was even included in the film.
However, the first scene where Jack White builds a diddley bow is pretty awesome for a guitar geek like me, and then to see how musical he really is was also great insight.
In fact, Jack White is a pretty interesting guy, and is a lot more complex that I had originally anticipated, as well as eccentric. Being the 10th of 10 kids tends to do that, and being a drummer, as Jack White started out, is just a code word, as most people who play music know, is a code word for crazy. After all, why do you think Animal from the muppets was a drummer?
But Jack White is not just eccentric or crazy, he is a very talented multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for cool cheap as hell guitars you can beat the hell out and get great tone, which I can truly relate to. Sometimes you can play a 5000 dollar guitar, but a cheap Teisco with a series of humbuckers in sequence that are wound as hot as hell can sound like the muscial equivalent a spicy chitlin dinner followed by a hot fudge sundae, as anyone who has listened to Hound Dog Taylor can attest to.
I like this about Jack White, and I also like the scene in the movie where he talks about his favorite song by Son House, Grinnin’ in your Face where he is just singing and tapping–no instruments.
At that point, I think I began to understand Jack White’s take on life and music, and what he is trying to do. It seems to me, that what Jack White is all about is distilling in the most pure punk element possible from blues, using his favorite song by Son House as the continual lighthouse guiding him to find that essence.
That being said, I am not totally convinced about Jack White, as his personality is definitely over the top–the pork pie hat, the diddley bow, Son House, the bleeding fingers, the cheap as hell guitars.
He is so intensely enthusiastic about all of his interests that its hard to believe that he is truly enthusiastic about it any of it. It seems that he has created a standard outside of himself that he stuggles to reach, which is really not himself at all. He talks about this a bit during the movie quite a bit. In ways that is noble, and the true artists calling. However, it also can be perceived as pretentious and sanctimonious. Be yourself, after all.
That being said, I think Jack White is a compelling musician and musical personality because he brings out those questions.
May 20, 2012 1799 Honore De Balzac 1851 Emile Berliner 1908 James Stewart 1920 Betty Driver 1942 Lynn Davies 1944 Joe Cocker 1946 Cher 1961 Nick Heyward
