I jammed yesterday with Guitar and Keys. There were some fun moments. How many people get to jump from progressive rock to reggae to "Sleepwalk" to polka to blues to really out Dead-like noodling? And I'm getting OK on the bass. As was mentioned earlier, Musical Director is setting up a surrogate band so the main one can have some time off if necesary, and Guitar suggested that he might try me out on bass.
Bass in a power trio is cool. It's cool because the guitarist is playing lead/flash much of the time, so he's working off the the base I create, and the drummer fills the timekeeper role, not being a harmonic instrument (except at about fifty seconds in on this curse-word-containing video, where Alex plays in unison with Eddie), so every decision regarding song structure is mine. I'm not quite up to the challenge, but I'm getting there. Now I just need a bass.
Five-string? Fretless? Five-string fretless? Certainly long-scale. I'm 6'4". I'm big enough for the big bass. Thoughts and suggestions?
Musical Director brought out the guitar his dad let him have, a 1970s Tele Custom, with the Tele bridge and the big honkin' humbucker in the neck. I got to play it a little. I want it so bad. He promised me right of first refusal should he ever want to sell it. Which I suggested he not do.
Speaking of buying and selling, I've been digging out the Allman Brothers again, and thus I have fallen in love again with Goldtops. I've signed up for the Slash guitar giveaway, but should that fall through, I've been looking at this Agile from Rondo. Of course, this looks cool, too, and except for position markers, this is the very model of a Les Paul I described year months ago. Message: I care. About Les Pauls.
3 comments:
Ah, the annual winter Allmans-fest. For some reason when the weather turns colder each year I start to crave the Allmans.
Obviously I'm primarily talking about the old-old stuff when it was fresh, new and dynamic, something otherworldly, never heard before, or since. I tend to gorge myself on them, reading the biographies, scanning them for some nugget of insight that I'd missed. My iPod seems to forget all the other good stuff that's on there. Almost daily, the opening bars of "Don't Want You No More" signal my own personal 'call to prayer'.
I also bore my friends and family silly with anecdotes, knowing full well that 'they don't get it'. My sister once borrowed my first prize random greatest hits album (a post-duane magazine giveaway, I'm sure) on the strength of Melissa, but that was right before she discovered the Indigo Girls. Screaming guitars couldn't compete with melodic vocals and acoustic guitars in her book.
And while everyone raves about the vast improvement from debut to Idlewild I bite my tongue. I always preferred the open rawness of the former which exuded an unbridled passion for music.
I actually love seeing the new line up live, though. Warren and Derek are both great and Gregg is now the old warhorse he was always destined to be, belting out "Whipping Post" one more time... one more time... Their sound is more polished, more intelligent in a way, but the magic is still there. One of these years I'll make it to the Beacon run. Maybe I'll take up residence in NY and catch 3 or 4 shows. Maybe that'll be the year I win the lottery :-) In my gut I feel like it has to be soon.
Everyone's onto the Goldtops right now, too. Must be fuelled by the Gibson/Epi revival. We all remember how we wanted one... and now we want one again.
Must buy that lottery ticket...
Search your feelings, Dave. Come to the dark side. You will become more powerful than you could ever imagine.
I pulled out Beginnings, Kenski, and realized that the two-octave pentatonic run in "Don't Want You Know More" is the reason the lick in Mudcrutch's "Bootleg Flyer" is the Allmans lick to me.
Patrick, I drool. Really, I do. But if I go that direction, I will really need separate volume and tone controls so I can do the Tom Morello mute switch trick. But I can and will be seduced by the dark side. Or should I say, the bright and sparkly side?
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