Jake Edwards Elijah Few Music

The Blackbird Rider. Awesome.

It sounds like the raven haired ghost of a southpaw bluesman ridin’ them blinds on the run from his own shadow. It isn’t though. Its the BLACKBIRD GUITAR COMPANY’s steel or nlyon string carbon fibre,  CNC routed, ultra modern solution for the guitarist on the run!

The Blackbird Rider features an all-hollow uni-body shell setting it apart from any guitar in the world. That is the body, neck, and head are cast in one-piece with the sound board, fretboard, tuners, etc. added to that main component.

Forming the main component in one-piece eliminates the weak and sound-absorbing joints associated with standard guitars. This patent-pending construction relies on the incredibly strong and stiff properties of carbon fiber as well as plenty of unique design features to create the strongest, most resonant small-bodied guitar available anywhere.

What makes these things ultra cool is that the entire guitar is hollow and acts as a resonating chamber. There’s a  sound hole in the HEAD of the guitar as well as within the body – BUT  in an unusual position where the top horn would normally be. Also because they’re made from carbon fibre they come as tough as old boots – bring it on!

AND, Just like the revolutionary Model T Ford you can get them in any colour – as long as it’s black! With such an unusual symmetry in design these things look like the geometrical offspring of a Futurists dream. In those softer moments when Darth Vader gets the blues and an oily black tear wells up in his cyborg eye you know that this is the piece he reaches for.

The Elijah Few Project…

Its changing.

I have a conundrum – on a personal level I have songs pouring out of me which just don’t make it through the high end of production fast enough. With the sights set upon world class production there is a vast vacuum between song writing song production and song release. Not one song has been finished yet. In a long long time – for alot of very complicated reasons. THe production incidentally is AMAZING.

1. I write the song

2. the production starts….

3. nothing has been released….

This creates a barrier to authentic performance as without the production finished the song can’t be performed by the band that hasn’t been built around the production. It’s questionable if this kind of production lends itself to authenticity anyway – THESE SONGS aren’t meant to BE PRODUCTS.

I`m thinking that a parallel way to produce this material is to produce it quickly with simple live in the studio acoustic performances from a small band with a few overdubs, a much more organic method – alongside a high fidelity production process with a focus upon polished, slick, detailed, top end expensive production.

That might happen later.

I think that these songs are ALL ABOUT a small, focused, ambient   intimate, edgy  sound rather than a large grandiloquent superslick big numbers production.

What about hand drawn and printed, hand made, highly limited edition c.d.’s, or even L.P’s sent direct from us?

That way the songs do NOT stagnate. That way songs get made and finished. That way people can play them and they don’t sit here on this website rotting like carcasses.

I’d rather have  a small number of  fans who actually really listen, enjoy and connect with what I do than 10,000 who buy a product because these songs aren’t products at all…that way the songs and the people who want to listen get the kind of production they deserve. Most of these songs were written in 2005 and 2006, one of them in 1996. I think it’s about time the pen was put to paper on the final chapter.

Its up to you……..

Also, wouldnt people rather have something to actually play and listen to rather than watching these songs creep along the floor, on this website, like broken spiders, slowly looking for a way out into the light? Im thinking about selling the songs on sellaband…

I`m asking you guys cause you are the first 26 people who are going to receive these songs.

Something along these lines….if at all possible

That’s the soulful sound of Darren Watson, a resonator, a valve mike and a truckload of talent turning up the heat!

Last year I had the lucky chance to interview Darren Watson when I was writing for the Jamarama Guitar Blog and this year I was lucky enough to see Darren just recently cooking up some great blues tunes at the Ruby Lounge in Wellington whilst enjoying some fine, fine ales amongst the company of like minded blues rock afficionados.

What particularly caught my attention was Darren’s band. They were tighter than two coats of paint, never overplayed and the bass man was definitely off the hook – as fluid as a lavalamp in zero gravity.

Darren also cooked up some serious glass finger bottleneck on the stratocaster that really had the place buzzing. Every now and then the band segued into classic guitar motifs, such as Jimi Hendrix‘ melody hook from Third Stone From the Sun; and, I was pleased to see Darren bashing the ole guitar with his fist every now and then to generate some feedback. Something we can ALL relate to. It was a versatile set and a great show with plenty of varied pace and Darren’s range, tone and fidelity are something else – not only that Darren Watson is a great guy so go to his show – say “hello”, and  check out his records at www.darrenwatson.com.

Here is the interview from  last year and what will impress upon you immediately is Darren’s no-nonsense, down to earth unpretentious approach to the guitar, the blues and life in general; it’s a guitar lesson in itself!

Today I`m going to spend ten minutes with highly accomplished south pacific blues master Darren Watson. You may not have heard of Darren but in a career spanning three decades Darren has worked on the bill with such blues luminaries and giants as Robert Cray, Koko Taylor, George Thorogood, Billy Boy Arnold, Doug MacLeod, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Dr. John and Keb Mo . . certainly no bunch of blues slackers by anybodies stretch of the imagination and a real testament to Darren’s skills as a musician.

To those who remember New Zealand music back in the day, in the ’80s, or those who have even a passing interest in blues, the name Darren Watson will always bring on a smile. As the founder and leader of Wellington powerhouse band Chicago Smoke Shop, Darren enjoyed a 6 year stint in the public eye with chart singles like Mind On My Sleeve and I Can’t Live Without Your Love.

He has been nominated a colossal six times for New Zealand Music Awards for a body of recorded work that includes two Top 40 albums and singles and three critically acclaimed solo albums including 2002’s Tui Award nominated ‘King Size’, and 2005’s stunning and genre breaking ‘South Pacific Soul’.

Darren is the real deal when it comes to blues guitar. I’ve been listening to guitar myself for 30 years and Darren has style, taste, timing, technique and tone…and just what the hell else is there?

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QUESTION 1.

Jake:

Hi Darren, kia ora, How`s it going man, and how`s the weather up there, blue enough for you ?

Darren :

Heh heh… not today, bro`! It’s nine degrees and raining! Wellington in springtime.. heh heh

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QUESTION 2.

Jake:

Darren, our readers are more often than not beginner guitarists so I`d like to start by asking how, when and where you first became seriously involved in the guitar – was there anyone in particular that helped steer you in the right direction?

Darren:

I grew up in the era just after The Beatles broke up so their shadow loomed large in my life. That, and my cousin was guitarist in a pretty popular band in NZ in the 60s – the Librettos – so I got to hear a fair bit about how cool rock n’ roll was. I played some drums, piano and trumpet before I actually thought I had settled on bass. My first couple of years playing was on bass . . a regular rightie Macca heh heh…. in my DREAMS!
But, yeah then I stopped playing in covers bands at about 17 and started taking guitar seriously instead. About the same time I discovered blues for myself.

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QUESTION 3.

Jake:

And, did you start out with a high-end guitar like a gibson 335, or like most of us, begin playing on a rotten old plank from Walmart? (myself – I had an old plank but I had to take a ferry from the fretboard to the strings the action was so damn high!)

Darren:

LOL…. No way man. My first six-string was a nasty Carlos Les Paul copy. The neck warped within a couple of weeks. Grin* A total P.O.S..
I didn’t have my first real Strat` until we had a record in the charts when I was twenty-two!

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QUESTION 4.

Jake:

Okay. So, do you have any advice for those who are struggling to get to grips with the instrument? Can you remember your early days, and which artists really inspired you back then?

Darren:

I am really lucky in that music has always come really easy to me. I feel like I have always understood how it works, even before I had NAMES for things. Getting to grips with the guitar was all about mechanics for me – and I think it is for a lot of people – you know, finding a technique that works for them. I don’t buy this idea that there is only one ‘right’ way to play.

As for inspiration on guitar, I was hugely inspired by the ‘lefty-upside-down’ players like Albert King, and Otis Rush. Also really got into guys using different techniques and tunings – like Albert Collins and Skip James. You can’t go past early BB King either. I mean his 1950s stuff is almost without peer vocally and for the guitar stuff. I also like Robert Cray and early Jimmy Vaughan with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. I reckon Cray is the most important guy in blues today – he’s actually got his own voice. Too many Stevie Ray Vaughan clones out their, may he rest in peace one day…..

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QUESTION 5.

Jake:

Well Darren I`ve got to say I agree with you there. And why is the blues a great place to start when approaching the guitar? is it because there are a range of styles and forms from the simple to the highly complex that  allow players such a depth of expression ?

Darren:

I think it’s because to make it sound good you really have to get to grips with rhythm and your sound. There’s nowhere to hide melodically or harmonically. If you just wail away playing scales you are guaranteed to sound shit in my opinion. It forces you to be inventive with time.

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QUESTION 6.

Jake:

That`s a smart smart answer people! Right Darren; you`ve got a killer guitar tone – what`s the deal with your guitars and amps, have you got any particular amps and guitar combinations that you prefer for electric blues playing?

Darren:

Thanks man. I have really concentrated on this for most of my life. I used to think it was about gear but the older I get the more I realize it’s mostly in the hands. You can line up 30 people playing through the same gear and they’re all gonna sound completely different. Having said that, great gear helps plenty. At the moment I’m mostly playing a Fender ’59 ThinSkin Strat through a Headstrong Lil King-S. It’s like a souped-up blackface Princeton, LOL,  but not as souped up as  a MK1 Boogie! I run a HBE compressor and a MXR CAE clean boost into the amp and that’s it as far as effects go. The comp for slide and the boost for… um, well  boosting. Grin*

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QUESTION 7.

Jake:

Awesome Darren, just awesome. I just love the MK1 Boogies; but they`re definitely supercharged amp’s. The MXR CAE clean boost sounds great – and unusual; I’ve never heard of one before. Cool man.

For those out there just beginning to become familiar with the language of the blues are there any fundamental scales that you tend to use ?

Darren:

I’m a big believer in playing the changes and not getting too hung up on scales. Most of my favorite blues players aren’t big on the minor pentatonics like a lot of blues/rock players tend to be. I get modal from time to time but I really don’t think about it too much. I teach people how to use their ears and play the changes first. Too many people I hear playing in music shops and (God forbid!?!) sometimes on stage sound like they’re running exercises as solos. Rambling and phrase-less. I actually think we can all learn from singers and wind instruments. BREATHE in between those phrases, baby! Heh heh Make the notes count. Soloing is basically composition on the fly – so let’s have some hooks. I would rather play a fat groove than solo anyway.

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QUESTION 8.

Jake:

(smiles) Yeah Darren; I`m with you on that one it’s saxophonists for me!
So, when it comes to playing acoustic fingerstyle blues what do you look for in your guitar sound – I see you`re using a `58 Gibson LG-2 – could you also tell me what’s so special about this instrument and how it informs your playing?

Darren:

Oh man, that guitar is a total babe! I’m so lucky I found her. It’s the first small box I have found that lets me really dig in and doesn’t choke.  You can also play whisper quiet and the tops are just so silky sounding….. I’m in love with that guitar, man. It cuts without ever sounding nasty and there’s not a hint of nasty boxiness. But it’s also not a boomy strum box like the D28 etc. They’re o.k. for some stuff but for what I do a small box is perfect and this is about the best example I’ve played.

Jake:

I May have to translate that  for our readers a little Darren!
I think what Darren is saying is that this guitar allows him to really rhythmically groove, like a steam train, without losing any tone or characteristic timbre and clarity at high or low volumes. Here is what it sounds like:

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QUESTION 9.

It would be great Darren if you could pick five inspirational records and maybe give us a short explanation as to why they resonate with you:

Darren:

1. BB King – Live At The Regal

The ultimate blues performance? Probably. BB King at the peak of his powers. 40ish and taking no prisoners. The band swings like a whorehouse and even the audience is amazing.

2. The Fabulous Thunderbirds – Girls Go Wild

This album totally changed my life. Recorded in 1978 but it sounds like it could’ve been made in the 50s. I discovered Jimmie Vaughan and (harmonica great) Kim Wilson through this album. He was channeling all the great old blues players here – and his tone is to DIE for. Unlike Stevie Vaughan who was all about flash and brute strength, Jimmie had sweet touch and a rare economy of phrasing that puts Stevie in his place I reckon. If you haven’t heard this album I suggest you try your darndest to pick up a copy.

3. Tom Waits – Swordfishtrombnes

I was at high school when I saw a clip of Tom on TV. In a world of vapid synth-pop and dumb ass post-punk pop this record really spoke to me that blues, jazz and weirdness could still be grown and merged successfully. I’m a huge fan to this day. Not particularly about guitar this album but then neither am I really – I always reckon music counts above petty things like what it’s played on.

4. Top Of The Stax – Various Artists

Steve Cropper is a big hero of mine as a writer and a session master. He plays on most of the tracks on this Stax records compilation. He never played two notes when one would do – and how about the total genius of reversing the chords for the intro of Midnight Hour to make the riff for Knock On Wood. And getting away with it! Brilliant.

5. Muddy Waters – His Best 1947-55

This guy did more to teach me about TIME and tone than anyone else ever did. This is the best Muddy compilation and avoids a lot of the later crap that Chess Records led him into in search of a hit.

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QUESTION 10.

Jake:

Thanks Darren – these are great great discs and I think your comments about timing will really, really help some of our readers. Finally I noticed in some of your early performances with the big band sound you`re rocking a rather large quiff that gives you the suave yet dangerous appearance of a riverboat gambler – does this help at all – and can it be performed without blues supervision?

Darren:

LOL – yeah well at least I never sported a mullet, bro!     

Jake:

Fantastic !!
Well there you have it everybody , THE WORD from none other than south pacific bluesmaster Darren Watson. Thank you Darren for talking to us and for giving us such an invaluable insight into your approach to guitar and for sharing your time.

Darren is available for one on one lessons if you are in New Zealand’s beautiful harbour city capital of Wellington.

Don’t limit yourself and think that playing the guitar is all about technique – and don’t for one second think that
open tunings are really all about slide guitar glass finger playing. The idiosyncratic style of seminal folk maestro, peace messenger and Woodstock Festival icon Richie Havens illustrates a far more expressive and luminous emotionally complex language born of a primitive, feeling based approach to music and the guitar that speaks effortless volumes. Havens is as deep as the sea and as wide as the sky when he picks up the guitar and he plays it like he means it, like he can save us all with it.

If anyone ever needed a reason to pick up a guitar and sing, Richie Havens must have a thousand of them running through his being because his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival in New York is something so inspirational to behold it’s nothing short of a call to arms, the divine fiat heralding the apocalypse, the second coming, the end of time encapsulating all the hopes, dreams, tragedies and fears of the festival, the decade, the generation and the human race. It is an epic moment in musical time.

Coming on first at the Woodstock Festival Havens mesmerised the audience for around three hours and was called back for encore after encore. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual “Motherless Child” that became “Freedom”.

At the end of the day when you pick up that guitar, you have to play it like you mean it, make it yours and own it; no matter how you play it. SO, tune to open D and head on over to Richie Havens website here for the basic chord voicings he uses to play in the open D tuning. And Get playing.

…some dreams are destined to become the ephemeral, transient, fleeting, angels of the imagination, or fragile, brittle, creatures of clay…

Not all seraphs effloresce into beautiful flying colour; some may fly but fall earthbound from heaven – the filthy offspring of rotting flesh cast to the wind…

this song is in progress.

DREAM BIG or DONT DREAM AT ALL

Back in `o7  – an improvisational  jam live with cool jazz  guitar messenger Wellington’s D-mas…

13

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I call it thirteen cause

“Now there’s number on every man.”

2006

Let not your heart
be so sad baby
jesus gonna meet me in the air

meet me in the air, air
you know my time is soon
meet me in the air
we’ll meet behind the moon

i been trying to reach you baby
in the mountains and the sky
in the distant echo of my memory
it’s no shame for you to cry

meet me in the air
you know my time int long
meet me in the air, maybe
soon I will be gone

upon the clouds, upon a white horse shining
steadfast, faithful and true
eyes aflame and with a head of many crowns
and with a name that no-one knew

met me in the air
you know my time is gone
meet me in the air air baby
you know my time is gone

In `06, out on the plains a second hand bookseller with a good collection of religious pamphlets, guides, and other ephemera  immediately struck upon a small azure blue pamphlet, nothing heavy like the apocrypha – a New Testament piece. When the cover opened, apposite to the frontispiece, etched in the dark blue ink of a fountain pen a handwritten note became the inspiration for this song.

Written in ‘96

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Flick the switch and turn off the machine

[Cauterise] my soul and set me free

Please help me god I cant breathe

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I only wanna see the sun

(x2 first time)

Collide with space and slowly burn away

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Cant we heal can we repair ?

Hurts so bad

Hurts so bad

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I only wanna see the sun

(x2 first time)

Collide with space and slowly burn away

Dont cry…the wires
Dont lie, desire…

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I only wanna see the sun

(x2 first time)

Collide with space and slowly burn away

Flick the switch and turn off the machine

[Cauterise] my soul and set me free

Please help me god I cant breathe

_{Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000173 EndHTML:0000002739 StartFragment:0000002368 EndFragment:0000002703}

I only wanna see the sun

Collide with space and slowly burn away

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Don’t try to cut the wires

Don’t try to cut the wires

Life support it isn’t life

Life support its just a lie

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13 years after recording this into a YAMAHA MTX3 4 track,  here’s what I laid down as a guide; just faster:

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If there was ever a soul sacrifice made to the celestial guitar gods, it was Hendrix himself…exploding into flames at the Monterey Festival; Hendrix burnt away in a three year vapour trail of psychedelic drugs, hard touring, alcohol, groupies, invention, and innovation – notwithstanding the management, money and alleged mafia troubles that followed in his infinitely surfed wake.

If you are baffled by the countless re-iterations and compilations floating endlessly around; the remixes and terrible bastardisations such as the “Midnight Lightning” album (Alan Douglas hiring modern musicians), or “Loose Ends” (which clearly showcases shallow greed in using out-takes from the cutting room floor), add to this the blatant mis-branding of Hendrix’ work with Curtis Knight and the many more myriad compilations on offer – take heed herein…

To help you navigate the shark infested waters of the Hendrix legacy here are 6 Essential Hendrix albums that distill the the soaring, expressive talent and vision of Hendrix’ legacy both live and in the studio…

1.Are you Experienced – 1st album – : FIRE & BRIMSTONE

The Jimi Hendrix Experience first album fuses gritty rock, psychedelia and feedback in a blistering rocket fuelled journey to the centre of the cosmos. This is as close to ‘classic’ rock as Hendrix gets with pumping riffs, weird chromatic guitar solo’s (”Purple Haze”) and a lyrical disposition (especially in “The Wind Cries Mary”) that combines Dylanesque surrealism with the hip acid talk of the American Summer of Psychedelic Love. This album is filled with triumphant feelings of revolution, victory and optimism, which burn like bright flags amongst a speudo-existentialist spacescape that flirts with ideas of depression and death beyond time. It’s a fervent and heady mix of grass roots psychedelia and Jimi’s earthy hands on approach to tonal exploration, distortion, feedback and elemental urgency on the guitar ensures it burns white hot, like magnesium at midnight.

2.Axis Bold As Love – 2nd album – : WATER

Despite leaving the original mastertapes of side one in a London Taxicab The Experience Second album is another triumph.

The second Experience album leans more heavily towards a more complex lyrical mysticism and lucid poetics with songwriting of a more deliberate meaning and intent in opposition to the hard rock rattle and hum combustion or interstellar immediacy of its feedback soaked predecessor. Hendrix also blends the fervant science fiction, metaphysics and exploratory lyricism of his psychedelic ideology and imagination with a more refined approach to instrumentation and a more nuanced style. The tentative, fragile lyrical tragedy of “Castles Made of Sand” hones more Dylanesque metaphor through the collapsing time of backwards guitar, whilst “If 6 was Nine” screams the experimental battle cry of the counter culture, like the dissembling miles of a bullet from a revolutionaries’ musket in slow motion.

Hendrix of course still manages to coax never before heard techniques and sounds from his guitar, more melodic jazz funk influences (from his R&B chitlin’ circuit days) whilst channeling his mysticism and revelatory existentialism across a range of genres. There are unmissable ballads that exemplify the duality of the time; the hopes and fears, the real and the unreal as much as showcase his unique melody / chord phrasing: the birdsong love poem Little Wing and the homesick art-rock of Spanish Castle Magic. The final track Bold as Love is arguably one of the greatest arrangements of synaesthetic lyrical metaphor, melodic rhythm guitar and majestic lead ever written and recorded.

3. Electric Ladyland – 3rd album – : TRANSCENDENTAL

Take the previous two Jimi Hendrix Experience albums and throw in some voodoo blues, low down groove, funk, rock and roll, orchestration and then blend into a transcendental, love apocalypse masterpiece of songwriting, guitar playing prowess, musical exploration, ufology, time travel and the foreboding sense that the world is coming to an end. The sheer emotional intent of the guitar playing alone on this double album  absolutely shines through as Hendrix delivers masterpiece after expressive masterpiece.
The stellar guitar piece “Come On” hermetically seals Hendrix’ Rock and Roll prowess, expression and technique beyond time and space as he launches through a blistering high octane guitar marathon whereas “Voodoo Chile”, featuring Steve Winwood, pushes the blues guitar envelope to the end of the universe and back again with such archetypal and quintessentially natural phrasing wrapped within a live studio performance that literally kicks out the jams and destroys them.  “The Burning of the Midnight Lamp” features more sonic experimentation recorded in a vacuum of depression, until it breaks into a vivid and wildly oscillating wah wah solo while “Gypsy Eyes” conjures up the rattling bones of African witchcraft with Hendrix’ dead blues spirit traversing the ghostplane in search of his lost love.

On “Long Hot Summer Night” Jimi fuses colourful story telling with more achingly soulful and fluid guitar then amplifies Bob Dylan’s skeletal masterpiece “All Along the Watchtower” with the sonic emotional import and smouldering sound and fury of God and some of the most memorable guitar playing ever.

By the time we reach side three Hendrix extends his themes into the soulfull jazz grooves of a “Rainy Day” before embarking on the ambitious philosophical, revelatory opus of “1983’s” melodic escape from the apocalypse into the sea. Through an undulating series of musical meditations, phrases and undeniable hook sequences that range from delicate washing tremelo descents beneath the tides to swinging grooves, the war chaos noise of the machines above, and heraldic anthemics of emotional release and salvation; Hendrix single handedly invents ambient and closes the chapter on the decade with an ambitious contemporary guitar symphony. The musicianship from all throughout is unparalleled and this record doesn’t date because of its scope, resounding energy and ambition. If you were to own one Hendrix disc, this is it.

4. Nine to the Universe – studio jams – rare jazz-blues improvisations – awesome and tight

This is what happens when Jimi Hendrix rocks into the studio to have a jam and the sonic results are absolutely off the hook. With more of a leaning towards  a modal approach to the guitar Jimi proves that literally everything is in his hands as he manipulates his stratocaster and amp to deliver a huge tonal range within the context of a progressive jazz-blues fusion jam session. If you are new to Hendrix this might be a little too like abstract expressionism for you but if you’re looking to expand your musical expression on the guitar without resorting to gratuitous effects and cheap tricks this is a great place to start taking lessons from the master.

5. Band of Gypsys – live – the once in a lifetime guitar mastery of epic sonic genius that is machine gun

After disbanding the original experience Hendrix returns to New York with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox to deliver a more loosely organised series of extended songs and groove laden hooks centred around the opposing themes of war and peace. Never to be underestimated, Hendrix is at the peak of his sonic creativity and effortlessly recreates the sonic palette and experience of the Vietnam war on Machine Gun, producing some of the most mesmerising guitar tones in the history of rock in an astonishingly complete performance. Hendrix flaunts acres of infinite sustain and tonal feedback control, combined with tremelo induced ufology and science fiction sounds in an engaging live performance that proves EXACTLY why he is history’s most mind blowing rock instrumentalist.  Hendrix’ intent though is not only to transport you into a world of complete sonic guitar mastery but also to inspire spiritually through the kyuss of great hooks, timing and melody (Power to Love).

6. The Jimi Hendrix Concerts – a great compilation of live recordings

This collection of recordings showcases the original experience at their best and includes the absolutely monumentous tonal mastery and feedback genius of Are You Experienced performed live – possibly another one of the greatest moments in guitar history. You can hear the feedback soaked guitar bouncing off the back of the auditorium and feel the hairs stand up on the back of your neck too as Jimi manipulates his signal in ways that the original studio recording could never achieve. This has to be heard to be believed. This is what the Experience sound like live on a great night and they’re absolutely burning it up. If you cant get this disc then get the LIVE AT WINTERLAND album instead.

7. Beautiful People  – If 60`s were 90`s

Some old friends of mine throw the War Heroes offcuts into the remix liquidiser to repackage Hendrix for the early 90`s chillaxation-house groove scene. If you like the idea of Hendrix with “modern” beats then this might be right up your street. The stand out cuts are “Get Your Mind Together” and “Sea Eventually”. Remixes with PM Dawn sounded absolutely incredible at the time but never officially materialised. If you want your Hendrix licks, melodies and riffs  served up in a dreamy, groovy back-beat sauce with a focus upon the nouvelle cuisine sampling of a chillaxed club mix then this is the gelato h’ors d’oeuvre you’re after. Rilly Groovy. Rilly, Rilly Groovy.

Back in the late seventies, prior to the arrival of PUNK ROCK, with its garland of spit, safety pins, anarchy, piss, shit and the dirty, unkempt rebellion of anti-authoritarian posturing, Steve Hillage took the psychedelia of the late 60`s and infused it with the kind of production techniques it really deserved. Hillage took multitracking, phasing, and sequences of fractalised incandescent echoes to a new level and combined them with more formal song based hooks and ideas with a lexicon firmly focused upon metaphysics and what everyone nowadays calls new age spiritualism. What makes his music even more interesting is that it occupies a holistic space somewhere amongst Pink Floyd and the Canturbury sensibilities of remarkable song writers such as pyschedelic pioneers Kevin Ayres and formidable lyricist Syd Barrett.

Despite his psychological unravelling Barrett’s songwriting capabilities remain some of the most superlative, exciting, individual and exceptional in the history of English music – after the Beatles. And,  although there is very much to be lauded in Pink Floyds work many ascertain that without Barrett they became nothing more than the exegesis of Waters’ paranoia and latterly nothing more than a Gilmour solo act.

Towards the dying days of the 70’s Hillage’s progressive guitar-rock and psychedelic fusion leanings helped build a reputation that became synonymous with spacey, ambient soundscapes and musical “excursions”. 1978’s Green album, which was co-produced by Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason is an exemplary and landmark recording in this respect that, with both power and sensitivity focuses upon a pantheistic ecological message of oneness, salvation and elevation.

Of course Hillages “hippie” music was eclipsed, perhaps even smashed into a dust, by the D.I.Y. auto destructive madness of anarchy, punk rock and “dissent” at the end of the decade.

The Steve Hillage sound remained immortalised in the consciousness of a whole new generation principally by the UK “Festival” band The Ozric Tentacles. Ten years after Hillage released “Green” the Ozrics pioneered a new wave of acid soaked, techno space rock into the 90`s “dance” and festival scene updated with hard pounding beats, shifting time signatures, the use of eastern and exotic modes and instruments.

After the collapse of Thatcherite ethics in the 80`s the British music underground, fuelled by political unrest and the flood of drug fired madness exploded across the media and across the country in revolutionary fervour. Looking back from here, you can clearly see the high tide mark etched across the British landscape and we’re now living after the flood! Guitar Pedals never replace playing ability, groove, talent, technique, vision and expression but can really help having the brain of Hendrix sitting in a little box on the floor. At the end of the day its all in your hands, and your head.

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…stormy rough-hewn glory recorded in about 10 minutes using the inbuilt microphone on a laptop, a wineglass, drumstick, table leg and guitar… a missionary song  -

It was one friday morning three years ago
when he appeared the way a cigarette smokes
a name of warning, a lonely sermon about the war
with the truth
He said “theres only them and us, the good lord above
And now; just me and you”

Sho.. he was standing at the side of the road when I come around the curve standin there face and no face,
hangdog determined and calm too like he done desperated himself up for the last time.

[break - fall, break - fall, break - fall]
[for the last time, to take the last chance, for the last last time]

With Blood yellowed eyes and dirty nailed hands
We sealed with signs our terrible plans
Lord strike me down
You dance with the devil else you don’t dance at all
In Jackson town

[break - fall, break - fall, break - fall]
[for the last time, to take the last chance, for the last last time]

Fate and circumstance had brought us together
But memory believes before knowing remembers
I coulda bit my tongue in two when he shot her down
Love and hate is all we got, all we really need
And all we believe.

Take two stolen pistols down that dirty old road
Past a pillar of salt and a yella column of smoke
Hi Ho Silver lightning and away we go, Hi Ho, Hi Ho

A bloodless coward and a prodigal son
A one armed messenger with the rebels gun
Get outta here Judas, you’ll kill us all
(he shot me down)

So sing a song of six cents
And a pocket full of rye
Hoist me like a mainsail…HI HO HI HO HI HO
Swinging through the sky
Onward christian soldiers
Marching as to war
“I never meant to kill her”
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
(lord forgive me , please forgive me now)
Stamping out the glory
(lead us not into temptation)
Stamping out the glory
(And forgive us our sins)

Sho.. he was standing at the side of the road when I come around the curve standin there face and no face, hangdog determined and calm too like he done desperated himself up for the last time.

(c) jake edwards may 2008

This post started out as a best guitar solos post, but, it has mutated into a great players post and  has begun to encompass hooks, riffs and more. I mean, you just can’t exclude Keith Richards from a post about great guitar can you?

I had a rummage around inside my head and here, in no particular order, are some great guitar players. I’ve named the specific tracks in the videos. Most of these artists are HOT on anything they play…

If anyone out there would like to offer up any more superlative examples then please comment.

1. Snowy White (on Peter Green’s) Slabo Day

2. Jeff Beck Where were you

3. Junior Wells & Buddy Guy Stormy Monday

4. Chet Atkins Kicky

5. Eric Clapton Blues Power Live on Just One Night

6. Jimi Hendrix Are you Experienced Live at Winterland UK L.P.

7. Billy Corgan Soma

8. Johnny Winter – Mississippi Blues

9. Dire Straits Sultans of Swing

10. Alvin Lee Live (with 10 years after) I’m going Home

11. Roy Buchanan The Messiah will Come Again

12. Santana – Soul Sacrifice

13. Ry Cooder – Paris Texas

14.Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor - Cant You Hear Me Knocking ?

15. Joe Satriani – Surfing with the Alien

16. Nirvana – Smells like Teen spirit

17. Otis Rush – unsolo on I can’t quit you babe

18. Jimi Hendrix – Bold as Love

19. David Gilmour – skeletal arpeggio from S.O.Y.C.D.

20. B.B King – Sweet Sixteen live in Africa 1974

21. Jimi Hendrix – Machine Gun

22. Adrian Legg – Pedal Steel without Pedals

23. Eric Johnson – Song for George

24. Radiohead/Jonny Greenwood – Airbag

25. Rory Gallagher – Too Much Alcohol

26. Son House – Death Letter

27.King Crimson - Discipline Album

28. George Benson-Breezin’

29. The Edge / U2 -When I look at the World

30. Django -Honey Suckle Rose

31. Keith Richards -Happy

32. Sonny Landreth -Zydeco Shuffle – almost everybody slides

33. Joe Bonamassa -Sloe Gin

34. Freddie King -Woman Across the Water

35. Scotty Moore - That’s Alright Mama

36. Albert Collins - If trouble was money

37. Mississippi John Hurt - You’ve got to walk that Lonesome Valley

38. Robert Cray - Don’t be afraid of the dark

more soon

…working fucking hard on sorting through demo tracks recorded hastily under pessure when I wa flying up to the studio alot. It’s time consuming and of course, as everybody knows the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune still fly, and smart so keenly.

Myself right now, well I moved back down south;canned my job – it was sucking the life out of me -  living in an old spare room, next to the washing machine and that’s thanks to the charity of the only real friend I have; with little beyond a bmx bike, some clothes, one laptop, recently collected second hand literature, two mint condition old blues LP`s (muddy waters & ???),  a painting, two vases I don’t need, one stratocaster and one beaten up hofner for slide playing, a collection of rocks, pauau, a dreamcatcher bricolage of  found objects, talismans, feathers, trinkets, rosaries, crosses from as far afield as Barcelona, London, and Waikakahi, Hawea…

One day hopefully I’ll eulogise nostalgically about the good old days when I had nothing…and the washing machine was god.

down at the studio november `08 I cut this guide on the plank:

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Desolation angels everywhere….I’m on the road, thank god for freedom; after the sting of disappointment and the hard earthquake work of a tectonic shift is gone comes the mellifluous colour-tones and taste of time, motion; mountain, river and ocean, vision and celebration, dedication and devotion.

Be the water – you cant stay in one place too long but unlike the million raindrops falling on the glass around you  – avoid the path of least resistance. Take the difficult road and be prepared to die for what you believe in…risk everything to complete your vision…just to write and breathe; songs, messages, art that eat worlds…

I woke up this morning and crudely, using a cassette recorder, quickly threw down the lyrical amendments I`d written to the world gone track asi t played in the background.. so that rehearsal can start across the water. the sun is shining. it`s rough but a good guide…burning hearts…golden hearts scattered, lonely in the road bleeding…what does it feel like really breathing?

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In the sixties people were mobilised against the war in vietnam, youth culture was finding it`s footing…but the world has been reduced to a quintessence of dust & there`s a recession – perhaps it`s economical, perhaps it`s intellectual, perhaps it`s at the heart of everything, Mr. Kurtz – quantum thought, belief and mysticism. Does anyone read Kerouac or Steinbeck?  What the heck? Is everyone wrapped up in a load of irreverent Hollywood plastic surgery necrophiliac celebrity lifestyle televisual bullshit? Another day another city…. or, lost in the wilderness writing lyrics of disposition and seeking unification through re-immersion, or reconnection with landscape…

“The project has gone beyond having a single production value input for me, I`m actually really taking the project beyond the simple idea of it as a product from or for the studio, it`s become more than a product that`s just x, y, z; I’ve invested myself completely into it, it`s become a spiritual and personal project.

“I think I spent so long working on the songs, investing them with time and travel, that they grew out of real experience, the road, loneliness, instability and at the time a connection with only the land.”

Religious people have told me that this is a music of god and called me to play in their church. They are right but Amerindian pantheism, paganism and the church of biosphere is more important to me than allegiance to some mere singular “god” – or vain organised form of deceit – Maybe its all imagined in the solipsistic mind of god – we`re just a part of the universe, emboldened enough to consider self, although more than mere particles held together electrically, an experience – I don`t want to be their damnéd messenger.

Another weekend of recording & mixing is fast approaching – we`re looking to retrack and track as much as possible – songs we tracked a few months back with a plank of a guitar prior to our involvement with Mojo Sound in Wellington.

Music can be inspiration, divination and self exploration within the ancient church of self; your DNA possesses and encodes evolutionary time…….the ancient “church” is everywhere; that is everywhere we haven`t desecrated it with base architectures and  pollutants often incorrectly disguised beneath a veneer of language such as “progress”, “industry”, “change” and more. Water is the carrier and light is the messenger.

Liberte, equality, Egalite…
freedom, equality, egalitarianism; the hypotheses of European Revolutionaries remain still only ideals enoded into arbitrary signs. I recently picked up a copy of the 1962 Freedom Movement songbook – unity & music were at the centre of social change.

We`re using the custom martin guitar to re-record the Rakaia River acoustic guitar tracks and there`s a world of difference. We`re also using Jamesons Irish Whiskey as it gives a warm, mellow tone – this music is made by authentic musicians who play with their boots off and their glasses loaded. Our mix is beginning to sound exceptionally smooth, with complex flavours of toasted wood, spice and sherry, superbly mellowed by time…Elijah Few recommends Jamesons Irish whisky, and, for Scotch The Balvenie and Lagavulin. Now it would be easy to suggest that the mystical otherness of the whiskey has infused our recording with the warmth and oak mellowed manuka tones we`ve been seeking but the fact of the matter is that  now we`re using 8 grands worth of acoustic honey.

Thanks to Pete at Mojo Sound here in Wellington we`ve just picked up the Aston Martin of Martin guitars – a custom model Martin valued at around 8 thousand dollars. This particular Martin has an acoustic tone that is smooth, rich and highly natural; bright, lively and warm with an entirely even response across the strings. Its a breeze to play and when simply strumming an E chord resonates with rich, manuka, gently oscillating overtones.

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Robert Johnson; there`s a lot of hoodoo wrapped up around the man, in particular that he sold his soul to the devil down at the crossroads in Clarksdale. Originally, Son House suggested, Johnson was not regarded as a good musician at all but after the trade with Satan he returned with the blazing skills and blues mastery of a demi-god. Much of the early blues protagonists framed their content within the context of african american hoodoo/religious belief wrapped up in the historical context of migratory diaspora and most of the cliches of the blues narrative are more culturally rich in meaning than they might at first appear. The simple cliche alone of “the highway” is extrapolated and interpolated by numerous artists over the last 90 years by Bob Dylan alone many times across his recorded work. A great bridging work for the blues to the present date is Michael Gray’s ‘Song and Dance Man III’, which illustrated Dylan`s reappropriation of the blues through other song forms.

The narrative and folk tales, the telling of lies or competitive tales, the healthily obscene “putting in the dozens”, the long and witty toasts and the epigrammatic rhyming couplets which enliven the conversation of folk negro and harlem hipster alike, have their reflections in the blues.

Paul Oliver`s book “Conversation with the Blues” (1965)

There`s a great thesis here about the concept of the Trickster, which leads me onto what I`ve talked about previously with regards to Radioheads re-appropriation of the blues through a series of post modern metaphors and the Sublime. Eric Clapton himself has suggested that Johnson`s cross tempo work is unparalleled and Johnny Winter makes use of this technique also.

In the following video Eric Clapton, another “guitar hero” whose early songwriting capabilities and exploration of new genres (e.g. Cale & Marley) seems to be wholly forgotten now, talks about Robert Johnson and plays “Stones in the Passway”.

It`s a great place to start exploring what Robert Johnson has to offer and why he is who he is. It also illuminates the sheer technique, the impact of the unusual, that is often confused with something arcane, mythical, metaphysical, divine and otherworldly or more specifically in the blues with superstition, an encounter with the Devil or other dark force and the conceit of a conspirational universe.  It’s also interesting to note that the cross tempo section Eric Clapton discusses is a technique that many artists have plagiarised or emulated: Johnny Winter and Rory Gallagher have used it in varying degrees throughout their careers.

At any rate as much as Johnson’s technique was formidable and undeniably unique recordings have always sounded odd: his voice always seemed pitched too high and anyone who owns a gramophone knows that speed is ultimately the choice of the listener. Anyway, it seems that we may been listening to Robert Johnson at too many revolutions.
Touched.co.uk are offering Steady Rollin’ Man – 24 tracks of Robert Johnson slowed down – click here. I.M.H.O. this is the way Robert Johnson should sound and you can read all about it here.

So go on down to that big old river and sit on down amongst a million lonely stones. Contemplate your past and your future, where they collide. There isn’t really much worse a man can do than kill another man – destroy his gods, his belief. Truth is you can do it any number of ways – words, lies, deceit – try to break his spirit. It can be damn hard not to give way to your anger if vengeance, revenge or retribution are on your mind. A flood comes suddenly and without warning. The river song: a complex intertwined sequence of real experience, fictional events and the influence, recollected, of a million literary tragedies…of dynasties and histories, rendered unto dust…and washed away…Each river is a beautifully human and poignant book- a condensed history of human experience.

Rakaia River Sneak Preview

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What is it about old guitars, old planks, old timber, old gold even? Who knows? Analogue or digital? I`d definitely rather listen to an L.P. or even better still a 78 on my gramophone.

If you write from experience you will develop a sense of place, character, a message, tone, symbolism, imagery, and figurative language, metaphor and simile. Ignore everybody and never even consider any filthy dirty money. Remember though the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Today I picked up the awesome Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee – Midnight Special album and the Muddy Waters` album I`m ready (produced by the mercurial Johnny Winter). Waters` style is particularly inspired in it`s use of Microtones. I also managed to find the 80`s Hendrix compilation Crash Landing which I hadn`t seen for twenty years or so. My old friends in the band the Beautiful People sampled alot of it on their release If 60`s were 90`s.

Well, it`s a very simple and easy methodology I use when it comes to songwriting. After 20 years of blistering licks, absorbing the music and magic of feedback, of tonal exploration, of distortion, of brainwashing with as many records as I could get my head around I found that alot of this “learning” would get in the way, that alot of equipment, amplifiers, effects, preconceived notions, riffs, hooks, rhythms and ideas just don`t even help with writing a song. It`s like writing, you can pin it down to a set of motifs, a set of ideas, devices and techniques…but these alone do not a great piece of work create. You need genuine experience. Remove from view all the pillars in your sight. I find the hardest guitars to play, and don`t mess about with any kind of notions of playing finesse as you can see in the video on my other posts. Writing a song aint about playing the guitar.

the river became central to my experience…at the end of my time, the mother of pearl crucifix I wore around my neck for a decade had cracked and broken – on my last journey through the gorge cast my crucifix into the waters …When I came back into the countryside the following year,  the river welcomed me in high flood, submerging islands, wreaking havoc. I was inspired by true tales – real lives. sometimes anger and the devil will blind and trick you; choose the way of the gun and a vengeful Miltonic god or cast yourself asunder, through the tides.

Money should be the last thing on your mind when you pick up a guitar. F**k the money. If you get any, give it away. video features from 2005 The Way of the Gun – recorded live , with no rehearsal and no tune up.

I wrote previously here about perfectionism. My recent day long recording session with a plank of a guitar, a boiling hot studio, a strange routing to the desk, lack of sleep, the pressure of fast, fast decision making regarding choosing and recording guitar parts, the arrangement of these plus the vocals and the lyrics, the tempo of the song and the need to get on a plane at the end of the day, (which meant not using a Martin acoustic) all added up to a situation which was not ideal. Ideally I’d like a Martin acoustic, plus my Strat into two Session amplifiers for a great stereo mix. But hell who wants to let go of their Martin and leave it to the vicissitudes of baggage handling, not me no way.

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SO go on down to that big old river and sit on down amongst a million lonely stones all tired and old muddy coloured its no good driftwood company

There`s a storm rolling in inking up the sky downwind
So she goes down to the edge of the water and fills her pockets with stones
whilst behind heer crippled daughter weeps and moans

Three bells toll in the clock tower warning
the water`s gonna rise by the hour of morning
the moon goes down while the wind blows up some meaner weather
black topped seeds rattle the rakaia river

Theres a storm rolling in inking up the sky downwind
She slowly sinks into the fast flowing water
pulled way down by the weight and the cold
there`s no prayer and no way that we oughta
let anybody know

Meet me where the waters freeze, beside the telegraph trees
And set your crosses free down upon the water
Go call the priest to say a prayer down into the canyon
Her rusty chair hidden by a chapel abandoned

Theres a storm rolling in inking up the sky downwind
Eyes shining like the moon on the stones
Eyes smiling the crippled daughter
As her mother walks home

Theres a storm rolling in inking up the sky downwind
You were warned vengeance in the sky
vengeance in the sky

(c)Jake Edwards 2005
Ive been holding onto these particular pieces of paper for about 4 years from continent to continent.
(I wrote this song near Rakaia and recorded it in 2007).

You can`t make something out of nothing, but too much nothing will make a man feel ill at ease. Worldly possessions; you cant take them with you. But this is the 21st century too. Better be sure to put a value on the things you really care about, because at the end of the day, nothing material counts for jack shit. Look after your soul and travel light. Ignore the media and don’t buy any of their crap. Suddenly I own too much and then Suddenly everything evaporates. Maybe I bought into myself too much.

1.fender stratocaster, leads, pedals, small amp, pair of cans, small midi keyboard
2.laptop, hardrive, leads, mbox mini
3.Small pile of books
4. small car
5. Bicycle x 2
6. rucksack with clothes, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 caps, 1 broad brim hat
7. large collection of rocks, pauau, and 1 cactus.
8. couple of paintings, a few pictures, mobile telephone
9. pile of cd`s including Subterranean Homesick Blues, 6 cassette tapes, Big Lebowski & Dylan other side of the mirror dvd
10. battered hofner side guitar

Having said all that it sure is uncomfortable without table, chairs, or bed. Sadly though at the end of the day you only have yourself; and yourself to blame. That last breath you breathe is gonna be mighty lonely but at least its brief. There`s only the in between. Truth might get in the way of a good story, but life’s cold hard realities will never get in the way of a good song…

Musicians: jug jazz, blooze infused, dirty earbash, folk country, streetside hicksville freakshow. Howlin`  Troutmask intertronic groove message 40 feet beneath the dirty city space. Jack Kerouac in the vicinity listening to a scanner ….

If you are interested in a shortcut to money, fame and glory hook up with American Idol and then hook yourself up to the mains. Down here we listen to Roland Kirk, Handel, Miles and Mississippi John Hurt.

I`m currently working in the studio as a composer; this blog – which by the way is not meant to be a “How to make it in the music industry” deal , or a “How to make a record” or “album” or become a “popstar” effort.

It`s more aligned with a why it took me four years and a lifetime`s worth of preparation to get some great songs written and recorded. I managed quite royally to fail, fail and fail repeatedly. This time Im hoping Im in a position to get things a little more right but in a metafictional, metaphysical and intertextual way everything I`ve ever done is everything Im doing now and vice versa. UNderstand that and maybe it`s a step towards understanding the universe. One thing is for sure  it isn`t about money, fame, glory, free rides , or whatever. I never spent years and years jamming in dirty studios, living in smelly windowless rehearsal rooms in filthy industrial areas, working manual jobs for money or glory. I only ever did it because I owed it to my guitar

I`m trying to find the time between finding the time for other time consuming life paraphernalia to get the original lyrics, and the original riverside recordings/videos up here to track how these songs have slowly been brought to fruition over the last few years. I originally kept the songs in my head for a couple of years and on scraps of paper which have travelled with me across the globe, island to island, continent to continent in an old book. And managed, finally whilst on an itinerant Kerouacian mission throughout Aotearoa at some point maybe 18 months ago, to record them into a cheap old camera. The great thing is these recordings already sound 100 hundred years old and I just threw them down with no tune up or practice. In this sense I suppose they hold soem kind of authenticity.

I`m pretty fond of anecdotes, they sound so great; but then again is there any truth in them? Who knows. Most of life is conversation and therefore prone to becoming anecdotal. Some people live off them. Some people live inside them. Some people foolishly become them. Anyway I cant remember who said it; it was either Keith Richards, Jeff Beck or someone similar and Ive paraphrased it and embellished it myself over the years:

“I dont like the idea of my guitar signal floating around in the air man. Otherwise I`d record in space.”

What`s interesting is that during the last Elijah Recording session because of some weird routing anomaly problems my guitar signal took a rather tortuous and circuitous route to tape (hard drive). Here it is:

1. Guitar 2. Into transmitter. 3. Through air. 4. Into 2nd transmitter. 5. Into Sound Devices recorder.

6. Into Pro Tools interface. 7. Into desk & Computer.

I think thats it.

Flew into GRUNGE city. The drive from Seattle down to San Francisco California and especially Mount Shasta is awesome. It`s great to be on the coast ! Last time I was up in Washington state I was fortunate enough to spend sometime in the mountains with a Winchester rifle. I love America.

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Hyper busy at the moment just cant get enough sleep from city to city. More news soon.

For a while now (Ten Years) I`ve been really into the Jeff Beck road to guitar sounds and that`s a simple dirty old fuzz pedal (hot cake anyone?) into a great amp. Got my stratocaster bridge set up in a unique way so its a bit of a bastard to play too, you have to earn everything with it – you don`t have to fight it but it doesnt give too much away either. The vastly tactile approach of a used strat has all the character and excitement of a divining rod in a lightning storm as far as I`m concerned.

I`ve been really keen on using AWARD SESSION amps since I first tried one in 1990-91. I finally got my hands on one in 1999. They were known as the British Mesa Boogie and Clapton used a couple on his album Behind the Sun.

I received an email just today regarding my comments on My Space and how it was actually a poor platform for audio distribution. Some people did not like this. Well, unless you are Lilly Allen who seems to have the fucking thing sewn up quite nicely  (an example of the industry using social media to continue the interruptive model of blanket advertising) how can it work? To my mind anything that makes it onto the front of My Space warrants ignoring because it must have be paid for. And there`s so much damn stuff – the new this , the next that, god it`s boring.
SO for those of you who think my space really works consider this:

If you want to hide a tree – hide it in the forest.

…using a really strange routing into the desk  and thrown away all of yesterdays tracking & hopefully with an intense days work we can get this demo off the ground. It`s 6.44 and we`ve finished tracking all the acoustic and all the lead and rhythm parts on the electric guitar, the stratocaster plus and the plank in one day. Oh and basic drums and some rough bass as well. It`s been intense and very hot. The original title is the RAKAIA RIVER MURDER. While everyone else has been chilling out on the beach in front of the studio we`ve been inside laying down as much creative work as we can, fighting the increasing humidity and working up a sweat. It has definitely been worth it. I havent time to listen to the demo mix because I need to eat something and get on the plane. Here are a few pictures.

Another busy day in the studio. After yeserdays warm up re-tracked all the acoustic parts on the dreadful plank which I`ve been fighting all damn weekend. Play it, tune it, play it, tune it &cetera….like I mentioned in an earlier post – yeah I`m going to burn it come the winter months even if I have to pay  for the priviledge and the pleasure.

We`ll be using Mojo’s Martins next time…

- is human emotion merely temporal expression?

The original acoustic parts were laid down on the dirt cheap,tree-trunk, low-end, low-performance, collection of guitar shaped, firewood you can see here in the center picture. I`m saving it for winter, when these recordings are done and I`m going to toss it in the fire where it belongs.

Some seriously expensive SCHOEPS microphones in a multi million dollar environment. The pressure was on for me to sing and play 4 tracks that I hadn`t played in a year.

The Rakaia River Murder,
Wicked Messenger Returns,
The Architecture of Destiny,
Life Support,

Do what you want – in music, art, work, wherever possible. If someone notices that`s great. But, if they dont , so what? You are still doing what you want.

… there is nothing more dangerous than a book.

A book is a bomb. A book is a time machine.
A book is a recruitment device. A book is mantra. A book is terror.
A book is enlightenment. A book is life. A book is death.
&cetera

read – change your life, open your head up like psilocybin and travel across the universe. If you aren`t forever changed, go back and find books that work.  If you think books aren`t one of the secrets to understanding the universe then you are wrong…. the work of the cosmos, that’s secret number one.

Genius is a word that`s bandied around these days as though it`s something that`s free, something to be found in the bottom of a packet of cornflakes. Not that rare gleaming like the flashing of a comet in the surface of a calderan lake. Unfortunately we live in an age of arch-mediocrity masquerading as noesis…….mostly through the perceived synonymity of marketing and meritocracy.
Achieving genius is often paraphrased as being “99 percent perspiration and 100 percent inspiration”.

A genius is a person who successfully applies a previously unknown technique in the production of a work of art, science or calculation, or who masters and personalizes a known technique. A genius typically possesses great intelligence or remarkable abilities in a specific subject, or shows an exceptional natural capacity of intellect and/or ability, especially in the production of creative and original work, something that has never been seen or evaluated previously. Traits often associated with genius include strong individuality, imagination, uniqueness, and innovative drive.

Achieving genius is more like evaporation, like boiling water. It takes more energy for water temperature to lift from 99 degrees to 100 degrees than to reach 99 degress from ambient temperature.
There`s a vast difference between “almost” and “all”; that extra last percent is worth 100 times the 99 that went before.

I`m nearly healed enough to get back out the guitar and start cooking a little; so much about dynamic playing for me comes from posture, which is only a part of the way you relate to an instrument, not forgetting attitude, focus, flexibilty and tone. Having good ears isn`t just about what you play either, it`s about listening to the producer, listening to the client and really getting to grips with THEIR vision – if you can assimilate that into the right stylistic lexicon you are onto a winner. What makes it exciting is that it`s not a precise science but an emotional one; like any literary conceit multifaceted and fractal but what usually happens is you pick up the instrument and the client says….I need some of that. You have to distill their emotional connection to the song….So back into a studio and this is what I will be doing.

One of the deadly traps hidden along the road to creative success:

Perfectionism.

This is a stifling, choking pathological form of maladaptive behaviour that stop achievement dead in its tracks.

I just recently listened to some music from 1990 to 1997: I was surprised at how awesome, explosive and vital it was, good hooks, great licks, some good songs – perhaps it could have gone somewhere, but it never did, never went anywhere…perfectionism made bloody sure of that. It was never quite good enough; especially the production, the equipment it was recorded on, the instrumentation, I thought the playing could be better etcetera… I guess it`s just another pillar to hide behind, another clever reason not to take a chance, another way to avoid critique, another way to conveniently but unobtrusively fail.

Conversely its absolutely no good either, diluting your ‘brand’ with lacklustre, unprofessional messages that scream poor quality and a lack of judgement. Work with whatever you`ve got, but work well.

Paper

I`ve been carrying these songs around for about 3 years; one of them for at least ten…the ideas within them are obviously a lifetimes work. I started discussing songwriting previously on this blog and I`ve already suggested there is no “one way”, no method, no guide… Being patient also helped. Initially I kept the songs on paper, working on them every day, for about a year; then I recorded them into a camera as a video and extracted the audio. Just to get them down. I kept working on them. Another year passed and I played one to a producer. A year after that he invited me to record them. I didn`t really set out to make any of these things happen. Muga mushin. I’ve been collecting ides on paper all my life. Boxes of it. BY the time my life is over I`ll have used it all. Today a lonely drifter I befreinded beneath abridge told me a story that would put the Da Vinci Code to Shame…..tomorrow I seek him out and write it all down….

…there is no substitute for pen and paper IN ANYTHING, FOR ANYTHING…..

…to design anything start on paper, to design a song – start with pen and paper, and, take to it your experience.

I once met a girl in a Sauna, told her I was a musician, she invited me back to her place; besotted with fame, glory, cinema and singing. She played her music, it was all wrong, she couldn`t sing, the lyrics were meaningless. She read some of her screenplay – it was plotless, unfinished rubbish and she couldn`t tell me what it was actually about. She popped some pills and told me she was an actress destined for great things. Apart from being on the unwholesome and anorexic side of thin she was also mildly delusional. Her imaginary world existed quite wholly and was manifested through her sacred laptop. It would deliver her into the welcoming arms of global success and wealth; her screenplay was going straight to Scorcese or Jackson or some other cinematic mogul. She was going to ring them up and email it through. No sweat, it was going to be that easy for her. I slyly asked if she had Bob Dylan`s number `cause I  just wanted a quick chat.

I met her again six months later in a different city and her laptop had been stolen, and now she couldn`t write. I laughed, sardonically, I laughed out loud, said she oughta use a pen, it would help her, the theft was a gift in disguise. A chance to write properly, a chance to become productive, a chance to lose that fucking laptop reliant cant face reality mindset. Its very easy to think you are working when you aren`t, being productive when really you aren`t. The mind has a great way of tricking itself, like an ear will always try to hear in tune or in time, to make sense from disparate, dissonant elements. She said,

“What the f@#k do you know you`re hardly famous are you?”

No one worth a damn is doing anything for those reasons. She just couldn`t see the wood for the trees. It was no big deal but I`d just been on the television that week playing guitar besides…it didn’t mean a thing. I laughed again and left. It`s easy on a long journey like art or music or in developing your life`s work, your oeuvre, or discovering and beginning your mission to become waylaid by bad reasoning, to taste a bit of glory and start doing things for all the wrong reasons. If you are involved in something just for the glory, the fame, the gold and all that other “rockstar bullshit” you will probably fail. I spent the nineties working so damn hard and furiously towards some kind of selfish ego-driven success but it was only when I finally relaxed and started to do things for all the right, altruistic, selfless reasons that things started to come together. I started doing things for no reason at all in fact. I threw my ego away; smashed my old life and self to pieces, picked up the good bits and hit the road on a Kerouacian road trip mission of discovery with no real plan apart from the experience itself.

Well in an intense X day period in the studio with my producer I`ve managed to track 4 songs, using the unlikely combination of some very expensive Schoeps microphones, some incredibly expensive top end pro-tools hardware/software, a million dollar environment and a borrowed acoustic nylon string guitar worth around 50 bucks. But its a small step in the right direction….

I spent the weekend swimming with friends off the epic East coast ocean beneath the stars above the rivermouth and at hard to find Honey Bay. Extra thanks to Pete and aqualunged for half an hour to return with crayfish which we all cooked, fresh on the beach fire: an iconic day at the beach…Sleeping on the clifftop above the spit and exploring the startlingly varied coastline of geographical collapse and debris, collecting stunning Abalone shells, plus swimming and cooking al fresco is a great way to recover from the clinical confines of ten days in the studio. Sure there`s a correlation between the rhythmic waves of the ocean and differing states of consciousness. No television, no telephones, no problem – talking to god!

Paua

Unfortunately we`re all too busy in the recording studio to make time for blog posts, so I apologise for the lack of content herein. Contrary to popular belief Studio time is intense, demanding, unsociable and very hard work requiring high creativity coupled with an unusually high level of productivity. You have to know your stuff, think very fast and turn on your skills like a tap. You need vision, experience, technical capability and imagination, but also need to work within the clients remit. The key is in manipulating your own strengths to fit within the overall vision of the project but it`s no different from any client engagement. `Listen and listen good`, there is no room for ego, only for brilliance. You don`t have to bury your personality beneath a lacklustre, formulaic veneer but flair, discipline, enthusiasm and professionalism are key elements. In a way youve either got it or you ain`t…but you can always improve your chances.

No man is an island and it`s always great to be involved in a scene, NOT a CLIQUE, a scene.
Cliques are unhealthy, stagnant, dead end waters, tired, old, lugubrious and baleful – they tend to kill off creativity in their own incestuous way. A scene is open. A clique is egotists high on their own smug bullshit.
Ego kills: inexperienced people have to learn the hard way – most have – that you cannot do it all on your own no matter how good you are. Problem is inexperienced people don`t have the objectivity to step aside from their own ego agenda and view the bigger picture. Some hide behind loquacious blaggardry, specious claims of achievement, almost sociopathic tendencies and cetera.

think about  the land, sea, sky and people -  a more spiritual, pantheistic, platonic, people focused consciousness & life – moreover as an invaluable essence of the universal fabric…..Collaborative work on dreams is where it`s at.But not fluffy, blue sky immeasurable dreams that can never lead to fruition. BE surrounded by PEOPLE who actually care about you. People who are beautiful on the inside. You need to care very deeply about the people around you and also about yourself if you really want whatever you are doing to fly.If vague posturising, bandwagon jumping and self centred goals are what drives your vision, prepare yourself for failure….
mauriora

… I have been blasted in the stomach with a 12 gauge shotgun. An almost constant fiery, burning sensation and high loss of mobility means I`m reduced to lying or sitting down and minimal movement. Sometimes movement is nigh on impossible but I`m improving already, although my wallet is dead. The anaesthetic rapidly sent me into a state of amnesia and suspended animation with no recall or recollection whatsoever, to awake feeling euphoric, because of the morphine /heroin but several hours later began to wear off, resultant in burning, aching pain and low mobility.

What is interesting about some amnesiacs is that those with a damaged hippocampus cannot imagine the future, cannot use past experiences to construct possible future scenarios. I have 150mg of Codeine to get through each day (plus panadeine) and anti-inflammatory drugs. Codeine is an alkaloid found in opium and other poppy saps like Papaver bracteatum the Iranian poppy.

In the tech economy, in the last five years we have produced very little that actually makes any of our lives better. Twitter is cute, but economically unproductive. Ditto Friendfeed. Ditto (fill in the blank with your favorite social media platform). These products are economically neutral. And that is not a good thing. To those of you that would argue with me on this point, I defy you to explain the real world economic value/impact of the social media revolution. How does it help increase the real world GDP even one little tiny bit. I dare you. I double dare you. You can’t do it. Because if all of it went away, the world would be the same the next day. And I don’t want to hear any crap about how we are going to “figure it out”. The time for figuring out how to create value out of economically unproductive concepts has passed.

Hank Williams on his blog “Why does everything suck?”

Anyway; the metaphysical otherness of web 2.o; it truly is bound up in ethereal non-specificity!

Okay most social media sites such as Facebook and Myspace are economically neutral, but that`s perhaps because they are closed social habitats; contained, linear and dependent upon a traditional & therefore traffic fed advertising model. This is obviously a catch 22 for them and hard to resolve both technically and economically – membership dependent and selling poor quality, non personalised interference and static – these sites feel hideously outmoded already but, no-one knows quite how to step up to the next rung.
If only they could all talk to each other simultaneously…

Nevertheless as Hank implies social media isn`t a failure if used properly to create real world changes. Perhaps the value, though not fiscal, lies in  the creation of networks that champion the voice of the customer and in doing so place them over and above that of the sponsor? In this sense advertising will surely become controlled by choice, as networks will eventually become open and controlled my their consituents rather than a company.

Change the world or go home.
What does it really mean?

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the 15th century changed the world, fed the Renaissance and powered the scientific revolution – where once the pre-Copernican earth was a flat disc in a heliocentric universe it was now a mere spherical satellite at the dependent mercy of the ever raging Sun, the death of God, Aristotelian physics, and the triumph of Paine’s Age of Reason.

Gutenberg’s invention also precipitates the archetype of mass communication where publishing power remains squarely in the hands of the elite. If we consider that modern advertising perhaps had its foundation in the military propaganda created during World War One, but was really born through the spread of television in America, propagated through the NBC introduction of the commercial break rather than a single programme sponsor then technologies such as television and radio support elitism & further transform media into commercial opportunity.

The current media overload, saturation, and the whole ad` space shouting match basically means that advertising and marketing has been forced to evolve from the interruptive, intermittent, high frequency, WOW factor linearity of the early Fifties and the ungainly mass media signals of print, billboards, radio-television commercials, and even online banners to Permission based programmes that build upon reciprocal loyalty, and in doing so ethically and respectfully, create greater permission and therefore increasing opportunities.

Intelligent conversational media projects illuminate just how smart, positive and responsive technology becomes socially responsible, or even how mobile technologies, for example an iPhone or digital camera are intrinsically creating new social fabric; that both social change and technology seem to have become reciprocal entities built upon choice, consent, collaboration and inherent networks that grow smarter & faster. The mobile phone may provide the next truly big ad space, and perhaps bolster a new elite in Telecommunications companies.

Social media sites depend upon integrating technology with and creating interaction and conversation between people to build shared-meanings, values, dialogue and to challenge inertia through the power of collaborative conscience (embedded in the web) to create change. Closed social habitats like MySpace hinge upon the almost televisual, hermetic relegation of choice, freedom, movement, compatibility, independence, and transparency to concepts of audience numbers & advertising.

For example Buzz the people is a New Zealand website that makes it very easy to help charities whilst informing New Zealand companies what you think about their advertising, products and service. Have your say on politics and current New Zealand issues, influence media and corporate organisations, win prizes and donate points to the charity of your choice just for giving your views. Great!

This is a very clever method of market research [& unbelievably, positive social engineering] conceived by BuzzChannel, an Auckland agency. Making communication between government, companies and their customers, the general public, seamless, desirable and socially responsible is something to be recommended…

Does anyone else have occasional issues with the Adobe products security? It works alright, it works so well that I can’t access my applications even with my serial number. My re-install discs are an aeroplane flight and therefore currently a week away. The software doesn’t like me keeping it in two places – laptop / external drive.
Here is the scenario: my adobe discs are in a different city. I am a long way away for now. An upgrade to my music production software kills off my system. I back up my Adobe applications and reinstall the OS. I fire up my Adobe application:

This application has moved from the location in which it was originally installed. Some settings need to be repaired. Repair Now.

I repair them and try to launch them. They fall over, in a big way. I am presented with:

“Licensing for this product has stopped working.”

No opportunity to enter my serial number arises. I download a trial app from the net on top of the old one. I enter my serial number. It doesn’t work. The Adobe fixes don’t work. Great products, fantastic security; and a bit of a drag to use at the moment but a great advertisement for cloud computing.

The Dell blog Digital Nomads is generating alot of interest. Its a great place to start if you`re wondering what the fuss is all about. I heard about it from Hugh`s superlative blog at Gaping Void. I think there are different degrees to what being a digital nomad means obviously.
If you want the low down on hardcore tenets, principles and reasoning head over here to Chris`s community and social media site.

Personally, the fluctuations of the employment market forced me to become a nomad. The rise and fall of firms, design tools, software and technologies going out of fashion, salaries, working hard, being laid off because a rat in a suit couldn`t sell the product properly…all of these things helped me to bring into focus and really question what I had already been suspicious of, that is, there is no centre, certainty, regularity, guarantee or even sphere to exist within but rather that turning away from conventional paths and forging my own was the way forward.

I`m not saying it suits everybody, the sacrifices are huge, you pay one way or another for whatever lifestyle you choose….but one thing is for sure, happiness is available if you want it and the digital revolution has brought freedom, expression, creativity and the power to choose to those who want it…

Apart from having a ridiculously pretentious name – which these days sounds about as refreshing as New Labour, or perhaps New Prosthetic – what is it with ambient media?

If used correctly ambient could really challenge traditional forms and create new, dynamic messages. In effect it`s merely the same old advertising in new non-traditional places. At your dentist, on your beermat, bus ticket, plasma screen at airport… The thing is it just cannot deliver on the level of personalisation and control we already expect to encounter and don’t receive in real life or on the interweb. Perhaps it`s too guerilla for some companies, perhaps it’s too  hard to track the impact, make it accountable, deliver the figures, too expensive – it takes a leap of faith….and until supratechnologies such as digital paper, digital air even, universal unlimited bandwidth wi-fi and intelligence/choice/personalisation really arrive, and twist our  heads into knots, still a fucking clumsy old fashioned pile of ugly screens and boxes plastered around the place; it’s the leprosy of the advertising world.

Most ambient hardware quite rightly collects nothing much more than the attention of vandals; kiosks filled with Coca-Cola and chewing gum, dogged with errors and built like monolithic storm trooper Daleks the screens were so high only giants could read their intended messages. Yeah the ambient medium is different but it`s still essentially someone shouting in your face. In this sense all advertising is subliminal programming and will become ever more nefarious in attempts to command our attention.

The mobile phone will probably represent the next breakthrough in advertising space inheriting the internet`s latest “intelligent strategies”. Mobile companies are probably looking forward to a time when their virtual real estate becomes the most sought after. But again there is still no excuse for poor quality advertising even if it is highly targeted – we are resistant to bland, poorly encoded messages.

If I want to be advertised to I`d like it to be so personalised, so INVISIBLE: I choose it myself and moreover when I want it too. Myspace take note, your advertising is crass, vulgar and irritating, it is still SPAM. Anyway, when it comes to selecting a platform for your art think on this: if you want to hide a tree – hide it in a forest. Advertising ceases to become so irritating the moment it is targeted at exactly the right prospect through the right means. But this vision encapsulates a nightmare of Orwellian implications.

I just had the pleasure of watching Smoke only twelve years too late. If you fancy mixing the intertwining intertextuality of Paul Auster`s genius, the engaging idiosyncrasy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo`s Nest, the cinematography of Down By Law with Mercurial storytelling and superlative acting performance then this one`s for you;baby. If you dig mixing metafictional metaphor with True tales of American Life then, man you`ll dig it the most. Loose identities, shifting nomenclature, fantastic dialogue,  realism & character shine through this film made with stolen cameras and shot by the blind. Harold Perrineau (the awesome Mercutio in Luhrmann`s Romeo And Juliet), Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Forest Whitaker, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing & Victor Argo are directed by Wayne Wang and Paul Auster (screenplay).

[click to continue...]

I used to own a Hendrix biography, an interesting part of which was mention of Hendrix` fascination with Bob Dylan. Buying a copy of “John Wesley Harding” rather than food is a noble move as far as I can discern and wholly more palatable than a trip to Walmart. Helps to keep the fashionably thin look too. But Hendrix` is often eclipsed by his own guitar focused genius and I’d like to offer some feedback on why Jimi Hendrix is actually a man of ideas who, beginning with the simple ideas of other worldliness such as UFOLOGY,  extended his sonic, lyrical and experiental palette to encompass and map a far more complex journey, beyond playing the guitar, that is both personal and political.

That Hendrix was able at points in his career, such as the Machine Gun performance on the Band of Gypsies Live film and record, to encompass the entire journey into singular moments is testament to his greatness not only a a guitarist but also as an artist per se – at points like these Hendrix is able even to dispense with vocabulary itself and really paint with sound.

What is more interesting is the broad transition from Are You Experienced ( A.Y.E. ) to Axis:Bold as Love and beyond to Electric Ladyland especially in terms of Hendrix` lyrical expression, lexical development and what appears to be efforts to develop coherent meaning and make sense of “the experience” rather than simply to detail “the experience” itself.

To illuminate; the song “Are you Experienced” Hendrix` eponymous first album opener takes Dylan`s “Like A Rolling Stone” and makes it a call to action, a call to begin “the experience”.

I know, I know
you’ll probably scream and cry
That your little world won’t let you go
But who in your measly little world are trying to prove that
You’re made out of gold and -a can’t be sold.

So-er, Are You Experienced?
Ah! Have you ever been experienced?
Well, I have

The subject of Dylan`s Rolling Stone and the failure expressed therein upon so many levels, to understand, to see or gain awareness is offered here a solution directly through “experience”. The “er”`s and “-a”s have a distinctively Dylanesque time and feel no doubt.

More traditional blues lyric cliche content  (Highway Chile) or simple psychedelia (Purple Haze) all but disappears on the Axis disc. “If 6 was Nine” furthermore introduces politics and social commentary into the equation. I`d say the Axis album represents a move away from a perspective of psychedelia towards one of entheogenic purpose.

The song “Bold As Love” most especially marks a continuing departure from the fundamentally direct, acid soaked expressionism of A.Y.E. and a move towards defining a more positive, transcendental cosmology beyond simple psychedelia, time or space and extend earlier natural metaphor and imagery as found in “Wind Cries Mary” and “Third Stone from the Sun” towards a development of meaning or perhaps a system of belief.

This finds its logical conclusion in the third and final album “Electric Ladyland”; especially side three and the song “1983″. One might argue that “1983″ actually represents a defeat in the face of real world concerns, that the hope of defining such a meaning or system of belief had failed – war  still raged upon the land mass – and escape into the sea to avoid holocaust the only conclusion – OR,  that submersion into what is ostensibly another dimension beneath the waves represents a triumph of consciousness, belief and will over political and physical impossibilities.

Strangely enough certain parts of the piece 1983 bear melodic parallels with the Chilites chicago sound.

On the album “Electric Ladyland” we find a song such as “Voodoo Chile” formulating a pantheistic fusion and microcosmic omniscience in an attempt to reach enlightenment – lyrically it perhaps metafictionally encapsulates the journey from “Are you Experienced” through to “Electric Ladyland”.

In “Voodoo Chile” Hendrix takes the traditional blues structure and explodes it using the tonal and expressive palette later heard in Machine Gun. Lyrically beginning with traditional hoodoo, blues and gypsy superstition, fiery moons, night time birth, and resuscitation from strange instantaneous death Hendrix fuses and describes the intervention of messengers or gods in animal form, lions and eagles, from traditional AmerIndian and European paganism, a journey through infinity, science, and space (”Venus”, “Jupiter”), love, desire, union, transcribes the transcendent microcosmic omnipresence of his mind and finally the collapse of civilisation.

This post is in its infancy, this is as much as I can write before breakfast. I am going to expand this post to try and examine the movement across Hendrix` three studio albums from psychedelic rock to entheogenic purpose, the formulation of successful meaning and understanding with a few glances in Bob Dylan`s direction – can “the experience” form a remedy? If a visionary artist like Hendrix looks to the oeuvre of Dylan then maybe we all should….

Played a few numbers last night by Jimmy Buffet,  Jerry Jeff Walker & Bob. Quality song material. Interesting to consider the parallels and dissimilarities between the sentimental American iconography of Dylan`s cannon and that of Walkers lyrics – for instance Eastern Avenue River Railway Blues.

The early 20th Century Hobo Folksinger Itinerant features but tonally Walkers perspective is different, perhaps more urbane, positing the protagonist trapped within the urban wasteland seeking escape through the boxcar. More later perhaps: I have to take a deeper look inside Walker`s catalogue. In (a lazy) comparison the Dylan protagonist would be moving or not moving from an opposite direction.

“Where another man`s life might begin is exactly where mine ends.”  I am a Lonesome Hobo, Bob Dylan.

Dylan positions the OUTSIDER within the traditional outsider contexts. Riding the rails.

Click here for some great articles on Dylan`s use of melody, lexicon, voice, blues tradition etcetera & are easier to consume than Michael Gray`s exhaustive Song and Dance Man III.

Radiohead by contrast position the outsider existentially within all of us and more occasionally it seems technology is at the root of this loss of self, disconnection, otherness. If not at the root technology serves, as in Iron Lung to highlight the futility and tragedy of the human condition. Technology that serves as a control mechanism through surveillance, technology that replaces metaphysics? Escaping an existential life of Orwellian nightmare seems only possible in the In Rainbows song Videotape through suicide perhaps? (”I can`t do it face to face”) or death with videotape judgement or a video record in (8-bit) red, blue and green.

syllogism.

Radiohead perhaps make their modernism plain through a vacuum where romantic ideals, icons, traditional themes and historicism would once have been evident but have been replaced by songs that metafictionally recreate a bleak, unwholesome, wasteland of soulless corporate control, governmental, terror, solipsism and lonely existentialism? There are echoes of the traditional sublime across the In Rainbows recordings but as usual concrete themes seem obscure.

“Radiohead’s lexicon is all about bureaucrats telling you you can’t succeed.” Stereogum.com

Radiohead modern antihero.

Off the hook !

Briefly, it`s interesting to note the sense of the Sublime (Edmund Burke) in the Lyrics of Radiohead`s “In Rainbows”  – particularly  the use of gargantuan scale – there is “falling off” in three songs that I have noticed thus far.

This spatial exaggeration and use of outsized objects reminds me of  “Castle of Otranto” and “House of Leaves” (Mark Z. Danielewski / Horace Walpole respectively).

A house of cards, an organization, structure, consciousness even,  or plan that is weak, fragile and liable to collapse. Household objects suddenly take on vast proportions at a particular junction in the song:

“Fall off the table and get swept under” – House of Cards by Radiohead.

Similarly in “Weird Fishes”, which is highly spatial, the protagonist falls off the end of a (pre-copernican?) earth. There is also a parallel between Hendrix` “1983″ (Electric Ladyland side C) and “Weird Fishes” in overall schemata – escaping through immersion into the depths of the sea.

Listening to B-sides from several Radiohead singles – e.g. “Melatonin”, “Pearly”, “Lozenge of Love”, and  “A Reminder” the effect of the In rainbows record isn`t surprising at all.

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