Soapbox

I remember an old bass-playing friend of mine saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "If it wasn't worth boo then, then why's it worth a house now?" He was referring to vintage instruments in "mint" conditiion and the high prices they demand now. His belief was (and I have to agree with him) that if an instrument is in "mint" condition, it probably wasn't played alot. And why wasn't it played alot? It probably wasn't that good to begin with. So why do instruments that weren't worth your sweat when they were first issued, fetch such high prices now?

I have since adapted Wayne's theory to alot of music I hear. I was listening to Pandora the other day and they played me some American garage band (who shall, in order not offend any readers, remain anonymous in this article) from the mid 60's that apparently "recorded two singles and had little success outside of their hometown of Des Moines, Iowa" And after listening to this group, I understood why. There was nothing that unique about their sound, nothing that seperated them from the scores of other Stones-Yardbirds imitators founded in parents' garages across America. However, in recent years, this little known band has gained acclaim from record collectors as purveyors of punk and garage rock. My question is, why?? Why has this group with no discenible qualities garnered enough acclaim to require me to click the "dislike" button on Pandora??

The only explanation I can come up with is that its considered "vintage". It almost seems like everyone is searching for the next "lost to time" artist or band. Alot of these groups however do not strike me as "lost to time" but rather "lost to any quality"
Of course I definitely believe there were plenty of vastly underated bands and artists from the "vintage" era (Billy Nicholls, Moby Grape, Big Star and Roy Buchanan to name a very few). But these forgotten artists do not justify giving credit to those who don't deserve it.

But what do I know.

Dreaming....

I remember the first time I ever played a mic’d harmonica through an amp. It was through a cheap karaoke microphone from Circuit City and a Behringer amp that came with my first electric guitar. I’d had a Paul Butterfield fetish for years and knew that I wouldn’t be close to replicating that sound until I had a mic and an amp. Any description of how it felt to play amplified harp for the first time would risk some pretty gross hyperboles, so suffice it to say it felt something like what I imagine this feels like:

Playing any sort of amplified instrument (especially one as loud and distorted as blues harp) is never fun while living in an apartment. Invariably somebody is going to tell you turn down or stop altogether. And punching them in the groin only works as a response so many times before you have to concede to these demands. That’s why I got one of these:

It’s a wonderful little amp that’s only 20 watts and has some really nice features, without making it fussy (you know how you know you’re NOT watching a blues band? When the bass player has 13 pedals). But when you’re playing with a band, 20 watts goes about as far as the front of the stage.

I intend to remedy this problem with these:

Fender '59 Bassman Re-issue

Fender '65 Twin Reverb

I have some pretty big plans for these kids, but I’m gonna need to wait a little bit until I save up enough (insert corny term for money here i.e. “green”, “dough”, “dead presidents”) for them.

Of course there’s always this:

(I’m not kidding)

The Line I Shoot....Will Never Miss

It would've been this MAN's 94th birthday on Monday.  

Thats not sweat on his face, its heart.