DISQUS

When I wrote it up, I failed to mention the water. The water was truly wonderful and hella useful.

Linda's Moog booth was the coolest thing I saw all day.

Sonic Youth: most overrated band ever I admit I feel off sometime after Goo, but I think there's still something to 'em, and as long as there's bands where there's nothing to 'em but the reputation, there's more overrated bands.

Seinfeld hasn’t aged well. I hated watching it when it was still on.

Eddie Van Halen is in no way a great guitarist, let alone the Greatest Ever. I think there's something to that, although I'm not sure I'd go as far as you do. I would suggest that it's at least possible that Van Halen got as big as he did in part because of his solo on "Beat It", hanging his popularity on Michael Jackson a little...

(And he singlehandedly justified the synth in hard rock.)

And, about he needing his band more than they need him, yes and no. Half his 5150 band is in Chickenfoot. My thought was that you have DLR, possibly the biggest dick in entertainment circa 1983, but he can fill an auditorium with his persona. Van Halen has Eddie's name, but Dave's the face. He's introspective, so he has to fight himself, medicate himself insensate to overcome his nature and blow Diamond Dave off the stage, or off the track. He's never had to do that with Hagar (and while I hate Van Hagar, I always loved his pre !55 solo stuff) and even less with ex-Extreme. Thus even Fair Warning is more appreciated by me than OU812

And while there may be faster and more tappy guys out there, very few can get their speed to sound as musical as Eddie Van Halen.

Although it is a cultural moment that comes in for much mockery, the 1980s were, in fact, an excellent decade for music. I have to agree. Well, maybe not about the Simple Minds album....

M*A*S*H was probably the best American sitcom ever. WKRP, man! And Frank was the point where they jumped the shark, because Charles was never the pure negation of Hawkeye that Frank was.

The myth of the holy innocent, of the purity of the primitive, is so much sanctimonious bullshit, invoked to justify the continued exploitation and mockery of the mentally ill and the socially maladapted. I find it harder and harder to swallow the early Pink Floyd stuff, and yes, there's a huge amount of real creepiness to it. But let's face it. Jonathan Richman has some great songs. Brian Wilson has some great compositions, including "Good Vibrations". I feel much the same about idealizing drug use, but can you seriously argue that SRV's post-sobriety work held a candle to Texas Flood and Couldn't Stand the Weather?

I would rather watch one of Wim Wenders’s batshit-crazy artistic failures (i.e. everything after Wings of Desire) than an artistic success by nearly anyone else. Exception: his music-related documentaries (Buena Vista Social Club, his segment of Martin Scorsese’s series on the blues), which come off as tone-deaf, patronizing, and borderline racist. Haven't seen Buena Vista, but the Blues bit? I could not stand that and haven't seen more than half.

Whatever you may think about Sting’s solo career, the Police were probably the best band of the last 30 years And they imploded just when they started getting good.

In terms of melody, mood, sophistication, and daring, the “dance” music of the last half decade or so beats the pants off the “rock” music of the same era; there’s more sheer tunefulness going on in any random track by Lindstrøm than in an entire album by, say, Okkervill River or the Fiery Furnaces. Because everyone wants to get in on that SY thing or the Holy Innocent schtick rather than generate good songs.

The most underrated virtue in music, among fans and critics alike, is professionalism. Here goes to the Holy Innocent thing again. I'm thinking of George "No Show" Jones in particular. I'm also thinking of a hip-hop show I saw in 1989. Slick Rick, De La Soul, Too $hort and LL Cool J, and I have to say I went for De La, but at the end of the night, he had put on a solid show while nobody else had.

The continuing influence of Simon & Garfunkel is much more pervasive than anyone these days cares to admit. Notice that there's no Essential Art Garfunkel. Paul Simon is another one who does the work. Nobody ever got caught up in the tabloid story of Paul's life. I think his influence is a great thing.

As I have theorized elsewhere, the template for the electropop duo traces back not to Suicide, as is commonly claimed, but to Captain & Tennille. That makes me laugh and is probably true.

The latest Guitar Player magazine gave the BBH Wah an Editor's Pick.

I might've tossed in "Set Your Controls To The Heart Of The Sun", the Pink Floyd song that inspired the Disaster Area bit.

12, Ted Nugent, Cat Scratch Fever

I'm blocked at work, so I can't see the actual video. I don't know if the rest of the band tuned a quarter down, too. It's either a gift to Phil Anselmo or him knowing he has a heavy right hand and he'll bend it up to tune just by that.

But if it's the trick I think it is, it's a fairly standard metal trick to do that between, say a G and a G#. The one example I can think of that does it is "Rainbow In The Dark" by Dio, where the riff is roughly A-F-E-F-G, all but the A being just root-five where the E is played by the middle finger and the F is index and ring. G is it slid up 2 frets. I think there's a Metallica bit that does something similar, but I forget which.

Ig! Someone used my guitar|jeans comparison! Win!

And it comes down to types of guitar, too. You don't see too many people relicing Les Pauls, in part because Les Pauls hide the damage. You wear out a Les Paul neck and even from the foot of the stage, the neck looks like any other. Rosewood hides the damage. Maple doesn't.

I'd go new and beat it up myself over time.

Feel I should point out Red House Painter's lead singer Mark Kozelek made an album or reconsidered Bon Scott songs called What's Next To The Moon. Good stuff, in a folkie sort of way.

I agree that a Floyd on a Tele a horrible thing.

I saw a pic of one on TDPRI.

It didn't look so bad.

For a hellspawn, that is.

I'd say a Floyd on a Les Paul would be as bad, but Neal Schon has a signature model that's just that.

A Bigsby on a Flying V? Lonnie Mack.

The idea that's currently floating my boat is a Tele with a lefty bridge and a reversed headstock. It would just look wrong, wouldn't it?

Country: Compressor, Compressor, and Compressor

1. no-name classical guitar, more for the kids than for me
2. 1980s Ibanez acoustic with neck problems and, currently, no strings
3. Supro lap steel
4. Fender electro-acoustic dread
5. 1988 MIJ Fender Telecaster, which is my most-modded thing, but so far, all cosmetic mods (black control plate, black knobs, bwb pickguard)

So that's five. Plus the mandolin and two fiddles....

I have yet to hot rod my guitars, because I don't really have backups. My acoustic can't play as an electric, my lap steel is out standing in it's own field, the classical just has no hole for plugging in and the Ibanez i essentially a dead thing. I'm thinking of getting a #2 Tele or similar guitar. If I had a spare, I would be far less fearful of messing up my #1 with foolhearty modifications.

My guitars worth noting are a late 80s Fender MIJ Telecaster, a Fender electro-acoustic Dread with cutaway and a 1950s (I think) Supro lap steel with screw-in legs. I love the Supro, but really, it takes more time to be proficient at lap steel than I've thrown at it, but I've taken it to jam sessions and not sucked. Some theoretical person could shred on a lap steel, but it ain't me, but plug it into a Bassman and it growls.

I started out in the 80s with Strat orientation. Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Warren DeMartini and Jake E. Lee and the rest of the superStrat set, that's where my head was. And I saw Soul Asylum with Dave Pirner and his Tele Custom and the big honkin' neck humbucker, and I thought it looked cool. My wife saw it, and she got me a gift of the Tele. It's not a custom. It's standard. But I grew to love it. My ears turned away from Clapton and Vaughn and toward Steve Cropper and Danny Gatton. Well, not totally. But enough. Right now, I'm thinking about getting other electrics, and the Telecasters are right out front.

You say a Fender can go anywhere, to any genre. I'm not with you 100%. A Stratocaster can go anywhere. A Telecaster is pigeonholed as a Country instrument, or a rhythm instrument. It simply isn't just that.

When I got it, my Tele had a white pearloid MOTS pickguard, which I never liked. I just (as in over the weekend) got black knobs, a black control plate, and a BWB pickguard. It's much more my style. Now I just need to engrave "Ignore Alien Orders" onto the neck plate.

93% on my first pass. I'm either great or an old fart.

And I forgot. George Lynch's Mr. Scary: You could give George Lynch a bog-standard Strat or Les Paul and film only his right hand, without sound, and I would say, "Hey, that's George Lynch!" And he has had a few notable paintjobs on his superstrats. The Kamikaze. The tiger stripe. But Mr. Scary is the skull and bones. Scary halloween art with a neck. It's him.

Joe Strummer's Tele. Sunburst spraypainted black (poorly) with the black (and in some places, the sunburst) worn through, with a sticker that says "Ignore Alien Orders". Wonderful.

James Burton's Tele: Pink Paisley. Fender thought they'd sell 'em to hippies, but the only folks I've ever heard of playing 'em are country guys.

Waylon Jennings' Tele: Covered with Black leather with white figures sewn on. As much a part of the opening to Dukes of Hazzard as the orange Dodge Charger.

Clarence White's Tele, then Marty Stuart's Tele: A late-50s sunburst Tele, with a Strat pick in the neck, a German griffin sticker behind the bridge and a whole freakin' other body bolted on to hold the B-Bender hardware. Leave it to a hot country picker to play a double-wide.

Springsteen's Esquire: Retrofitted with a neck pickup. Black pickguard, blonde body. The black-and-white pick on the cover to Born To Run made it iconographic.

Jerry Garcia's later customs (to prove I'm not only a Tele fan): Beautiful rich rosewood with gold appointments. I can't look at things like some Ibanez S series guitars without thinking about a Steal Your Face sticker behind the bridge, even if their actual shape looks more like a BC Rich take on a Stratocaster.

Lonnie Mack's Flying V: He had a V. He wanted a tremelo bridge. He found a Bigsby, but it was a tailpiece Bigsby. So he connected the wings of the V with a metal rod to hook the tailpiece to. Nobody's rockin' a Flying V like this one!