Brian's Rockin' Guitar Advent Calender

 Courtesy of Brian at Monster Base,

NJ,

USA

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Have you got fave guitar/ guitarist readers? 

JEFF BECK RIP

I've been lamenting the death of guitar guru Jeff Beck this week, who sadly passed away on Tuesday aged 78. 

One of the top rock guitarists ever and a pioneer of British blues and hard rock, even the likes of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were in awe of his skill and talent.

Most people will have heard of his band's hit single Hi Ho Silver Lining in March 1967. 

Less well known is Jeff and his fellow Yardbirds' appearance playing at a club in the David Hemmings cult film Blow-Up, which was released in the same month in the UK. It showcases Jeff's guitar skills and also his dramatic guitar smashing on stage! Here it is courtesy of You Tube.

As an aside and to add some context to Blow-Up at the height of the Swinging Sixties, here's the film's release date along with a few more dates in the pop culture world at the end of the decade.

• Blow Up released UK 16 March 1967
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• Captain Scarlet air date September 1967
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• Hong Trades Project SWORD toy display May 1968
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• 2001 A Space Odyssey UK Release date May 1968
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• Project SWORD expo at Hatchett's Night Club June 1968
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• Joe 90 air date September 1968 UK
• Scream and Scream Again filmed partly at Hatchett's Night Club 1970

Rest in Peace Jeff. The guitar stays on.

YOU GOTTA REACH DOWN TO LIFT THE CROWD UP!

After the glory of our childhood toys came the fizz and gleam of modern music. It did for me and I guess for many as the crazes of infancy gave way to the crazes of youth.

My first musical craze was the pop music around me when I was a listening kid in the late Sixties/ early Seventies : Slade, T. Rex, Suzie Quattro, Donny Osmond, the Partridge Family, the Sweet, Leo Sayer and so on. 

All this good stuff eventually coalesced around David Bowie for me and I bought all of his albums including his early stuff on Images, did a turn as his Ziggy Stardust at the High School talent show and bought some of his fabulous singles. I saw Bowie live at Preston Guild Hall in the early Seventies and thought I'd died and gone to Heaven.

During this period I was also obsessed with Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album and my sister introduced me to Lou Reed's magnificent Transformer, which excitingly had links to Bowie too.

As my hair grew longer in the mid-Seventies my tastes got heavier and Bowie and Lou gave way to hard rock and prog. Bouncing on my bedroom turntable now were LP's borrowed from my two Brothers' stereogram; Cream, Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and the Bumpers/ Fill Your Head with Rock/Nice enough to Eat compilations. My Sister introduced me to the Yes Album and Wishbone Ash's eponymous first LP and Pilgrimage. Some bands she listened to sadly passed me by; James Gang, Caravan, Family, Three Dog Night and maybe Quintessence.

All of this good stuff for me eventually coalesced around Led Zeppelin, Rush, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Free, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heap and the heaviest of them all, Budgie, whom I saw live at Lancaster Uni around 1977.

Behind all the noise were some troubadours, especially Joni Mitchell and emphatically Neil Young. Again I have my sister Rene to thank for introducing me to his After the Goldrush and also to Van Morrison's phenomenal Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece. Rene also played me Talking Heads.

In 1979/80 I co-formed two rock bands with my friend George [ and occasionally Keiron]. First it was a Blackpool prom busking duo called Alien Cage and then with two more friends, Boyley and Raff, a four-piece called Sirius, which gigged in a Preston pub called the Unicorn. Sadly we disbanded when my fellow band members went to Uni. I was 2 years older and without the band I left my home city too and lived on a bird reserve for a year. Turns out I'd left for good never going home again.

In the Eighties I was married with a young daughter. My old love of rock surfaced in a few bands I jammed with here and abroad and I always encouraged them to try classics like Free's Fire and Water and Tull's Locomotive Breath.

The Eighties' new wave and indie scenes largely passed me by. I wuz still a rocker really but friends did get me into the Smiths, Cocteau Twins and Teardrop Explodes among others. It was only much later that I came to appreciate indie, new wave and punk.

In 1990 a friend's 16 year old daughter came to live with us for a year to improve her English. She brought with her a bunch of cassettes, which she listened all the time to in her room. When she left, for some reason she left the cassettes behind.

13 years and a house move later in 2003, when I had my own man loft to fill with toys and listen to rock I rediscovered those cassettes, buried within the hundreds of tapes I had accumulated myself.

They were a revelation! I adored what was on them. Fresh, loud sounds which were clearly very rocky. Some of the tapes only had song names written on them, so I had no idea who was playing. Songs like Jeremy and Evenflow. Others had band names like Temple of the Dog and Mudhoney. I can still feel the excitement I felt when I first heard Temple of the Dog belt out 'You gotta reach down to lift the crowd up!'

I didn't know it at the time but I was listening to Grunge.

Grunge, like Punk, was a flash of lightning in a dull sky. Grunge's particular sky was Seattle in the late 80's/ early 90's. I was listening to mix tapes of LP's recorded from that time thirteen or fourteen years later! Grunge had already come and gone but I wasn't bothered. To me it as fresh as a daisy and despite being in my forties, once more I felt excited about music.

I listened to all the tapes incessantly and eventually worked out the bands: Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Mudhoney, Nirvana and the mighty Pearl Jam, whom I loved the most.

As it was now the age of the CD I bought the albums on the tapes, especially Pearl Jam. Eventually I packed up those old cassettes and returned them to that young student, now in her thirties!

Two decades later, now in my 60's, I'm still fascinated by Grunge. I'm not alone and last night there was a documentary on the telly to give us what we want, the story of it. 

Although disappointingly non-chronological  [I like origins and endings in order] it did remind me of the fuzz and wail of proper Seattle Grunge and the amazing local music scene it came from.

Green River, Malfunkshon, Mother Love Bone, Skin Yard, together with global superstars Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. They all knew each other and back in the late 80's/early 90's Seattle owned and loved them.

I wish I'd been there.

Have you had musical crazes readers?

Fender Render

Hi Woodsy. Here is a watercolor painting I made in high school.The painting was an exercise in basic watercolor technique and perspective.

Most of the time,stuff like this would usually be left in the classroom and eventually thrown out.Little did I know,my art teacher held on to this one,and gave it to my parents some ten years after I graduated!

They eventually had it framed and gave it to me as a surprise gift!

BrianF NJ USA

MY MACHINE HEAD

I'm pretty sure I had a plastic toy guitar in the Sixties when I was kid. I've been racking my brains as to its likely shape but its not collating!

I think it was like a plastic acoustic guitar. There were lots of them around connected to bands like the Beatles and to TV stars like Mickey Mouse. There's some amazing galleries online like this one https://www.polarityrecords.com/vintage-toy-guitars.html

In the Seventies I progressed onto a proper acoustic and eventually a Telecaster copy bought from Kay's catalogue by my understanding parents. This gave way to a cheapo Strat copy from another catalogue my folks had in the mid-Seventies and last but least a decent Hondo Iceman copy, which my Dad paid for in a proper guitar shop.

Writing this I realised that the only guitar I actually paid for myself was a big EKO 12-String, which I adored. This was circa 1979 and cost me £60 and somewhere I have lots of tapes of me jamming with this beautiful thing. Frustratingly I left it behind when I moved abroad in late 1980 and years passed and you know what happens.

I did by some amps and some fuzz boxes for a band I was in. One old Burns amp melted my friend's metal strings and burnt his fingers!

I still have my basic Strat copy and copy Hondo Iceman. The Telecaster copy went to a young guy in Preston. The only thing I remember about him was that he lost a leg in a motorbike accident.

I always wanted a Gibson SG as a teenager or a Rickenbacker. I would sit staring at them in NME or shop windows, but alas these axes of masters were beyond my pocket, as I didn't have much dosh after I left home in 1978. Insurance Clerks earned  around £70 a week,

My guitar playing fizzled out in the late 1980's but I keep them around for old time's sake. Some of my best days were playing these guitars in bands in the late Seventies going into the Eighties, although I was never very good. My thing was writing songs and tunes. Happy hippy Days.

But it all started with a plastic toy guitar my folks got me one Christmas.

Did you have one readers?

GUITAR COLLECTING

Being an erstwhile guitarist who still owns the 2 electric guitars from my youth, both cheap but meaningful, I always have a gander at guitars whenever I can.

Some people collect guitars and you will need deep pockets, the deepest, if you want rarity over availability. I just have the two I had as a kid.

Still its always a thrill to see what rich kids can get for their spondoolies. Here's the nine rarest electric guitars in the world.

https://rarest.org/music/electric-guitars

As an aside, back in the late 1970's there were a few talented young guitarists in my home town of Preston. One of them was Nick Dias and he was slick as anything on the frets. He's lived stateside for decades and worked at Norman's Rare Guitars for years. Nick gets to handle some of the world's finest. Back in the 70's I borrowed Nick's fab mandolin!