Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:23 am Post subject: FLINT GIG CUPERTINO ?
Hey , hi all, and u Aeolian ? how was your jam night ? So i want more details about the Gig ? How does it sounds with 2 guitars ? more rock ?
Did Volker still plays his Les Paul and the Opal ?
It seems that everybody enjoys to be at home for Xmas.
And what was your toy by the way ?
Thanks . Nosy Bloby.
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 3:49 pm Post subject:
Elizabeth posted her review under the Robben's shirt thread.
I have to confess with being less enchanted with Los Lonely boys. Young kid playing minor pentatonic riffs on a Strat with a TS9 and a Super. Sound familiar? Heard this before? And this is the "future" of blues? If anyone has read Pat Metheny's diatribe on the net about Kenny G "pandering to the masses", you can apply the same thing here. And to think that these guys got more appause than Robben. I think most of us are here because we appreciate the maturity and sophistication of Robben's approach. If I've offended anyone, my applogies. Just not my cup of tea. Had my fill of Collins/Hendrix/Vaughnabee's.
On to Robben's set.
Quick gear note; Robben must really love that black Baker. He played it almost all night. Only reached for the Tele on a couple of songs. Even used the Baker for things like Canonball shuffle where he would have normally turned in the Crucible or whatever humbucker thing he had for the Tele.
I was stuck 3/4's back in the very large and reverberant Flint Center. Elizabeth probably had a much better time up close. From where I was, the bass was completely indistinct. I've heard Dwayne in many clubs around here and one of his great attributes is his time. You couldn't get that from where I was. Tos Pano's drums and Robben's guitar sat in the same place in the mix bluring the drums. Even though Tos kept it really simple and was probably grooving his brains out up there. I didn't see many heads bobbing around me and I hate to think this was probably a lot of peoples first impression of Robben. You had to listen through the mess to recognize how great what was happening on stage was.
As for Volker, it was like hearing Jeniffer Batten with Jeff Beck. As great as Jeniffer is, she sounded mechanical next to Jeff. The contrasts between Volker and Robben were illuminating and inspiring. Not to take anything away from Volker, he is a solid player and his solo on "It Don't Make Sense" was the best I've ever heard from him. He has obviously been working on things and played some very harmonically cool stuff. Some times he sounded like he had been working with Robben or at least studying some of Robben's older fusion playing. A couple of times he sounded like he'd been listening to Wedemeyer, in particular a certain triplet phrasing that John does at high points in a solo. The "Don't Make Sense" solo brought out one big thing, he kept the lead channel off and there were dynamics and expression in the middst of the riffs. Most of the rest of the night the combination of the Les Paul, and the amount of overdrive on the Two Rock, left things kind of muddy and flat in dynamics. You really noticed this because 24 bars later, Robben would kick in and even with the overdrive on, there was this great in and out dynamic thing going on. When he popped notes, they jumped out. It made each phrase come alive. And I use the word phrase very deliberately. Robben was playing in bar or bar and a half phrases. And then leaving a space. Think "I'm gonna pack up my suitcase. Move on down the line". It's often said that it's a pity guitarists don't have to breathe. We might be forced to break things up into phrases. So Volker was committing the common sin of playing continuously (even if they were great licks) while Robben showed his greatness by singing with the guitar. Again, I don't want to disparage Volker, we are all guilty of this. Just that with a second guitarist next to Robben, it was more apparent how wonderful Robben's phrasing is.
That's what inspired me to grab the Tele with it's brighness and lack of sustain, turn down the gain on the amp, and see if I could make myself remember to breathe. (course I didn't have to deal with the frazzled nerves of having to stand next to Robben)
All in all, Robben played great, and looked like he was enjoying it. Hopefully some more folks will be inspired to see him at Yoshi's next month and get the full force of the groove. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 1043 Location: Boulder, CO
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 8:56 pm Post subject:
Hey Aeolia,
I have never heard Volker play, so I can't comment on his playing.
Robben's phrasing, touch and dynamics are about as good as it gets. In the blues guitar genre, I have really never heard better phrasing. Volker has a lot of guts to get up there with Robben.
The other thing is Robben plays lines. Like a jazz player, his lines make melodic and harmonic sense...there's a development thing going on. Most blues guitarists just riff away. There is a huge difference!
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 9:34 pm Post subject: The Abyss
Aeolian,
I wrote a long (and rather witty, if I do say so myself) reply to your post, but it disappeared into the cosmos...a sign from the Universe, I am certain. (For me to shut up maybe?)
In a nutshell, I have a growing affinity for pentatonics, as my son is working on them in his guitar lessons, and I am a sucker for family closeness and love. What Los Lonelys lack in experience, I think they more than make up for in enthusiasm and joy in the doing. (My same thoughts about brand new teachers, interestingly.) But what do I know? I am so easy to please!
Kirk, it was a blast "chatting" with you this evening...have a great time tomorrow and Monday. Now I have to wait until January...darn! _________________ www.elizabethgage.com
I was in the Bay Area this week for work and was actually having (a business) dinner just a few miles away. I was tempted to drag my dinner companions to Cupertino, but then I thought it was not a good idea. Before I read your review, I thought that it was a Robben-only gig.
I hear you on the "breathing" thing. I always say that a "pause" is a note as well and it can be played.
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 2:24 am Post subject: Too bad
Hi Marin, too bad you were there and not being able to enjoy a gig...
Life is a beach in california.
Volker is a really tasteful player ( with a german attitude , he is strong & solid as a rock).
About breathing : Hats off, Knees down to MILES . As you state, he is the first to make me aware of a silence as a note, along with my beloved hero
J.Hendrix ( but with jimi it's not so obvious sometimes).
So welcome back to Europa. Blob
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 10:14 am Post subject:
kirk95 wrote:
Hey Aeolia,
I have never heard Volker play, so I can't comment on his playing.
Kirk,
If you have the Bloomfield tribute you have some of Volker's current playing. He even does a bang up job singing "Next Time You See Me". He's on several of Pat Ford's releases and is Pat's primary guitarist.
Elizabeth,
I was afraid my opinion of Los Lonely's might ruffle a few feathers. I too love pentatonics. I think lot's of Robben fanatics spend too much time playing half dimished and other "out" Robben licks, and miss how well he sets them up with familar pentatonic ideas. The "out" riffs only sound special when well placed as spice within something that has already drawn you in.
I know it's politically incorrect, but I never cared for Stevie Ray Vaughn. (and I know a lot of very good guitar players who feel the same way) To me, he was just another Hendrix imitator. Right down to the hat and upsidedown wammy bar. It has been pointed out to me that both of them leveraged off of Albert Collins but Hendrix took it to another level. The attributes that SRV had, playing in time, good phrasing, good tone production, are basic to playing guitar IMHO. Anyone who grew up in the shadow of BB, Eric, Jimi and Jeff, was exposed to fluid, expressive blues guitar playing. And that was 30 years ago. As the Willie Brown character in Crossroads said, "you have to pick the music up where you found it, and take it someplace new". Robben does this in spades, which is why I'm such a big fan of his. He has complete command of the act of playing a guitar, and uses this to make compelling music. Just being able to pull off an old blues lick in decent time with decent tone, is not a remarkable event in my book. To paraphrase the old English slang, you can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting some kid with a Strat and a Tube Screamer, playing the same old stuff. The worst offender is Corby Yates who seems to have fallen victim to his own schtik. A friend of mine calls these "Stevie Ray Vaughnabees", I call them a "Strat in a Hat". You can usually spot them by the gear. And it takes about 8 bars to hear all they have to offer. The troubling part is that there are so many people with apparent talent and potential, handcuffing themselves imitating an imitator. When I was learning to play in the late sixties, if you were young and into rock, it would only be by chance that you would hear harmonic ideas that we refer to as jazz. Fusion hadn't been invented yet. Rock players weren't playing odd modes like they do today. Music theory was something classical musicians studied. Today, there's no excuse to not avail oneself of a broad range of harmony and musical ideas.
I hope this doesn't start some sort of flame war. These are just the opinions of someone at a certain place in musical development who doesn't understand why others would choose to be mired in the past.
Quote:
_________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 11:09 am Post subject: My feathers are fine...
Aeolian,
Please don't worry that you might have ruffled feathers...differing viewpoints shouldn't insult anyone. (I'm such a mush, I am always afraid to hurt someone's feelings by saying I don't think their performance was award winning...)
My usual reponse is, "..de gustibus," which epitomizes my feelings that taste is completely subjective (sometimes suggestive?) but I have to go on record that I will always adore SRV. My garage blues band has been trying to do his "Taxman" for years. (Of course the lead singer is a real prima donna, and she is always whining that we need to do the tunes, "...more like Robben..". She {!} blew a gasket, albeit a mini gasket...ALL RIGHT, so it was just a puzzled look {I love to pretend I'm tough! ha ha ha ha} when our sit-in drummer did "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" in the old Animal timing...I didn't think we would have to explain this when we put it on the song list...jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez. I was too busy having serial (cereal???!) panic attacks to even think about mentioning the tempo...arrrgggghhhhh! I'm the singer...they rarely listen to me when I count it off anyway (think that could be due to the fact that I count in dance time? 5,6...5,6,7,...they get so discombulated with that....
Hey...ya know how many lead singers it takes to change a light bulb?? None! She can just stand there, because the Universe revolves around HER! hahahahahaha (...just kidding...those that know me are familiar with my generally gelatinous spine, and the tendency to be associated with chicken and other poultry!)
You should only know how personally I take some comments ...I still have not gotten over the, "There's THAT woman..." remark. {What DID that mean?} And why is it, that whenever I go to shows, total strangers look at me and ask," Ohmygoddd, are you elizabeth?" Remind me, someday, to tell you why I feel such a strong bond to Robben...been a fan for 30 years, but going to a show of his, a few years back, was a "Rite of Passage" for me on a huge journey that continues; and like all good works in progress: two steps forward, one gigantic slip back.
Eeeewwwww, too personal...sorry!
love, elizabeth _________________ www.elizabethgage.com
Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 1043 Location: Boulder, CO
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 9:32 pm Post subject:
I personally love SRV!!! You ragging on Stevie? Come on....
Yeah he took a lot from Hendrix and Albert King, but the man played from his soul with an energy and intensity that just seemed to coming from somewhere else.
That is what is missing from all the SRV clones...IMHO. They can play all the riffs but without that emotion and intensity is really sounds average to me.
Joined: 21 Jul 2003 Posts: 401 Location: College Station, TX
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2003 7:42 am Post subject:
A - no ruffles here - could not agree more on several of your points. I have been scratching my head over the SRV thing for years, and living in Texas it is almost sacreligious to diss the man. They have a statue of him in Austin, for cryin' out loud! But really, he owed it all to Albert King and Hendrix. Sure he put his own stamp on it, but did he take what they had and make it better? I have argued this for years and still the clones keep coming. There is a new one every year or so and then they fade away, thankfully. And I used to think it was an age thing - like you, A, I am older and was playing guitar before SRV came along. I was SO into Freddie King and BB in the early 70s that when SRV hit it was obvious to me where he was coming from, and my reaction was, so what, listen to Albert play Laundromat Blues and hear the real thing. But most folks don't put 2 and 2 together and they miss out on the progression and evolution of musical ideas.
But it can't all be attributable to age - how difficult is it to learn about influences? Not very! Take RF - read an interview with him and he mentions Bloomfield, so you pick up a Butter CD and go DAMN! Then you read an interview with Bloomfield and he talks about BB, and you pick up a copy of Live at the Regal and you go, HOT DAMN! The you read about how BB listened to Charlie Christian and Lonnie Johnson, etc, and the list goes on. This ain't rocket science, but you have to WANT to learn about stuff and not just accept the next big shiny piece of new thing out there! It's like Miles, and Kind of Blue - how many guitar players mention Kind of Blue? Damn near all of them, but how many get beyond this one release and try and learn from where and whence it came?
Point 2 - phrasing. How true. Just take a damn breath every now and then. How difficult is that? I think some players feel if they leave any space between notes that people will be able to tell how lousy they actually are! And using a tele to keep you honest is a great idea. But then I am biased just a bit.
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2003 9:31 am Post subject:
It seems you can break the SRV thing into three camps:
Those who zero in on the passion and fire and love him. I do admit that at the end he was also developing his own voice. I love playing Riviera Paradise, and Lenny showed he was stretching in new directions.
Those who really don't get it but are polite enough to not tear down folks in public.
And arrogant cusses like me who feel compelled to shout out that the emperor has no clothes. And we don't get how SRV gets lionized and put up there with Eric, Jimi, Jeff and all the great legends they learned from.
A common joke among my guitarist friends is that we all steal stuff. Everybody does. I have an old LA4 album where Laurindo Almeida says "if this should sound like another, remember, if you cut from one, that's plagerism, but if you cut from many, it's research.
It would be an interesting poll, Do you think SRV is a legend?
And does that legend justify the onslaught of clones? _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:02 am Post subject: intresting
Wow , i think i have to work my english before puttin' my 2cents.
Intesting thread, indeed!!!. I love it , 1st i heard SRV i was really not glad at all, sounds like a butcher........
Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 886 Location: SF Bay Area
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:07 pm Post subject: Re: My feathers are fine...
[quote="elizabeth"]Aeolian,
She {!} blew a gasket, albeit a mini gasket...ALL RIGHT, so it was just a puzzled look {I love to pretend I'm tough! ha ha ha ha} when our sit-in drummer did "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" in the old Animal timing...I didn't think we would have to explain this when we put it on the song list...jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.
I've never heard it but Robben has said at shows that his version is closer to Nina Simone's original than the Animalist. By the way, do you do it in Bb? A singing bass player friend moved it down to Am and there's a part where "my intentions are good" that's hard to play the inversions Robben does in that key. Then there's that tricky half bar part. Every time we play this, we kind of glance at each other like "should we try this?" Never a dull moment with pick up bands. Funny story, but the same bassist learned "You Got Me Knocking" from me several years ago and got caught. I picked it off a live KFOG broadcast and was playing it before Supernatural came out but moved down a half step so it's easier to sing. Then he went down to LA for awhile and played with Robben some. The next time we got together and I called it, he shot me a dirty look and said, "you know, you play this in the wrong key". I had the picture of him going "yeah I know that, and then starting off a half step flat Opps. _________________ There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:18 pm Post subject: feathers
Aeolian, Bb it is, indeed, and yes it follows Simone's path, although I pushed through the Animal style for a while, before nodding the tempo a bit. It was fine. Noodling is fun activity. _________________ www.elizabethgage.com
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...they get so discombulated with that....
1st i heard SRV i was really not glad at all, sounds like a butcher........