Shamed by Bob and Wayne

I subscribe to Premier Guitar, one of the newer gear-porn rags out there, for the old school print addition.  My concession to the new-fangled way of things is to have figured out how to "like" them on Facebook, which resulted in being buried under a barrage of posts from them at all times of day and night.  I generally enjoy these, but I was hit with a double-whammy of shame like a knife in my heart from two in particular over the past couple of weeks. 

Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

I was astonished to see Bob Pollard interviewed in the current edition - that is Guided by Voices Bob whom I blogged about back in the fall.  I cringed a bit anticipating him subjected to questions on gear, string gauges etc but I thought the questions were sensitively done.  The knife-in-heart was the following:

What’s your relationship with the guitar like? Is it a tool or a source of inspiration?I’ve always considered it primarily, if not solely, a vehicle for writing songs. That was the reason I needed to learn how to play to begin with. A friend and I started at the same time—around 1975 after I graduated from high school. After about a year or so I had gotten to the point where I was proficient enough to write. I got together with my friend to check out our progress. I had 50 or so songs and he knew the entire lead from “Aqualung” note for note. My point being that the guitar serves a different purpose for different people.

Funny how such a simple statement can really bring it home sometimes.  I've wasted so much time on "practicing" or playing things that really go nowhere and create nothing.  There was a period during grad school when I obsessively logged every little playing idea that came to me in handwritten tab, and I still have all those packed sheets though have only glanced at them a few times in the intervening 20 years or so. Maybe that was a bit much in the other direction, but I'm way overdue to re-prioritize back into more creative application.

The other was a bit more gear oriented but in a similar vein:  Premier does entertaining "Rig Rundowns" whereby they video interview an artist (or the artist's tech depending on the magnitude of celebrity and/or availability of said artist) usually backstage before a gig and get them to walk through their ... uh... rig, like guitars and amps and pedals and stuff.  More astonishment when the latest of these was the formidable Wayne Krantz, whom I greatly admire.  

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/22218-rig-rundown-wayne-krantz

Even in guitar circles Wayne is pretty obscure, despite being an innovator and overall astonishing virtuoso and musician.  As I have mentioned in these pages I ran across his book "Improviser's OS" some time ago and have more recently watched and re-watched his series of instructional videos for Guitar World, which are great.   Wayne's Rundown stands in stark contrast to many of those posted by Premier and again instigated some serious soul searching - some of the things we learn from Wayne:

• "I don't know much about guitars".... ( I almost fell over at that one...)
• One loaner guitar (albeit a loaner from John Suhr) is plenty
• A bog-standard, stock (borrowed) Deville sounds good enough and works fine
• His trademark Jubilee Marshall was an eBay acquisition that he uses not because it's such a great amp, he's just "used" to it
• Pedals strewn around the floor like we all did in high school and then carried around in a bag can be preferable to the high tech powered pedalboard monstrosities of today.  I mean, like EVERYONE seems to have those things these days, Premier's current issue is devoted to it.
• Pedals again chosen if they work and sound "good enough"

The message coming through to me is: work with what you have, it doesn't have to be the best or greatest or definitive whatever - if it's functional you can work to get the best out of it.  I felt the burn of shame at this gazing around at my 15 or so instruments and piles of gear. 
Ok, enough - kudos to Premier for putting the focus on two greats way out of the mainstream,