rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Take it to the Bridge of Sighs                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  (An Open Letter to the Ghost of Robert Quine)

    So I leave my wife (still love you, Lynn), I leave my small town (still love you, Fowler) and I leave my 3-piece bar band Flashback (still love you, Kenny, Dan). I hop in the car of a friend I hadn’t seen in about 30 years and I take my fearlessly backsliding ass to Denver, Colorado with the intent of finally putting all my musical aspirations on the line. Put up or shut up time, as a good friend back in NY told me. I had sold all my meager equipment (Danelectro Guitarlin, Magnatone 112) but my good friend and landlord was kind enough to hook me up with a pretty cool rig: an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. - black on black, none more black with a hum bucker and a seriously happening Behringer Modeling amp with 2x30 watts stereo power,  a pair of 10” Jensens and all the effects you could want built in. No, it’s not exactly a ‘62 Strat and a Blackface Deluxe, but the guitar stays in tune and the amp’s loud enough. Tools.
    Armed thusly I placed ‘guitarist available’ ads online at various local  sites. as well as  answered a few interesting one’s I found. Within the day I started getting responses from musicians as varied as the ‘shoe gazer’ couple from Birmingham who send funny, smart emails and should be moving to Denver soon, to the acoustic entrepreneur/genius who I’ve yet to meet - been busy getting settled in - but have had some really great phone calls with (If yr reading this Eric, I PROMISE I’ll call tomorrow) to the Nu metal band who’s 1st question was ‘Do you have, like, long hair? For the record the answer is ‘Like, not anymore, dude”. But the one call that came with an invitation to jam THAT day was from the deep voiced character from a previous post who asked “Can you play Funk?
    Now, you know as well as I do, Bob, I suffer from something of a funk deficiency. While not the whitest man what walks (not as long as Kenny G draws breath, at least) and, true, I’ve been known to hang and bang on the 9th chord like Jimmy Nolen with ADD on some of Flashback’s  15 minute versions of ‘Born On The Bayou’, I’m more prone and known for the noise of punk than the joys of funk. And to make matters worse, these guys are like serious jazz cats. They read music and EVERYTHING! EVEN THE DRUMMER!! The bass player has the best ‘ear’ I’ve ever encountered.  Put the song on the CD player and he’s got it down before the 2nd chorus. And I’m not talking about Ramones tunes. We got yr Chaka Khan, yr Ramsey Lewis we’re even doing ‘Billie Jean”
    And you know what?
    I love it!
     But I feel like I’m a ticking time-bomb and that I’m passing.    
    At first blush I felt like I was in waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay  over my head. But, with the bassist and piano player’s help, I’ve been able to come up with parts that don’t stick out like sore thumbs. I have to admit, Bob, I miss cranking it up and playing all sideways - and I’m sure I’ll ultimately find people I can do THAT  with as well -  I miss the bloody intelligence of the type of free jazz/noise rock playing learned from yr recordings, but I’m surprised to find I like making the people dance. I’m pretty positive I’m gonna eventually screw it up, probably on a gig at a really nice, upscale type club by stepping on the fuzz box and just ‘Quine-ing out’ on something like, oh I don’t know, maybe ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ by the Average White Band or ‘I Wish’ by Stevie Wonder.
    And you know what?
    They’ll love it!
    And I don’t think that’s be a bad thing anymore.
    Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from yr playing it’s to be yourself above all else. Yr playing has a fearlessness to it that I hope to someday approach with mine. And I don’t mean the ‘anti-for-the-sake-of-anti’ bullshit I’ve been guilty of for more years than I care to admit, I mean I want my playing to be ME coming through those speakers; all the rough angles, all the quavering hopes, all the prayers spat out like curses, all the curses offered as prayer, all the nights of doubt and anger, all the nights of the thousand smiles, all the joy and broken mirrors, all the pain and belly laughs, all the pride and sneezing fits, all the fear and solace, all the lies and justice, all the minutes of all the days that make a life worthy of praise or faint damnation. Riffs like falling down the psychic stairs, textures straight from brain pan alley.

    I see no reason why this can’t be accomplished in a Funk band.
    Do you?
Love,
 tim

Posted by: timbyrnes at 06:23 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  21 February 2005 - 06:28

 

wow, sly and the family stone reborn in denver.

howard

#2  21 February 2005 - 07:08

 

play that funky music whiteboy ain't nothing like a phattie and some london funk allstars jamming in the back of your head i'll have to find your local gig next time i'm in d-town.

JoeSchmuck

Comments: