Strapped -- in a Green Way

I like to think that my new guitar strap was once the backseat of a 1964 Chevy Biscayne. My wife gave it to me for my birthday last week and it comes from the super-green people at Couch Guitar Straps. That's it on the left and there are more samples below.

Couch, located in the L.A. enclave of Signal Hill, makes its straps from old seat belts and automotive and furniture upholstery vinyl. "Deadstock" is the term for it and, as the Web site says, Couch products are "cruelty free, sweatshop free!"

"We were the first company that wasn’t completely lame to ever make and sell a vegan guitar strap on the web in 1999," the Couch people say.

Even the end pieces are vinyl. Why no leather? "The buying and selling of animal skin carcasses was a little too weird for us," they say.

Beck and John Cale use Couch straps, as do members of Wilco, the Go-Gos and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They also make them for Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

You don't need a guitar strap if you're sitting down, which is how I do all my playing since I'm not quite at the strolling mariachi stage of my development. It's a big adjustment for me to stand because it puts the guitar in an unfamiliar position so to use the strap now I have to tighten it sufficiently to pull the guitar up under my chin. Someday, though, I'll be ready for the strap and the fancy sombrero.

Pieces & Bits

I was banging on the Alvarez the other day when my wife walked by and casually said, "Hey, it's almost starting to sound musical." And she didn't even put any sarcastic stress on the almost.

I felt like I'd just been nominated for a Grammy -- the Grammy for Best Almost Musical Performance by a Beginning Guitarist ...

Since Professor Lofgren was using a thumbpick in his instructional videos, I thought I'd try one just for fun. (If I had watched a little more of the video I would have seen Nils warning against thumbpicks because they can be "scary.") It was interesting but I have trouble with the upward strums. Apparently most thumbpickers use their index finger for the upstroke but it will be a while before my fingers are agile enough to handle that. Chet Atkins need not worry ...

Atkins once told an interviewer that he practiced eight hours a day, every day, in addition to the playing he did on the job. No, Chet Atkins has nothing to fear from me.

Fun With Nils

He may live on E Street now but Nils Lofgren grew up in Garrett Park, Maryland, which is right next door to my little town. Now he's helping me learn to play, even though he's currently on tour with that Springsteen guy.

Today I read an interview with Lofgren and it mentioned that his Web site had downloadable video guitar lessons. He made a point of saying that they were for the musically challenged and that the point of them was to have some fun. "If you love music, you don’t need talent or rhythm," Nils says.

Since that described me so perfectly, I decided I'd better take a look at the first lesson (here's a youtube sample). The production values are pretty basic. Apparently he just set up a video camera while on the road, shooting it alone in his hotel room (you can see clothes strewn across the furniture) in a very casual, friendly manner. When he wants to make sure you're seeing where he places his fingers, he rises from his chair and steps toward the camera. When the lesson's over, he pulls out a remote control and announces that he's turning off the camera. It's very youtube, which is part of its charm.

And Nils is all about the fun. He starts off saying that as long as you have a guitar with you, let's go. As long as it sounds reasonable, you can deal with tuning it later. And don't worry if you don't have a pick; you can get one of those later, too.

And I did learn something fun. Hop on the first two strings in the third fret and by alternating between playing them opened and closed in the strumming/picking pattern of your choice, you can get a cool little country sound going. It couldn't be simpler yet it was very eye-opening for a novice such as me and even made me feel semi-creative. Nils' lessons could be a nice supplement to my weekly lesson and I'll definitely be going back for more.

I'm afraid I've only bought one Nils Lofgren recording in my life, "Cry Tough" from way back in 1976, and the only song I can remember from it is the title cut, which is a very good song indeed. After doing a little research, I have to say Nils Lofgren is highly underappreciated, his work with Springsteen notwithstanding.


He has a long association with Neil Young, having played piano as an 18-year-old on "After the Gold Rush" and was a member of Crazy Horse for a while. This year Lofgren came out with "Nils Sings Neil," an album of 15 Young songs that has received good reviews.

He was so excited when the Washington Bullets made their NBA championship run in 1978 that he wrote a song, "Bullets Fever," about it and delivered it himself to local radio stations.
Sample lyric:

You gotta be a fan from old DC
To know what the Bullets mean to me
To see them gut up and go all the way
For me Bullets Fever is here to stay

He was a gymnast as a kid and worked his skills into his stage act by playing his guitar while doing a flip on a mini-trampoline. Here he is doing it with Springsteen in 1984.

"I was doing it [the flip] in 'Rosalita' and Bruce pulled the song out of the set for a while so the trampoline went out of the show," he told Guitar magazine in 1995. "I just felt like I'd done it for 16 years every night from 1969 to 1985. It's a great stunt for the audience but it was a distraction for me because I had to worry about it all night. It was very dangerous and I fell quite a few times but never got seriously injured."

And if all that's not impressive enough, billion-selling mystery novelist Clive Cussler, who is Lofgren's neighbor in Arizona, made him a character in "The Chase." Plus, he had a song on "The Sopranos" and he plays the accordion.

And is it just me or, judging from that picture atop this post, is Lofgren starting to look a lot like his boss?

A Hell of a Guitar

It might be a little imposing to play Robert Johnson's guitar -- even a facsimile of it. But Gibson has a version of the L-1 that the legendary bluesman played (see this post).

Gibson says the L-1 "captures the haunting, timeless sound of the man whose genius has inspired generations of blues artists" and it even has period hardware. It also has Johnson's signature at the base of the fretboard. I wouldn't have expected Robert Johnson to have such nice penmanship.

The guitar goes for about $2,250 online but I hear you can usually work out a barter arrangement with the proprietor of Lou Siffer's Vintage Guitar Shop, located at the intersection of highways 61 and 49 outside Clarksdale, Mississsippi. It's open past midnight.

Tom DeWho?

If I were a rock guitarist, it would be someone I've never heard of. That's according to one of those Internet quiz thingies that kids like to put on their Facebook pages.

I went to the "Which Famous Guitarist Are You?" link* and answered everything as accurately as possible -- questions regarding playing abilities and musical preferences. It told me I was Tom DeLonge, who it turns out used to be the guitarist-vocalist in Blink 182 until he "left the band amid tension with other members," says Wikipedia.

Admittedly I'm not in the Blink 182 target demographic but Mr. DeLonge apparently isn't much of player, since the quiz said this about me:

For you, music is all about having fun. You only know powerchords, and you don't care what anyone else says.Your drummer is probably a better guitarist than you, and a better singer as well. You might just want to get a job at McDonald's.

OK, but I bet I could have gotten along with the other band members better than Tom.

I retook the quiz by giving answers that I wished were true and the result came back as Jimmy Page, proving once again that dreams are better than reality.

* That link doesn't seem to be working now but there are other similar quizzes, such as this one, which likened me to Esteban, the cheesy guy on the TV shopping channels who's peddling guitars and instructional CDs. He wears a bolero hat and sunglasses but despite all the airs, his name is really Stephen Paul and he's originally from Pittsburgh.

Etc., Etc.

While visiting Chicago this week I had a celebrity sighting. I was sitting in the lobby of our hotel and looked out the window to see chief Pumpkin Smasher Billy Corgan getting out of black Lincoln Navigator. He loaded an acoustic guitar onto a tour bus and hit the road with some colleagues who apparently were staying at our hotel. He was taller than your average rock star but basically looked like he had just fallen off a skateboard, wearing a floppy bush hat and three-quarter length pants. I'm not sure why I recognized him since I wouldn't recognize a Smashing Pumpkins song if I heard one ...

I was hoping to get to Buddy Guy's Legends club while in Chicago but ended up at White Sox game instead ...

I missed a sign of the apocalypse last fall -- the Sex Pistols recorded a new version of "Anarchy in the UK" for Guitar Hero III. "A bit of anarchy in a video game is alright by me," said John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon. I guess this means punk rock is about to make a comeback.

The Eddie Van Halen Memorial Bathroom

I know what you're thinking -- How did he sneak into Eddie Van Halen's mansion and use the bathroom?


Actually, this is the bathroom at the new Stancill's Guitar Studio, where I take lessons, as painted by the owner to resemble EVH's famous "Frankenstein" guitar. Much masking tape must have been used.

It's a String Thing

For me, it like performing brain surgery. I was only changing six guitar strings but it was a job that I felt completely unqualified for. I was afraid I would do more harm than good and that the damage would be irreversible.

I had swapped out single strings a couple of times before (with mixed results) but this was the first wholesale string change I had ever attempted. I followed this handy online tutorial and, in the end, the patient survived the 45-minute operation and actually seems to be better off. For now, though, the Alvarez remains in guarded condition until I can get a second opinion from my guitar instructor.

From what I've read, recreational players should change their strings every month or two and let's just say mine were exceeding even the standards that Guy Clark mentions in the lyrics above. (Some of your big-name guitar heroes change after every show.) I use poly-coated Elixer strings, which supposedly last longer than most, but still I was definitely due for a change. A guitar's sound can be adversely affected by the buildup of dirt, oil from fingertips and other grunge that gets trapped in the coils of the strings and my sound certainly doesn't need any outside negative forces working against it.

While the old strings didn't sound terrible, the new ones are a definite improvement -- much richer in tone. I'm not sure I have them all properly wrapped around their respective tuning pegs, though, which might cause them to slip out of tune.

So what to do with those old strings? Well, you can weave them into a lovely piece of folk art, like this, uh, bracelet.

The iPod Has a Mind of Its Own

This iPod clearly has its own individual tastes. Three repeaters on this month's random play list.

• 'Torn Asunder,' Stone Coyotes
• 'Hallelujah Time,' The Wailers
• 'Fool to Cry,' Rolling Stones
• 'NYC,' Steve Earle
• 'Guitar Town,' Steve Earle
• 'Here in Arkansas,' Robert Earl Keen
• 'Little Baby,' Rolling Stones
• 'I Don't Want To,' The Blasters
• 'Ring of Fire,' June Carter Cash
• 'Sheila,' Dan Baird & Homemade Sin
• 'Night Right for Love,' Robert Earl Keen
• 'On the Road Again,' Willie & Merle
• 'Light of Day,' Bruce Springsteen

Practice and Practical Excuses

Here's a beginner's dilemma:

Is it better to go to a lesson and play badly, leaving your instructor to think that you're not practicing ...

or to tell your instructor that you've been practicing faithfully, then play badly and leave him to silently wonder, "Gee, he's been practicing and that's the best he can do?"

Not that it shows but I honestly do put in a good bit of practice time, so I try to split the difference by walking in to my lesson and saying right up front, "Well, I didn't get to practice as much as I wanted to this week."

I figure that gives me a little wiggle room.