Beck, Clapton & Daly: New Supergroup?

I was out of town for five days this week and as close as I came to playing a guitar was reading this Rolling Stone interview with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Yet when I got home and started playing again, I was just as bad as before the layoff so I was pleased that I didn't lose anything.

As for the Beck-Clapton interview, it's mostly a mutual lovefest the two did in advance of the short tour they did together. The highlight was Beck saying his first guitar was one he made of himself from a cigar box and picture frame. "I played with it for hours, making noises," he said.

That's what I like to do -- make noises ...

In a previous post discussing the merits of the guitar vs. golf, I had cited John Daly as an exemplar of fairway fashion -- the golf world's answer to Billy Gibbons. It turns out that Daly is a guitar player himself and the sober, slimmed-down, guitar-playing Daly can be seen on a new show starting next month on the Golf Channel.

My Conversations With Rock Stars, Part 6

Agreed. And there's nothing harmless about my music. I once broke a man's arm in two places with just the intro to "Sweet Home Alabama."

From the Department of Frank Admissions

I admit that I stretch the truth whenever someone asks me how long I've been playing guitar. I stretch it pretty far, in fact. Someday I'll probably snap the truth right in half.

My response to "So how long you been playing?" is always, "Oh, about a year or so." Then I pause, try to look thoughtful and add, "Maybe a little more."

In truth, it's been two years and three months but I don't really think of "about a year" as a lie. It just seems casual and friendly in a rounded-off sort of way. Plus, it lowers expectations and I'm all about the lower expectations. I tell someone I've been at it for more than two years, they might expect some degree of competence.

A Couple of Degrees of Separation From Ringo

My mistake may be that I'm looking to guitar players for inspiration. It sounds like Dave Grohl's greatest guitar influence may be Ringo Starr. 

Grohl, who was the drummer in Nirvana, the singing guitarist in Foo Fighters and now is back behind the drums with Them Crooked Vultures, said in this interview that he approaches the guitar from a drummer's perspective.

"When I look at a guitar I almost look at it like a drum set where your low E string is the kick drum, your A and D are the snare and so when you're writing riffs I use the lower notes as kick and snare and the higher notes as cymbals."

So who was Grohl's main drumming influence? The guy with the big nose in the Beatles, he said .

"They were certainly the foundation for what I do and Ringo seemed to be the foundation of the Beatles. I always thought he had a great style. He had a wonderful swing and was a showman. A lot of drummers aren't considered showmen but he definitely turned it on."

When it comes to flinging his hair around, it looks like Tina Turner also had a lot of influence on Grohl.

My Conversations With Rock Stars, Part 5

Yes, but it's always so disheartening when they ask you to leave that room. At first, you might think they're kidding but they never are.

Gold Medal in Guitar

Why don't they give gold medals for guitar playing?

Livingston Taylor poses that question, which seems appropriate since the Winter Olympics begin tomorrow in Vancouver, in this video (date unknown).

He put "Guitar Olympics" together after listening to sports commentators and you have to like lines like "Heck, if Leo Kottke hadn't broken a thumbnail, I don't think Livingston would be here at all" ... and "No chance of getting the gold from Eric Clapton."

Taylor, a professor at the Berklee College of Music, is the little brother of James Taylor and he polished up his guitar playing as part of his therapy for depression at the same mental hospital where James also spent time for the same reason.

Willy Wonka & Slash -- Marketing Geniuses

Slash has become a perpetual promotion machine and one of his ploys is very Willy Wonka-esque.

Twenty people will get to take a guitar class taught by Dr. Slash himself if they find special gold guitar picks that have been hidden in packages of Ernie Ball Strings from Guitar Center -- much the way that Willy Wonka, who also was known for wearing a top hat, hid golden tickets in his candy bars in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

A silver pick will get you an Ernie Ball guitar, a red one is good for $500 at Guitar Center, black is worth an autographed copy of the new Slash album and a white pick gets you free strings. (Contest ends April 30.)

Another Slash-Guitar Center promotional collaboration will give some band a chance to write, record and perform with Slash, plus a whole bunch of other stuff.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can get the Hard Liquors entered in time to beat the April 30 deadline.

My Conversations With Rock Stars, Part 4

I hear you, man. But I can never understand the voices I create on the fingerboard. It just sounds like someone trying to scream through duct tape.

Lightnin' to Strike Again

Lightnin' Hopkins, the ultimate Texas bluesman, is going to be getting some posthumous recognition this year.

Thanks to the efforts of a fan in Houston, a historical marker paying tribute to Hopkins will be dedicated in Houston's Third Ward in the fall, the Houston Chronicle says. It's being financed by individual donors, as well as the Houston Blues Society.

In May, a Hopkins biography by Alan Govenar will be published and it promises to debunk myths about his relationship with Blind Lemon Jefferson, his gambling and drinking and his time on a chain gang. I hope it doesn't deconstruct the myths too severely; you hate to see a good reputation like that destroyed.

Hopkins started out playing his finger-picked country blues in his hometown of Centerville, Texas, which is where that statue on the right is located, before making a name for himself in the Third Ward, the same neighborhood that would spawn Beyonce many decades later. It would be a vast understatement to say that he was an influence on several generations of blues players who came after him.

"Po' Sam," as he referred to himself, played everywhere from New York's Carnegie Hall to Austin's Armadillo World Headquarters but he was more likely to be found working a street corner or a dive bar in Houston's Dowling Street. Sometimes he'd just hop on a city bus and play for the passengers to rustle up some spare change.

Hopkins was cantankerous, untrusting, unpredictable and didn't particularly care about fame. He could have put together a pretty good family band since bluesmen Mance Lipscomb and Texas Alexander were his cousins and zydeco great Clifton Chenier was a cousin-in-law.

In the video below (source unknown) Hopkins does "Baby, Please Don't Go," which I've been trying to pick up. I'm nowhere close to sounding like him (I think it's because I don't have the sunglasses) but my version still sounds kind of cool and dangerous.

For more about Lightnin', who died in 1982 at the age of 69, try this 2007 Texas Monthly story.

Leftovers

I'm picking the Colts to cover the six-point spread in Sunday's Super Bowl and I'm taking the over on Pete Townshend's windmilling during the halftime show.

In addition to offering a slew of betting angles on the game, the online gambling site bodog.com is giving some action on The Who's halftime performance. The over-under number on Townshend's trademark windmill move is five (meaning I predict he will do it more than five times) and he'll probably top that on the intro to the first song.

And if Townshend smashes his guitar, bodog also is offering the following odds on what the guitar hits first:

• Floor 2-3
• Speaker 2-1
• Microphone 3-1
• Drummer 100-1
• Fan 100-1

I'm giving 2-1 that Townshend punches Daltry at some point during or immediately after the performance ...

Some words of guitar wisdom from Randy Bachman (Bachman Turner Overdrive, the Guess Who) extracted from this interview:

"The guitar is the most popular instrument in the world ... It's the only instrument that you put your arms around. You hold it right to your chest and it becomes part of you. To be a guitar player is the most fantastic and exhausting thing" ...

And here's one T-shirt you never want to wear:

The iPod Goes to Texas

There's a geographical theme to February's baker's dozen of random iPod plays. Seven of the acts are (or were) Austin-based.

• "Watcha Gonna Do," Frank Carillo & the Bandoleros
• "Wasn't That Good," Wynonie Harris
• "Little Bitty Kiss," Buddy Miller
• "Country Girl, City Man," Ike & Tina Turner
• "When Drunks Go Bad," Austin Lounge Lizards
• "Oh, Boy!," Joe Ely
• "Getting By," Jerry Jeff Walker
• "Fire Engine," 13th Floor Elevators
• "Sonora's Death Row," Robert Earl Keen
• "It's So Easy," Linda Ronstadt
• "St. Mary of the Woods," James McMurtry
• "Tell the Truth," Otis Redding
• "Sorry You're Sick," The Gourds