I Been Dirt....

A few years back, Master Cylinder and I were having some rounds chit-chatting about whatever and somehow the topic of must have, deserted island albums came up.  Two records that I remember we both mentioned were Zappa's "The Best Band You Never Heard of In Your Life" and The Stooges "Fun House."

From time-to-time, I will walk from my office late night to my apartment.  I do this on clear and reasonably nights.  It's a good way to get some physical exercise and mental relaxation for me.  Usually I listen to some music, particularly stuff not in my current regular rotation.  I decided to listen to, first S.O.D.'s "Speak English or Die" and then Fun House.  Perhaps I'll get into it another time the business of doing a full discussion of why that is such a fucking brilliant record, but I'm just going to focus on one of the best rock tracks of all time on that record -- "Dirt."

I thought of doing a cover of Dirt for this solo album.  But given that I'm so pressed for time working on this fucking thing, and knowing the effort (and $$) involved in music licensing -- I'm not only a lawyer but a copyright lawyer -- I decided to take a pass.

Dirt is a very personal song for me.  That song can move me to tears.  Iggy captured those primal, existential sadness dips that you first get in your 20's -- fear of the future and the gradual loss of those fond memories of fun irresponsibility.  He captured the BLUES for me.  Yes, I'm part black by phenotype (and a lot of other things --  I recently discovered that my South Asian/Central Asian haplogroup, R2 dominates my genetics, but I digress).  However, culturally, I'm a working-class white ethnic kid who went on to college and law school and who would be a literal alien in down-home Georgia (my black roots such as they are, reside in  Jamaica) as well as Goa.  I didn't live in an apartment until college.  I first played spin the bottle with a bunch of Irish and Italian girls, while listening to Sabbath's We Sold Our Souls For Rock N Roll.  My blues was whether my parents would make me go to an all-boys Catholic high school.  What did I know about the blues.

The wah-guitar and Iggy's speed-crashed vocals capture that dark cloud in the most passionate way.  Psychedelic, but street.  Sad and dark, but not wimpy.  It's a temper tantrum of indifference.  It's a romantic power ballad to oneself.  Iggy's howl before the guitar solo and the whatever the fuck he's mumbling coming out of it, is poetry.

I remember one time early in a romantic relationship, my gal at the time wanting to get to know "me," asked if there were any songs that made me cry, since my taste were eclectic, usually on the underground side, and decidedly free of ballads or love songs.  My record collection would have Karlheim Stockhousen, Slayer and Ravi Shanker, but certainly no Lionel Richie, Journey or anything that would break the Top 40.

Dirt was the song I told her.

Link to Dirt on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/zxYXV2RrwIs

Guitar Amplification, Part 1

I'll start with an amp that has only been used once so far for the new record.  It's the Fender Bronco - a small little practice amp that I picked up in the late 1990's as an alternative to using the Roland JC-120 which, while a great amp, it's a pain in the ass to mic in the studio. The Bronco is capable of a decent gritty sound -- think Buddy Guy, but sort of falls off in either a heavy sound -- gets too buzzy and it's not all that handsome at being warm & clean either.  I used it, with nice results, on a cover of "House of the Rising Sun" that I did with a solo artist years ago but beyond that, I nevertheless returned to lugging the JC-120 to set up to mic in the iso booth.  Does wonders for the back.

In any case, I used the Bronco on this album to re-amp the Les Paul guitar part on "Stumbling," which were recorded through the Rolls mic pre.  But after that I used the Line 6 tube amp for everything else.  I'll get into the Line 6 next time and explain why the Line 6 is one of my favorite pieces of music gear EVER.

Here are a few views of the Bronco: