Actually, I have to admit the person who did it for me was Jeff Beck.

In 1976 I was listening to either WCCC or WHCN out of Hartford, CT, the two rock stations we could pick up in Western Mass. They played classic rock and as it was in those days, the formats were a lot looser…as were the DJ’s and the program directors. They would on Sunday mornings play 4 blocks of a half hour between 10am and noon of an artist, uninterrupted. Sure, it might be Lynyrd Skynrd or Led Zep but sometimes it was something new, different and really good. I was exposed to NRBQ, Nils Lofgren, Chick Corea (with Steve Gadd no less!) and other acts you will never hear on American commercial terrestrial radio again.

I can’t remember the song that was first but I would have to bet it was “Blue Wind”, the duel between Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer. These guys were fierce, loud and apparently from another planet. It was actually in rotation, a guitar instrumental with trading solos, Jan’s jagged yet perfect drumming, outer space synths and that guitar, that guitar that didn’t sound like any other. I bought “Wired” probably at White Knight Records in Great Barrington and brought it home.

The songs and performances of that album are part of my DNA. The liner notes, the photos, the Epic logo… they all are as fresh now as they were then, my comprehension a little better now of the technical aspect of it but the visceral, emotional, primal connection was there from the get go. This guy had attitude, attack, delicacy and recklessness in spades. The album “Jeff Beck Live with the Jan Hammer Group” came next and might have come off my turntable once or twice in the next 2 years. I actually wore that one out and bought a second. His breaking into “Train Kept a Rollin’” in “Blue Wind” was so fucking gnarly I want to play it for every young guitar player who thinks he’s a bad ass to show him what a Strat can do.

I was lucky enough to see him the first time on the “There and Back” tour in 1980 at the Curry-Hicks Cage/ University of Mass in Amherst. That album and particular quartet was a pretty serious extension of the direction that “Wired” and “Blow by Blow” started, maybe a bit more slick but still a sight to see. The Cage was an old hockey rink which the local fire marshals didn’t allow smoking in probably due to its flammable appearance. They had college ushers running around with little sand buckets grabbing cigarettes and joints away from the crowd. The thoroughly mundane Michael Stanley Band opened and then there was a lengthy delay until Beck hit the stage. I know it was long because they played 3 entire albums before the lights went down and, despite my ingestion of pollutants, I remember all of them: Little Feat “Down on the Farm”, UK’s debut album and their second, “Danger Money” (funny what we remember and forget, isn’t it?)

The lights went down and out they came. I was already a huge fan of the drummer Simon Phillips and have continued to be intrigued by Beck’s relationship to drummers. They seem to fuel his fire and the good ones send him into the upper atmosphere.  It was loud. Anyone who has seen Jeff play know that his presence is a combination of limitless swagger and indifference, so many of the licks and moves he created, if not modified for his generation and beyond. The term “Reckless Precision” I first heard as an album title for Tuck Andress but it sums up Jeff’s approach sometimes. He’s not infallible or perfect, he reaches, he pushes his guitar to the limit and coaxes and thrashes the most delicate notes and the most obscene wails and crashes out of it.

What would be considered a show off move ends up being the perfect punctuation for a phrase, like finishing the line on  “Freeway Jam” by bouncing the butt of his Strat off the floor for a tone like a 4 car pileup. He also knows as many ways to bend a note as anyone I’ve ever seen, between his mastery of the whammy bar, using his palm to move the floating bridge, his able fingers, the slide or inverting the guitar, sticking the headstock into the floor and leaning into it (don’t try this at home!!!).

In the hour and a half he played that night he did it all. But the funny thing is this memory from 29 years ago was nearly 20 years into his career and kids, he ain’t done yet.

As the music business began to bloat and then whither, Epic would release a record every now and then, a strange anomaly akin to the old roster at Warner Brothers, when Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker kept prestige creative acts on their roster despite their limited sales. Jeff’s album “Flash” was an attempt to commercialize him in an era of MTV, while he made appearances with Tina Turner and Rod Stewart, produced by Arthur Baker. It didn’t really appeal to either side of the fans, the fusion nuts or the music video pariahs. It still had glimmers of his fire, though heavily coated in 80’s dreck.

When “Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop” came out, all was then well with the world. A trio album with drummer Terry Bozzio and keyboard player Tony Hymas, it left the space that his guitar needed to breathe, twist and burn. The monster riffs of “Big Block” still kick the ass of anyone in its way. The real find was a track called “Where Were You”,  his take on a melody he became infatuated with after hearing the Bulgarian Woman’s Choir Le Mystere des voix Bulgares. The most vocal of his performances, the trem bar that is so overused and dive bombed by others becomes the breath and pain of his ethereal voice. For guitar players, it’s a master lesson in the virtually impossible. He was still showing the youngins who was boss if they had the brains or the balls to listen. The tour with the bass-less trio was a double bill with Stevie Ray Vaughan, a classic pairing that I sadly missed in LA as it was the only day in 3 months I had a gig.

They say if you want to get Jeff to walk away from a conversation, start talking about guitars. If you want to get his attention, bring him a part from a 1932 Ford. He loves cars, old hot rods, working on them and getting his hands dirty. He has nearly damaged those amazing hands doing it and to me, it would be a tragedy except he would have been doing what he truly loves when he’s not onstage.
He has taken his interest in electronica and made some records which sound modern and purely Jeff at the same time. He has been touring a bit more often and has had some rather amazing band line ups from a musician standpoint, people like Jennifer Batten, Pino Palladino and Vinnie Colaiuta have had the chance to tour with him. His current band is remarkable, with Vinnie, the young Australian female bassist Tal Wilkenfeld and Jason Rebello. A recording taken from a week of shows in London has been released called “performing this week…live at Ronnie Scott’s”  which shows he has just gotten better and better. There is now also a DVD from the same club run which includes some guests like Eric Clapton, Joss Stone and Imogen Heap. The real attraction here is getting to see what Jeff can do with the guitar, stuff that mere mortals can attempt to do but never will flow like the beautiful liquid fire that seems to emit from his fingertips.

I highly recommend either or both of these documents to musician or just plain listener alike. If you don’t like instrumental music or “jazz-rock fusion”, don’t let it stop you. There is something for everyone… unless you don’t like electric guitar. And in that case… there’s nothing I can do for you.

On the weekend of April 4th, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. A ceremony of presentations and performances occurred that night and was broadcast live on Fuse TV. I was fortunate enough to be there for the rehearsals and the event. It was amazing to see my employers inducted and to be a part of the show, but to me, being able to watch and listen to Jeff that close was one of the highlights of my career. If any guitar player besides Hendrix ever deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, it would be Jeff Beck. And now it’s official.

But we already knew that.

Learning the detail of the suburban winter
Zipped up steps start slow and stooped
The crime scene, deflated corpses of holiday saints on the lawn,
Waiting for a breath of hot air to revive them, early resurrection

Each squirrel runs a confused fast track
The local paper’s attempt at survival
Creates plastic covered headline only obstacles
For the giants tails to avoid

Micro dogs complain and wag
Usually in non-matching pairs
Along the fence, upon the trampoline, over the hedgerow
Their sonic injection ends as I pass the property line

They warned that things could be more beautiful
And that my boat could also go adrift
The emotion of having yourself lay open
Just as serious as the metaphorical version

Bare trees creak and bend
The spread of the leafless branches look arterial
I look for blockages and heartbeats
And pull the fabric from my itching chest

Left or right, how long will I go,
The sidewalk ends, the alleys merge
The road closed for the new railway
The walk detoured, not ended, not now

The dreadful new homes of a branded renaissance
Dropped on the old neighborhoods like stage weights
The wager of a turning tide in three different kinds of krick
The shotgun shack seems homey and real

Riding a wave of gratitude and frustration
Still young and strong but knocked about
Learning to live with things in God’s time
As the impatience of mine got me here.

The cold air arouses, the sweat crosses my back
Like a superstitious athlete approaching the mound
I turn and return, the limited menu
Mastering the 20 minute mile.

I’m not really sure if or why I want to write about my current recovery here. Perhaps as a way to update my friends and followers or maybe to help inform people about the process, either as a deterrent for bad habits or as positive motivation for others having to keep moving forward. A good deal of the warnings for bypass patients are split between sternal precautions (”don’t do this or you’ll look like a well-wacked piñata…”) and the emotional warnings (”you may feel depressed, cry without provocation or understand Journey lyrics for the very first time…”).

A great deal of my focus is on not overdoing it with lifting, bending, reaching, pulling, pushing, the petting of cats, dressing and the most frustrating, the opening of my Italian Moka-style coffee pot, which in true King Arthur/Excalibur fashion I offer to anyone who comes to the door to save me from the current percolated existence I am living. No one is the chosen one, yet. Thinking of calling strangers from the local gym, even steroid users.

I saw my surgeon for a follow up yesterday, the one stitch by my chest tube incision was removed and another stapled pile of papers was handed to me with more warnings and suggestions. Driving is out for a few more weeks. The 10 pound lifting limit is nearly 3 months and today it makes sense because I can feel what heavier things do to my chest clearly. I don’t want to threaten my healing in any way but the feeling of being totally unable to do those guy things (unload the groceries, shlep the Christmas tubs, cat wrangling) really does add to the bummer factor.

The real wildcard is the energy factor. You can wake feeling rested and in fact, better than you have in years with the exception of this post Alien chest binding. You begin to attack the day, doing light chores, going for walks, getting rid of a years clutter from your office and then you realize that your gas tank only holds ounces, not gallons at this point. You can push it but will pay in the end, often for a few days. I am doing my best to build my endurance back, in the short term with my goal of being able to do my job at the Super Bowl (more likely pointing a lot than lifting at all) and long term with better heart heath in general. I am looking at beginning actual cardio rehab next week to help me with my goal.

Well, I have to take on the physical side of my day right now (misty cold walk through the neighborhood) followed by the heavily enforced sissy nap (well, I won’t fight too hard). I’m gonna try to write more as I have no work based excuse and the more engaged I am here, the less isolated/negative I have a chance to to be (in theory). I need the outlet as the cats rarely laugh at my jokes.

Hi everybody,

Been procrastinating about writing this post for some reason. Maybe I was waiting for some insight or witty tag line to help me tie it all together. I have been running hard now for a little over 17 months or, if you want to be technical, maybe a while longer than that. My experience this fall working for Metallica was one of the highlights of my career and a great way to wrap up a good year of touring in a bad economic time.

I have spent most of my work life touring, usually taking care of the band or sidemen but very rarely the guy or gal down front. It’s a different kind of pressure. If you screw something up, the show often comes off the rails; no place to run no place to hide. I often catch myself playing “under speed”, a term used by pool players when you don’t play as good as you can to sucker in a mark and build up his confidence. Not wanting to take on the challenge or attention, I guess I have stuck to the shadows.

When I contacted my friend Arthur about working this fall, I wasn’t even sure which position I was looking at. I just wanted to work with my friend again and having learned that it was a temp job filling in for someone who had the job for years, I figured I could pull it off one way or the other.

It turned out to be taking care of guitars for James, the singer. I had inadvertently taken on a pretty good sized challenge. My fear was replaced by a drive to prep as much as possible and find a way to stay relaxed, believing in myself. Thanks to the crew, Chad (the guy I was filling in for) and James, I learned the set up and the songs. I tried to make my mistakes when it didn’t count and just focus on the details I needed to make his show smooth. I think my most valuable asset  was that he was very clear in what he needed and what he wanted from me. You would be surprised how much of the difficulty of my job is either a lack of communication from a client or their belief in my ESP abilities. A relationship is a relationship and being clear without punishing the other is a really good way to get what you need.

The Metallica touring machine has a reputation as a steam rolling force of nature with a large show that can move fast, often with multiple systems and across continents. A number of well known production managers have held the job and the team has great pride in their ability to attack tough gigs and get it set up in time, safe and sound. There is always infighting between departments and individuals but it’s been a long time since I’ve been around such a team. Very refreshing.

My part of the tour turned out to be 14 shows, a casual few legs as the band decided to work one week on, one week off as a way to not get separated from their families and their sanity. It is a civilized way to go out and work hard and then recover. The show runs around 2 hours, filled with lasers, fire and riffs of doom. It requires a great deal of focus, especially as the backline guys all do some form of effects switching, actually having to hit the button at just the right time for different sounds as they run across the stage.

I returned from New Orleans for the Thanksgiving break, a little down as I was not going back and still struggling with a lingering cough and cold I had been fighting for weeks. I spent a great deal of the holiday week in bed. Last Sunday around lunchtime I felt like I was having integestion and it came back at breakfast on Monday. Concerned I went to a cardiologist on Tuesday and found that I had arterial blockages bad enough for a double bypass. One was about 70% blocked and the other front side one close to 100%.  I was admitted and scheduled for a  “Cabbage” (Corinary Artery Bypass Graft) on Thursday.

The procedure went really well and I got out of ICU Saturday morning 6am all tubes and lines pulled by noon Saturday. My progress has been helped by my age and being in relatively good shape. I have been up walking and doing breathing exercises since Friday and after getting cleaned up Saturday night I woke up Sunday morning saying “I feel good this morning” which I probably have not said in 20 years.

I was released Monday afternoon,  3 and a half days after double bypass surgery. It is truly amazing.

A few challenges exist as I try to regain my breathing volume and deal with the coughs that are part of the healing process which clear the cack out of my chest and require me to carry a pillow around to wrap against my chest to protect my cool new scar and keep the pain from knocking me over. In all, my discomfort has been minimal, some antinflammitories and 2 small pain pills a day have been doing the trick. For a roadie to be home for 6-12 weeks and be limited to lifting no more than 10 lbs. is looking like the hard part; patience is a new focus. The rehab of my breastbone and chest muscles as well as the new lifestyle I’ll need to lead will be the new focus.

The love and support of all my friends and family have made it easy so far. I feel blessed and truly lucky to have discovered this problem which in reality is mainly a hereditary one with midnight bus pizza thrown on top…. and a long stint of getting away from exercise.  I hope all my friends go see the doctor after hearing my story and go for a walk.

As with most of my days since I’ve been home, I start out filled with energy and promise and then the reality of my situation is I am a bit winded and tired. I’ll keep getting stronger.

You’re stuck with me for a while longer.

“Steve Ferguson was the original guitar player with NRBQ (yup, before Big Al Anderson), was involved in Johnnie Johnson’s great album Johnnie B. Bad and has made great music for many years…

From Tom Staley (NRBQ’s Original drummer):

Dave Marsh recommended I contact you to get the word out about Steve Ferguson.
I created a donations page at www.stevefergusonfund.com
and I’m organizing a benefit here in Tampa at Skippers Smoke House.
I understand Terry is bringing his new band to Louisville for a benefit soon.

He is undergoing treatment(chemo and radiation) and is responding positively but it is really just buying him some time as it is bone cancer and has spread into his lymph nodes.
He just started the treatment 2 to 3 weeks ago and remains resigned but upbeat
about it all.

Donations are what is needed as he has a family and the medical bills
are going to be huge.”

Help if you can. Give back what he’s given to us…

PS- if you want to hear some live vintage Ferguson-era NRBQ go to Amazon and download Ludlow Garage…

9/20/08

When you return to the past
While in the present
You access the memories of stories
And the changes of time
You witness oxygen rust and cause trees to broaden
You feel the sea pull through you like an endless sob

How the smells were stronger, almost romantic
Before your nose began to age
Some roads paved and level, others rutted and grassed

The song of the backshore remains the same

Through the trees it calls you, the rumble of a cycle

Getting out of bed, walking wet down the concave path
The spongy moss springs back after each step
The bounce in your step not your own
The rumble becomes wave, again and again
Blow down root maps show you the underside of life
The forest ebbs and closes, the path changes near the end
The ax has not made the last straight or clear or dry

The rock welcomes you and you remember what a skill you need
To bound from ledge to boulder, kelp to slimy stone
Exposed by waning tide, barnacles and periwinkles cluster
Like a gem’s cousin encrusting the shore with decoration
The flotsam tossed and wedged into the landscape

The trash becomes tramp decoration, festooned from mounds and tree limbs
A mason’s day off becomes an unfocused earthwork

In the end nature left to grow creates a thicket of bramble
The areas cleared are surrounded by a rich tangle of things
The graveyard mowed but the stones tilt and fall
The earth has settled along the older plots

He rests in a corner under a low spruce
His flat marker home to a small flowerpot and chosen stones
In all directions outside the fence the low swollen bushes hold sweetness
Blueberries and mosquitoes blanket the ground and the air
We gather the ripe and swat the infringers
We say our words and wipe away the tears
We speak to the lost and the lost hear our words

And I know understand the importance of the marker
That it is for the living to connect with themselves
In this place where the differences are so amplified
Where we all spend the winter somewhere
Where we all are richer and poorer than someone else
Where we all are dreaming of hunting eagles and perfect waves
Where we all wish we knew the score but fear it as well
Where we all return to the past
And are rich with love and promise.

(for my brother Sam on the anniversary of his birthday, 9/14/08)

There has been an ongoing conversation the past few days over at Newsgang Live, a conference call/podcast that I sometimes participate in. I suspect it’s actually been going on since it’s inception earlier this year. When Steve Gillmor opened the doors to people outside the Gang (well, Calacanis did, but Steve always could have flipped the switch), this somewhat open source roundtable began to find its feet behind the Democratic primaries and Twitter. I have participated as my schedule allows and also done my best to listen whenever I can; I miss a few either way.

This group has begun to develop a voice of its own, distinct personalities and interest points that usually start around political news and end up either at an unexpected vista or in the weeds. The risk you take with an amorphous group and no clear format or topic is the chance for either the freedom to go wherever the group needs to go or total anarchy. Steve is good with making sure that his opinion is heard; some will use this as a starting off point or react to it like a magnet pole charged oppositely, compelled to go directly away from the point of contact.

Recently Steve has left the group to its own device, chiming in when either the ship starts taking water or lifting into the sky. The effect here has been both chaotic and strangely stimulating, others having to assume roles they either haven’t had to or didn’t want to. For the most part, everyone wants to talk about what they personally want to talk about. The political types are up on the latest news and angles; the tech types are watching the flow and looking for workarounds. The interesting part to me is those who are attracted to the intersection points, who, like Steve, see it all as one big organic organism that may be too big for anyone of us to see the connections or perhaps too simple for those of us who tend to complicate every equation.

I often expound my thoughts on how groups and group energy can be focused or wasted depending on either the effort or mutual release of control by the group. I work in a business where I see crowd control and crowd manipulation on a grand scale. The efforts to control a crowd for safety or efficiency often look futile; when the kids are released from the ticket line in order and told to walk orderly to the pit, they often ignore the security and each other, running with total abandon to secure the spot they want, that they feel they are entitled to, that they feel is threatened by the person behind them, often putting themselves in harms path. The container fills much like a bathtub, the low points filling first and leveling off as physics allows. In the time before the show, the crowd amuses itself with games, including chants, cheers and doing “the wave”, all requiring the ability to interact with others.

The next example is a little different. A good performer with charisma can make a crowd do things with a simple hand gesture, a funny look, an outrageous action. More often it is with words or a melody that the most powerful effect is reached, often songs that a group as a whole knows very well and has an emotional attachment to. The group moves as a single organism, sings together as a single voice, maybe not at pitch but remarkably close to either what their brain remembers from a recording or the reference of the sound coming from the speakers.

(from Wikionary)

1. energy (plural energies)
2. The impetus behind all motion and all activity.
3. The capacity to do work.
4. (physics) A quantity that denotes the ability to do work and is measured in a unit dimensioned in mass × distance²/time² (ML²/T²) or the equivalent.

What I now offer is a theory I have been playing with for a while to try to explain my own personal energy experience with work. Certain people have the ability to take groups and get them to direct their energy towards them in order to perform at a higher level. This is true with a good team leader or performer. With certain performers I find that I am twice as tired because they require intense focus from every one of us. When energy is processed properly, it can be a positive but draining experience. Sometimes if you don’t stay centered and allow the exhaust of the energy burning process to be removed, it can be toxic. Ask a massage therapist who does a poor job of releasing the tension they removed from a client.

The audience also feeds the performer. A better audience often inspires (fuels) a better performance. The energy fed to the performer is focused and redistributed to the crowd. The artist can either hog the energy or be free with it, making the experience more intense for the audience.

OK, where does this intersect with a podcast and micro communities?

(from Wikionary)

community

1. Group of people sharing a common understanding who reveal themselves by using the same language, manners, tradition and law. (see civilization).
2. Commune or residential/religious collective.
3. The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.
4. (Ecology) A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

I have personally experienced similar energy transmission within the web community. It may have not been as physical but was certainly just as visceral.

(from Wikionary)

visceral

1. Having to do with the response of the body as opposed to the intellect, as in the distinction between thinking and feeling. Often described as intuition; cf. gut feeling, gut reaction.

The people I have met with my connection to Newsgang Live are certainly intelligent and passionate about their interests. While some people become charged over elections, they are not all interested in the details. The same with Twitter and “social media”; I constantly get the dog-watching-a-card-trick face from very engaged and smart people. I know that among us are ADD, OCD and ADHD types who latch onto things hard or just to any bright shiny thing that catches the sun. Perhaps I’ve lived in a tour bus too long or in a city without many friends, but the community I’ve fallen into there is both stimulating and confounding.

Of all the people involved I’ve only met Steve and Tina; that was short and rushed in a work situation but you get a great sense of so much more from a face to face. That said, those I have not met, I still have a visceral connection to, the way we tumble the rocks put before us and find gems that pave the way forward. We are learning to listen as well as trying to clearly express the merging ideas in our heads. We get sidetracked but we seem to keep moving, perhaps some days away from where we’re headed, perhaps in circles, but we are moving.

I again wonder if we need to stand still and listen for answers, the difference between prayer and meditation, the act of group listening an action, not a defeat in a race to be heard or get the perfect spot on the barricade. This is not submission, it is surrender, an action, a choice to no longer fight the traffic and allow the chaff to fall around us, exposing what we’re looking for. Our actions will resume soon enough if I am right about the people involved but these moments of quiet are not only good but mandatory for me. We’ll find the words, the vocabulary, the questions and the answers…

(from Wikionary)

community

1. Group of people sharing a common understanding who reveal themselves by using the same language, manners, tradition and law. (see civilization).
2. Commune or residential/religious collective.
3. The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.
4. (Ecology) A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

It’s summer in Scandinavia, the sun is out and everybody is getting it while they can… go over to my Flickr account and see what I saw…