Let's Do Something With Our Hands

  

Boy it's been a long time!  No, I haven't forsaken longer form writing for the 140 characters of Instagram or Twitter.  My life is just not that interesting.  In fact, after several years into the successful experiment that has been my divorce and BachelorDadHood, I fell into a comfortable rut.  A rut I felt I could only power my way out of with 750cc of vintage Japanese motorcycle engine.  I've said before that I would love to own and maintain a vintage cafe racer to zip around town on in the early mornings and late evenings, and to work on in the cool dusk of my garage.  Luckily, cooler heads prevailed.

No motorcycle.  It certainly would've spelled the death of me.

So what to do.  I was still in a rut, remember?  Clearly, I needed a hobby other than sulking at home, listening to my vinyl records, or worse, chasing tourist skirts in Waikiki (especially since I was doing that so poorly, as well).  Then I discovered it while talking with another OnceWereBachelor friend, a good friend of mine since third grade, a father of three girls, and husband to a wonderful woman who had his life tuned to such a perfect pitch that he too went searching for a hobby.  Something to keep his hands busy at night.

Three words:  DIY Electric Guitar.  Okay, I know that's more like five words, but you get the idea.

I've always thought the quintessential rock n' roll guitar was embodied by the Flying V, originally built in the heady days of Sputnik by Gibson.  I've always wanted one.  However, their versions, even the most affordable of them, are laughably expensive.  I discovered a company in Australia that will mill one (in China) to one's preferred specifications.  After many weeks waiting, it will arrive unassembled and unadorned.  A moderate amount of woodworking skill is called for, and a like amount of painterly talent and soldering fearlessness, and, as the French say: voila!

 

 

I was going for mid-century American muscle, something evocative of tailfins and checkered flags and motor oil on rain puddles.  The center ornament is from an old Chevy Impala, since GM seems to have also gone with the flag motif (to the chagrin of this dyed-in-the-wool Ford guy).

My second guitar began shortly after the V was completed.  In fact, I believe I was still wrestling with electrical issues on my V, when I found this interesting guitar kit on eBay.  Unlike most Les Pauls, this model was routed for a single pick up.  Even more interestingly, it was fitted for a single-coil P90, as opposed to the more common (and more modern) humbucker pick up.  I fell in love with its unrepentant purity and simplicity, and I resolved to build it as the ultimate Punk Rock workhorse, but adorned not with stickers and graffiti, but with the most vintage of vintage paint schemes from Gibson, the venerable Goldtop.  Like the V, it would also have an unfinished neck, for hand speed, and a stinger headstock, where the paint job forms a point on the back of the neck.  I would throw out the cheap Chinese tuning pegs for vintage, snot-green Kluson-style tuners.

Because of the single pickup, it would have much simpler electronics involving only one tone and one volume knob. And for the pinnacle of simplicity, as well as vintage fidelity, it would have a one-piece wrap-around bridge, literally half the hardware of more modern guitars (and by modern, I mean post-1954).  It will take every ounce of self-discipline in me to refrain from stickering it up.

The last DIY guitar was a little different.  I had an old stratocaster-style guitar sitting in a closet, a $30 purchase off Craigslist as part of a punk rocker costume I wore for Halloween a few years ago.  After a little tweaking, I had already made it sound above average.  I decided I wanted an homage to one of the great icons of horror comic books, a rock n roll femme fatale if ever there was one, the voluptuous, the vexatious, the venereal, Vampirella.  For this "build," all I did was learn that old craft skill from the Seventies, decoupage.  I purchased a readily available pile of old Vampirella comics from the local nerd-store, and, (in Bela Lugosi voice) "Good Evening."

And that's what I've been doing for the past six-months, at night when my son is with his mom.  I think it's been well-spent, and it's much better than wrapping myself bodily around a streetlight off the back of a motorcycle.  But don't worry, other stupidity follows, and I also feel one of those Universal Theory posts bubbling up very soon.

Grab a Piece of Something That You Think is Gonna Last

Here's one of my all time favorite bands, doing one of my all time favorite songs.



There's a lot going on under the surface of this video. This marked the beginnings of Steely Dan, and by the end of the decade, the rest of the musicians would be tossed aside by the founders and lead songwriters, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, famously friends from their college days at Bard. They would be sacked in favor of session players. Ironic since lead guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and drummer Jim Keltner are a pair of very sought after session musicians themselves, and second guitarist Denny Dias was no slouch either. Then Fagen and Becker themselves would stop touring not long after, and ultimately cease to write Steely Dan music altogether for over a decade. Part of the reasoning, they claimed, was to let recording and performance technology catch up to their exacting musical standards.

I'm sure this is true to some extent, because the releases Fagen made solo were benchmarks (especially The Nightfly), and when a new Steely Dan recording finally came out, 2000's Two Against Nature, it raised the bar again and won critical acclaim. Becker and Fagen hadn't missed a beat in almost 20 years time.

But for all their uncompromising standards, Steely Dan will always be a band of the Seventies to me, and that's why this appearance on the Midnight Special (a show I was too young to appreciate, much less be allowed to stay up to watch) has so much going for it. Fagen's voice is incredible, either because of it or - more likely - despite his youth. There's more, though. In addition to their acid-hair look, the performances and showmanship of Baxter and Dias would lead one to believe that these guys are imitators of the Allman Brothers twin guitar attack style. Nothing could be further from true. In less than a couple albums' time, great guitar soloing could still be found on Steely Dan records, but this was no guitar-hero band. Far from it, Steely Dan had more in common with jazz combos in style, performance, and configuration than any other rock n' roll band of the time.

And what of their look? Their grooming standards certainly leave much to be desired, particularly Denny Dias's purple crushed velvet pants (Denny, they're not slimming by a longshot, Denny). These guys don't look too far away from the Partridge Family, but by God, they sure sound light years' distant.

Mediterranean Sundance or "Everyone Needs a Hobby"

Let's face it, OnceWereBachelors concerns itself with esoterica. It is essentially a diversion about procrastination. Or an exercise in procrastination that focuses on diversions. When you've got a wife, kid, mortgage, private school tuition, career, you want to think that you can have a sanctuary of interests, activities, collections, a sanctuary of time and place, where your wife, son, colleagues or clients can't get to you. Sometimes it's in the garage. Sometimes it's in a bar. Other times on the ocean, or beneath some expensive headphones, or a cold, dark theater in the afternoon, in front of a movie your wife or son would never watch with you. Whatever, it arguably makes you a better dad, husband, law partner, citizen.

My newest diversion is this:



There is a backstory to this tune and where it fits in my life, but its personal. When I get paid the publisher's advance to do the print version of OnceWereBachelors maybe I'll tell it, but that would be filler. For now, just let the tune speak for itself. Al Di Meola and Paco De Lucia playing "Mediterranean Sundance" at the Warfield Theater on December 5, 1980, recorded for posterity (on vinyl) as Friday Night in San Francisco. A legendary concert featuring jazz picker Di Meola, fingerstyle flamencoist De Lucia, and John MacLaughlin (another jazzbo), playing as a trio, unplugged so to speak.

No, I'm not going to watch it over and over again seeking sanctuary. I'm going to try to learn it. On the floor of my office at home. Legs crossed, Ovation roundback in lap, and beer within reach. Poring over a tablature of the tune I found off the internet at a website called Fretplay, while the CD repeats constantly, or while I study the above clip, or clips like it, on YouTube.

Thus will I repeat a ritual that has changed little (changed due only to technological improvements and disposable income) since I was a wee student. Teach myself guitar. I've done it with Social Distortion. R.E.M. Los Lobos. Stevie Ray Vaughn. This is my first jazz piece. I give myself until September to learn it.

Wish me luck. Or at least time and space.