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Location: Pennsylvania | I just downloaded a few Preston Reed Songs (he plays an adamas). Has anyone else here given him a listen? I'm impressed. He's not exactly a normal guitar player--he plays overhand with his thumbs and fists and whatever, and at the same time, uses the guitar as a percussion instrument. I never really considered it, but ovation tops would be much more conducive to percussion/drumming. The songs are in real time, one guitar. Check out the song "slap funk." Well, just wanted to see if anyone else had given him a listen.
[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: snowlock ] |
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Location: NJ | Tom
I interviewed Preston about a year ago or so. He has an interesting style. It is not for everyone. I like most of the stuff I have heard. |
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Location: Pennsylvania | Yeah, I can understand guitar players not liking it. I just heard it 30 mins ago. It's definately not conventional guitar playing. Just the fact that he plays overhand is enough to turn many people off. Then, you've got the fact that he playes the top like a drum and does a bunch of weird things with his hands.
I like the two songs that I've heard. I'd say he's good at what hes doing, but I'm just not sure what it is that he's doing. Interesting stuff. |
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Location: Scotland | Tommy Emmanuel is another one who does the "guitar as a drum-kit stuff" . I saw Preston Reed beating the crap out of a blue Adamas longneck at a trade show on Ovation's UK distributors stand. He's obviously a great player, and I found him very impressive for about 5 minutes, then I got bored. Someone who can write & deliver a great song, even with simple accompaniment, will hold my interest far longer than a flash instrumentalist.
Paul
[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Templeman ] |
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Location: Pennsylvania | Give me a solid song, an interesting or catchy melody or progression, and I'm satisfied. Sometimes songs by people like Preston or (dare I even say) Kottke can veer off into strange, disorientating or boring places.
[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: snowlock ] |
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Location: SoCal | I saw Preston Reed about 2 years ago (along with Laurance Juber) at a small music store gig here locally. I was facinated by his playing, but Paul T. is right. After a while it can get old. But there is not doubt that Reed is an original. |
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Location: NJ | I saw (fill in the blank...Segovia, Django, Hendrix, Clapton, alpep....) and after a while it was boring. Dosen't anyone appreciate music for music sake? Sure if someone has a technique that is different or out of the ordinary it may not be what you want to hear but we can appreciate the man's accomplishments.
I listen to all types of music. I am very open to everything. I don't run out and buy it all but I am very tolerant to LISTENING to how different guitarists approach playing the guitar.
If the music is simple and vaild that is as satisfying as something that is technically perfect or innovative or awe imspiring.
Case in point: I am not an Yngwie Malsteem fan by any stretch of the imagination but I can appreciate his style and technique. I own none of this music in fact often laugh at the lyrics of some of the Alcatraz stuff and would not care to see him in concert BUT I can appreciate what he accomplished on guitar.
I also like Kurt Cobain. He wrote simple songs that were easy to play but have great hooks and his music is simplistic yet filled with passion.
My aunt took me to see Segovia when I was about 15 or 16. It was his 60th birthday. I was absolutely stunned by his playing and did not pick up a guitar for a month thinking it was just not worth it to try to play any more.
All these folks are very different all an influence. |
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Location: Scotland | I certainly didn't criticise Preston Reed, It just doesn't set me on fire. There's been tons of supposedly "revolutionary guitarists", going back to Jimmy Webster's "touch system" in the 50's, Stanley Jordan, Michael Hedges, Reed. All incredibly talented musicians with a unique voice, many of which almost became novelty acts simply because the majority of people who are impressed by them are other musicians who can appreciate the technicalities. It's one thing to recognise & appreciate a musician's skill & expertise, or even their ability to produce music with minimal technical skill, but that doesn't mean you would necessarily choose to listen to them for recreation. The artists I listen to for enjoyment are those that I don't find boring after hearing their work repeatedly.
[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Templeman ] |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Preston is a great guy and it was lots of fun working with him making his Adamas. His guitar doesn't have the 11 holes, the middle are still solid so he can hit it with his thumb and not get it all sliced up! When Stanley Jordon came out I liked his stuff but it very quickly became two dementional. After two listens he was history. Preston lasted much longer but his music has some of the same tendencies. Watching him play adds some life to things but the glass still comes up less that 100% full. Having said that there are still some of his tunes that I enjoy listening to and they haven't gotten flat. |
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Location: NJ | Back in the eighties I was playing a Travis Bean Everywhere I went I had to explain to people that I was playing mine way before Stanly Jordan was. Plus we played no where near in the same manner. I love that guitar and still have it but damn is my Hamer monaco soooooooooo much lighter!!!!! |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | What I kinda think I'm hearing is that a musician who gets up in front of people and plays has to be an entertainer. Technique of any kind is only good if it is used in an entertaining way. Just because something is hard to do doesn't make it totally interesting, music from the cave man on has probably been a social thing in that the audience feels like they are participating, rather than an individual satisfying his/her ego. Now I know why I had to work for a living. |
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Location: Vernon B.C. Canada | Preston Reed rocks. Slap funk all the way. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | The cave men probably had a much more participatory atmosphere going on back then. All they had to do was bang on a hollow log with some old leg bones. They didn't have to worry about the weight of a Les Paul or Travis Bean breaking their shoulder of other cavemen watching them do a great solo and hear them saying "I could have done that better" Of course they probably got into longwinded discussions about the proper way to dry out the bones and is deer better than bear or moose? And the groupies! They could drag them off by the hair! We were born too late....!!! |
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Location: NJ | CWK Human leg bones are the best for beating on old logs but only Pre CBS (Cannabalist Bone Sufforage) All the best bones came from Brazil anyway. The India was ok but just not the same. Then there were those that would splice smaller bones together and tell you they were stronger, and there were those that would crush bones and put them into glue making a composite and tell you those were best.
I think I will take out my travis bean today and play it. |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | and then there are those urelite bones with an aluminum frame recently discovered in a new england cave. i think that defines the begining of modern man. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | We have missed you Russ. Glad you and that cents of humor are back. |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | i'm really to be back too. its just too bad it takes so much of my "cents of humor" to make a bucks worth.
even though this site is packed with information it is the collective wit the anecdotes that make every topic worth following 'cause you never know what they will lead to. some of these threads turn into anchor rode before they are done.
and dad doesn't even threaten to wash out our mouths with soap--------come think of it i learned a few new ones from the polish razor tongue. |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | I don't know what this "anchor rode" is, but I'm sure all for it if it's something we should have our mouth's washed out with soap for. Fortunately, my dad and all of my teachers that would do that are gone, so I can relax and not look over my shoulder too much.
The urelite bones with the aluminum frame may have been the beginning of modern man, but the ragged skeleton of a five string banjo next to it was the true indication of his final degeneration and the ultimate disappearance of modern man to be replaced by Ozzie Osbourne (and maybe Alpep, but he seems to be getting more civilized lately, someone actually praised him for goodness and the site went down for a day or two as the post just did not compute, then again he is probably the modern man portended by the archeologic remains).
Bailey
[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: Bailey ] ;)
[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: Bailey ]
[ September 23, 2002: Message edited by: Bailey ] |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | anchor rode = what is between the anchor and the boat. considerably more than a thread so to say. |
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Location: NJ | Russ;
From what little I recall from my Basic Boating class, there's a formula involved in that, yes?
(If you want your boat 15' from the anchor, you need to feed out 15' plus "x" number of feet of rode?...something like that).
Jeez! yet ANOTHER tangent!!!!
"The Preston Reed School of Boatsmanship" |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Hey, I'm learning.
I worked with a guy at General Atomics in Torrey Pines, CA who had a catamaran. He was a fine upstanding example of a boy scout type, but he revealed his secret degeneration when Black's nude beach opened below the cliffs of the Torrey Pines golf course in the late 60's. He sailed in too close and was distracted by the skinly visions and flipped his cat, his Coast Gaurd rescue was on the evening news with all the sordid details, and , of course distant shots of nude bathers for the news value, including who he was and why he was there. Many discussions of shocking Black's beach were had at work when he was in the vicinity, he probably let his hair and beard grow in the seventies to hide his shame.
Catamarans were like Ovations in those days.
Bailey |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | captain cliff,
15:1 is a basic rule of thumb for amt of rode out in relation to depth of water. scope is the term for this. anchoring is really far more complicated and is one of the things many boatowners havent got a clue about. there are so many variables that that 15:1 rule of thumb can cause problems for someone who isn't considering all of the facts. we spent 95% of our time living on the hook when we were liveaboards. anchoring was our insurance policy. |
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Location: NJ | "Scope".
THAT was it! (it's been a while.)
The extent of my boatsmanship was with a sexy little 20' glass bowrider with 190horse, a killer sound system, a dash like a '53 Buick that was ENTIRELY too much for the private lake that we lived on. Alas, my ex-wife now has 'em both (the boat AND the lake!). Oh well.
I have plans to attend (next spring) a sailing school out of lower Manhattan to learn REAL boating.
Thanks for the "refresher", El Capitan!
[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: cliff d. ] |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | be careful cliff! sailing can be as addictive as ovations and a hell of allot more expensive. but if you really get the bug, come on down and help me finish this 30' ed monk sloop sitting in my yard. only a couple of thousand hours to go. |
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Location: NJ | Sure, why not?
Tell me....if I do it right, is there some way I can just "disappear" down there (far from the reaches of my ex-wife and her attorney)?
"...Senores and Senoritas,...the "Russ & Cliff Floating Roundback Roadshow"....coming to a port near you!...." |
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Preston Reed
