One night, two amazing guitarists
This past Sunday night, Kendell and I went to Public Assembly, a rock venue in Williamsburg. It was a small, very no-frills establishment: essentially just a reclaimed warehouse that had been divided into a "front room" and a "back room". (And they say Williamsburg is overly gentrified.)
We were there to see Eigengeist, a band that our friends Marcie and Ian are in (and comprise in its entirety). Marcie has a great voice, and Ian is a mo-fo on the guitar. Check out their song "Valentino", which is just perfection:
http://eigengeist.com/fr_home.cfm
During our wait for the L train home on the Bedford Avenue station, we saw a busker on the platform who totally knocked my socks off. He was a young black guy (his bag for accepting tips was labeled "tuition and books money") and he, too, played like a mo-fo.
Not only was he playing complex riffs while singing, he even managed to incorporate simple hip hop beats into the act. He thumped the body of the guitar for a bass-drum sound, with the edge of his hand I assume -- nothing too shocking there -- but he also got a snare sound by tapping the lid of a tin can which he had fastened to his guitar's soundboard by using a simple binder clip (you know, one of these) that was clamped to the rim of the soundhole. So simple, so obvious, so brilliant. It was a new one on me, anyway.
As I said, the beats were simple enough, but they were continuous, even during his solos and vocals, which impressed me. It was such an elegant distillation of the one-man-band concept.
We were there to see Eigengeist, a band that our friends Marcie and Ian are in (and comprise in its entirety). Marcie has a great voice, and Ian is a mo-fo on the guitar. Check out their song "Valentino", which is just perfection:
http://eigengeist.com/fr_home.cfm
During our wait for the L train home on the Bedford Avenue station, we saw a busker on the platform who totally knocked my socks off. He was a young black guy (his bag for accepting tips was labeled "tuition and books money") and he, too, played like a mo-fo.
Not only was he playing complex riffs while singing, he even managed to incorporate simple hip hop beats into the act. He thumped the body of the guitar for a bass-drum sound, with the edge of his hand I assume -- nothing too shocking there -- but he also got a snare sound by tapping the lid of a tin can which he had fastened to his guitar's soundboard by using a simple binder clip (you know, one of these) that was clamped to the rim of the soundhole. So simple, so obvious, so brilliant. It was a new one on me, anyway.
As I said, the beats were simple enough, but they were continuous, even during his solos and vocals, which impressed me. It was such an elegant distillation of the one-man-band concept.