Introducing new RTYD member London-based guitarist, Andy Deevy

A big ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP-WELCOME! to London-based guitarist Andy Deevy. Andy performs as a solo acoustic guitarist and in covers, tribute and original bands. He is currently lead guitarist in the Apple Core Beatles and bass player in The Bitter Springs.  That said, he is always on the lookout for other musical work or projects, and he can play in a variety of styles. Here's a link to his personal website.

Rolling Stone's Greatest Guitarists (Slight Return)

Rolling Stone magazine must be short of ideas because they're wheeling this one out again in their next issue: their Top 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time as voted by esteemed guitarists, music insiders and Rolling Stone's editors . Here is the Top 10:

01. Jimi Hendrix
02. Eric Clapton
03. Jimmy Page
04. Keith Richards
05. Jeff Beck
06. B.B. King
07. Chuck Berry
08. Eddie Van Halen
09. Duane Allman
10. Pete Townshend

Nothing unusual you might think; but their last list of Greatest Guitarists did differ a little. This is the Top 10 taken from their last Top 100.

1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Duane Allman
3. B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page
10 Keith Richards

Whatever Eric, Jimmy, Keef, Jeff, Eddie and Pete have done recently, it has clearly increased their all-time greatness.

Anyway, earlier this year, members of ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP's Musicians and Bands Network shared their Top 10 guitarists of all time. You can check out their lists, and mine, here, and add your own if you wish.

How do they get away with it? A discussion on RTYD-Musicians & Bands Network

RTYD Member Graham Hunt: 'I looked in a well known high street pawn brokers in Chatham yesterday. I just looked in and saw a '72 style Telecaster Thinline hanging up. It said on the ticket clearly Fullerton USA - £599. WHAT! I went in...' http://bit.ly/skTP0V

'What Are Your Top Ten Guitar Solos?'

Simon Waller replied to Jimmy Hargreaves's discussion 'What Are Your Top Ten Guitar Solos?' http://bit.ly/lCaEBU

Does anyone use a Line6 Variax guitar?

Does anyone use a Line6 Variax guitar? A discussion on ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP's Mature Musicians & Bands Network http://bit.ly/ioqvKN

What Are Your Top Ten Guitar Solos?

What Are Your Top Ten Guitar Solos? A discussion on ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP's Mature Musicians & Bands Network http://bit.ly/ehPDO7

Two chord wonders, anyone?

I'm teaching a few of my daughter's 7 year old friends to play the guitar. We're working towards a performance at school of Eleanor Rigby, because depressing as it is, it is only really two chords, give or take a minor-6th and minor-7th. Anybody know any other two chord wonders?

Musicians Guitar: Why did you start playing the guitar? A discussion on ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP: http://bit.ly/hsbY7B

Forty minutes in a blue moon

Tomorrow, my band, Pocket Rocket, is playing a gig. It's at the club Sin in London's west end. I mention the venue first 'cos the not-so-rock 'n' roll aspect of it is that we are booked to play an annual fundraising event for the National Advertising Benevolent Society. They call it Nabstock. My feeling is that it's a gig, isn't it? We only play every 6-8 weeks and these days (ie: in our middle age), we would rather play gigs like this because they come with a guaranteed audience mostly under the influence of copius amounts of alcohol and therefore likely to dance to virtually anything. This is preferable to an audience comprising a handful of people we know, a few members of other bands on the bill plus a man and his dog at the Bull & Gate or one of the other toilet-scene London venues. I do miss 'em, really.

Our drummer has recently had an operation on his knee, following an injury sustained during weight-training. As a result of cutting the healing process a bit fine we are unable to do our usual full band rehearsal a couple of nights before. I think we'll be alright though. Our set tomorrow night is to be forty minutes long. We have a safe forty minute set; and a not so safe sixty minute one, which we won't have to struggle through, so that's good. Sixty minutes is almost too long for an unknown band anyway, I reckon.

Our bass player can't make rehearsal 'cos he's waiting in for his wife to come home from work to relieve him of parental duties. So that leaves me and our guitarist. We decide to get together anyway but instead of going all the way to the rehearsal room in Waterloo, I go over to his place, bring him some nuts 'n' raisins and orange juice (protein and vitamins) for him to consume on day of the gig and we go over the set and refresh our memories - It's been a couple of weeks since we last rehearsed as a full band.

Tomorrow night backline is (mostly) being provided; I have to bring a second guitar amp which is a pain though. Sound check is at 5pm. We're on at 9pm.

These are the facts. Now we can begin the hypothesising about how the gig will go? The less you play, the less sure you can be about how the gig will go and how well you will play on the night. It's a one-off. It's a lottery with chance related to factors such as the soundman, equipment, lighting, stage, audience, technical problems, mood, alcohol, clothes, nerves etc etc.

As most of my musician-readers will know, it is not about the performances of the individual members of the group so much as about the overall sound and tightness of the band. This means that you can play well (as a whole) and have a shit gig (personally). At our last gig, as a whole, we played well. Post-performance though, opinions of the show differed. I, for instance, thought I sang well but played guitar like a muppet, or at least a beginner. I was torn by my performance. I was loving singing 'cos the PA was so good - a good on-stage vocal sound, nice room acoustics - so I sang my little heart out. I just couldn't get into the swing of my guitar playing. I was having tuning problems, which made me panicky and self-conscious about my intros. As a result, I dropped out alot of the verse guitar parts coming back in for bridges or choruses which always heightens the dynamics but was intermittent enough to further stifle my swing.

A sound-desk recording confirmed how I felt abou the gig. My guitar was sort of out of tune in parts. Not too bad but just enough to bother me. And my singing was spot on. Really strong and clear.

So, we'll see. Another forty minutes in a blue moon. Watch this space for my post-gig analysis.

CD Shopping down Memory Lane

I needed some exercise yesterday and a break around lunch from working on this site, so I decided to cycle down to Fopp at Cambridge Circus to buy a replacement birthday present for my mate; turns out it was the second time I had chosen to give him the River Cottage book on Fish, which was a bit embarrassing. I love Fopp because I get a kick out of bargains - always have. Why pay eleven quid for a CD, when you can pay three? No doubt it stems from all those years as a musician on the dole in my twenties and shopping at Kwik Save with a tenner . Anyway, I love that section on the left as you enter Fopp, where all the CDs are three-quid. It’s a mixed bag but I usually find myself picking up an album that I already have on vinyl but that I don’t own on CD. Today’s CD-case in point, contains Script For A Jester’s Tear by Marillion. I know it’s not cool but I love that album. Forgotten Sons, the last track of six-lengthy songs on Script, gets me every time. Especially at the end when the kids are singing "a ring, a ring a roses (x3), we all fall down". I remember buying it from Woolworths in Godalming High Street and bringing it home to scrutinise and caress it in all its dark glossy gatefold beauty. Script reminds me of a time at secondary school when there had developed a split amongst the rapidly growing group of budding musicians (mostly guitarists - which caused its own problems). There were those who wanted to make pop music and those that didn’t. My passion for popular music was stoked on a mixture of punk rock and The Doors so, at that point, I opted out of the ‘pop’ group. I remember though at the time using Marillion’s then recent performance of Forgotten Sons on the Old Grey Whistle Test or Riverside or whatever, as proof that the dark theatre and drama of The Doors was still cool and could also bring us success without us having to sell out. What was I thinking? I now might as well admit that I also own their second album ‘Fugazi’ on vinyl. I just thank God that I never got into that too. I’m too frightened to listen to it now, in case I do like it. Ironically, and against the grain of my punk and psychedelic musical genesis (to use a prog-appropriate term), I was rescued from Marillion and Genesis et al, by a sudden youthful change of musical direction which transported me into a world of New Romanticism. How fickle we are in our youth, and confused. But more about that, and the copy of Gentlemen Take Polaroids that I also picked up, another time.

The Sneaks at the Hope and Anchor

I wouldn’t normally go out at 9:30pm on a Tuesday night but my mate invited me out to see his work colleague’s band play last night at the Hope and Anchor in Islington. They are called the Sneaks. They are in their mid-twenties so they don't yet qualify for the 'Bands' page of this site but I feel I ought to be aware of what sort of noise young up-and-coming bands are making. I jump on my push-bike and I'm there in 15 minutes. When I arrive my mate introduces me to the singer who is from New Zealand. He seems very nice. He has a moustache and an 'I Love N Y' t-shirt on. He is waiting to go on at 10:30 at the top of the bill. It is quiet upstairs in the pub. The whole scene is very familiar to me. It reminds me of many a gig I’ve played in London. The empty pub upstairs, the cycle of bands and their fans, up and down the stairs, in and out of the live area. I think the The Falcon. The Dublin Castle. The Bull and Gate (incidentally, does anybody remember that Jon Fat Beast? I wonder what happened to him?) Now, I haven’t been to the Hope for a long time. I think the last time I was there, I was playing a gig. If my memory serves me, it was 1998 - if that was the year that Arsenal won the double? That Saturday night, anyway, the pubs and streets of Highbury and the surrounding area were heaving with drunken celebrating fans - and strewn with broken glass. There was an edgy atmosphere, too. I remember a guy crashing into the loos, his hand bleeding from being attacked by a pissed-up Gooner with a broken bottle . He was an Arsenal supporter too, just with a blue shirt on. Once we had played, I remember we got the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Anyway, I like the Hope because of its Punk history and very few of the old punk venues are still in use. It was of course where bands like the Stranglers and X-Ray Spex played back in mid to late seventies. The Stranglers’ video for Get a Grip was filmed at the Hope and this fact always distracts me when I’m downstairs. As usual then, I find myself trying to work out how the room has changed since then and whether the stage has actually been moved since the video was shot. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can enlighten me. If you were one of the Finchley Boys or at the Hope back then, maybe you can put my mind at rest? It must have been longer than I thought since I’d been to a gig like this, cos it's now £6 to get in. It's worth it though 'cos the band is entertaining and I like their stuff. Post-punk-art-rock. A lot of energy. Fuzz- bass driven songs with frantically strummed clean guitar and occasional synthesizer. Short and fast songs. Oddly arranged and at times shouty in the vein of Sebadoh, or someone Lo-fi like that. They remind me of early XTC too; quirky songs that frequently change time and speed. Aptly, they cover an early Sparks effort called Moustache. The singer has charisma and is funny. His schtick is a full-face motorcycle helmet that had been fitted with a microphone which allows him to travel the length of the tiny stage while singing. The band are sort of chaotic. The stage is a mess of wires and foot-pedals. They are confident. They are very signable. I start to feel slightly envious and nostalgic. I rewind to memories of record companies coming to gigs. Promising to bring their colleagues to the next show. Journalists reviewing our gigs. Those were the days! After the gig, the soundman sticks on the Ramones, which is fitting because there’s a New Yorky-ness to the Sneak’s brand of art-rock. In fact, after the gig their singer, James, informs me the band are going to New York to play in a few days (this is the second time I feel envious). So I hear a song from the Leave Home LP over the PA and I am transported back to Ken’s Records in Godalming High Street sometime in 1980. Most of these kids weren’t born by 1980. I then start to envy them the experience of plundering four decades of rock and pop’s back catalogue. Envy them hearing the Ramones for the first time. Roxy Music.... The Doors.... Fugazi...... Drink up, I say to myself. You’re leaving.