Hendrix hype/reality ?

[awangotango]

maybe he's referring to the psychedelic affects he used on the later records? but how can he be blamed. everyone was doing time-warp lsd simulation affects during that era.

[JimiJames]

E L L is a Eddie/Jimi Masterpiece.

[DaveMcLain]

It's his heavy handed use of effects and poor mixing techniques that I don't like and there are many people who can't ignore Kramer's poor work and admire Jimi's talent. I say that Jimi is great but Eddie Kramer sucks.

[Xplorer]

[yngwie308]

"...I've always loved Jimi's music, guitar playing, tones... I think that the number one weak area when it comes to Hendrix records are Eddie Kramer's production techniques..."

How about Alan Douglas??? I seem to remember Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning !!
yngwie308

[awangotango]

dave's takin' a hard stance. gotta admire that in this day an age

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDNupQIis_Q[/youtube]


Alan Douglas (record producer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alan Douglas (20th July, 1931 - 7th June, 2014)

......whether encouraging the likes of Hendrix and Duke Ellington to explore new directions; promoting controversial figures such as Lenny Bruce and Timothy Leary, or recognising the relevance of a group of inflammatory street poets from Harlem called the Last Poets, who would later be credited with inventing hip-hop.

In 1962, Alan took charge of the United Artists Jazz division. One of his first projects was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’s He also coaxed trumpeter Kenny Dorham in the studio for Matador; a soul-jazz classic shared with Jackie McLean and Bobby Timmons. Alan’s qualities as a producer were already evident. He would encourage musicians to express themselves and push the boundaries, like when he teamed Duke Ellington with Max Roach and Charles Mingus for Money Jungle, which George Wein has described as “one of the greatest piano trio recordings in jazz history.”

Alan had met Hendrix shortly after his headlining performance at Woodstock. Whilst celebrated as a rock icon, Hendrix was chafing at the commercial demands made upon him and longed to explore new avenues. He’d recently formed Band Of Gypsys, who played a heady mix of rock and rhythm and blues, topped by Jimi’s soul-baring improvisations. It was Alan Douglas who introduced him to jazz masters such as Davis.......

[awangotango]

back on topic. tone slinger was more talking about note choice it seems and in that sense I can understand some jazz guys dissing Hendrix. He didn't carefully choose notes or think about anything the way a classically trained musician tends to. On the surface it's similar to jazz improvisation of bebop ear Coltrane, sonny rollins late 50's mid 60's jazz although they were mostly on heroin and not lsd .

[Tone Slinger]

Exactly........It seems that Hendrix affected more of the 'illogical' minded people more so than the 'logical' . Dreamers vs. Realists, right brained vs. left brained, etc, etc. Most of this 'clock work world' is surface bound for sure.

I feel Hendrix had a nice INSTICTFUL rhythm/timing that was TOTALLY EARTH, but, he had a extension into the unknown/undefined (Universe). He would play things in a scalar/melodic way that were in NO WAY contrived or conventional. So in that sense the 'established' jazz dudes were groping and judging the 'surface' (the mechanics) more than how the actual sound and notes affect the sub concious........which Hendrix most definately was able to do. Too many people (like aspiring young guitarists) think "Man, this guy has inferior technique" or "He doesnt use or have a standard of technical vocabulary", etc.

I think that ALOT of Kids use Technical prowess and abilities as a measuring stick for 'How Good" or "Bad" a player is. They get stuck there and miss the main point, which is MUSICALITY, and Hendrix was totally 'There'

[awangotango]

we are in a world that denigrates the right brain poetic holistic side for sure.

[yngwie308]

You guys have some very insightful thoughts concerning Hendrix. I agree with all said and knew that back at Metro forum sanity always prevails.
Loads of other forums are loaded with fan boys and everyone gets agressive with their 'opinions' it seems these days that's why I have had a rest from them for some time, that my computer was down for 3 months also 'helped' !
The passing of Alan Douglas is a final nail in the coffin of an era as it were. I did not care for him. I do own the two first Last Poets LP's on Douglas Records and they were the first rap as it were. These were powerful records full of the N word and such but spoke of the times in the late sixties early seventies.
But what he meant to Hendrix I am not convinced was such a positive force.
Douglas had close to a thousand hours of unreleased studio takes from the Record Plant and Electric Lady studios that Douglas had worked with Jimi on. They had been in the possession of one Mike Jeffrey at the time of his death and Douglas obtained them. A friend whom I met through the Charvel world is a mega Hendrix nut and has gifted me with videos and CD's of killer mega rare Hendrix stuff that i had not seen or heard before. I have finally been able to tap into the mysterious collectors network as it were.
I am waiting for the Black Gold box set which is all Alan Douglas recordings save for the infamous spoken word Room Full of Mirrors monologue !
Jams with Larry Lee and Young await me as well. I already have hours of the most incredible available previously only on cassette tape now on CD. My friend has 4 Black Gold sets and over 170 cassette tapes that a Hendrix collector passed on to him. One cannot buy this stuff and when it becomes available it is for high dollars.
I have a killer Four Reels video of complete Rainbow Bridge professional video and complete Albert Hall '69 video, plus a Stockholm '69 as well that is superior quality, the two Four Reels videos are priceless.
I have been a very happy Hendrix fan, but I have been a fan since 1966 when I first went to London almost the same time as Jimi and I was in London the whole of his career and 15 miles from where he died when he did..
People who know my story know of my visits to the Jim Marshall shop and my purchasing of a Marshall stack form there in '68 as my first amp and also my blue DA FuzzFace and Jen Electronics Cry Baby wah from the same shop. With my first guitar a '65 transition logoed Fender Strat I learned to play in my bedroom.
Here is my story:
I was a customer at the Marshall shop on Ealing Broadway. I was the tall American teenager dressed all in denim with long hair, who had a 1965 Strat. One of the salesman there always tries to swap his LP Custom for my Strat, but I would never do it! . My dad was stationed in London, we left from Connecticut, where I was born in 1954. We arrived in London in 1966, when I was 11 years old. I started to obtain LP records through the US Air Force base special order department and could obtain latest releases on the British market, but at a heavily discounted American price !! Needless to say I ordered a lot of records,including all the original Cream recordings, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, which the lady at the desk wouldn't release to me until my father was with me. They said that the record was obscene, and had the cover wrapped in brown paper. My dad thought they meant that the record itself was obscene.. , he said it was , the 21 naked ladies being on the foldout cover!!Being a big Hendrix fan since his arrival in London, I wanted to get the same amps as he had and the complete signal chain, including curly cords!
I worked during the summers at the base in the warehouses, saving money in a tobacco tin for the day when I could afford my Marshall stack. I would take two different tube trains from Wembley Park where I lived and then the bus down Ealing Bdwy. I couldn't afford the new Marshalls, but the used amps and cabs were within my reach. I think I had read about the shop in the musical trade papers at the time. I often visited the store and would be in such total awe, as I was in Marshall heaven. Never have I felt that feeling again in any music store. There was that burnt insulation electrical smell of the amps and particularly the speaker cabs. If you went up to the 4X12 cab and sniffed through the salt and pepper grillcloth, that smell was intoxicating and I can still conjure up that smell in my head all these years later. The shop assistants were always very friendly and helpful, I always felt welcome and one of the lads there. Obviously being an American and very tall, I stood out. I remember so many rare pieces of Marshall equipment there. The modular power builders, the Marshall PA amps, not the guitar amp style, but dedicated PA amps and mixers. The awesome 4X15" speaker cabs, which I believe Rodger Glover used at one time. In fact I remember a whole back line of Deep Purple's stage gear being in the shop, having been traded in for new equipment. The salesman did tell me, seeing I was impressed my the name stenciled on the cabs, DEEP PURPLE. He said don't buy those stacks, especially the speaker cabinets, as they were completely thrashed.. . In fact much of what I know about amps and speakers, was taught to me by the sales assistants at Jim's shop. The importance of impedance matching, to use the right cabs with the right amps. For example, to use the 120 watt rated 4X12" with a 100 watt head, if you were only to use one cabinet and not to use the 1960 series or 25 watt cabinets alone with the 100 watt head. One thing I do remember from back then was the resilience of the valves, you could bang the head all over the place, have them fall off the stack (Jimi), and they would keep going. Jim Marshall made the best equipment and my love for Marshalls started back then and has never wavered. To me there were other amps, but they weren't the amp , that was a Marshall, it was the only amp to me.
When it came time to buy my stack or setup as they were called. I chose a Super Lead and a salt and pepper, 1982A 30H 4X12", and for a bottom cab, I had a 25watt 1960B tall cab, with a white Marshall logo and it was salt and pepper, with metal handles. Looking back now, that was a rare cab as, the pinstripe grillecloth which preceded it, those tall straight cabs, only had the leather side handles, ala the Jimi Hendrix reissue stack from Marshall.
The combination of 30 watt and 25 watt speakers, was a great sound. I believe that I bought my amp in late '68 or so. The salesman found me the black speaker and amp covers, with the white pinstripe and the gold Marshall logos, especially for the tall cab. Also those original caster wheels, they were very heavy duty, with their ball bearing fittings and the locking casters as well. The cabs had the metal inserts for the wheels, as well as the metal reliefs for the wheels in the bottom cabs. I was so disappointed in the HW series, for many reasons, but the cheapness of the reproductions, as if they were selling them to a new generation who had never seen or witnessed the old rugged equipment. ON my HW stack, one of the cabs, the poxy plastic bezel, didn't even have two of it's three mounting screws drilled and the screws were missing altogether. I found this out by rolling the cabs as a stack and nearly had the top cab tumble over.. !
The Marshall speaker cables were white I remember and a fairly heavy gauge, about 14 or so. They told me not to use guitar cables for speaker cables and vice-versa, and many other helpful hints about the amps.
To this day I have held the finest of music shops up against the standard of those days and there is no comparison.
My best story is of the day I convinced them at the shop, to connect three 100 watt Marshall stacks, with daisy chained cords, ala Hendrix, alas we had no Y-cords, but it worked well enough. The memory of being allowed to play loud there is accurate. On a busy high street, with traffic and buses going by, the cranked amps would blend in. Remember, this is in the pre-master volume days, so you opened up the amps. So all three stacks were connected and I just hit the first note, I had my Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, my Jem Italian made Cry Baby wah, both bought at Jim's shop, connected through my Strat. There was some screaming feedback remember and the sheer power and force of the sound pressure levels caused a cymbal and some other equipment hanging on the wall to come crashing down, as well as to startle everyone around. I was impressed with the force of three all out stacks.. I will never forget. Then my adventures with taking the whole stack on the tube and buss by myself. Often the conductors on the trains and buses, were players as well. I would carefully bring one cab up or down the flight of stairs and then hurriedly run back up the stairs for the other cab and the head. Sometimes I had the guitar with me as well !! Those were the days, I was lifting 4X12's all over the place, like they were small boxes. When I could afford a cab, they would usually fit inside the back and I would ride shotgun alongside them.
My memories of the shop also included the famous names you would see on any given day. Many rock and roll stars frequented the store. In fact my stack belonged to the Bee Gees touring guitarist and he had turned them in for red Marshall backline!
I am interested if you remember me, Dave, or if you were there at a different time.
Cheers
Dave(yngwie308)

[Rich_D]

I think there is a larger psychological process at work to say that clear and defined masters are over-rated. There's a scene in a Woody Allen movie with some psuedointellectuals having a "club of the over-rated" discussion and they name some of the protagonist's favorite artists. He tells them he thinks everyone they named is a master and a genius and who's next, Mozart? I've seen "Who is over-rated" threads at other guitar forums and it ends up being a list of all the greatest rock guitarists sprinkled with some perceived b-rate guitarists that, last time I checked, are still fucking pros with a guitar and would flummox any of those dorks posting to sit in a room with them and jam. I think it's psuedointellectualism and it can take a hike.

Another awful process I see is somewhat a product of this hyper-connected, over-opinionated internet age wherein everyone thinks he needs to be heard and therefore has to differentiate himself from the clatter by trying to say something no one has said, no matter how preposterous or just plain stupid. Whole wheat is poison, don't eat it. Hendrix is over-rated. Seriously, go fuck yourself. It offends me. Opinions don't offend me; stupidity often does. "For some reason people love to complain about everything. The internet has made it easy for people to do that. Shut the fuck up and get a life, or show me how good you can do it." -evh

If anyone can't see that Hendrix farted and it was musical, he's trying not to.

[awangotango]

amen, these chat boards are a blessing and a curse

[Rich_D]

amen, these chat boards are a blessing and a curse

Don't get me wrong, god bless the web forums. The chance to ask pros and top level players like Andy questions has brought me up out of a quagmire that I had been stuck in, living in a guitar vacuum for years. It's well worth enduring the idiots.

But back on topic I know Andy wasn't making a forum idiot thread. There are several ways to deal with contrarians and shit-talkers. At the end of the day your opinions have to be substantiated internally and support or criticism from externals has to be dismissed.

[awangotango]

going back to the title. admittedly hendrix's handlers were responsible for his rising star status and hyped him up as much as anyone so there is a fair share of hype/reality and it's not one or the other. What is discouraging are those who don't recognize the latter.

[Xplorer]

makes me wondering which new ways Jimi would find, in our era, if he was still alive, to be free like he was in the 60'.
i don't think he'd be satisfied.
how many millions band do we have now ? we have everything, every gears, easy. are we satisfied anyway ?
everything is democratized, and it's good and bad at the same time.

this makes our "vintage" icons super valuable today, ( look at a rolling stones or pink floyd concert ... )
while back then, these bands .... a friend told me we could get close to them, chat with some led zep members, pink floyd ... they didn't live such star system like the one we have today. they were simple, and lucky to be the first to arrive and record as pioneers what was meant to be, before the next generations, with not much left to them.
they had a new field to explore, and they did wonder at it.
i wouldn't say that we have a virgin field to explore right now, the way they had it back then, with the still brand new rock'n roll music.

reality is that hendrix was one of the best at being connected with emotions ( where the power is, in the music ) , and the jazzmen and technicians who do just guitar neck wanking, talking negative about hendrix ( really ? you hear some ? ) ... if so, well they piss me off. they didn't get it, that's all.

a man who can invent little wing, castle made of sand, machine gun, and countless amazing musics, while changing the futur of music alone, in less than 4 years , in his mid 20' ......... THAT'S NOT HYPE !!!! that is reality ! and he can't never be over rated.

where the hype is , i'd say, it's in the hendrix marketing, exageration, democratisation, the countless univibes, hendrix articles, books, strats, fuzz etc ... not really hype, but abuse, that jimi didn't imagine it would exist some day perhaps. this is our era. stuck era. museum era, now with norms, nostalgy, strong codes , etc .... no surprise.

i just don't want to follow all my contemporarys , all the sheeps arround me, i don't care. i'll find my ways, far from them