Guitar Licks and Tips

Daniel Johnston in some circles, is compared to the great music genus Brian Wilson. He is brilliant to some and insane to others (even though there is a fine line dividing both personalities).

My wife and I were relaxing, while watching TV, in our living room on the weekend and came across a musical documentary about Daniel Johnston. The documentary is called “The Devil and Daniel Johnston” and premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2005. We both have never heard of him before so we watched with great interest. If you are into indie films, then I highly recommend seeing it.

We saw a child like or even an autistic man who is different to say the least. As all brilliant artists feel that they have difficulties communicating with new audiences or that they feel that they might be slowly losing their mind, he seems to feel quite at home or even embraces it to a lessor degree.

“Everything is art”

(a young Daniel Johnston is heard saying on a cassette tape recorder with fellow art students at Kent State University in 1980.)

As the show moved forward, we were exposed to a brilliant middle aged musical mind that was just screaming to get out. But in the same breath, you would say that he was not interested in commercial pop success. To add to his obvious musical gift, he was a beautiful illustrator/painter. He really became noticed when Kurt Cobain started wearing this one shirt that Daniel made. Daniel also happened to be one of Kurt’s favorite songwriters.

His music is both errie and beautiful. It makes you sit up and pay attention to the words. I am known as a musician who does pay all that much attention to the words of a song, just the overall song structure and progression, but his songs rang an interest in his lyrics.

In this doc., he plays his old, beat up, low end acoustic guitar and when he is writing, his Westbrook 1/2 piano. His guitar playing style is, how can I say this without insulting his genus, simple and sloppy. In the sentence I should have used beautiful. I just can’t put this unique style into words to fully describe this experience. If some of you out there are familiar with his eclectic style, can you help describe it for me?

As my faithful readers know, I try to expose hidden musical artists to my blog. Some maybe questionable to some, but to others … they show the true essence of music.

Keep on Jammin’

A great East York Jazz pianist is set to release his latest CD. It was held at Papermill Theatre in East York. He sold out the venue, that holds 160, but you can catch him this weekend at Ten Feet Tall on the Danforth, in Toronto. He is a regular at their Sunday Jazz series.

I’ve seen Steve Koven live and he never disappoints me in his delivery. Either his solo material or the electricity with his Trio, he is worth the price of admission. Even though he is a serious jazz fan, he sometimes has a funky side to him.

He is a Toronto boy and started playing around the tender age of seven. He earned a B.F.A. from York University, in the northern part of the city and studied contemporary improvisation at this site. Since graduating in 1987, Koven has pursued his career as a jazz pianist, composer and educator.

The man is nationally and internationally known as a musician and teacher. The man has earned his badge of musical honour, not to mention zillions of air miles!

I just want to expose all of you educated music lovers to the hidden treasures that we have here in my neighbourhood of East York in Toronto, Canada!

This is little long, but I hope that you give Steve, a good old Toronto boy, and his trio a chance! Enjoy.

Keep on Jammin’

This song, Battle Scar, is a melding of Canada’s greatest rock bands from this or any other era. Through a musical alchemy, two totally different rock styles, together blend this into a classic, colossal Canadian Rock anthem.

This song was on Max Webster’s Universal Juveniles album. This album was the one that made the US take notice of this iconic Canadian band. The British critics even anointed this album a Heavy Metal Classic! I wonder if Ozzie ever heard this one?

Battle Scar was written by Pye Dubois and Kim Mitchell with the sole intention for both bands to use, to play live. Both bands used to play on tour together in their early careers so it only seemed a natural progression for them to play a song that was created specifically for both bands to perform while on tour. It was recorded at the prestigious Phase One Studios in Toronto.

As a young guitarist, I use to listen to this song for hours on end on my turntable at my parents home. I let my imagination run wild on what it would be like to see these two goliaths of Canadian Rock play this tune together, live at a huge historic venue like the old Maple Leafs Garden during the song’s hey days! Oh the glory, oh the electricity in the air … oh another concert missed and lost forever except in my mind.

Max Webster, RIP

Keep on Jammin’

Keep on Jammin’

Keep on Jammin’