Post by fogcitygal on Aug 14, 2007 1:42:27 GMT -5
from the NewYorker.com (read to end):
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The Musical Life
Fine Points
by Daniel Menaker
August 20, 2007
"Devotees of “Antiques Roadshow,” which, if nothing else, has exposed the financial folly of refinishing old furniture, know that a backstory adds value to any old thing: “Because it’s a matter of public record that your grandfather did time in the Hannibal jail for stealing this hutch from a barber who once trimmed Samuel Clemens’s mustache, it’s worth a lot more.” Brrrrinng!
So one wonders what the 1980 Martin M-42 custom guitar in the display case at Matt Umanov’s vintage-guitar store, on Bleecker Street, would fetch if it didn’t have a knife gash in it from a bar fight in Mexico, and if the scary-looking metal folding knife that allegedly caused the gash didn’t come with it. Guitarists believe some guitars have a strong mojo.
“In this case, we’re offering the mojo itself with the instrument,” Danny Reisbick, the store manager, said the other day. The asking price for the wounded guitar, with knife: $6,995. Umanov recently sold a steel resonator guitar that is accompanied by a gentler but no less colorful mojo item: a mud-dauber wasp’s nest inside its body. Price with the nest: Brrrrinng! $3,495.
So much to know! The visit of Jerry Douglas, the Dobro player for Alison Krauss and Union Station, to the Umanov store a couple of weeks ago—the day of the group’s appearance at the Beacon Theatre—proved to be an impressive reminder of how refined fine points can be. Douglas, who was looking for a Keeley overdrive pedal, noticed almost immediately that the store had, besides the lacerated Martin and the mud-dauber resonator, two guitars made from koa wood, which comes from Hawaii. He saw them from afar. Hawaiian-style guitars are slide guitars, played on the lap, like Dobros.
“Oh, that one was made from a tree on the west side of the island, and the other one was made from a tree on the east side,” Douglas, a stately man of some fifty years with brown, thatchy hair, said. “You see how the grain on that one, from the east, is pretty straight—lots of rainfall there. But the grain on that one is more twisty and gnarled, so it’s from the west side, where there’s much less moisture.” He picked up one of the guitars, asked for a metal slide from a display case, sat down on a stool, laid the instrument on his lap as if it were a baby, and sent forth a volley of bluesy notes. Then he played a bit that recalled Don Ho, the Hawaiian musician responsible for the vogue for the Hawaiian-guitar warble some decades ago.
Douglas then turned his attention to a brand-new National resonator—a metal guitar patterned on older models favored by blues musicians. “Can you believe this?” he said, pointing at the factory-generated dings in the metal, like pre-washed and pre-torn bluejeans. He turned the guitar over and said, with some merriment, “Look, they’ve even simulated belt buckle marks back here.”
As Douglas walked out of the store, he spied a box of assorted picks on the counter and went through their taxonomy, too. He singled out a thumbpick, which in his hand immediately became remarkable for its elegance and sturdiness. He said, “This is a Golden Gate pick. I can go through one of these in just two sets, because I use my thumb so much. I taught myself the Dobro and my techniques are really weird; I use my thumb to dig out notes more than anyone else. After two sets, this would start to bend.”
Later that night, at the Beacon, Douglas had his customary solo session, at the start of which he commented on the dark side of noticing exquisite detail. “We’ve been on the road together for quite a while now,” he told the audience, and added, gesturing toward one of his bandmates, “and the way that guy chews is driving me crazy.” He proceeded to play three of his own songs, and you could listen to them just on their surfaces, of course, and be appropriately dazzled. But you could also consider for a moment the backstory—the body of knowledge that gave those notes such expressiveness. Yeats called it “the fascination of what’s difficult.” "
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All I can say is WOW!!!
-----------------------------
The Musical Life
Fine Points
by Daniel Menaker
August 20, 2007
"Devotees of “Antiques Roadshow,” which, if nothing else, has exposed the financial folly of refinishing old furniture, know that a backstory adds value to any old thing: “Because it’s a matter of public record that your grandfather did time in the Hannibal jail for stealing this hutch from a barber who once trimmed Samuel Clemens’s mustache, it’s worth a lot more.” Brrrrinng!
So one wonders what the 1980 Martin M-42 custom guitar in the display case at Matt Umanov’s vintage-guitar store, on Bleecker Street, would fetch if it didn’t have a knife gash in it from a bar fight in Mexico, and if the scary-looking metal folding knife that allegedly caused the gash didn’t come with it. Guitarists believe some guitars have a strong mojo.
“In this case, we’re offering the mojo itself with the instrument,” Danny Reisbick, the store manager, said the other day. The asking price for the wounded guitar, with knife: $6,995. Umanov recently sold a steel resonator guitar that is accompanied by a gentler but no less colorful mojo item: a mud-dauber wasp’s nest inside its body. Price with the nest: Brrrrinng! $3,495.
So much to know! The visit of Jerry Douglas, the Dobro player for Alison Krauss and Union Station, to the Umanov store a couple of weeks ago—the day of the group’s appearance at the Beacon Theatre—proved to be an impressive reminder of how refined fine points can be. Douglas, who was looking for a Keeley overdrive pedal, noticed almost immediately that the store had, besides the lacerated Martin and the mud-dauber resonator, two guitars made from koa wood, which comes from Hawaii. He saw them from afar. Hawaiian-style guitars are slide guitars, played on the lap, like Dobros.
“Oh, that one was made from a tree on the west side of the island, and the other one was made from a tree on the east side,” Douglas, a stately man of some fifty years with brown, thatchy hair, said. “You see how the grain on that one, from the east, is pretty straight—lots of rainfall there. But the grain on that one is more twisty and gnarled, so it’s from the west side, where there’s much less moisture.” He picked up one of the guitars, asked for a metal slide from a display case, sat down on a stool, laid the instrument on his lap as if it were a baby, and sent forth a volley of bluesy notes. Then he played a bit that recalled Don Ho, the Hawaiian musician responsible for the vogue for the Hawaiian-guitar warble some decades ago.
Douglas then turned his attention to a brand-new National resonator—a metal guitar patterned on older models favored by blues musicians. “Can you believe this?” he said, pointing at the factory-generated dings in the metal, like pre-washed and pre-torn bluejeans. He turned the guitar over and said, with some merriment, “Look, they’ve even simulated belt buckle marks back here.”
As Douglas walked out of the store, he spied a box of assorted picks on the counter and went through their taxonomy, too. He singled out a thumbpick, which in his hand immediately became remarkable for its elegance and sturdiness. He said, “This is a Golden Gate pick. I can go through one of these in just two sets, because I use my thumb so much. I taught myself the Dobro and my techniques are really weird; I use my thumb to dig out notes more than anyone else. After two sets, this would start to bend.”
Later that night, at the Beacon, Douglas had his customary solo session, at the start of which he commented on the dark side of noticing exquisite detail. “We’ve been on the road together for quite a while now,” he told the audience, and added, gesturing toward one of his bandmates, “and the way that guy chews is driving me crazy.” He proceeded to play three of his own songs, and you could listen to them just on their surfaces, of course, and be appropriately dazzled. But you could also consider for a moment the backstory—the body of knowledge that gave those notes such expressiveness. Yeats called it “the fascination of what’s difficult.” "
------------------------------------------------------------------------
All I can say is WOW!!!
