This 65-minute performance features 17 of the songs I’ve been performing live over the last couple of years. In concert, though, I use a single instrument. But here I get to play most of my favorite guitars.
I’ve posted each of these songs individually over the last few weeks, but this is the first time I’ve shared them as a single video.
Song List
1. Heroes (00:20)
2. Thunderbeast Park (05:28)
3. Just Like Heaven (09:09)
4. Shake It Off 11/8 (13:14)
5. God Only Knows (18:14)
6. Monospace (21:12)
7. Lujon (24:39)
8. Disco Plato (28:15)
9. Pumped Up Kicks (32:00)
10. Pandemonic Waltz (36:44)
11. Love Will Tear (38:16)
12. Midnight Cowboy (42:57)
13. In Like Flint (46:13)
14. Space Shrine (48:45)
15. Rhiannon (52:34)
16. Luxardo (56:55)
17. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (01:00:58)
I was way too young to see Midnight Cowboy when the movie came out, but I was obsessed with Ferrante and Teicher’s hit instrumental cover, featuring Vinnie Bell’s “drops of water” guitar tone. (It took me decades to figure out he’s using a combination of fast phase shifting and heavy reverb.)
I once got to interview the late John Barry, who composed this along with most of the early James Bond music, plus many other iconic scores. He was the coolest — friendly, funny, and modest. Film score fans probably know the story about how he wrote the entire Dr. No score, with all that iconic guitar work played by Barry’s longtime accomplice Vic Flick. But to this day, the music is credited to Monte Norman, the original composer who’d been fired. John never actually said he wrote the score, but he used some phrasing like, “Well, listen to the rest of my music, and then listen to Dr. No.” It’s pretty darn obvious!
I’m playing my ’90s 000-sized Lowden. I’d originally intended to record the 17 Loopocalypse songs on 17 different guitars, but I cheated, and this instrument appears twice. (I also used it on Day 3’s “Just Like Heaven” cover. Naturally, it sounds nothing like an acoustic guitar.
In 1980 I was mainly listening to avant-garde classical music and post-punk. Even so, the darkness of this Joy Division classic scared me. But last year I heard the song on the Muzak at a Palm Springs grocery store, so I guess everything is okay now.
The guitar is a real weirdo: a Baldwin Virginian from the last ’60s or early ’70s. I scored it for $90 at Starving Musician in San Jose, where we’d sometimes play hooky when I was working at Guitar Player magazine. It’s got great Burns pickups. Burns had sold their brand to Baldwin, and off course, everything went to shit. Still, this is a cool instrument, which I usually tune down a few steps. I eventually learned that both Lenny Breau and Al Green’s Teenie Hodges played this model. Here’s a clip of me playing it with PJ Harvey at Glastonbury ’95.
Best pop song ever about a school shooting (and yes, that includes “I Don’t Like Mondays.”)
The guitar is my latest DIY experiment: A bunch of random Strat parts with magnificent Lollar Firebird pickups. I’ve built my Cult overdrive circuit into the guitar, and you hear it during the solo (though it doesn’t sound quite the same as it does through an analog amp). I recently made a side-by-side comparison video of these Firebirds and Lollar mini-humbuckers — two pickups that look quite similar, but which sound very different.
Admittedly, there’s only a smidgen of looping here. I usually play this without a looper, but it’s nice being able to grab that lovely falsetto line at 02:25.
The guitar is a Guild X-15 arch top from the ’90s. It’s had many pickups over the years. This one is a lovely Lollar Charlie Christian model.
I probably sound like I’m being ironic, but no — I really love this Taylor Swift song.
The Hello Kitty! Stratocaster was a gift from my lovely friend and bandmate Jane Wiedlin. I replaced the factory humbucker with a Duncan Phat Cat (sort of a humbucker-sized P-90). Again, no irony intended. I like Sanrio characters! (Especially Aggretsuko!)
I got to interview Robert Smith for a Guitar Player cover story in 1992. It was one of funnest of the 1,000+ musician interviews I’ve conducted over the last few decades. Robert is brilliant, bitchy, and hilarious. We talked most of the night over too many drinks.
Years later I was recording with sociopath Courtney Love at Chateau Miraval in Provence, where the Cure recorded their Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me album, including “Just Like Heaven.” The studio manager recalled how Robert would quote Apollinaire and Verlaine around the dinner table. En francais, bien sûr.
The guitar is a 000-sized Lowden I’ve owned since the early ’90s and have used on many sessions and tours. It’s fun playing acoustic guitar with distortion and effects, as long as you give up on the idea of generating traditional acoustic tones.
On the occasion of a daunting round-number birthday, I’ve just completed Loopocalypse, a concert-length video of my live looping show. I’ll be posting a song per day, each featuring a different guitar, from now till Thanksgiving/birthday. Here’s Day 1 of 17, a tribute to that dearest of the dearly departed, David Bowie. I’ve been playing this for years, and it just gets sadder and sadder. Tomorrow I’ll share something appropriately angst-ridden for the US election day. (Here’s a remembrance of my brief Bowie encounters, written the day after he died.)
Here’s an explanation of my live looping rig. The guitar is an all-original 1963 Strat that I’ve owned since 1980. For many years it was my only good guitar.
I haven’t posted any new video in months and months. It’s not just laziness or business, though I suffer from both. I’ve just been locked away in my studio, trying to create a new live looping system.
I still haven’t nailed it down, so I’m not going to get into a complete run-down yet. But here are the basic ideas.
• I’ve moved from a hardware looper to software looping. When I started this godforsaken looping project years ago, I’d just finished a lot of work on Apple’s then-new MainStage software. At the time, the program’s looper simply wasn’t reliable enough for live performance. Also, my intense signal processing was pushing my MacBook Pro to its limits. But since then, the program has gone through many upgrades. Meanwhile, after years of relative stagnation, Apple finally issued a major MacBook Pro upgrade in 2017. Between the more powerful computer and the refined software, I could finally shift looping and signal processing to the computer. Yeah, there are a couple of disadvantages. For one thing, MainStage’s looper lacks a “copy” function, something I’ve come to rely on a great deal in my arrangements. But it sure is nice not having to run the entire mix through the relatively cheap hardware looper convertors — just the snazzy ones in my Apollo interface. (Of course, now that I’ve transitioned, Electro-Harmonix has just announced a compelling-looking 6-track looper. I’ll have to check that out…)
• I’ve put aside for now the Fishman TriplePlay MIDI pickup. I have no complaints about TriplePlay, which is far and away the best MIDI pickup ever created, and a product I recommend without reservation. But I wanted to be free from the hardware setup. This way, I can plug in any guitar, any time. (I’ve been experimenting with acoustic looping — more on that soon.) I’m still using MIDI sounds, but again, it’s all in software via Jam Origin’s brilliant MIDI Guitar plugin. It works incredibly well without a MIDI pickup, but it’s not nearly as fast as TriplePlay. It’s fine for doubling, or for melodic and textural stuff, but it’s just not speedy enough to play MIDI drums at even moderate tempos. Which bring me to the other big departure …
• I confess: I’m playing to a drum machine. I’m triggering and changing patterns using a KMI !2 Step foot controller. I really wrestled with this decision. I loved the idea of using no machine tempos — it all came from the hands. But at some point I realized that the main reason I was committed to that approach was for bragging rights: “No prerecorded tracks, and no machine rhythms” I could boast. But who cares except geeks like me? Anyway, I still have misgivings about the change, but I’m going with it for now. I think that means, though, that I’ll create more arrangements without percussion, just so I’m not locked to the machine for an entire set.
Meanwhile working with a tempo clock lets me do fun stuff with synchronized effects. I’m especially besotted with Sugar Bytes’s Effectrix, a mind-bending multi-effector that lets you activate and edit effects on a note-by-note basis. You hear it a lot in the “solo” in this video.
I’ve played a few shows with the new setup. The first one was flawed but promising. The second was an unmitigated disaster. Then I doubled up on practicing and (not kidding) started meditating again, which helped a lot. Last time I tried this live, it went really well! We’ll see how it goes at my gig this week.
Anyway, it’s still a work in progress. I’ll keep the curious updated.
I played this cover tune with no irony whatsoever. I love the original.