When I was messing
around with headlines to
go with the arresting image on
this month’s cover, I kept thinking
how “Future Primitive” in
big, bold letters, would be a
great descriptor for the glorious
dichotomy of gear that was
Winter NAMM 2011—the
subject of this month’s cover
story. But the more I thought,
the more I realized that line
would probably just remind
30-something guys like myself
of the 1985 Powell-Peralta
skateboarding video (featuring,
among others, a gangly 17-year-old
phenom named Tony
Hawk) or headier guys from the
collection of John Zerzan essays
that inspired Ted Kaczynski
(aka “the Unabomber”) to
bomb-in-a-briefcase infamy.
In the end, I just went with
“Winter NAMM 2011.” It
pretty much says what all
PG
readers/viewers want to know:
Inside this mag is a bunch of
gear coolness that you should
gorge yourself on.
But I have to admit “Future
Primitive” isn’t half bad, either.
Because when we chose the
Kemper Profiling Amplifier—which lets you plug in any amp
at your physical disposal and
store a “profile” of its sonic signature
(sounds kind of like the
Napster of guitardom, huh?)—
and the Misa Digital Instruments
Kitara—which combines society’s
new addiction to touch screens
and video games with a 144-key,
24-fret controller full of synth
voices—I was pretty sure we’d get
grief from at least a few purists
who think glowing glass bottles
and a plank of wood harnessed
with vibrating strings is the only
way to go. Because let’s face
it—a lot of us guitarists
are sort
of primitivists/neo-Luddites
in almost the same sense as
Kaczynski and Zerzan: Okay,
we don’t have crazy-ass violent
tendencies, but by and large, we
guitarists tend to think of post-1950s technology as part of some
doomsday machine that’s sapping
music of its innocence and
humanity. And, to be honest, I’m
kind of one of those guys myself.
So why the space-age cover—is it just to be provocative?
Maybe a tad. After all, as you’ll
see when you flip to our feature
wrap-up, the January
NAMM show had
tons of retro-cool
guitars and valve-stocked
amps that we could’ve put on the
cover. The Kemper and Kitara
look badass, though. (Hey, just
because I love tubes doesn’t mean
I don’t dig cool gadgets!) But
there’s more to it than that.
It seems ridiculous to even
articulate this thought, but there
are obviously a lot of different
kinds of guitarists. And, theoretically,
that should mean there
are many potential avenues to
excelling as the type of guitarist
you choose to be. For me, music
is alluring because it gives me a
chance to at least
attempt to create
something new and original.
I’m not under the delusion that
I’ll ever come up with a completely
unique, instantly identifiable
sound, but striving for that
is what draws me to the instrument.
And the guitarists and
musicians who’ve had the greatest
impact on the world—from
Mozart to Segovia, Django,
Billie Holiday, Sinatra, Louis
Armstrong, Elvis, McCartney
and Lennon, Janis Joplin, Jimi,
Page and Plant, Van Halen,
Tom Morello, Thom Yorke and
Jonny Greenwood, and countless
others—didn’t necessarily do
so by dint of phenomenal technique
or the ability to ape every
sound their idols made. It was
about soul and a restless zeal for
experimentation and expression.
(Hell, most of my guitar heroes
have two or three great tones
they use to endless perfection.)
I like to believe the aforementioned
rationale is what
drives me to prefer plugging
somewhat Neanderthalic guitars
into fairly simple tube amps and
to blather on endlessly about
how I’d rather dial up one or
two great sounds and then alter
my tone via technique. But
I may just be fooling myself.
Maybe I’m just lazy or stuck
in the past—or maybe I have a
touch of ADHD when it comes
to knobs and digital menus.
A lot of players feel similarly.
But there are other schools of
6-string thought, too. For some,
guitar is all about complete mastery
of a single style, and that
may dictate striving for a specific
type of tone without really caring
what sort of technology
provides it. For others, guitar is
more about the joy of performing
cover songs and interacting
with bandmates and audiences.
And, in that sphere, the more
styles and sounds you can replicate
(usually via digital modeling
and/or a very large and expensive
collection of gear), the better.
Each of us has our opinion of
which rationale is supreme, but
it’s good to remind ourselves
every now and again that music
is an art form intended to bring
joy and edification—and, for
guitarists, certainly there’s not
just one set of tools that can
make that happen.
So do I expect you to
embrace technology like the
Kitara and the Kemper? That’s
obviously up to you. I just think
we should stop every once in a
while and ask ourselves why we
do what we do. If you’re comfortable
with your old-school
gear, that’s totally cool. But a
little open-mindedness never
hurts, either. After all, today a
’57 Strat and a Marshall plexi
may look like the epitome of
guitarness, but at one time a lot
of players thought they were as
radical as the instruments on
this month’s cover.
Shawn Hammond
shawn@premierguitar.com