Donovan Philips Leitch—a true artist to the core.
For musicians, it may very well prove impossible to watch an award show without imagining how you would comport yourself if you were on the receiving or presenting end of an award. If I don't count rewarding myself with a beer after I've mowed the lawn or merely survived another day all the way to 5 p.m., I haven't received a legitimate award since Cub Scouts—probably because I haven't done anything award-worthy since I whittled that awesome pinewood derby car. Having now established that I don't frequent the podium, I am the armchair quarterback quick to point out the failings of those under pressure.
This week I watched the HBO airing of the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction, which featured a mix of rockers young and old. By “young," I don't mean young. None of these guys attended high school during this century. The older and younger acts made for an interesting contrast.
Many of the guys in their 40s did not look much better than the guys in their 60s. Ron Wood looks like, well, Ron Wood—kind of an ageless, prototypical British rocker. The Chili Peppers don't seem to change a lot—still rocking the shirtless thing without need for embarrassment. The Bill Haley and the Comets guys appeared ancient, but they weren't exactly young looking when “Rock Around the Clock" was a fresh hit single.
Taste in clothing ranged from fabulous to douche-baggy to perhaps homeless with an equal number of offenders and impressers in all age brackets. One geriatric rocker wore a none-too-clean white sweat suit. A few guys wore what was probably wardrobe left over from their 1988 video debut. Those wearing a good suit will never look back in horror.
The biggest difference between the two groups remained how inarticulate the younger acts seemed compared to the older ones. Donovan—a true artist to the core—composed a poem that summarized his entire career, while expressing his gratitude to friends and fans. Now compare Donovan's speech to any '80s act in the show and you can actually hear the decline of Western Civilization.
Induction into a hall of fame suggests that the inductee is nearing his final act. For many musicians, this will be the video clip the media will play on a loop the day following their deaths. Does anyone want to be remembered as the glassy-eyed, slack-jawed person wearing ill-fitting, tragically unhip clothing while hoarsely mumbling profane nonsense?
Dearest Premier Guitar reader, please consider these few simple acceptance speech suggestions before you receive your justly deserved trophy:
1. Let's watch our language, shall we? I'm a longtime cusser, the son of a world-class, ex-Marine, Segovia of profanities. Foul language does not offend me, but poor writing or public speaking does. Most of these younger acts could not convey the simplest thought without punctuating their incomplete sentences with ample profanity. Obscenity, like anything, loses all its punch when overused. It's the verbal equivalent of multiple exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Put in musical terms, it's like that annoying wanker at a jam who keeps using the same damn riff five or six times in a four-measure phrase. Before receiving an award, go ahead and learn a few adjectives and adverbs to help you express yourself.
With the exception of the eloquent Duff of Guns N' Roses, most of the '80s acts sounded like an uncensored Beavis and Butthead. Come on, man—this award was no surprise. Plan ahead a little, think of something to say. If you can't, hire someone to write a speech for you and practice it in front of your mother or a demure old aunt.
2. Be specific in your acknowledgments. Older acts understand giving credit where credit is due. Specific and gracious, they sounded like this: “Our deepest gratitude to our dear friend and colleague, Nathan Westin Howell III. Your genius and dogged determination served as our muse during this inspired, beautiful time."
Younger acts at the induction tended to thank people without actually recognizing them, clumping everyone who helped into a semi-anonymous list of first names: “Yo, I wanna thank Jason, Dave, Tim, the other Dave, and little Mike." There's got to be a hundred posers by these names telling anybody listening that they are “the Dave" that made the Beastie Boys or GN'R happen. Meanwhile, the real Dave is thinking: “Gee, I gave them the title for their biggest hit and lent them $2,000 (which they never paid back) to cut their first demo. I pitched this demo to RCA and got them their deal, spent a year in a Mexican prison after taking the rap for their bag of cocaine the cops found as we left Juárez, and this is the thanks I get?"
3. Be sincere. As the old showbiz maxim goes: The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
With a little planning, you can make your legacy something all will proudly watch. Or you can show up drunk and just dive right into that cringe-inspiring, train-wreck tirade. Hey, it's only rock 'n' roll.
John Bohlinger is a Nashville multi-instrumentalist
best know for his work in television, having lead the band for all six
season of NBC's hit program Nashville Star, the 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009 CMT Music Awards, as well as many specials for GAC, PBS, CMT, USA and HDTV.
John's music compositions and playing can be heard in several major label albums, motion pictures, over one hundred television spots and Muzak... (yes, Muzak does play some cool stuff.) Visit him at youtube.com/user/johnbohlinger
Guitarist Brandon Seabrook, architect of fretboard chaos, and his trusty HMT Tele.
It’s a heady, thrilling idea—but no one who’s followed his zigzagging career will be surprised at the gumption. As he’s cycled through various projects (including the acclaimed power trio Seabrook Power Plant), he’s become a resident chaos architect within the Brooklyn avant-garde scene—exploring everything from jazz-fusion to brutal prog to other untamed strains of heavy rock, typically wielding his trusted 1928 tenor banjo and a modified “heavy metal Telecaster” acoustic-electric from 1989.
But Object of Unknown Function, his first solo album since 2014’s Sylphid Vitalizers, became his own real-life choose-your-own-adventure—a process of rejuvenation by playing with new toys. Along with his usual gear, Seabrook’s main compositional tools this time were a 6-string 1920 William O. Schmick Lyric guitar banjo and a 1998 Jerry Jones Neptune electric 12-string—both of which became vibrant “new relationships,” even if, at first, he felt like he was “stepping out on his guitar.”
“My other guitar [his Telecaster] is the only thing I’ve been playing for the past 25 to 27 years,” he says, laughing. “I was so afraid to try something else: ‘I can’t play another guitar because it’s like an extension of my arm. I know the topography of this neck so well. It’s my sound.’"
Brandon Seabrook's Gear
Seabrook’s 1989 Fender HMT Thinline Telecaster has seen enough wear to rival Willie Nelson’s Trigger.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
Instruments
- 1928 Bacon & Day Silver Bell tenor banjo
- 1920 William O. Schmick Lyric guitar banjo
- 1989 Fender HMT Thinline Telecaster with Sheptone Pickups
- 1998 Jerry Jones Neptune 12-string electric
Amps
- 1962 Magnatone Custom 450
- 1971 Traynor YGM-3
Pedals
- Arion SAD-1 Stereo Delay
- Jam Pedals Dyna-ssoR compressor
- Jam Pedals Rattler distortion
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario XL Nickel Wound 10's
- Dunlop Tortex .88 mm
Accessories
- TASCAM PORTA 3 4-track cassette recorder
But Seabrook fell in love “right away” with the Jerry Jones, and new ideas started flooding out. “The 12-string is such a magic sound, and the Jerry Jones holds the intonation so well that you can detune some of the double-strings to make different intervals, kind of like a built-in harmonizer,” he says. “When you play chords on that and they ring; it’s some sort of majestic, angelic sound—or it can be.” Photo by Scott Friedlander
Seabrook found the 6-string banjo at Brooklyn shop RetroFret Vintage Guitars, intending to shop for a mandolin. He was struck by William Schmick’s construction (“It uses slightly heavier strings, and the neck is wide”) and, more crucially, the surprising intensity it harnesses: “It just sounded so metal to me or something,” he recalls. “So deep and rich and ominous, but beautiful.” These discoveries came at a pivotal time: “I don’t know what happened last year, but I felt the need to get some new instruments. And that opened up a new sound world.”
He eventually linked up with two key collaborators, producer David Breskin (John Zorn, Bill Frisell) and engineer Ben Greenberg (who plays guitar in noise-rock band Uniform), at the small Brooklyn studio Circular Ruin. That setting was ideal for the physical experience he hoped to capture: “I used contact mics on the guitar, and [sometimes on my body], to have a subtle sound design. It’s in there—you can kinda hear it [on the album] sometimes.”
One reason for that impact: This is, by and large, the most intimate record of Seabrook’s career—a downshift from the wall-to-wall wildness that has defined so much of his work. That said, make no mistake. Almost no one else could create the pogoing guitar madness of “Perverted by Perseverance,” which sounds like ’80s King Crimson being subjected to water torture. (“I actually was revisiting the ’80s King Crimson stuff while I was making this album,” he says. “I just came back to it after years of not hearing it. That’s straight-up Telecaster prepared with some alligator clips, and then I use my radio tape recorder on the pickups.”)
Object sometimes leans into a more traditional “solo” vibe, like on the dissonant, highly improvised banjo piece “Unbalanced Love Portfolio”; at other points, it piles instruments into towering overdub soundscapes, like on “Gondola Freak,” a heart-accelerating swirl of harmonized 12-strings.
Object of Unknown Functionis the guitarist’s first solo record since 2014’s Sylphid Vitalizers.
“I’ve been playing a lot of solo things over the past 10 years, and that’s on banjo and guitar,” Seabrook says. “I was kinda hesitant to make an album of that stuff, although some pieces are totally stripped-down to just me. But I thought I could make a more compelling studio listening experience now that I have a little more of a palette that these instruments are offering. The solo album I did 10 years ago had lots of layers, but I wanted to be a bit more vulnerable on this record and have some songs stripped-down and some full.”
The resulting project is a “blender” of all the things Seabrook loves, thrown together in a way that sparks his imagination. “I’m just trying to sound like the influences I have, whether it’s ’80s King Crimson or Eugene Chadbourne or Van Halen or Joni Mitchell—all these things I hear certain fragments of, and maybe it’s only for a measure or a section,” he says. “I guess I am conscious of messing with form. I love the juxtaposition of certain things.”
Seabrook is a long-time mainstay of the Brooklyn jazz and avant-garde scene, where, in addition to leading his own ensembles, he’s worked with a wide range of artists that includes Nels Cline, Anthony Braxton, Mike Watt, and Mostly Other People Do the Killing.
Photo by Luke Marantz
“I used to be even more of a hailstorm on the audience psyche,” he continues. “I just recorded a new album with this quartet of synthesizer, violin, bass, and guitar, and I want to bring more lyricism and less feeling of intentional surprise. I’m getting there slowly. A lot of the music I listen to is really lyrical, like folk music or soft rock. I try to put elements of that in here. I guess I do want to make weird twists and turns, but I do put a lot of thought into how to weave them and make them coherent.”
It’s not like Seabrook has suddenly recorded an Eagles album, but these more refined moments signal a desire to keep challenging himself—and his audience. “I think it’s getting older and being more vulnerable, more confident in your choices,” he says. “When I was younger, I never wanted one second of space. Now I just want to be more connected to the things I truly love. It’s a journey. I never want to think somebody wants to hear a certain thing from me.”
YouTube It
Video Caption: In this mind-melting performance of “brutalovechamp,” captured May 20th, 2023 at Brooklyn’s Public Records, Seabrook is joined by the epic proportions octet, including everything from cello to recorder.