Technology has not been our friend this week—and, yes, our Instagram was hacked. But fear not, our IG will soon be back to its former glory.
Apparently, everyone who likes animated family-friendly flicks thought last year’s The Mitchells Vs. the Machines was the shit. Critics such as The New York Times’ Ty Burr raved, “The movie is zippy, inventive, and appreciably silly—it tosses believability aside and asks us to just hop in and hold on … [it has a] breakneck gift for comic timing and a willingness to throw anything at the screen if it’ll get a laugh.” Sure, Mitchells had some cool animation, but I personally loathed it.
Almost as much as I’ve loathed this past week. We’ve been on deadline for our April issue, so it would’ve already been stressful under normal circumstances, but the way the last few days have been going, it seems our own machines have also “tossed believability aside” and seemingly thrown anything and everything at the collective Premier Guitar screen. It’s definitely gotten some laughs at our expense, too.
Bear with us—we’re close to a solution with Instagram’s support team … we’ll be back in the saddle with the usual smorgasbord of kick-ass guitar content before you know it.
I won’t bore you too much with the gory details—including cloud servers being a huge pain in the ass, videoconferencing software glitching and losing recorded footage in back-to-back interviews, or, “best” of all, having our Instagram hacked by some asshole from halfway around the world.
If IG is your means of following what PG does, you’ve no doubt noticed we haven’t posted any cool guitar stuff for the last few days, and that our account’s bio pic was cheekily changed to an image of the character Tokyo from the Spanish TV series Money Heist. The hacker didn’t change existing posts or add anything new. But they did try to bait us into buying back our content via WhatsApp. Fuck that guy.
So bear with us—we’re close to a solution with Instagram’s support team. Meanwhile, the wannabe TMZ-ers of guitardom will continue to “make hay while the sun shines,” but soon this asshole will be kicked off our page (and hopefully have his IP address blocked), and we’ll be back in the saddle with the usual smorgasbord of kick-ass guitar content before you know it.
A fingerpicking shaman essays tunes from his 40-year career with depth, taste, and tone.
Catfish Keith
Blues at Midnight: Original Songs of Catfish Keith
Achieving lovely, burnished, rich acoustic tone is a lifelong pursuit, and Iowa-based singer and fingerstylist Catfish Keith has plucked 13 songs from his 40-year career to showcase in this collection. All are masterfully played, on instruments ranging from a 1927 Gibson Nick Lucas Special to a 1930 National Duolian to recent guitars by builders like Collings and Santa Cruz. And while exceptional instruments always tilt the deck in a player's favor, it's Keith's deft picking-hand control—producing perfectly rounded notes colored by equally well-chiseled dynamics—that makes listening so nourishing.
But this isn't just comfort food. Keith's command of acoustic blues styles is wide and impressive, from Mississippi's Delta and hill country, and the Texas flats, with influences from the West Indies, Mexico, and other lands adding depth. His voice and allusive lyrics help weave this album's distinctive spell—the work of a highly accomplished acoustic blues shaman.
Must-hear tracks: “West Indian Waltz," “Blues at Midnight," “Jumpin' Jack Rabbit"