Jeff Beck

 This is so sad....

Jeff Beck (78) died of bacterial meningitis.

Don McLean sings "The day the guitar died"

Jeff is simply one of the best guitarists ever. He constantly kept things interesting by going in unexpected directions, like classical, Johnny Depp, the 2 ladies he found in a local pub..  He always had a variety of players onstage, including a lot of women, who got the gig with their talent. A few albums included Jan Hammer, formerly of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Jan went on to do music for Don Johnson's show, set in Florida.

Early Jeff Beck came via the Yardbirds, which also gave us Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton.

Next was the Jeff Beck Group, with a little known, spiky-haired singer who was so nervous, he hid backstage. You know him as Rod Stewart.

The next Jeff Beck Group was a 5 man talented bunch, with Cozy Powell on drums. They ran 2 albums, 

Then BBA - Beck Bogert Appice, a power trio that also didn't last long.

then Jeff was largely solo. Only he preferred tinkering with his hot rods, like Billy Gibbons, to touring, I believe they were good friends, playing together a lot live and Jeff appeared on an album. He and Rod got together every now and then. I think they were planning something soon.

He had a rockabilly phase and tour.

The solo albums were incredible, with different ideas, and just got better as Jeff got older.

Listen to my favorite album, Blow by Blow   - Stevie Wonder appears, uncredited, produced by George Martin (the Beatles)

My favorite song, also from Blow by Blow - Cause We Ended as Lovers (by Stevie Wonder)

Look on YouTube for Live at Ronnie Scott's. An incredible appearance in a small club. Jimmy Page does a walk-on. At one point you can see Robert Plant in the audience.

When Jimi Hendrix first came to England, he started playing at clubs, generating a reputation for being a wild man on the guitar. The Beatles, The Stones, Eric Clapton, and Jeff all went to see him, scared from what they heard about him. They were the Big Guns. They left wide-eyed.

Nothing to worry about, Jeff.

GODDAMMIT  they were my heroes. I learned most of their songs. I performed Hendrix songs in my first high school bands. I spent a lot of time trying to get Jeff's lyricism and bent note phrasing. It was never going to happen, but I had fun. He inspired so many musicians, starting in the early 60s. I tried to get him to sign my #1 guitar, but he's pretty reclusive after concerts. I even called the concert's sponsor.

At least we still have his music. Eight Grammys, from when a Grammy wasn't decided by deaf people. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Yardbirds and solo, back before Donna Summer, Eminem, and Tupac were inducted.

RIP, Lord of the Strings

It's Not a Rat - it's a Siberian Hamster!

It is claimed that by 2050, human-on-robot sex will be more common than human-on-human sex. You people had better start being nice to each other or it's going to be a long, cold life.

• Remember when I told you that your cable box spies on you? It's so the cable company can serve personalized ads to you, among other things.
• While we're talking about creepy, invasive tracking, Google's next. It (via Gmail) partners with businesses to send you ads when you're surfing. [1. do not give out your address 2. turn off cookies]

So this man filled up bottles of his own fluid(s) and deposited the contents on women in Maryland. When caught, he was given three years of probation. SUSPENSE! .. He's back at it again, in Virginia. He was arrested for taking upskirt photos and for depositing bodily fluids on a woman, but not from a bottle. C'mon, man, have you not heard of the internet? There are all sorts of... specialty dating sites... 

• Edward Snowden joined Twitter. His first follow was the NSA. Yeah, right, like they didn't know before he joined.

Justin Bieber "wants to live like Jesus."  --Got any nails?

• Microsoft 'responds' to concerns that Windows 10 is spying by saying nothing and not answering any questions.

I don't know why, but if you're considering voting for Carly Fiorina, she just bragged that HP's servers are used by the NSA for mass surveillance and that she rushed them out for this purpose.

• Still kicking, albeit a little long in the tooth, is Groucho Marx (125). Read Time's piece on him and simply laugh at a comedy genius.

The daughter (16) of Fast and Furious' Paul Walker is suing Porsche for 'wrongful death'. She claims Porsche took safety shortcuts. Allow me to suggest that the best safety shortcut was around the pole.

• Oxymorons: Congressional Ethics. Windows Security.

I snore, much to my wife's dismay (as does the dog - sometimes we jam). Looking at Amazon's solutions, people who bought them also bought selfie sticks. I don't know if this is personal, but it sure feels that way.

• What have the Great Unwashed been up to? Signing a petition to ban talking about politics and religion in public. The guy who produces these is an inadvertent comic hero.

A male staffer in a Capitol Hill office has complained his female boss has slapped his ass, talked about her vibrator, and asked him sexual questions. BRAVO for women's equality!

• Baboons in Zambabwe took a radio show off the air by eating the station's transmission cables. We don't have this problem in the US, because we keep our baboons in front of the camera.

The Bad News: Friends actor David Schwimmer is coming back to tv. The Good News: in England, so there's less chance of seeing him in the US.

• Just when you think it couldn't get any weirder, there's BIID. Body Integrity Identity Disorder causes able-bodied people to belive they should be disabled. As a result, this lady somehow convinced a psychologist to blind her with drain cleaner. Next week the good doctor will be slicing off the ear of a neurotic and removing the stomach of a man with major depression.

A British prison inmate cut off his penis and tried to flush it. Oddly enough, he's not the first inmate to do this. Link has timeline of penis cutting-off activities. Apparently it's not just a British thing, although one wonders.

• This week's best sentence: "Ever since Parliament’s funk savior Starchild brandished his bop gun to bring about intergalactic Funkentelechy.."

Bernie Sanders thinks illegals should benefit from Obamacare. Meanwhile my deductible is still $5,500. Socialist Bernie, meet socialist Barack.

• Greatest invention ever: Exercise in a pill!

AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky coined Moore's Law of Mad Science: "Every eighteen months, the minimum IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by one point."

The Week in Music - A Triumph of Excellence

The Yardbirds are touring this year. For those who do not recognize the name, they were a band in the sixties that gave us three of the top guitarists of our time: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jeff Beck (my personal favorite) and Eric Clapton (Cream, Blind Faith, Eric Clapton). A quick check on the band's latest membership role shows us that the band is touring with the original drummer only. This beats Foghat, which is touring with the original drum roadie.

Long ago.. very long ago by most standards, I played with a band at this stereotypical dump in New Jersey (not to be confused with the stereotypical state of New Jersey). Up on the wall was a television - an old-style television, with a CRT. Imagine a time when televisions and radios had to warm up, if you can. On the telly was this brand new cable network called MTV. Anyone even vaguely familiar with MTV might still be shocked to learn that it featured actual rock and roll music, as opposed to what passes for content this week. Cable wasn't available in my neighborhood yet, so this was doubly fascinating. Triply fascinating was looking up and seeing a non-mainstream band performing. This was Triumph.

Triumph is a band of three hosers (Canadians). My area of concentration is Rik Emmett, the guitarist, singer and cowriter. Let's dive right in:

Midsummer's Daydream is a solo classical acoustic piece performed by Emmett. I tried to play this once (only once).  This is recorded live in Halifax (a suburb of Canada, located generally north of the US). He does a lot with one acoustic guitar. You can also hear the studio version on the Thunder Seven album. The live version contains a lot of... ummm.. spunk? Verve? Derring Do?  Enjoy the showmanship and sense of humor (and lycra pants).

Little Boy Blues (not to be confused by anything coming from the Vatican) is one of my favorite songs. By this I mean it has a lot of really interesting guitar work and, surprisingly enough, no vocals. It begins with some really low-key tasty blues, backed by a drum machine and other instruments that would completely prevent this song from being performed live by a three-piece band. This builds nicely to what I'd call a chorus, where the playing starts to get really spunky. At the end of the chorus, the real drums enter and the real rollercoaster ride takes off. This segues into a redo of the first part, a hyped-up chorus, and a surprisingly gentle end. Rik plays very dynamically and lyrically, even when he's performing digital acrobatic riffs.

There exists the possibility that Lay It On the Line is the video I saw on MTV first. It's one of their biggest hits (you olde phartes will remember it) and features a doubleneck guitar that you've never seen before, unlike Jimmy Page's.