jtm@syteka.UUCP (Jim McCrae) (02/22/85)
I have to toss in a coupla bits. Jimi Hendrix was NOT just another
guitarist of the late 60's, he was not considered great BECAUSE of
his stage presence, he was not God. He was an incredibly innovative
musician who introduced the modern world to recording-as-we-know-it.
He did things with a Stratocaster that most producers can't do
with miles of tape and weeks of mixing. He articulated the presence
of a vast untapped musical cosmos that musicians have been charting
ever since he left. His contributions to music are up there with
Charlie Parker and Art Tatum. I remember clearly the moment I first
heard "Purple Haze" crackling out of a '50-something Dodge's crummy
AM radio, the immediate excitement it generated, the sudden arrival
of a form of music unimaginable a moment before. Unfortunately, his
memory has been muddled and tainted by his death; for awhile, the
legend was a footnote to the sequence of drug deaths in late '70
that cast a fatal chill over the exuberance of the '60s.
Oh yeah, Husker Du. Those guys are great. I lost most of my inner
ear cilia at a Ramones concert at the Keystone Palo Alto, so I
think I'll skip them live, (I'm a wimp, what can I say) but
"Zen Arcade" is refreshingly chaotic, barely keeping it together
at the fringe kinda music. It's not for everyone, but if you're
adventuresome and appreciate what can happen when a guitarist
tries to make everything happen at once at distortion level volume,
check this one out.
Jim McCrae ...{hplabs,decvax}!sytek!jtm