Dave Mason Has No Post-9/11 Fears; Calls Terror Attacks A 'Wake-Up Call'

LAUNCH.COM ^ | September 6. 2002 | Bruce Simon

[eddie willers]

This is NOEL REDDING...Jimmy Hendrix's BASS PLAYER !!!

LOL!

Continuing in the "It's a small world" vein, I went to see The Jimi Hendix Experience at an afternoon Matinee! (talk about early in the morning for these guys) along with the Soft Machine and Vanilla Fudge at the old Atlanta Municipal Auditorium,

I was so impressed that I ran all the way to the (then) new and exciting Regency Hyatt House Hotel where I heard they were staying.

The Hyatt was the first John Portman "Atrium" hotel and has the "Jules Verne" type glass elevators that ride 22 stories up on the inside of the lobby.

I managed to squeeze myself into the elevator with Noel (his Afro must have been 3 feet in circumference!) and tried to convince him that I should go with him to meet Jimi in his room.

Why he blew off a 16 year old kid who rode the bus into town from the suburbs is beyond me.

[abner]

Whoops, wrong link- here is the right one.

Detectives on Everest

[BluesDuke]

Keith Emerson Played for King Crimson and the short-lived ELP(owell).

Wrong. Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer (also Powell) began in King Crimson (he was the Crimson King's original bassist and lead vocalist); Keith Emerson pre-ELP was known for a particularly incendiary trio (originally a quartet, until guitarist David O'List left and the remaining three carried on as a threesome; bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson and drummer Brian Davison completed the group) known as the Nice. Lake stayed with Crimson long enough to cut two albums, the breathaking In The Court of the Crimson King and its near-copy, In The Wake of Poseidon, before leaving to join with Emerson (who had just broken up the Nice) and Carl Palmer (ex-Atomic Rooster). (Sidebar: Among the voices Fripp auditioned before accepting Lake was an art student named Bryan Ferry, soon enough to form the clever Roxy Music.)

If you can find them, the Nice's first three albums - The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack, Nice, and Ars Longa Vita Brevis, originally on the legendary Immediate label - are fascinating for their sober yet slightly whacky meldings of rock and even folk with classical extractions, which managed somehow to show the props to all three sides without going as far overboard into pomposity or self-congratulatory posturings as most of what followed them (and would be called "prog rock") would become. Their final two albums, for Mercury, were interesting, too: Five Bridges, with the title track being Emerson's first attempt at writing seriously in the classical-to-rock mode and actually making it fly, regarding the third and fourth movements; and, Elegy, featuring a dazzling organ-trio interpretation of a movement from Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique". The Nice had a somewhat incendiary live performance style, too, if you have ever heard side two of Nice - a rather wiggish extension on the primary theme of Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (the Nice called it "Rondo"), and a surprisingly long but non-excessive version of Bob Dylan's "She Belongs To Me".

[BluesDuke]

P.S. The Nice picked their name from an earlier song by the original Small Faces, who were Immediate label mates; the Small Faces' catalog of Steve Marriott-Ronnie Lane compositions included a charming little song called "Here Comes The Nice," and the Thinkers of Emerlist Davjack decided that would make, er, a nice name for their own group.

[Senator Pardek]

Keith Emerson Played for King Crimson and the short-lived ELP(owell).

Duh. I should be shot for that.

Try the game, though - you sound as if you'd be good at it. Folks like Zappa, Allan Holdsworth, and Nelly Furtado are easy with just a bit of brainpower.

[eddie willers]

Thanks...will scarf it up.
Will they try again?
(Third time's a charm)

[Senator Pardek]

Thinkers of Emerlist Davjack

Is that like Journey-o Styxwagon?

[PoorMuttly]

Ahhh...the Vanilla Fudge.

Vinny Martel, the guitarist, probably still does his Public Access t.v. show about Vietnam-era Veterans affairs. He is a Patriot.

I played with him one evening in a friend's studio a few years ago...and he had a WONDERFUL number that just had wings...ascending melody....he's the real thing.

Now I'll proceed to look him up. He gave me his card @ 1970....Vinny Martel...Legendary Guitarist of the Vanilla Fudge. He cracked up when he saw it. We were playing with the drummer from the Illusion, I think. Wonderful guys. They've still really got it. Some day, I am sure.

[PoorMuttly]

And a hearty Atomic Rooster to you, as well.

[PoorMuttly]

Any Cactus fans out there.....?

[eddie willers]

Listening to it right now (on the original vinyl :).

Don't skip over Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave. : )

Duke...do you know who does the fade out wah-wah lead guitar on that cut?
I swear it sounds like Clapton, but he's not listed or credited anywhere.

[BluesDuke]

Is that like Journey-o Styxwagon?

God forbid! ;)

On the other hand, it could have been worse - I could have been looking for an oddball semi-pun on the San Franciscan psychedelics and come up with the Great Quicksilver Tunaship. (At which point I should admit that I loved the first two Quicksilver Messenger Service albums...)

[PhilDragoo]

Zappa

Saw Zappa in 71.

It was a packed room of several hundred sitting on the floor and Zappa and the Mothers of Invention standing around in our midst.

They were terribly fast, in no recognizable genre.

Traffic racing in shrieking sheet metal electronic frenzy--

Zappa would raise a pinkie and the Mothership would turn on dime--

Who was that greasy little Turtle? Half of the singing duo that night.

Someone broke a string.

"Talk quietly among yourselves."

[jwfiv]

I think you're correct, Jimi stayed late after the musicians left and re-recorded the bass lines himself. The wonderful album was essentially produced by Jimi after he and Chas Chandler couldn't agree on how it should go down. JImi's Sistine Chapel.

I still grieve, sorry he's gone but glad and grateful he was here.

[BluesDuke]

Still a classic album: the Soft Machine's Third.

[eddie willers]

Great Spirit Quicksilver Grape Tunaship Alarm Clock

[dalereed]

What kind of a dump were you drinking in that had a mouse running loose?

[abner]

I hope they try again. He just ordered two new banners for some climbing show. Duh! I don't know why I didn't ask him when I talked to him the other day.

Did you know that Dave Hahn was one of the unlucky guys in that helicopter crash on Rainier? He has an article about it on Mountainzone.com. He always seems to be getting into epics. Here is the link to the article

[BluesDuke]

Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood went back quite a way; in between stints with John Mayall's Blues Breakers (Clapton joined the group in 1965 but left for a time to regroup himself as a musician, though he'd already cut one classic single with Mayall, "I'm Your Witchdoctor"), Clapton's activities included cutting a few tracks with a one-off group he called the Powerhouse; the keyboard player, billed on the Elektra album that featured the cuts (What's Shakin') as Steve Anglo, was actually Steve Winwood (already under contract elsewhere, via his membership in the Spencer Davis Group). The cuts included the first known recorded version of "Crossroads" Clapton had ever cut. But to my knowledge, it isn't Clapton playing the wah-wah guitar on that Traffic cut - it's Winwood, who was a decent enough guitar player as well as an excellent keyboardsman.

Clapton, in fact, had first thought of forming a permanent group with Winwood after he decided to leave John Mayall permanently. Said Winwood, in a 1970 interview, "I thought it was a great idea, but I'd just gotten Traffic together and it was the wrong time." It was then that Ginger Baker sat in with the Blues Breakers for a gig, was impressed major league by Clapton, and invited Eric to form a band with him...hence came Cream.

[eddie willers]

Clapton, in fact, had first thought of forming a permanent group with Winwood

I'll take that on Blind Faith. : )