great Jack Casady article

[hieronymous]

I haven't read the whole thing, and so far he doesn't talk about gear much, but even just the stories about his early years learning guitar, playing in bands, and insights into music are worth it!

https://pleasekillme.com/jack-casady/

[mario_farufyno]

Thanks, Harry!

[StephenR]

This looks really good... thanks!

[edwardofhuncote]

That was a nice read. 

I particularly enjoyed this:

It was clear: he’s not into chatty bull****; he’s playing now; this moment; this night: it’s the music he’s creating today that’s driving him.

[Tennesseemick]

That is an awesome article! Thanks for posting it here. I'm now even more excited to catch Hot Tuna in the The Caverns in Pelham, TN this fall, but tonight, this will inspire my playing as my buddy and I keep tweaking our tunes. We have much the same philosophy of rehearsing to listen and make every note count.

[David Houck]

Thanks!  Looking forward to reading this.

[keith_h]

I read the article. It was well worth the read. Thanks for posting.

[cozmik_cowboy]

Quoth Jack:

"The art of listening, I think, is to allow yourself to not only absorb what is being done by the composer and the lyricist, but at the same time, to invent something of your own to go along with it––rather than be shown. That’s part of what I find is the great loss as people become accustomed to “watching” music. I’m told by my engineer that 90% of all music is now downloaded and seen on YouTube first. That’s such a huge change from where music was before, that musicians are compelled to put up a video with their music before the music ever comes out. In that sense, it’s a shame that you’re shown images before you even get to make them up yourself."

So true.  Zappa said the same thing, more succinctly:

"You can listen to an album hundreds of times and get something new from it each time.  You can watch a video, what, five times?  Maybe ten if you're a total veg."

Thanks, Harry; great read.

Peter

[edwardofhuncote]

Because I had a lot of screen time today at work, I went back and re-read it, then forwarded it to my Cousin Graham, with whom I do a few Jorma & Jack routines... fantastic read.


The whole episode reminds me, I gotta' get back down to Carolina for another musical visit soon.

[keith_h]

The IBMA event will be coming up in September.

[StephenR]

I’m told by my engineer that 90% of all music is now downloaded and seen on YouTube first. That’s such a huge change from where music was before, that musicians are compelled to put up a video with their music before the music ever comes out. In that sense, it’s a shame that you’re shown images before you even get to make them up yourself."

That's a great quote, watching a video can suck the life out of a song and make you tire of it quickly. I find the disposable nature of a lot of newer music disturbing and part of the reason it is disposable is the way it is presented and consumed. Music, or any art, needs to have some mystery and leave the listener moved enough by it that they are compelled to keep coming back to experience it again.

On the other hand... a lot of the music on YouTube is not video but audio, much of it ripped from CD or vinyl, with maybe a static image or someone lets their computer generate computer graphics so there is something moving. I find it really helpful when needing to learn new music to just find it on YouTube , I can usually find whatever I need and as long as the speed of the music is correct it makes it much easier to woodshed a tune than digging out a CD, the ability to start and stop the music easily is helpful. If for some reason there is video footage along with the song, scripted or live, I turn my back to it. Hard to believe I ever had to learn songs from LPs or cassettes, even using CDs is clunky. When I saw Ry Cooder a couple of years ago he spoke of how he spent a lot of time learning songs from YouTube  and how much he liked being able to do so, then proceeded to play an old obscure song he learned from there.

[cozmik_cowboy]

I do differentiate between live performance video, which is wonderful, and what Frank and (I think) Jack were talking about, which is the Empty V-style "3-minute movie" video, designed to remove the listener's mind from the equation (excluding, of course, the opening cartoon in the Dead movie).

Peter

[David Houck]

I finally got around to finishing this (I forgot that I had it loaded up in Kindle ready to go).  Very enjoyable read!

I think Jack would have talked about the Airplane experience more if the interviewer hadn't skipped ahead to Voodoo Chile.