Pribek

Part 2 of Dave Abner’s, three part, Branson Daily News piece is up and you can check it out here.

I was caught expounding about the early days again and discussing the virtues of the Fender Telecaster…

Pribek is mostly a one-ax guy.

He’s played bunches of them through the years – Gibson Les Pauls and Fender Telecasters and Stratocasters are but a few.

But it’s the Telecaster – the Tele (TELL-lee) – he revisits again and again.

In fact, he’s spent the better part of the past few years playing nothing but Telecaster – and not one Tele out of a collection of a dozen, but one Tele.

A single Tele. His bread-and-butter ax.

Part of it’s just what you know.

“I’m used to ‘em,” Pribek said. “I know ‘em inside and out.”

He said some age-old guitar questions (Fender or Gibson? Strat or Tele?) are decided the same way some guys decide car choices.

“It’s like Ford and Chevy,” Pribek said.

My buddy, Larry Holiday, who I’ve gigged with many times and is a real good player and singer, is also a guitar collector. When I’ve played with Larry he has always showed up with different guitars, every time. Larry came out with the best stuff of the day.

Holiday was asked a question: Why do guitar players so often become guitar collectors?

His response: “Why do women like to buy shoes?”

He recalled an ex-wife who liked dogs.

Holiday said, “I told her, ‘Every time you bring home a new dog, I’m getting a new guitar.’

“She got up to 13 dogs at one time.”

Holiday maintains about two-and-a-half-dozen instruments in his arsenal.

“I’ve been staying pretty close to thirty (guitars). If I get rid of one, pretty soon I’ll get one.

“Sometimes I have to open the cases to see what I have.”

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Until I saw this, I had not hear of Jay Sean.

Jay Sean is fed up of indie music.

The 27-year-old urban singer is glad to see the likes of Wiley, 29, and Estelle, 28, ruling the Top 10.
He told me: “There’s way too much guitar music on radio and TV.

“They need to balance it out, it’s not fair. British music is not just about guitar bands.

“You have to cater for everyone.”

Wow, British radio must be way different from what’s available here in in the Ozarks. You know, there are some “classic rock” stations but, for new music a lot of what I hear has no guitars or, guitars that are processed beyond the point of not being guitars anymore. Actually a lot of it sounds like this Jay Sean song, “Maybe”.

A little help here, I know there are a few Brits that look in from time to time; is there too much guitar on the radio over there?

Jay Sean, maybe you should consider relocating to fly over country, guitar free pop music seems to be all the rage in this neck of the woods.

hee haw! This just made me think of something. I’ve told this before but it’s a good one.

My buddy, Rollo, is from the Arkansas delta region. During the early ’80s he had a little rock and roll band. You know, a bunch of young hillbillies emulating hair bands, eating, drinking, sleeping, living rock and roll and chasing the dream. I think a bunch of them were living in the same house that they rented; the whole bit.

One day, they were sitting around, broke, wishing they had some beer money. So, one of the guitar players grabbed some cheap, Japanese guitar that he bought somewhere for $50 or something and says; “I don’t ever play this guitar. I don’t need it. Let’s go pawn this thing for beer money.”

So, they all pile in the van and head out, mentally computing how many cases of Milwaukee’s Best they are going to have in a short while. They get to the place and there’s this 400 pound guy, chomping on a cigar, wearing a pair of those half lens glasses that all pawnbrokers have, sitting behind the desk. This guy sees them coming and, right as the bunch walks in the door, he looks over the top of the glasses and drawls…

Boys, what the pawn shop neeeeds, is Shotguns and Chainsaws. Now, don’t be draggin’ your nasty old GIT-tars in here. The pawnshop don’t need no more Git-tars. If you got a shotgun or a chainsaw then, we can do some business but, just take your little old git-tar on back home.

A lesson in humility.

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Roger Waters’ pig…

has been found.

The remains of Roger Waters’ political pig have been found in California – three days after the animal flew away during the Coachella Festival.

Pieces of the inflatable pig, which featured a pro-Barack Obama message, were found by two families on their driveways in La Quinta.

It’s understood that the $10,000 reward put forward by organisers will be split between the two households.

The pig, which was the width of two double-decker buses, escaped from its ties as Waters played Pink Floyd’s ‘Pigs’ during his headlining performance at the festival (April 27th).

In addition to the financial reward, the families will receive four life long tickets to the Coachella Festival.

According to Wikipedia the pigs have a history of escaping.

The original Pink Floyd pig was designed by Roger Waters and built in December 1976 in preparation for shooting the cover of the Animals album. Plans were made to fly the forty-foot, helium-filled balloon over Battersea Power Station on the first day’s photo-shoot, with a marksman prepared to shoot the pig down if it broke free. However, the pig was not launched.

On the second day, the marksman wasn’t present because no one had told him to return, and the pig broke free due to a strong gust of wind (gaining a lot of press coverage). It disappeared from sight within five minutes, and was spotted by airline pilots at forty thousand feet in the air. Flights at Heathrow Airport were cancelled as the huge inflatable pig flew through the path of aircraft, eastwards from Britain, over the English Channel, finally landing on a rural farm in Kent that night….

The pig also went astray whilst suspended from the ceiling of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge Louisiana in 1977[citation needed]. It ran back and forth over the audience during the performance on some sort of track, and at the end of its travels across the arena struck a fan in the head as it turned to go back toward the stage….

In the two post-Waters tours, the pig was used many times; but two of the pigs were lost, both during the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tours:

* One 12-meter pig being used at a record company function on January 28, 1988 broke free before a concert[citation needed].
* On May 6, 1988 one of the band’s larger pigs descended towards the crowd and was ripped apart by fans during a concert in Foxboro, Massachusetts

Somebody should stop Waters and Pink Floyd. Clearly these pigs are not happy with being used as political footballs (pigskins), and forced in to performance. Where is PETA on this?

Where is the outrage?

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