Collaboration with guitarist Jonathan Beckenstein.
A collaboration between Jonathan and Bill had been on the Tarot cards for some time.
They finally decided that they were both fans of Robbie Krieger of the Doors, and therefore it was ‘alright’ for them to do one.
Jon sent Bill a track that he subconsciously hoped Bill would be able to do nothing with, and Bill then tried to consciously obliterate it with his own noises.
Neither of these things worked, and Jon’s original raunchy guitar riffing stood up amongst a host of Bill’s slide guitars and the stomp of Bill’s rhythm section.
‘That worked’, they said – ‘we dedicate this one to Robbie then?’ - Bill said.
Why not, say I – there’s more than a bit of ‘moonlight drive’ in there.
High and low, both bubbling beautifully together.
My Two FaVORITE guitar TITANS rocking this!!! Thanks - Love This!!!
wow, great journey!
awesome,,,,creative,,,,,,cinematic,,,,,,great work
- I'm fascinated by the similarities between sound compositions and cinematic art - it's to do with the flow of time ... silent film ... soundtracks ... a whole world of fascination
good to the last sonic drop
Bizarre but very nice sounds! I'm hooked!
You had me at the space dock.
A most enjoyable bluesy blow-out, from the swamp to the stars!! Where's Jim Morrison when you need him, eh?
- well put! Jim's still in hiding - come out from that false mustache Jim, we know you're in there!
Madness never sounded so good
If you could hear a Richard Dadd painting, it might sound like this
The guy was famously ['famously mad', now that could be a ...]
Superb flailing riff here..
: It's the swan song of Jonathan's guitar part there - I slowed it down to a rubato before it is engulfed in echoey slide guitars
:
Loving that yuk yuk bass
: I had the pick up sound going into an auto wah through one channel, and a contact mic on the headstock going through a fuzz box on the other channel - at that point I turned up the fuzz channel.
s: What a cool idea..I always underestimate how powerful distortion with bass can be
: I always like to hear Hugh Hopper doling out fuzz bass! I have been sticking contact mics on all my axes of late too.
That bass drum gives a solid treepot ..the guitars spiral wildly from the trunk:
- of course, the solo guitar track by Jonathan came first, and the drums had to be put in there so that they sounded *as if* they were the foundation - as they always are - of the track
Already supremely deconstructed and abstracted
: we are the Derridas of sound! [now that is a great name for a band - I have just copyrighted it, so there!]
: Ah well..having established the name as a foundation you'll now have to deconstruct, of course! ;))
s: drat! I always fall foul of the paradox .... now that could be a great name for ....
: Hee hee..this could go on for a while. ..come to think of it..'Drat!' is pretty cool too
Nice avant-garde blues with feeling of floating
Thanks for setting me up with a particularly psychedelic breakfast, great sounds & effects - made me want to grab my 335 & gnarliest fuzz & dive into the primordial blues-soup
It all begins in the blues for me. Interesting what you say about about breakfast - blues and psychedelics are top rate in the morning, but jazz is only for the evening [someone made this comment on another track]. I suppose this was defined by the Floyd's Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast. With this track, it began with Jonathan's gutbucket blues rock fusilades - I knew that I had to take it into space, but keep a link with Earth, the Earth Blues - Amen
oooh, Bootsy's dropped by
: This Squier Jazz bass is great - it just gives out those kinds lines without trying. It's a cool black beast too, active into the bargain : I'm mainly a Jazz-bass chap - bought a Squier VM fretless J last year - superb
picking behind the nut...?
No, I'm playing the slide and the bar right up close to the pick ups, and so picking in between both pick ups on the Indie, so you get very high pitched sounds in front of the treble pick up and untempered tones behind the neck pick up. There also some very high pitched picking close to the pick up on the lap steel
: This is the Indie Shape semi-hollow which is great for slide picking - all that high pitched stuff is done with the fingers and not a pick - it creates a kind of obligatto
I do like to do behind the nut stuff, but it didn't come about here, and really there's far more scope with slide for those kinds of effects. The lap steel has an Entwistle single coil set at an angle on a steel plate like a Telecaster, and the Indie has P90 type pick ups - so both single coil. Best pick ups for this type of excursion - I notice that Gilmour tends to keep to single coils for his spacey stuff. I did use an Epiphone SG with humbuckers, but that is way down in the mix and just gives some very ethreal harmonies at some point, but distant. So, along with the Jazz bass and Jon's Tele, this is a very single coil affair, which gives me a blast
: It had a sort of "harp effect" which I thought might be behind-the-nut or harmonics.... I occasionally use an archtop and get some nice effects picking around the trapeze tail - thanks for the explanation. It's just about all single coil on Umma Gumma through to WYWH - although the Money solo is on mini-buckers on a 24Fr Bill Lewis & he had a Tele neck 'bucker around 75-77....
: P90s - great stuff, sounded very fat.... perfect pickup for gnarly blues
Posted 3 months ago3 months You say at 1:50:
You've given me the chills with your chapter and verse on Gilmour. After chatting with you this morning, I had to listen to More. It's so intrepid the way that nearly every solo spot is slide. And the blues track has such a cutting single coil sound - and the space they create on that blues - the atmos and the restraint on the drums - all very close to what I'm trying to do here.
: Yeah, I'm lusting after P90s now - so much so that I'm starting to look askance at humbuckers! Did Gibson improve the Les Paul by ditching the wraparound bridge and P90s in favour of the tunamatic and buckers? No! No! No! sir, and again No! I have heard a goldtop with P90s get the Clapton Beano sound no trouble! In my present world, every guitar must have P90s - I decree it so! Who cares about a little hum and buzz [and as for the wraparound not having the perfect intonation of a tunomatic - did you see the bridge on Segovia's guitar?! Come on man, who needs 'perfect intonation?
What we don't want is separate bits of metal and screws connecting onto a bridge - we want only this: string > bridge. End of: single piece.
: The bridge on this chap is pretty "direct" { my elsewhere-page }.. works fine. Set up with flat 012s, no real bending but it's tone, tone, tone : : you are writing the book on guitar tone on this bowling-tide page - studded with gems - great to hear the classic jazz guitar sound recontextualised - I was saying elsewhere; what happened to the out-of-context solo? Those moments when a guitar solo walks in on a piece and changes everything, is totally unexpected, totally inappropriate and yet ... sounds right!
lovely effects...Forbidden Planet swirling
- extreme slide guitar and lap steel - lots reverb, echo and panning - you know it! You don't even need a synth when you've got echoes and slide
penetrate the evening
: that the city seeks to hide - yeah this piece lifts the veil of urban blues to reveal the delta and the threshing floor of ancient Greece where tragedy began
:
falling through wet forests
: That's a very Morrisonian image - this piece is like an abstraction on the Doorsian lakeside forest dwelling stuff - bit of Wild Childe in there too; we're all waiting for the sun, anyways
:
the killing floor
: That's where you slaughter it with massed Telecaster axes
lyrics
Jammed Together, a mutant blues ...
When they can’t find their shoes,
When they’ve nothing to lose ,
When they’re feeling low down and dirty,
Dazed and thoroughly confused.
When they’re broken down, beaten up and bruised.
When they have no choices,
So they just can’t choose ...
What else would these poor boys do?
Smile and be happy?
No way ...
Get out of here!
They jammed together,
A mutant blues,
A mutated strain,
So the world could hear,
Their pain, and know,
They’d paid their dues.
credits
from Moon Fear (double album),
released August 24, 2016
Jonathan Beckenstein, guitar.
Bill Boethius, slide guitar, bass and drums.
Main riff idea by Jonathan,
Production by Bill.
Jonathan plays a Fender Telecaster .
Bill plays an Indie Shape semi-hollow guitar with a glass bottleneck, an Epiphone SG guitar with a brass slide, a Revelation lap steel guitar with a bar, a Squier Jazz bass and an Alesis drum machine
