rip: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/arts/music/jeff-beck-dead.html
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:20 (one year ago) link
One of the most immediately recognizable instrumentalists of all time.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:22 (one year ago) link
RIP one of a kind
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:26 (one year ago) link
An old two-fer, Truth/Beck-Ola, was one of the first LPs I bought when I started collecting in the mid-'70. I like their "Shapes of Things" almost as much as the original.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:28 (one year ago) link
he's way too prolific to narrow down to one album or era, let alone song, but fuckin "plynth" is one of the best barroom rockers ever
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:30 (one year ago) link
Possibly the world's greatest master of the whammy.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:35 (one year ago) link
RIP
Earlier this year I decided to listen to his mid-80s synth stuff and his late 90s dance stuff. Some surprising (in a good way) moments in both periods.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:41 (one year ago) link
Got a nice vinyl copy of the BBA live album for (relatively) cheap a couple months back--such an artifact: a double from a band who'd only recorded a single lp, recorded in Japan and only ever released there.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:43 (one year ago) link
― Farewell to Evening in Paradise (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:45 (one year ago) link
Absolute whammy bar legend, rest in power!!
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 22:59 (one year ago) link
Letterman's people had this up in near-record time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJErzI-aP1M
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:00 (one year ago) link
so gorgeoushttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOPvOBd8IA
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:00 (one year ago) link
made so many great records
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:00 (one year ago) link
I need that BBA Japanese live lp!
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:01 (one year ago) link
In some ways, one the most true to his own muse musician of those 60s artists. Jeff Beck never really quit trying to improve or try different things.
― earlnash, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:02 (one year ago) link
RIPEarlier this year I decided to listen to his mid-80s synth stuff and his late 90s dance stuff. Some surprising (in a good way) moments in both periods.
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:06 (one year ago) link
I got both of the Beck 'Original Album Classics' early last year and listened to them all the time in the car. It actually led me to get his CD "Jeff" a couple weeks ago and oddly enough I listened to last night before bed.
I really like both of his drum and bass type records. They sound of their time but they hold up pretty well as he gets all sorts of weird sounds out of the guitar. Weird sounds and the love of making them with an 'electric' guitar seems to be a big thing with Beck in that BBC documentary about him in the 60s.
I love his track "Nadia" off 'You Have it Coming' and there is a good live version on 'Live at Ronnie Scotts'.
― earlnash, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:17 (one year ago) link
Always loved that he wore a Runaway Radio enamel lapel pin from 101 KLOL (the Houston AOR station) on his Flash jacket.
https://rock101movie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/timeline-80-runawayradio80s.png
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:22 (one year ago) link
What Andrew Sarris called "Antonioniennui" (actually, no):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSJGEn4FDys
― clemenza, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:24 (one year ago) link
I don't think I've heard a Beck album, just an assortment of cuts, a dozen at most, over the years.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:25 (one year ago) link
where to start?
I’d recommend Truth. It’s the blueprint for (and superior to, imho) Led Zeppelin I, and contains the greatest-ever recorded scream by a drummer.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:33 (one year ago) link
I love Truth but the all-instrumental Blow by Blow and Wired are the ones I've played the most
― Brad C., Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:39 (one year ago) link
Good a time as any to revisit this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaGfW2Ifuts
― henry s, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:48 (one year ago) link
There was a 2cd Rhino comp called The Ultimate Yardbirds that did a great job of summarizing the band
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:50 (one year ago) link
yeah, his fusion albums from the '70s are probably the best, but I think the key thing with Jeff Beck is that when you listen to Jeff back you are mostly listening to/for Jeff Beck. The context almost doesn't matter, he is indomitable.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:51 (one year ago) link
yeah I love the bbb/wired/there and back trifecta.. the live one with the Jan hammer group from around that time is pretty insane too.
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:57 (one year ago) link
He's a loud guitarist, right? Description, not criticism. What I've heard sounds like a strafing.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 11 January 2023 23:58 (one year ago) link
yeah he’s kind of one the original “stunt guitarists I guess but he has a really unique way of making his guitar emote, lots of gorgeous sunset evoking swells and visercal textural synesthesic metallic scrappage
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:03 (one year ago) link
xpost Try this, as recommended by Nate Patrin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHsPjWBqOZg
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:03 (one year ago) link
Jeff Beck in 1985 in his own goddamn plane:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/sfc-datebook-wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/MERc20e10f2f41eb9bda2823220642b6_beck_obit-1008x1024.jpg
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:07 (one year ago) link
CHAPMAN STICK!
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:09 (one year ago) link
"It actually led me to get his CD "Jeff" a couple weeks ago and oddly enough I listened to last night before bed."
some of jeff really ripshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvGDTnvj2jM
― im a beacon of light (Spottie), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:13 (one year ago) link
What I've heard sounds like a strafing.Then you haven’t heard “Lookin’ For Another Pure Love” (but I assume you have):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY2fz5RBgvQ“Do it, Jeff.”
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:18 (one year ago) link
He's a great musician who did most of his best work in other contexts than his own records. This Roger Waters track from 1992 is about half guitar solo and there are some terrifying bits in it, without any showing off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OccmcfZ9ZnY
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:21 (one year ago) link
No, I love that solo, and I like his version of "People Get Ready" w/Rod Stewart, to name two.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:21 (one year ago) link
the recentish album with the bald eagle playing a strat on the cover was rather good
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:23 (one year ago) link
I’d recommend Truth. It’s the blueprint for (and superior to, imho) Led Zeppelin I
Truth and Beck-Ola are interesting because they give a chance to hear what Zep would have sounded like it they'd been saddled with Mickie Most as a producer.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:24 (one year ago) link
He plays a great solo on Jon Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:35 (one year ago) link
Beck is a "so close, but..." for me.
I've listened to Beck-Ola and Truth and they just made me want to listen to Led Zeppelin and/or something that doesn't have Rod Stewart singing.
I've listened to Blow By Blow and Wired (not in full, TBF) and they just made me want to listen to Mahavishnu Orchestra.
I've listened to Beck, Bogert & Appice and their version of "Superstition" is world-crushingly awesome but everything else is a boring ballad or a generic blooze riff.
Talented guy, but always second-tier because nothing he did was ever exactly right, and he either couldn't or wouldn't write a hit as cheesy as any of Clapton's.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:36 (one year ago) link
lol second tier.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:40 (one year ago) link
lol second tier
I only mean that in terms of commercial success. He was just never as popular as Clapton or Page (via Led Zeppelin, obviously).
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:42 (one year ago) link
Of all the big deal 60s dudes for some reason his fame/rep didn't carry over to subsequent generations
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:42 (one year ago) link
He's probably just after Hendrix in terms of the most innovative rock guitarists of the era. Without him there's no Eddie Van Halen and everything that followed.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:46 (one year ago) link
..unless you played guitar. My teacher had me learn "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" as an assignment, and other pieces of his were often transcribed in the monthly guitar magazines.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:50 (one year ago) link
yeah he’s kind of one the original “stunt guitarists I guess
Probably as good a place as any to point out he was a key inspiration for Nigel Tufnel.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:50 (one year ago) link
Is there any relationship between "stunt guitarist" and "stun guitar"? (i.e. as credited on many a Blue Oyster Cult and Husker Du LP. Umlauts appear!)
― henry s, Thursday, 12 January 2023 00:57 (one year ago) link
I think this Lewis Shiner story was my intro to music nerdism:
“Felix was 34. He worked four ten-hour days a week at Allied Sheet Metal, running an Amada CNC turret punch press. At night he made cassettes with his twin TEAC dbx machines. He'd recorded over a thousand of them so far, over 160 miles of tape, and he'd carefully hand lettered the labels for each one.
He'd taped everything Jeff Beck had ever done, from the Yardbirds' For Your Love through all the Jeff Beck Groups and the solo albums; he had the English singles of "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tally Man"; he had all the session work, from Donovan to Stevie Wonder to Tina Turner.
In the shop he wore a Walkman and listened to his tapes. Nothing seemed to cut the sound of tortured metal like the diamond-edged perfection of Beck's guitar. It kept him light on his feet, dancing in place at the machine, and sometimes the sheer beauty of it made tears come up in his eyes.”
― Motion to adjourn to enjoy a footling (President Keyes), Thursday, 12 January 2023 01:01 (one year ago) link
oh yeah -- I can hear a tonal similarity between him and Van Halen.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 12 January 2023 01:02 (one year ago) link
Felix would have known, if Lewis Shiner didn't, that Beck didn't play on "For Your Love".
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 12 January 2023 01:15 (one year ago) link
Greil Marcus was asked about Jeff Beck and recalled a bizarre incident at one of his Yardbirds shows. Here's the relevant section:
Jeff Beck shocked me in the Yardbirds. What he did in “Shapes of Things” seemed unreal, but it erased the song. With the much stronger number “Mister You’re a Better Man Than I” he becomes part of the body of the song; he is the song. I admired him in the Jeff Beck Group but Rod Stewart was so good it was hard to listen to Jeff Beck. Listen to their “I’ve Been Drinking.” It’s built to showcase the solo but when it comes, and the rest of the instrumentation builds to it, it’s a distraction. Maybe that’s why for so long that record, buried as a B side, was almost impossible to hear.
I’m glad he carried on. I would have thought he was pretty much forgotten. A full page obituary in the New York Times almost didn’t make sense. Someone there loved him.
A memory, though: In June 1966, we went to a small place in Brixton, in London, to see the Yardbirds: the Ram Jam Club. Before bands came on they played only reggae—its rock steady form. We had no idea what it was but it slithered through the room. Then a soul band called the Heatwaves came on. They were good. They built their set so that when they ended with “Heatwave” it was pure satisfaction.
By this time it was late and the place was so hot and steamy it felt like sweat was pouring down the walls. The Yardbirds came on and the reality of the night took a step up. They were both explosive and careful, anarchic and precise. It was an unstable combination of values and it seemed to make every song feel like a risk, where anything could happen.
When they finished everyone was milling about. Two beautiful Swedish women went up to Jeff Beck, gave him huge smiles, talked for a minute, and then one of them asked Beck for his guitar. As a souvenir: “I will take it home,” she said. I was shocked. There was something so condescending, so trivializing of the show, along with a sort of implicit transaction that she wasn’t trading sex for the guitar, it wasn’t worth that much, but merely by appearing before him offering him the priceless opportunity to keep her in his mind forever as an unobtainable erotic object. Something like that. I could see him freeze with rage. He picked up his guitar and proceeded to smash it to bits. Then he kicked the pieces to the back of the stage and walked off. The women acted insulted. I liked that as much as any solo I heard heard him play.
― birdistheword, Monday, 30 January 2023 18:26 (one year ago) link
Was just looking up the Yardbirds' history because of the book I'm writing — Cecil Taylor opened for them at the Fillmore West for three gigs at the end of May 1968. Beck was long gone, though; Jimmy Page was the sole lead guitarist by that point, and the band broke up in early June.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 30 January 2023 19:34 (one year ago) link
Jeff Beck shocked me in the Yardbirds. What he did in “Shapes of Things” seemed unreal, but it erased the song
wrong
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 30 January 2023 19:40 (one year ago) link
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, January 30, 2023 2:34 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
Just hit me that it's kind of weird to me to realize that 1968 Page and 1968 Taylor existed at the same time
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 00:22 (one year ago) link
The women acted insulted. I liked that as much as any solo I heard heard him play.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 00:24 (one year ago) link
Maybe she was trying to get him to say, "Well, I'll bring the guitar---special delivery," boom-chakka-wow-wow. I mean, those were the Sixties, after all. But easy to see how it could have come off as too lofty, baby.
― dow, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:28 (one year ago) link
Maybe Marcus was just thinking of the scene in "Blow Up."
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:31 (one year ago) link
along with a sort of implicit transaction that she wasn’t trading sex for the guitar, it wasn’t worth that much, but merely by appearing before him offering him the priceless opportunity to keep her in his mind forever as an unobtainable erotic object.
Griel is overthinking this. When you're hot people give you guitars all the time.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:57 (one year ago) link
Don't I know it
― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:12 (one year ago) link
BBA Box Set:
https://www.houstonpress.com/music/things-to-do-listen-to-the-beck-bogert-and-appice-live-box-set-16323062
Includes the first domestic release of Live In Japan
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 24 August 2023 15:19 (eight months ago) link
Awesome!
― brimstead, Thursday, 24 August 2023 15:35 (eight months ago) link
Nice! Here's the link on the Rhino site.
― read-only (unperson), Thursday, 24 August 2023 15:39 (eight months ago) link
oh fuck yes
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 24 August 2023 15:57 (eight months ago) link
Will not forgive him for breaking up Cactus
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 24 August 2023 16:02 (eight months ago) link