Well, I don't like bragging, so I'm going to put everything into perspective by first of all saying that I've barely been playing my guitars anymore in the last 15+ years, but I am proud to say ─ and sorely regretting that things are no longer that way today ─ that back in the 1990s there were several fellow musicians who called me a virtuoso.
I can't play off a score sheet ─ in musician vernacular, that is simply referred to as
"He can't read" ─ but I do understand all aspects of musical theory, and I just
feel the music as I'm playing. I can also play lots of stuff after hearing it only once or twice ─ not everything, of course ─ without even seeing any chord listings, and even though I have difficulty
naming odd-meter rhythms, I can (again)
feel them well enough to be able to pick up on on them and jam along, unless we're talking of the very complex compound odd-meter stuff like what
Animals As Leaders does.
I am also entirely self-taught. I never went to any music academy and I've never had any guitar lessons. I was already 16 years old by the time my parents consented to my owning a guitar ─ I started off on the electric guitar straight away, rather than on an acoustic first as most of my contemporaries did ─ but I absolutely do have the music in my genes. We had professional musicians on both sides of the family, and my dad also used to be a musician ─ trumpet first, accordion and organ later. I myself have been playing various musical instruments since I was a toddler. Even my brother had the talent, but he didn't have the patience.
Another big difference with my contemporaries was that I have a very eclectic taste in music, and that I was mainly listening to pop music as a teenager, while most of my contemporaries who played an electric guitar were all into the usual blues-influenced players like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, et al, and their own music was usually a kind of garage rock. There was only one band at school who were different; they used to refer to their style as
"cosmos rock", and it was just as heavily driven by synthesizers as by guitars.
I started my first band with my buddy from high school when I was in 11th grade, but at that point, it was just the two of us. I played the lead guitar on my electric ─ a cheap Japanese knock-off of a Fender Stratocaster ─ and the other guy played either a nylon-string acoustic guitar or a monophonic (and analog) synthesizer. Later on we were joined by a bass player, and then even later by a drummer. By that time, my high school buddy had already switched to an electric guitar, and he would do the keyboards and the rhythm guitar, while I was the lead guitarist. The style of music we made back then could best be described as experimental/progressive rock.
Later on still, the band split up because all of us were going to college ─ except for the drummer, who was a lot younger than the rest of us and who was still in high school. Several years later, I got a call out of the blue from my old high school buddy. He told me he was trying to put the band back together again ─ albeit with a different bass player ─ and he asked me if I was interested in rejoining. I accepted the offer, and we picked up where we had left off, rehearsing our old material again, improving on the arrangements, and adding new songs in the meantime. After our first gig, we also begot an additional band member, who would become our lead vocalist from then on.
The band carried on again for about two and a half years, but I did subconsciously notice that some things had begun changing. First of all, I was the one who had initially founded the band with my high school buddy, but now
he was assuming the role of band leader. Also, his own style now seemed to be gravitating more toward punk rock, while mine was evolving more along the lines of progressive rock and the at the time fairly upcoming "L.A. hard rock" genre.
Another thing was that some hidden agendas were starting to play out. My high school buddy was by now officially engaged and had a daytime job at a bank, the bass player was married and had three children ─ he was also having some marital problems at the time ─ and the drummer had just moved in with his girlfriend, who was clearly putting the noose on him. I should have noticed that they were seeking to slowly let the band fade away until it was only going to be "just a hobby" anymore, but I was too naive to see it. All this time, I thought we were trying to become semi-professionals, looking to play more gigs and maybe record an album, or even two.
As time progressed, the friendly atmosphere during the rehearsals started waning. Quite often, either the drummer or the bass player wouldn't show up ─ well, we knew that the bass player worked in a three-shift system and as such, every three weeks he had to skip a rehearsal because he'd be at work. But it also happened that he didn't show up when he was available, supposedly because he had fallen asleep. And the drummer's excuses were even worse. He had supposedly dislocated his shoulder, but he was spotted moving furniture to or from the house of his girlfriend's grandmother.
Eventually I got a phone call ─ at my parents' place ─ from my high school buddy, telling me that instead of rehearsing the next Monday evening, we were simply going to convene at some café to
"talk about the future of the band". So come Monday evening, I show up at the café, and the four of them were all already there, sitting at a table, and not really looking what you could call cheerful. I sat down at the table with them and ordered a round of drinks. And then it came out. It was my high school buddy doing the talking, while the others were basically simply staring at their shoelaces.
Apparently, the fact that the drummer was making excuses for not showing up at rehearsals and that the bass player "overslept" was all my fault. See, I was simply too loud. They were going deaf in that rehearsal room from my loud playing. And he ─ my high school buddy ─ was afraid that the band was soon going to cease to exist... unless
I were to leave the band...
Now, this is where I need to put a few things into perspective again... First of all, the allegation as that I was playing too loud was a complete and utter joke. My high school buddy was playing through a 60 Watt half-stack with a 4x12" speaker cabinet. So was the bass player, and at times he even had a 6x12" speaker cabinet. And me, I was standing there with a 50 Watt combo amplifier with a single 12" speaker. The two of them were blasting into my face with either 8 or 10 speakers, making it impossible for me to even hear myself when I was playing riffs on the wound strings. And
I was too loud???
Furthermore, I've heard recordings, both from our live performances and from our rehearsals ─ one of them was a video of one of our live performances ─ and even though I was the lead guitarist of the band, you simply couldn't hear me until I started playing a solo, and then that solo would sound very weak, like it was coming from underneath a tarp 50 meters behind the stage. All you hear is my high school buddy's droning rhythm guitar and the bass. And in the video of the live performance, it was only his rhythm guitar, the vocals and the drums, which had been miked up. And
I was too loud???
Anyway, I accepted their request to leave the band, even if only because there's no point in staying with a band made up of people who don't want you there. I'm not a masochist. So I picked up my gear from the rehearsal room later that week, along with the songs I had written or co-written ─ my high school buddy had told me that I could take those with me ─ and I never heard from them again.
However, it was all much later that the truth behind it all finally dawned on me. See, it wasn't just that I was supposedly playing too loud, but I had also already noticed that they would play fewer and fewer of my songs at live performances, while playing more and more of the other guy's punk rock stuff. And seriously, at every rehearsal and at every gig, there was this one song that would
always be played. It's a simple droning thing built around three chords ─ G, D, G, C, in that order ─ and a repeating guitar riff. The other band members all seemed to really love that song, but I myself passionately hated it, even though I didn't want to say that out loud so as to not offend them.
And when it came to the reasons for why certain of my own songs were not being played anymore, then I was told that my songs were "too difficult" and "too complex" ─ which in truth, they really were not, especially not in those days. But they were more melodic and poppy, and I had one song that was somewhat Van-Halen-like in terms of the guitar riff. And that was apparently "too difficult" for them, even though I was the only one who had to concern himself with the riff and with the solo, which had a fret-tapped melody in it.
No, it wasn't that I was playing too loud. I was simply too "advanced" for them. My songs were "difficult" ─ or so they said ─ and I wanted to move ahead with the band, while they were seeking to phase out the band because of their girlfriends and their social-status-related ambitions.
Anyway, after leaving the band ─ this was in 1990 ─ I was now free to do what I wanted, and, goddammit, as loud as I wanted it. Because sound volume aside, the band had been holding me back in my development as a guitar player. And so from 1990 on, I quickly started evolving in many aspects of my musicianship. I brushed up on my knowledge of music theory, I improved upon my playing technique, I started venturing more into hard rock and even into jazz-fusion, and I bought new equipment ─ a couple of new guitars, various configurations of effects devices, and a 100 Watt Marshall amplifier. I've also written a couple more songs since, albeit that most of them are instrumentals.
I've played with lots of other people since I left the band ─ mostly jams and tryouts ─ and I was also briefly in a band that mainly played '60s and '70s covers. However, the highlight for me as a musician were the live jam sessions that I was part of throughout 2003. I've learned a lot from that, and musically it was also much more along my style. And nobody there ever told me I was playing too loud ─ on the contrary, I was sometimes encouraged to add even more volume, even though there was very little I could do in that regard, because with the exception of one gig where I was using my Marshall, I was normally plugged straight into the P.A., and so the volume of my guitar was controlled by whoever was standing at the mixer panel.
Sadly enough, the sessions came to an end in November 2003 due to a situation that's somewhat long-winded to explain, but let's just say that the woman who ran the place where we normally jammed had stabbed us in the back, and when we found out about that ─ with some public humiliation in the process ─ each of us on their own account said
"This was the final straw. I'm not coming back anymore for the next gig." Even the people who would normally come to see us at every jam session were dismayed by the way we had been betrayed and ridiculed by that woman. And indeed, that was the last of it. None of us has ever gone back there anymore, and the place is gone now ─ the building was converted into apartments.
Sooooooo, there you have it.
Originally posted by Aragorn
Well, I don't like bragging, so I'm going to put everything into perspective by first of all saying that I've barely been playing my guitars anymore in the last 15+ years, but I am proud to say ─ and sorely regretting that things are no longer that way today ─ that back in the 1990s there were several fellow musicians who called me a virtuoso.
“El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"
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