UWS Street Scenes: A Dog and his Guitar

Bo Diddley, R.I.P.

This is a little old, but I thought it appropriate to mention the death of Bo Diddley, born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi. Anyone who has ever learned to play the electric guitar has had to explore the driving right-hand rhythms created by this pioneer.

A lot of the obits that appeared this week credit Bo with creating the Bo Diddley beat - that bam, b'bam, b'bam, bop, bop. Actually, he didn't create it - it's a classic Haitian drum rhythm. But he did adopt the beat for the electric guitar, crank up the distortion and belt out some timeless lyrics filled with stark broken imagery, down South bravado and proto-rock sexiness.

And yeah, he got swindled on those royalty payments. The rocker in me says that's a crime. The lawyer in me says, he should've read what he signed. And if he didn't, he should've hired himself a better lawyer.

Another thing - his early band appears to have included the earliest female electric guitarist I've ever seen; it certainly looks like he had the first mixed-sex rock outfit. Thus Bo paved the way for such great acts as Jefferson Airplane, Feetwood Mac, Blondie, the Talking Heads, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, the Pixies and others!

And then there's the cameo appearance as a pawnbroker in the Dan Akroyd-Eddie Murphy classic, Trading Places. Actually, his IMDB bio shows a fair number of cameos and appearances as himself or otherwise.

Anyway, here are some classic clips of Bo working his four sided six string:











Rest in peace, Bo Diddley. Thank you for your music. You will be missed.

And now a little Classical Gas

This is old but awesome:

Bands I've Known - Part 2

Jump to Bands I've Known Part 1 here.

5. Pedicabo - A Dada arthouse experi-core outfit I performed with in college. I have to say "performed", not "played", because it was never really about the music. The concept of the group was a bunch of too-cool-for-the-Ivy-League punks who not only did not know how to play their instruments, all of their instruments were stolen. Take that, Bill Joe Armstrong! I lost about 2 years of guitar chops trying to learn how to play like I couldn't play. Oh, and Pedicabo means something really bad. Still, we managed to put out 4 albums and a British EP, plus a few bootleg tapes.


6. Muncle Steve - Five or six guys with one tenuous link or another to Boston, gathering together once or twice a week in Alphabet City for beer and loud music topped off with a midnight run south to Houston for some authentic Cuban arroz con pollo. Yeah, we were part of that mid-nineties Lower East Side rock revival. And yeah, we rocked.


7. The Menloves - no, not that kind of menlove. Named after a 1830's Court of Common Pleas tort case. We were a bunch of 1Ls performing for a law school Talent Show. Not much talent on display that day, my friends. Yes, I have video of this one. No, I won't post it.

Bands I've Known - Part 1

I've been playing guitar since I was thirteen -- just about the time that Def Leppard's Hysteria rocked the charts. I been in a number of bands since then. A couple of those bands got to the point were they played a few live gigs. Some lasted for several years and developed decent catalogs of original material, while at least one was more of a poster band than an actual musical ensemble.

Anyway, here's a list of the seven greatest bands I've played in over the years (why seven? Because I refuse to be bound to a base ten narrative):

1. Ground Zero - a bunch of Catholic school kids playing eighties hair metal and hard rock in my parents' basement. As with many high school bands, we lacked both a drummer and bass player.

2. Mutel - Alternative weirdness with the townies, from back when "alternative" was just called "college rock." Our musical inspiration was Jean Paul Sartre. Yes, this was our band in 10th grade (sophomore lit, existentisalism, get it?). My friend Pete wrote a great original called "Screaming Purple Hellhounds." To this day, I can't remember the words, can't remember the melody and can't remember the chords.

3. Genetalia* - My first real experience with a live gig. We played the Alumni BBQ at Homecoming. Drunk alumni rocking out to our covers of "Dazed and Confused," "Love Me Two Times" and "Sweet Child O' Mine." A gaggle of black robed monks at the back of the gymnasium yelling at us to turn it down. The thrill ... the stench of grilled meats, cheap beer and the boys' lockerroom. I went home that night and told my parents I wanted to play music for a living. I'm an attorney now, so you know how that conversation went. An audio tape of this one exists, somewhere...

* We actually never had a name for this band. Genetalia was the name of a rival band of underclassmen at my school. They were actually much better than we were, plus they had fans. So we used the name on the flyers.

4. Moab and the Cannonites - My sophomore summer in Hanover, New Hampshire. We played an ice cream study break in the Hitchcock dorm. Pretty good turnout and a decent performance on our part, except the lead singer, Matt McGill, couldn't remember the melody to Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. He had to run upstairs and listen to the tape while we covered with Jazz Odyssey. I still have video of this gig.