Giving Birth to The Gillbillies || 1978 Les Paul Custom || Old Guitars

Isn't she a beauty?  I mean who has ever seen a custom colored orange Les Paul?  Not I.  There is some really history behind this babe.  If you have ever seen or heard The Gillbillies you know that they are an instrumental act that focuses on the melodic rhythms often found in the 60s era surf music...but with a twist.  They are heavy.  They have a sound all to their own.  And this guitar played a vital role in shaping the way of The Gillbillies ever so sweet tone.

Seeing The Gillbillies "live & in person" is an experience in itself.  When talking Gillbillies and guitars you would think that I would writing about one of the Flying V's with Bigsby's (a la Lonnie Mack) that many have seen Jimbo playing out and about the Bay Area.  But as Jimbo put it, this is the guitar that gave birth to the Gillbillie sound.  "We decided to try an instrumental surf guitar sound and this was the only guitar I had with a tremolo."  Hence, the Gillbillies were born.

But there is a lot more to this story.  I had seen and admired this guitar being played for quite some time.  One day after a jam with Jimbo and Nick I got the real story behind the Orange Custom Les Paul.  He had spotted this unique instrument while perusing through the online auction house, eBay (as many of us do who are addicted to the instrument known as the guitar).  He checked on the end date and made a mental note to check on it before the auction ended.  Life got busy and the auction slipped his mind.  Luckily it had ended with out a sale.  He sent an email to the seller and asked if he could buy it.  A week later he got a reply, "If they don't sell, I get rid of them write away."  Jimbo inquired if he could have the dealer's contact info that the guitar was sold to because he really wanted it.  "I'll see what I can do." Another week goes by and he finally gets the contact info of the dealer.  He calls the dealer and he is told that he sold it a few weeks ago to a music shop in Hollywood (the town of flashy guitars).  He asks for the shops info....and the wait continues.  On a Sunday night an email comes with the name, address and phone number of the Hollywood shop.  Jimbo sets his alarm to call the shop first thing when it opens on Monday morning.  11:05am monday morning rolls around...

Ring, ring...
Music shop employee: How can I help you?
Jimbo:  I was wondering if you have a certain guitar in your shop.  You will know if right away once I described it to you.  It is a 1978 Orange Gibson Les Paul Custom with Bigsby tailpiece.
Music shop employee: Are you shitting me?  I literally just hung that guitar on the wall right before we opened.
Jimbo: Please take it off the wall and run this credit card number.  I want it.
Music shop employee:  Ah man, one of my co-workers is going to be soooo pissed!  He loves that guitar.  Unfortunately he is over-extended on his store credit and the owner won't let him have any more.  He is going to be pissed.


Soon after it was shipped up to Jimbo.  The only change that the shop made on it was removing the floating wooden bridge and replacing with the current adjustable one.  He did find out that this Les Paul Custom originally came out of the factory polaris white with all nickel hardware (tuners have been updated).  Soon after it's first birthday it was painted the beautiful color orange it now possesses along with the addition of the bigsby.  The the sound is to die for.  But for now just feast your eyes of a few pictures of this rare gem.

And here is a little taste of that tone she puts out....

Archers of Loaf || Return of Original Music || GAMH 9-2-11

I thought that I would never be able to say that I had been to an Archers of Loaf show.  Why?  Because the most original rock band of the last 20 years (before this year) had not played a live show in over 13 years.  I thought it was hopeless.  Sometime back in April of this year I received a text from the east coast gentlemen who introduced me to their sound.  Blue Lang wrote, "Archers of Loaf, September 2nd.  Date Night.  Get a babysitter."  I was pretty stoked to get this message.

They were the biggest influence on my old band, The Booty Chesterfield Trio.  Blue and I started jamming in the spring of 2006.  As a lot of jams go, you start to bring in your influences.  One of the first bands that Blue turned me on to (and that I took and instant liking to) were these guys.  I got what he wanted out of the music and tried to transcribe that thought process into original tunes.  Hence, the reason for being so influential.  More importantly; they rocked.  And all I wanted to do is rock too.  They are smart punk rock.  Their songs are a mixture of built up drama entangled with overwhelmingly powerful hooks.  They have a lot of "eek and awnk" chord structures in alternate tunings that you don't hear every day.


I had heard several live recordings of them but nothing to prepare me for the show.  Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, Blue did not make the show.  He was back home in Florida.  As the day of the show approached, like so many other things in life when you age, I was tired and just wanted to have a weekend to relax.  Driving up to the City on a Friday night didn't sound too appetizing.  But we rallied and made the most of it.

The opening band sucked.  I cannot even remember their name.  And for the most part I thought the evening was going to suck because the dinner service at the Great American Music Hall.  I had always wanted to sit in the "good seats" that got you dinner and a show, but my cheap ass could never pony up to it.  I need never do it again.  My advice, just get the regular tickets.  While the GAMH is one of the best venues to see a small and intimate show in San Francisco, it is not known for the food or the service.  And the following statement shall serve as an exclamation point.  We had the A grade tickets that night; they gave us the C grade waitress.  A terrible management issue by whoever was in charge that night.  I believe that she was probably new to the job, probably took a hit out of the bong before showing up to work and was completely off.  When it took her 15 minutes to get us a drink from a non-packed upstairs bar (about 30 feet from us) that we were in for it.  Then I noticed the only other group there for dinner had completely finished their meal. I walked up to an usher to inquire (our waitress was no where in site).  Turns out that she completely forgot to place our order and we finally ate overly salted and peppered cafeteria food about hour and a half after our arrival sitting in the dark through a shitty band.  That is the mood that was set.  I was ready to go home.  My buddy took it upon himself to make sure at least we had cocktails on the house floating into our veins to cool our heated jets.  Go for the music; don't go for the food.  And never use a cocktail waitress there.  Very unreliable for such a small intimate venue.

Now for some action.  The Archers came out and completely blew the doors off the non capacity crowd.  They played it perfectly, rolling through all the songs that one who was half a fan would want to hear.  Even more important; it felt real.  It felt like they meant it.  They were not here for the money and to sell more Archers CDs, they were here to put on a kick ass live rock and roll show.



A couple of highlights from the show; staring down from the balcony into the crowd with the Archers in full blast off mode I witnessed  this swirling pool of middle-aged balding white dudes, many with glasses and plaid shirts, attempting to re-start up that pit again, just like they did back in 1993.  But this time with a lot less force.  It was cute (for lack of a better term).  I saw myself in there at one point in time too.  Another highlight was when the Archer's entered into the classic "Low" I heard, check that, we all heard someone shout out "Fuck Yeah!  I have been waiting 15 years to hear this song!!!"  I think that is how many people felt that night.  See, Archers were always an East Coast band.  They never had much of an impact on the west coast as let's say, Pavement or someone else from that era.  Probably because they didn't tour a lot on the west coast.  Maybe two or three times.

So why write about this?  I'd like to encourage musicians to understand the real impact that bands make on people.  The music never dies.  It just keeps on growing.  Now, to see it live...that is a whole different story.  After Friday night I feel like I was one of the fortunate ones....

Archers Of Loaf "Audiowhore" from christopher Bettig on Vimeo.

Victor || The Film Dude in San Jose || circa 2007

Inspiration is the reason we breath.  So when one writes a song they can only look as far as the air that they are breathing.  The small, subtle music scene in downtown San Jose back 2007 was part of my muse.  There was one character that always stood out; a guy named Victor.  You could spot him pretty clearly, a man of short stature with no hair on top, glasses and mustache.  He did not try to fit in because he couldn't.  I love Victor for that.  Most important, there was a freshness toward music that he took in.  It was very inspiring.


I met Victor at the Caravan one night back in 2007 and I got as much of his story that he would divulge to a complete stranger on some random night.  He was videotaping some band (usually with a women in it) and I started talking to him.  He told me that he just does it for kicks.  Bands don't pay him.  He doesn't really promote it.  Had barely even heard of Youtube back then and just loved to tape the performances of bands he liked.  I asked him if he'd seen our band and he replied yeah, "I saw you guys at Johnny V's back in January.  There was supposed to be some surf band from Spain you were opening up for but they didn't show.  I thought you guys really rocked.  I was bummed my battery ran out on the first band."  I told him when we were playing next and he showed and caught on tape some classic original "The Booty Cheterfield Trio" footage with Pickle on bass and Blue on drums.  One of our best performances at the time with full comedic routine and one, Joe Izzo, out in the crowd giving away T-Shirts.  Here are some highlights I decide to put up on Youtube:

This one is some recently uploaded old footage that Film Dude recorded for us back in 2008.  Recollecting back, it was a really fun night with a pretty full bar.


This is a portion of the song we wrote for Film Dude Victor.  We wanted to right a straightforward punk rock song that typified his attitude toward live rock and roll.  You can find a version of it on our first album, Sellin' Cookies.


And this last one is my favorite.  At about 10 seconds into the clip, the video pans around and you can see Film Dude Victor sporting a Booty Chesterfield T-shirt and dancing like nobodies business to the tunes.  What else can I say?  Like is about having fun....and FDV is doing just that!

U2 || Even Better than an Ankle Sprang || Oakland June 7, 2011

I had seen this thing coming down the pipeline before.  For me the last experience like this was the night I got backstage all, access passes to see The Rolling Stones "Bridges to Babylon Tour" in 1997.  So I knew what to expect.  The likeness of a gifted gem of one more childhood Christmas Eve or a highly anticipated trip to Disneyland as a young lad.  I was prepped and ready for it.

See a good friend has a certain family member that happens to be a founder of Elevation Partners, the famous "dream team" of venture capital firms that happens to include Bono.  So I knew that U2 was coming and that they would probably have pretty good seats.  I planted the seed, "Ya know, sometimes people fall off the bus at the very last moment.  If anyone cannot make the show at the last minute I want to let you know that I am available."  At 9:30pm the night before I got the call.  "We have an extra ticket."  Bingo.  I am in!

I shifted my day to an early office close and headed up to the pre-party in Atherton.  Cold beer and good food all within the backdrop of a beautiful private estate.  Unfortunately Bono couldn't make it, I think he was donating his time at the local children's hospital before the show (not really).  Either way we prepped up for the big night with food and booze then climbed aboard the luxury liner bus and made the 3 hour jaunt over to Oakland.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  It took 3 hours to go 40 miles.  There was a massive traffic jam trying to get to the coliseum and we never even made the bus ride into the coliseum parking lot.  We got out and hoofed it for about four blocks.  And we were the lucky ones getting in about 9:30pm just in time to see the lights go down.  We heard later that some people didn't even make it to their seats until about 11pm.

We got to our seats, which by all standard we definitely corporate.  They were close enough to be "really good seats", but for a true music fan they were nothing to write home about.  That was until I got a "red zone" pass slapped around my neck.  My friend and I proceeded to walk right on up to the stage.  This is what we saw....

Sunday Bloody Sunday


Vertigo


Bono Serenading the Crowd


All and all a great show.  They kicked off with "Even Better Than the Real Thing", which was my personal motto pre-show because, I felt like I was a little kid on his way to Disneyland.  It was like I was dreaming the whole time, this unexpected fortunate experience that was bestowed upon me.  The stand out numbers were "I Will Follow", Bowie's "Space Oddity" going into "Pride".  I personally enjoy "Vertigo" as well as "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and I was happy that the video came out so well.

If you think about it U2 is amazing.  Not only are they still the same four guys rocking in a rock band the way we all wish we could, they have been doing it for 30 years.  Any fan who has a love for live rock 'n' roll  can attest to U2's incredible staying power to continuously put on a great show with just four members (along with a hidden keyboardist under the stage, they have been doing that for years).  I referred to the Rolling Stones show that I saw back in 1997 and "yes" it was a great show.  And "yes" they are one of my favorite bands of all time, but still they came with full horn section, back up singers, percussion, keyboards and god only knows who else was on the stage.  So to see a stripped down 4 piece rock a crowd of  69,000 people was a sight to be seen.  And then there was the light show......hats off, men.

Heather David || Passion Among the Decay || Mid-Century by the Bay

I first met Heather David while perusing the world wide web looking for artistic inspiration for the first Booty Chesterfield album, Sellin’ Cookies. I wanted to have something local. Being a fan of mid-century architecture and advertising, I googled (via images) the Western Motel on El Camino. Up pops a beautifully taken picture of the sign half lit as dusk begins to claim the day. Following the picture I came upon the modest site SV Modern. Someone was documenting all the untold beauty of Silicon Valley’s past? On the spot I wrote this person an email passionately thanking them for documenting our past. And if you know Heather, I received an even-more-impassioned email back thanking me for having interest in something close to her heart as well as an invite to lunch at the former Bob’s Big Boy (now flames) on Winchester Blvd. I had to meet this person.

Heather is an intense individual who knows what she likes and the things she likes are becoming rarer and rarer. During that first lunch at the Flames and she went on about local mid-century architects & designers most who's names I had never heard.  I had always considered myself “educated” in the realm of mid-century design. I was dead wrong, especially when it came to local knowledge. “Geez, Heather, you should write a book.” Her retort, “I am.”

After several years of research and a big chunk of her retirement savings spun into hardcopy, she self-released, Mid-Century by the Bay. This is the reference book for Bay Area mid-century. It  goes beyond just "cool" pictures.  The author has done her homework and tells a tale of mass growth, prosperity & expansion during this Bay Area time period.  I was privileged enough to see several drafts of the book while she was in the process. Let me tell you, when I received my hardback copy I was literally blown away by the final results. Heather is very particular. Initially she struggled getting her vision to conform to a hard copy. Pushing her dream along of publishing an undocumented history of Mid-Century Design she has fully achieved success with this book. I believe this book is going to a wonderful reference guide for the future bay area architects whom have yet to become established.  And, no doubt, this book will be sitting on the shelves of many future designers too.

One of the key ingredients in this book is the work of Arnold Del Carlo. Mr. Del Carlo was a San Jose based professional commercial photographer for nearly 40 years. And as Heather states it, “who successfully captured the evolution of the Santa Clara Valley from the ‘Valley of Hearts Delight’ to ‘Silicon Valley’.” There is an even better story behind this commercial lens. He basically was an “unknown” in the eyes of the preservationists of the Bay Area. His eye-catching visuals of shopping center grand openings and new bowling alleys sat in a box in his garage for 30+ years collecting dust. He just happened to have the luck of having Heather move into his neighborhood. After a chance discovery of his vintage portfolio, she went nuts with determination to make sure that the world had a chance to see this man’s work.  Mid-Century by the Bay is besieged with beautiful, full page Del Carlo images. These are my personal favorites. An important footnote that in this process Heather had an integral part in making sure these photos were preserved. The Sourisseau Academy at SJSU acquired the entire portfolio. 

Even though this book is about Bay Area architecture & design in the mid-century, it is south bay centric.  This is in part due to the massive transformation of growth through out the valley making it become the technology center of the world.  If you think that Silicon Valley started with the micro chip, semiconductor, and internet I encourage you to find out a little bit more about the roots behind this developing valley and never forget the past. In regards to cutting edge architecture and design for the times, Heather David’s book is a really good starting point.

For more information about the book, go here: Calmodbooks.com

And if you want more, she has a wonderful Flickr website!

What Happens to Pickle's First Love? || '82 CAR Fender Stratocaster '62 reissue || Old Guitars

I love old guitars. New guitars have no soul...yet. But old guitars tell stories. They tell tales of old smoke-filled dive bars with remnants of beer splattering encased in between rusty screws and beat up pick ups. They have performed. And that is the reason why we love instruments so much; it is in their performance. So give me the most beat up ugly guitar and that is a guitar that has been truly loved by an owner. It is the 30 year old guitars in pristine condition that scare me. If that guitar sat around and wasn't played, that's telling me something. That is the story of a guitar that never found the right tone for someone.

This brings me to Sweet Pickle's (aka Mr. Laflen to some, key axe wielder in Them Slack Jawed Sons of Bitches as well as life-long member of The Ex-Old Ladies) 1982 Candy Apple Red AVRI '62 Stratocaster. No one sees this guitar much lately, but I am lucky enough to currently have it on loan and in my possession. For that reason I decided to snap some pictures of this beauty and tell it's tale via Sweet P.

This guitar, 1982 Candy apple red Fullerton reissue strat, was my main axe with my old bands in the 90's, The Lowdown(funk-rock) , Big Joe(alt-country), the Money Shot and SpaceFish(hippy Jam band). I have some great pics somewhere.

So I purchased this guitar somewhere in the mid-90's. A time I refer to when I was in Tucson as 'the lost weekend'.

I had a fullerton black maple necked reissue stolen from my house in the Sam Hughes district near the University of AZ. I loved that guitar and I was crushed to come home and find it missing. My band practiced in the house so it was easy for the wolves to figure out there was an electric guitar to be had. I came home to find the input jack of the guitar still attached to the cord meaning they grabbed my guitar and literally ran out the back door with it. The only thing left was the jack of the guitar as a memory of my own blackie. No insurance. So... I looked in our weekly paper and in the newspaper and found a Red reissue strat for sale for 550 bucks. The guy was freshly married and clearly on a new path. He pulled the perfect condition strat literally from under the bed where it was stored. I played it and new it'd be the one. I think I ended up paying 500 but can't recall. We were both happy with the deal. I still do not recall how I got the money for this guitar back then as I was as poor as everyone else with pickup jobs and par-time work while I was going to school.

I primarily used this guitar with a 4-10 bassman, vintage rat pedal, cs-9 chorus and Boss DD-2 delay. It served me well and the neck pickup is amazing.

That is the story on this beauty, now let's look at some pictures of this true relic.  And next time, you see him on stage make sure to ask Pickle where the hell is the red strat!