Guitars, mobile phones and ZZ Top

There was a time when, as an amateur musician, you would sit and play your guitar or whatever and occasionally come up with some shit hot riff but unless you had a tape recorder to hand it would probably be lost forever as the next time you sat down to play, you'd completely forgotten what it was you played last time.

But now with computers and the internet you can capture everything and share it with the world. Whether this is a good thing or not, I don't know. There is so much to listen to and watch out there that we are spoiled for choice or, the other way of looking at it is, there just aren't enough hours in the day to listen to and watch everything we want to. Try as we might we cannot keep up with all the tweets and Facebook postings telling us to watch this music video, this comedy clip, read this blog, check out this news story, download this podcast, read this ebook, use this app on our smartphone, look at photos posted on Tumblr, Flickr or wherever.

You just want to scream, enough! I can't keep up!

I don't own a smartphone. I did have one last year but the screen kept getting stuck and after downloading the latest version of the operating system, which was supposed to fix the problem, I found that it had deleted all the contacts in my address book. It had taken ages to download the upgrade and I was now at breaking point. "Stupid bloody (insert your brand name here) phone!" I raged at no-one in particular. "What a piece of junk!" and with that I threw the phone to the floor. Or thwew it, if you're a Monty Python fan.

The screen broke and the phone had gone to meet its maker. It was an ex-smart phone, it was pushing up the daisies etc etc. So I went back to using my old phone. I use it to sent text messages and occasionally phone people. I use my PC for everything else. That's so last decade, I hear you say but quite frankly my dear, I don't give a shit.

So back to the music. On Tuesday my friend Bryan drove us down to Manchester to see ZZ Top in concert. It was the first time I'd seen them since 1985 and while they certainly didn't break any records for the longest set ever played, it was just brilliant to see them again on stage. Billy Gibbons is one of my favourite guitar players and to my delight he played a Fender Telecaster for most of the main set. This is my favourite guitar and one that I own and love dearly. If I had to choose between my guitar and my PC I'd say, stuff Facebook, I'd rather play my Telecaster. Which is what I've been doing today, partly due to seeing Billy and partly after watching Seasick Steve on TV last night playing at Glastonbury with John Paul Jones on bass.

So here is some guitar playing. It could be described at a work in progress or a first take or whatever. It was me sitting down with my Telecaster, turning my Fender amp up and just playing... and recording into Audacity. Computers have their uses.


https://soundcloud.com/the-beaten-tracks/rough-around-the-edges