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Marty Willson-Piper

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May 12 2020

TO WHERE I AM NOW

I miss remembering that there is a full moon behind the clouds or the brightness of the night sky when I’m in the city and dazzled by the man-made light or of how much I enjoy sitting on the rocks by the ocean. I miss remembering the quiet thrill of reading. Are all the distractions in modern life worth missing these things. Should we let them interfere with our true desires? Not just missing the beauty of the world but simply not getting to do what we really want to do. It seems that it is one of our most dangerous hazards and if we weren’t so distracted, we might be able to stop for a moment and contemplate the issue and solve it. It happens before focus, before self-discipline, but the problem is that distraction is also life. You might call drinking your life away a distraction, but it’s still full of conversation, adventure, philosophical musings. Perhaps work itself is a distraction? You’ve heard people say ‘he gave it all up and moved to the country’. If everyone was searching for their soul and painting all day or dancing or making music then there would be no recording studios or Rickenbackers. There might be less tanks and weapons, too, but the world needs different skills, different philosophies to rub against each other, perhaps simply to find an agreed common good. The point is how do you make sure you are a doer and are not distracted from achieving your real desires?

There’s a lot of people out there that love their job, so therefore that is their desire and not a distraction at all, it might be the means to an end. It might buy you a house or a car or a great big TV screen. There was a girl I read about that had some success as a musician and felt like she had to stop just in case it worked out, it was the last thing she wanted to be, she had other dreams. It’s not the easiest life working in the arts and there’s a lot of unhappy artists. Ups and downs, uncertainty, lack of security. I just watched a ZZ Top documentary on Netflix, Frank Beard, the drummer (the one without the beard), said that after their biggest tour to date in the seventies he was given a cheque for $72,000. “What did you spend it on?”, the interviewer asked. “I spent it on drugs”. Maybe that girl was trying to avoid decadent temptation or perhaps she simply preferred the idea of business, music was a distraction.

I wonder how the billionaires aren’t distracted? Can you imagine being so rich that you could buy anything you wanted and deciding that once you had a house or a few houses, a car or a few cars, chef, housekeeper, you know, all those things, that you should generate more riches by simply investing and watching it grow. Wouldn’t you be distracted by the possibilities of your wealth? Wouldn’t you drive by the local shops and want to fix their broken signs, wouldn’t you drop a grand at the food shelter? I guess you would and we’ll never know who is a generous billionaire and who isn’t. Did you ever hear the story about Minnie Pearson who in July 1975 was there in Memphis at the same time as Elvis was looking at cars. As a random act of kindness he bought her a Cadillac, a total stranger, and when he heard it was her birthday coming up he also gave her a cheque to go and buy some new clothes.

Bono, Paul McCartney, Bruce, they probably give a lot of money to charities and probably anonymously. What else could you do if you’d got that rich from the arts? When you come from humble origins, I imagine you keep lots of it and give lots of it away. But what is happening outside the music must be a massive distraction. Is the old cliché of ‘do you have to be hungry to create great art’ true? The Beatles made amazing albums when they were rich, so I guess it’s not true. But they were eventually distracted. Is the general rule that the younger you are, the poorer you are, the better your music, because the goal posts change when you get more success, more acclaim, more money and there’s way more distractions. Plus the work load is much bigger. I remember when Starfish was a hit album that we started in Australia playing shows, toured America for weeks and weeks, toured in Europe, went to South America, went back to America and toured around again and by that time they wanted us back to tour in Australia again, before we went to Europe – again. There was no real time left, we were left distracted by our own focus on not being distracted.

There is so much happening in the world, especially with entertainment that everyone has to fight not to be distracted. It’s okay to watch Netflix, but the pure volume is a distraction. The internet is a distraction, Facebook is definitely a distraction (ha ha). I’m sure my parents thought my obsession with music was a distraction. So the definition of a distraction might be connected to procrastination. Don’t get distracted and procrastinate, if Netflix or Facebook is really what you want to do then that is your relief, your release, your hobby, it’s not a distraction at all, carry on.

I was distracted today by records from the ECM label. Modern jazz fans love ECM, it was founded in 1969 by a German aficionado called Manfred Eicher who saw the need for this outlet and turned it into a stylish and sophisticated home for artists who were not going to be topping the charts. The cream of latter day Jazz players, especially from Scandinavia, are on this label. The cover art to all these different artists usually followed an ECM mood theme. The records were quite different but the same – to outsiders, in the same way as my parents thought that Hawkwind and Black Sabbath sounded the same, in the same way that we thought that my Mum’s swing records sounded the same. It’s a genre and in this genre there are often different instrumentalists as the leader. It can be sax or guitar, bass or piano, flute or trumpet. For every potential bland Jazz record there’s many challenging and inspiring works and in Modern Jazz a lot of those lie here.

We started with Arild Andersen’s quartet, he is Norway’s most famous bassist. Then we went to Art Lande and Rubisa Patrol, he’s an American piano player. That album also featured American trumpet player Mark Isham. Then it was Dave Liebman who is an American sax player. Steve Eliovson is a South African Jazz guitarist and Colin Walcott accompanies him on tabla and other percussion (Walcott also studied sitar under Ravi Shankar).

I have a lot of records on ECM by Terje Rypdal, a Norwegian guitarist that I have cited as something of an influence for some certain aspect of what I do as a guitarist, although I’m as far away from Jazz as you can be. As a listener though, I always keep an open mind.

One last point, there always seems to be a massive imbalance of women in Jazz. Why is that?

Song Of The Day is Things To Do And Be from Noctorum’s Sparks Lane (2003). We certainly weren’t scared or distracted when we came up with this.

 

Things To Do And Be

A moment a second a minute an hour a day a week a month a year a decade a century a halfpenny a penny a shilling a florin a halfcrown a pound a guinea a monkey a ton a grand a pfennig an öre a centime pesetas and lire and Deutschmarks sterling dollars cents nickels and dimes francs and kronor guilder and roubles yen and Mazda Toyota Datsun Mitsubishi Mercedes Audi Simca Peugeot Renault Citroën and Buick and Dodge and Cadillac and Oldsmobile Pinto and Pontiac Dusenberg Studebaker Mercury Saab and Volvo and Fiat and Ferrari and Maserati Lambourghini De Tomaso De Lorean Jensen and Jaguar Daimler and Wolsely and Riley and Hillman and Singer and Humber Bentley Rolls Royce Marcus and Lotus and Holden and Maton and Fender and Gibson and Rickenbacker Hagström and Burns and Shergold and Hayman and Cayman and Scilly and Haiti and Jamaica and Fiji and Bali The Maldives Madagascar The Isle Of Man The Falklands The Isle of Aron England and Ireland and Bronson Pacino Keitel De Niro Lake Bergman Hayworth Davies Crawford Camus and Sartre and Cocteau Venus and Mars and Pluto and Saturn and Jupiter Mercury Uranus and Neptune Earth Sea Sun the Moon and wolves and foxes squirrels and badgers and otters and rabbits and hares crows magpies finches sparrows and eagles and vultures lions and tigers and elephants giraffes gazelles rhinos hippos cougars panthers and cheetahs hyenas and pigs foxes cows sheep cats dogs ostriches emus camels and llamas love and pity and war and tears and fear and happiness sadness mystery intrigue Typhoon Lancaster Wellington Spitfire Mosquito Kitty Hawk Heinkel Messerschmidt Dornier Zero 12345678 hunger obesity bulimia anorexia starving gluttony and Kings and Queens and Queens and Princes Earls Counts Countesses banks butchers bakeries bedrooms cloakrooms black and white photos posters pamphlets prisons judges and policemen murderers and vicars and nuns and guns and knives and forks and spoons trains and planes and caravans and spaceships buses and taxis yellow and green blue and red vermilion orange apples and peaches pears and cumquats and lime and lemons Muslims and Arabs and Jews and Christians Buddhists Agnostics Presbyterians Anglicans Children Of God

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Sparks Lane (2003)

Written by Marty Willson-Piper · Categorized: Blog

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there's any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

11209512_1669022976719710_7288437867089763325_n

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You usually don’t spend the day in the studio an You usually don’t spend the day in the studio and the night at a gig but if you put the studio next to the gig then there’s a greater chance. So @salimnourallah did just that, he put the gig and the studio next to each other and made it possible for me to spend the day recording and the evening playing live 🎵

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TO WHERE I AM NOW A visit in the studio today fro TO WHERE I AM NOW

A visit in the studio today from old mate Mark Burgess from The Chameleons who has been hanging in Texas recently. I was thinking about the two of us growing up in the northwest of England and all these years later finding ourselves in such an unlikely spot together. We fixed a few issues in the universe and I carried on recording some guitars until Mark had to leave. Mark had played at the Galactic Headquarters next to the studio this year as Olivia and I had four years ago and this reminded me to remind myself to remind everyone to remind their friends that we will be playing there with Salim on Saturday, New Year’s Eve, for the ultimate in intimate performance. You can get tickets here (follow link below).

CONTINUE READING: https://martywillson-piper.com/2022/12/to-where-i-am-now-1045

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TO WHERE I AM NOW Sadness manifested in a buildin TO WHERE I AM NOW

Sadness manifested in a building, today we went to visit Paisley Park. Prince built Paisley Park in Chanhassen, about twenty minutes southwest of Minneapolis. It opened in 1987 and he recorded his later albums there. Apart from Prince, REM also recorded and mixed Out Of Time there, recording Kate Pearson’s vocal on Shiny Happy People vocal. Madonna had Prince play guitar on three songs from Like A Prayer and the two co-wrote Love Song, finishing it remotely due to Madonna not being able to stand the cold weather and the rather desolate location of the studio. Of course, there are things around but it’s not in the city and it’s not in the countryside, it’s in a suburb, no distractions, just what Prince wanted.

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"These are awesome sessions that I highly recommend for guitar players of all levels. Very informative, frank discussions on everything related to guitar and music in general. Definitely a must for anyone pursuing songwriting."
(Stephen G., VA, USA)

"Marty knows how to bypass scales and get to the heart of feel and timing. His musical knowledge spans multiple cultures and genres. Perhaps most importantly, Marty is a cool dude. I highly recommend his guitar guidance." (Jed B., MN, USA)

"Ok, so you’re sitting in your home and Marty is across the world but is actually right here teaching you how to play guitar and write songs. He is a delight to talk to and he is your teacher, meaning he wants to see you get something out of his lessons. You know he’s paying attention and wants to steer you in the right direction. I am so grateful and humbled that he offers his time in this manner. This is an amazing opportunity for anyone who admires anything from his enormous body of work. How often do you get to learn from somebody that inspired you in the first place? Amazing." (Ann S., CA, USA)

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there’s any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

11209512_1669022976719710_7288437867089763325_n

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