Re: [Harp-L] What are your Jimi Hendrix moments?

["Bob Laughlin" <rlaughlin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Had a friend in HIGH school, nicknamed "Speedy". Ron Stackler, but "Speedy"
perfectly described his habits and demeanor. Stackler lived in Beverly Glen
Canyon, off of Sunset. Really rustic. He was always tapping his foot,
smoking something, acting impatient and coming up with new and different
ideas to go somewhere and do something crazy. He loved listening to the
radio and finding new music, and yes, he did "speed". Before school, after
school, often during school. Rolled up dollar bills, white powder, and
voila, "Speedy".

Stackler introduced me to the music of Jimi Hendrix. I see him one day after
school in Westwood Village, (WLA, UCLA area), and he says "Come with me, you
gotta hear something. We go to this hotdog stand, in the shape of a
doghouse, called, you guessed it, "The Dog House", where there was a jukebox
and a cigarette machine where we would buy, you guessed it, cigarettes. He
tells me to sit down and get ready for something, and puts a quarter in the
jukebox, and up comes Hendrix, playing "Purple Haze". Boomp byomp boomp
byomp boomp byomp boomp byomp, duh duh dyah duhhhhhhh, duh dya doo
daaaaaaa,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Purple haze,,,all in my brain,,,,,,,,Lately
things,,,just don't seem the same,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,<clip>,,
,,Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time,,,,braah da braaaah,,,dwaah duh
dwaaaaaah,,,dwaah daah dwaaaaah,,,,,,,,,,help me,,,,,

With the "help me"'s interjected here and there, it's almost, not quite but
almost,,,like a surrealistic James Brown who got taken through the
space-time continuum in a subspace time warp. Blame it on James T. Kirk.
Blame it on the LSD. It came on suddenly, from out of somewhere in the
nowhere. "Help me" is right. I'm too high, too far from where I was, in
"uncharted territory",,

I tried playing Hendrix back then,,before I could play guitar very well.
Never satisfied myself, so gave up and did what I could do best,,found some
stronger points, other things that seemed to come naturally. For that
matter, I don't know if even Jimi Hendrix himself was trying to "play
Hendrix". It just came to him, after the training, the practice, the playing
with different bands in different styles, and, of course, after the
drug-induced euphoric moments, whilst doodling away on guitar and
discovering stuff flowing from his creative juices.

I saw Hendrix play in Santa Rosa, with Lee Michaels on the bill as well, and
a free concert afterwards by Jefferson Airplane. Hendrix really didn't sound
all that good,,just really experimental (stoned), and probably really stoned
(stoned). I wouldn't call him a "virtuoso guitarist", though maybe at that
time I would have, for lack of a greater range of listening experience.
So,,I guess you could say,,no,,I wasn't "experienced". Not in the musical
sense. Back then, Clapton was "God", and Hendrix was unspeakably,
indescribably way beyond anything terrestrial. Maybe it was in the mix, but
there wasn't anything like Hendrix.

I think Hendrix was just a pioneer, a musical explorer, driven by whimsy and
a deep sense of unsatisfied musical wanderlust, a courageous discoverer of
far-off lands, where no one had yet to venture. Once having visited, he
brought us travelogues of musical adventures, albums to peruse at our
leisure, bringing forth dreams of musical adventures of our own.

Jimi Hendrix was just one of so many other musical pioneers. I really
wouldn't call him a "guitar virtuoso", but that's not necessary in
recognizing his accomplishments. One thing is certain. There are probably
few musicians today who don't know his name. He didn't arrive at this kind
of notoriety by staying "in the box", trying to sound like someone else. He
may have had his "favorite guitarist" (some say,,"Billy Gibbons"?) but he
really did "his thing". I think it was a kind of product of musical
evolution, but facilitated and enhanced by Hendrix's willingness to play
fresh, new, and original.

If Hendrix were playing locally, at some local bar, and I were to happen
in,,,with my harp rack,,I know what I'd have done. I'd have put 'em back in
the car and listened to the man play. There's a time to just let the man
play,,,

BL

P.S.,,concerning "Speedy",,aka Ron Stackler,,

I went off and joined a communal cult, left town, and when I returned some
years later, I ran into Stackler, working at a Sunset Blvd. head shop,
behind the counter. He didn't even recognize me, and behind the vacant look
in his eyes, there wasn't even a person left there. Speed kills, as they
used to say.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "groovy gypsy" <groovygypsy@xxxxxxxxx>; <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] What are your Jimi Hendrix moments?


> Aside from lame attempts at trying to dress like him in high school and
breathing fire onstage during the guitar solo in "Let Me Stand Next to Your
Fire" during the same period?
>
> About that same time - and I know I've told this story before on harp-l -
I had a dream about walking down the street with Hendrix late at night and
him making comments on just stuff he saw as we walked, and it was all
*musical* - every little casually uttered phrase (but you don't have to
dream it; just listen to the man talk). Later I had that same experience
while awake listening to jazz singer Betty Carter just talk onstage between
songs.
>
> Aside from flamboyant scarves and spewing lighter fluid into a lit match,
for me the Hendrix moment is: *make every utterance musical, no matter how
small.*
>
> Winslow
>
> groovy gypsy <groovygypsy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: Michael Rubin eloquently
writes
>
> "What are your Jimi Hendrix moments?"
>
> actually sounding like Jimi, bless my heart, when I play purple haze
>
> thank you,
>
> gg
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