Tag Archives: guitars

Help! There’s An Elephant In My Music Room!

Illustration/ Pixabay License

I’m not sure where it’s hiding at the moment, but there’s an elephant in the room where I do most of my writing, as well as the day job, snacking, sleeping, music making and listening. Please note that I purposely avoided using any gender pronouns, as we’ve not yet had that conversation.

There are three guitars each tuned differently resting on their stands, a dulcimer, banjo, five harps in various keys, lots of capos, and a couple of high-priced speakers that I stream my music through. I’m using a MacBook Pro 13-inch at the moment, which sits next to an iMac 27-inch desktop, and somewhere on the floor is an iPad on which I might one day record one of the greatest albums of music ever written. Or not. Got an iPhone sitting on a wireless charger, about a dozen books are scattered about, almost every issue of the original No Depression magazine (from when it was published by Peter, Grant and Kyla) which are neatly stacked in a wooden crate on the floor, and I’m staring at a large brown plastic bottle of Xanax.

When you write a music column each week it really helps to be passionate about your subject matter, or at the very least appear mildly curious to your readers. But since the Great New York Lockdown of 2020 began on March 12, I am struggling month after month with the elephant in the room to remain focused on music. And while I’m averaging 10 hours a day of listening, and exploring a wide range of new, old, lost, and found songs, my random crazy thoughts are beginning to take over. I don’t know if this will make it into the column on not, but maybe if I make a list of some of the stuff in my head it’ll be helpful, like therapy. As it’ll be totally random, don’t try to put too much thought into it.

For the past six weeks I’ve been working with my attorneys on my will, and writing letters to my kids about how much I love them and what they will need to do when I pass. I have converted the small amount of stock I own into cash just in case the banks fail, and I’m attempting to learn at least one Hawaiian slack-key song in taro patch tuning from beginning to end. I also watch quite a lot of Scandinavian crime dramas and wonder if there will be enough time left to view at least four or five Frederick Wiseman documentaries. Each one usually runs three to four hours. Doing stuff like that is good and keeps you busy, right?

If one day in the future somebody finds this article in some digital trashcan, please make note that this was written during the week when the total number of Americans who died from COVID-19 passed 150,000, and it was absolutely and totally avoidable. Our country went to hell in a handbasket when millions of y’all thought it made perfect sense to put a psychopath with a personality disorder and learning disability in charge of making decisions on your behalf. Reap what ye sow.

It seems to me that many professional musicians and other performers, including athletes, will need to find new jobs and learn new skillsets. Especially if you’re older, I doubt you’ll soon be able to safely go back to playing in front of an audience. How’s that Cayamo cruise sound to you right about now if you’re over 65, with a touch of emphysema from smoking too much weed and tobacco back in the day? I’m not making light of it, as it’s a tragic situation we find ourselves in, and I know so many people who earn a living playing, presenting, marketing, selling, and recording. Thinking of their pain and anguish is consuming. And hell, it ain’t just the arts, it’s our entire civilization.

Maybe this isn’t quite a top five problem, but a lot of people I talk to complain about not getting enough sleep and exercise. And if they have kids, they’re worrying that sending them back to school may not be a smart idea. Then there’s this mask vs. no mask tug-of-war between the sane folks and the crazy-as-a-loon Republicans and Libertarians who see absolutely no harm to society by strapping on a hand gun and slinging a semi-automatic rifle on their backs when they need to run down to Walmart and pick up some of that hydroxychloroquine. You people actually believe a guy whose top medical expert is a woman who has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches? She also has said that the government is run in part not by humans, but by “reptilians” and other aliens, according to The Daily Beast. She might be right about that last part. This should clear up any questions about why I keep on hand the previously mentioned large brown bottle of Xanax.

On March 8 of this year, I took my last train and subway ride into Manhattan to see Coal Country. A play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, with original music written and performed by Steve Earle, it’s the story of the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion in West Virginia that killed 29 men and tore a hole in the lives of countless others. It’s probably one of the finest and moving theater performances I’ve seen, and within a few days it closed up and Earle and his youngest son left town for his house in Nashville. I didn’t know until this week that this project took four years to write, produce, and get onstage. And unless something happens, fewer than 1,500 people in the whole world will have had the chance to hear and see And that is a tragedy about a play about a tragedy.

I think this is a good place to stop. You probably have got the gist of it, that my mind is running around in circles and I need to take a vacation. I’m too late for heading to Florida’s beaches, I suppose, and I hear they are cracking down on boat parties on the Lake of the Ozarks. I really can’t fly anywhere, and buses, taxis, Uber, subways, and trains are all out of the question. Checked on some nice local bed and breakfasts up in the Catskills, but I can’t find any that will let me bring my elephant.

So I’ve decided that I’m just going to chill a bit for the rest of this long hot summer, until I get this pachyderm out of here. In closing, I’d like to leave you with a couple of musical thoughts, tips, and tricks. Ready?

I love Taylor Swift’s new album, recommend you check out what Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams are doing on their Facebook page, I want you to listen to the latest album by Tessy Lou Williams (no relation to Teresa) and agree with me that it’s the best country album of the year, make sure you are registered to vote and request an absentee ballot, skip getting tear gassed by the leader’s secret army, and please consider a donation to the Equal Justice Initiative. Stay safe!

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here and at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

The Day My Guitar Gently Weeped

Like most guitar players, I’ve long known that having just one is simply not enough. I have my sweet-smelling mahogany Martin 000-15 that I keep inside the case next to my bed and only bring out on special days. There’s the Takamine Jumbo custom for playtime; a cheapo Ibanez black laminate, thin-body, acoustic-electric that sounds totally awesome when I plug it into an amp once or twice a year; the lap steel I’m still fussing around with, in C6 tuning; and two guitars I bought when I was a kid that are now classified as vintage. As am I.

Other players will chuckle and tell you truthfully that I am as far from a serious collector as one can get. In fact, for someone who has played as long as I have, it’s an embarrassing assortment of wire, wood, and glue mostly constructed across the Pacific. If I had ever chosen to show up at a bluegrass festival parking lot with my Epiphone 6830 dreadnought, they would likely have run me over with a John Deere tractor. I speak in the past tense because this week it ceased to exist as anything other than wall art.

When I bought that guitar back in 1971 – it is an ‘it’ because I don’t name my instruments – it cost me about $200. That was a lot of money back then for a starving student to spend. People would often ask why I didn’t have a higher end Martin D-whatever, and I always said that if I could find one that sounded better than this one, I’d buy it. Honestly, the Japanese craftspeople who made my Epiphone did one helluva job. I’ve kept it in great condition, with only a few nicks and bruises that one might expect after too many nights of dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud acoustic music.

A few years back I began to notice it wouldn’t stay in tune for too long, and I started to play it less and less. Still, every guitarist needs at least one dreadnought, so I drove up north last week to a small town in the Hudson Valley to see a luthier named Doug about what it might cost to repair. After he examined it inside and out, and explained in detail the issues, he picked up a calculator, punched on the keys like Liberace, and held the display up for me to see. $1,800. Goodbye.

Like an addict who needs a fix, I’ve been staying up late all week, surfing the web to brush up on what’s out there that might fit my tight budget. I’ve solicited suggestions from musicians and dealers I know, and read up on the pros and cons of manufacturing and design from America, Canada, Mexico, China, Korea, and Japan. I’ve learned about solid wood, sustainable wood, laminates, satin finish, high gloss stain. I’ve considered guitars with a thin neck, wide neck, open or closed tuning machines, acoustic both with and without pickups. I’ve looked into large companies, small companies, handmade, oven-baked, extra crispy, and gluten free. The choices are endless.

And where do you buy a guitar these days? Just like with hardware stores and booksellers, there seems to just be one or two companies that dominate the marketplace. They look the same, price the same, have the identical inventory and selection. Most of the guitars on display have never been set up, the strings are oxidized, and they buzz and squeak. I’ve also visited a number of smaller retailers and they can hardly compete with the big guys on price, so they tend to stock the lower-end models for beginners. Even here in New York City, it’s hard to find someplace that doesn’t either require a ferry ride to Staten Island or a trip to the Village where it’s often hard to hear above the din.

Being someone who loves to curl up with a good spreadsheet, I’ve been doing some research. According to www.musictrades.com, last year in the United States almost 1.5 million acoustic guitars were sold; about 350,000 more than electrics. Thank you Mumford and Llewyn Davis, I suppose. Of that number, about two-thirds sold for $500 or less, a third priced between $501-$1,500. And only 25,200 sold above that. Wow. If you’ve ever picked up a magazine like Fretboard Journal or Acoustic Guitar, you’d think everybody is buying that custom $15,000 Martin or Taylor. Nope. I think those magazines are mostly hedge fund manager pornography these days.

Jim Isray, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts’ football team, paid $335,000 last February for a Gibson Les Paul to add to his collection, which includes Dylan’s Fender that he played at the Newport Folk Festival when he went electric and Jerry Garcia’s beloved Tiger. The Washington Post quoted Cheap Trick’s Rick Nelson – a Les Paul collector himself, with over a hundred of them – as saying the price was reasonable, and “I’m happy it didn’t go for $2.1 million.” And that Garcia guitar? Isray paid $850,000 for it in 2002. That’s much less than the Hendrix 1968 Strat that billionaire Paul Allen bought in 1993. Boys and their toys.

So anyway, here I am: minus one dreadnought and ready to go on a shopping spree. While I’ll try not to succumb to Madison Avenue-style advertising and marketing, it’s hard not to want a new six-string that will “bring back memories of the great instruments of the Golden Era of guitar building. Those were days when all work was done by gifted craftspeople, by hand, using simple tools. Heirloom-quality instruments which may be enjoyed by future generations of musicians.” God bless great design, low overhead foreign manufacturing plants, and American Express.

This was originally published by No Depression, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.