On Practicing Guitar

An Ode to Brian Jones

Mad, bad and dangerous to know was the first leader of the Rolling Stones. Even though my introduction to their music came during what could be called the Jimmy Miller period, I was always curious about the charismatic blond in the foreground of early Stones pics. I loved and will always love the early Stones sound – the Brian period.

So, please allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite Stones pastimes, looking at Brian Jones’ guitar work and trying to figure out what he did and why. Everyone is familiar with Brian’s slide work, but who plays all that tasty backing guitar on Aftermath that doesn’t sound like anything Keith did before or since? Why did Brian more or less abandon playing guitar? There isn’t space here to discuss these questions in depth, but they’re worth pondering. In the meantime, let’s look at some of my favorite tracks.

Brian played the hypnotic lead on the Stones’ first self-penned hit, “The Last Time,” (early 1965) most probably because he wrote it or Keith couldn’t play it effectively. The lick is pure blues sexiness, oozing confidence. No guitarist who wrote this riff would allow any other guitarist to play it on an original recording that he was also playing on! Brian got no credit.

One of my favorite Brian Jones performances is his slide guitar on the live version of Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On,” (early 1965) from the U.S. compilation LP, December’s Children. It’s a huge, greasy, rich sound that drives the band in an unrelenting charge forward. It’s too bad that he didn’t take a solo – Mick steps in with his simple harmonica, bleating away ala Keith Relf, in much the same way that Relf stepped all over some of Jeff Beck’s live performances. No one ever mentions this situation when Beck’s almost losing his mind before his departure from that band is discussed. But in the case of “I’m Movin’ On,” not having a Brian Jones slide solo doesn’t detract from the power and originality of the sound.

On “19^th Nervous Breakdown,” (released early 1966), Brian is again playing a repeated riff with a thick, clean, twangy sound ala Last Time but in a lower register. The tone is the polar opposite of Keith’s fuzzed out, chordal lead licks. It seems that maybe Brian shied away from distortion. But his clean sound cuts through and drives the song rhythmically.

Critics tend to dismiss Got Live If You Want It! (mainly recorded late 1966), but I imagine that this is what the Stones sounded like during that time. This is a full-throttle, mod sound. Keith’s distorted, blurry lead guitar dominates the upper middle of the mix, but wait, what’s holding the furious, amphetamine blast together? Brian’s rhythm guitar is what. It fills out the sound without sacrificing any velocity. One also gets a taste of what Brian might have sounded like on a more extroverted lead guitar with the live rendition of “The Last Time.” His overdriven sound is smoother and stronger than Keith’s.

When Keith wrote “Satisfaction” and it became a worldwide smash, it all but sealed Brian’s fate as the ex-leader of the Stones. This watershed moment would seem to be the beginning of the end of Brian’s obsession with blues guitar. In Peter Whitehead’s film of the Stones’ 1965 Irish tour, Charlie Is My Darling, you can clearly see Brian’s dismay as Keith takes charge of the writing and rehearsal sessions. But Brian was a team player. He changed his own role by exploiting his talent as a multi-instrumentalist on tracks too famous and numerous to mention here. When I hear those old tracks, drenched in RCA Studios reverb, I still wonder sometimes, what might have been.

Saints and Sinners Play American Trash Saturday May 21st at 10PM

Saints and Sinners at Desmond's Tavern on the 5th of May  - Photo by Andrea Fischman

Saints and Sinners, formerly the Anodyne Blues Band, will be appearing Saturday, May 21 at American Trash for a three set, all out shin-dig from 10pm until 1am. The Anodyne Blues Band moniker served us well for over seven years but it’s time to move on and we’re doing so with a bang.

Getting into the thick of it is our fantastic new drummer Daryl Cozzi, who is very in tune with the blues, blues-rock and R&B-styled grooves that we play. Well into the fold as usual is the rock solid and always dangerous Dave Gerstein on bass. The three of us recently played at Desmond’s Tavern, our first gig as Saints and Sinners.

As it happens, my birthday is coming up soon after the gig, on May 24^th, the same birthday as Bob Dylan’s, I might add, so it’s going to be kind of an early birthday celebration. We will definitely play a song for Bob, too.

American Trash is located at 1471 First Avenue in Manhattan, right near East 77^th Street. Entry is free, and there are great drinks to be had along with games and other earthly delights. We hope you can make it!

Adventures in Guitar Mods – The Squier 51

Ever since my friend Steve changed the ancient volume pot in my ’76 Strat to a brand new American made CTS pot, I have been itching to learn how to do guitar mods. My obsession may even have begun shortly after a student of mine brought over a black Fender Squier 51. These guitars are famous for inspiring an army of guitar modders and the message boards that they frequent.

I bought a very clean Squier 51 on craigslist, meeting the seller at a train station down on the Jersey Shore. The train fare cost me $30, the guitar, $120. The neck was quite good for these guitars, with no sharp fret edges. The humbucker barked, the single coil and overly complicated coil splitting settings were attractive but seemed to evaporate on stage. The overall live sound was somewhat blurry (see video below). But I was able to set it up where you could play both slide and regular guitar, so it was somewhat useful as a second guitar for gigs. And, I knew I could get it to sound better.

 

I’m a firm believer in the idea of finding the right pickup for the right guitar. I had a couple of spare pickups in the closet, a Gibson 500T bridge pickup from my Les Paul (replaced with a Gibson 57 Classic), and a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder Strat neck pickup. So, I began to research the necessary wiring to swap out the cheap Squier pickups for these legitimate contenders.

Unfortunately, the mania surrounding the Squier 51 has died down, and the message boards supporting them are all but defunct. I soon realized that working on these guitars is not so easy because the cavity where the guts go in is tiny. A typical pickup selector switch will not fit. I did at least five hours of research online looking for parts, diagrams, etc, finally settling on using a mini toggle switch, which is most often used to make additional effects (coil splitting, etc.) in addition to the main pickup selector.

My ingenious wiring diagram is shown above

On the fateful day, I dove in, spending about four hours with my diagrams and brand new soldering iron from Stewart-MacDonald. In the end, I got one pickup to work. I was overjoyed! Let me tell you! Had I gotten nothing, I still would have been proud of myself to a degree. It was a journey in itself just opening up the guitar and getting busy with the soldering iron.

As luck would have it, a few days later I got a call from Mike Maggio, the owner of Maggio’s Music in Brooklyn. He wanted me to come in a substitute teach, as I have in the past. It was an auspicious moment. Mike is an expert at guitar repair, and I finally broke down and let him set the Squier 51 up for me. He re-wired the guitar and it worked perfectly. The 500T is ferociously loud. I don’t know why it never sounded like that in my Les Paul, but at the same time, it was much sweeter and more balanced in that guitar. The Duncan sounds full, round and smooth. The combination of the two is somewhat unique, a little chimey, a little hot, but attractive.

Everything worked out perfectly in the end. I’ve got my eye on another inexpensive guitar that should be perfect to work on, and I learned a lot about guitar modification in the process. To top it off, I now have a permanent day teaching at Maggio’s. How cool is that?