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| Jeff Beck with Heidi Apfelstrüdel, yesterday. |
Jeff Beck! Guitar legend and hot rod enthusiast! But few know his True Story - the Man Behind The Myth! Jeff was kind enough to grant us an exclusive inteview over Foam-O-Fone©.
FT3 Jeffery! Becky-boy! Th' Beckster! Lookin' good! Let's start with Hi Ho Silver Lining - the song that launched your show-biz career!
JB A beautiful song, a sad song, that most people don't get the drift. (sings, wistful) Flies are in your pea soup baby, they're wavin' at me ... See? The flies are wavin' goodbye, 'cos thay have to go an' they're sad. Me Nan said I sang it with great aplomb.
JB I got into demonstratin' guitar gear, you know, electric guitars, amplifiers, pedals ... plectrums ... that's a funny word, innit? Plectrums.
FT3 You made a few records as a guitar demonstrator.
JB Yeah. I was like, you can make it sound like this, or if I turn this little knobbie, it sounds like this! People loved that, all the different sounds. Cat miaouw! And the whammy bar. I'd demonstrate that and people went bonkers! Nyiaaaauuuwww ...
FT3 But your first love remained ...
JB (grins, nodding) Hummel figurines! There was a few of us demonstrators what collected them. Eric [Clapton - Ed.], Ronnie [Wood - Ed.] ... and Jimmy Page (frowns). He dated one of my figurines.
FT3 Jimmy Page - dated - one of your Hummel figurines?
JB Fuckin' weirdo. Little Heidi Apfelstrüdel. It started out okay, quite cute really. He'd take her to the zoo, or roller skating. Then he started taking her backstage, into his dressing room, and I was not best pleased. I had a duty of care, you know? We had a falling-out over her, it's why he quit The Yardbirds.
FT3 Phew! Rock and roll!
JB Would you like to hear me demonstrate this new electric tuner? It's got like diodes set into the neck. Diodes - that's a funny word, innit? Diodes.
FT3 Love to, Jeff, but I just heard the microwave ping?
JB I can do that, an' all! Ping! It's a pinched harmon- (connection lost)
The two Jeff Beck demonstration albums by UPP will be made available as a loaddown shortly.
EDIT: Four Or Five Guy© and Hummel enthusiast Hugh Candyside sends us the cover to the Jeff Beck issue of the Hummel Collectors Magazine! Thanks, Hugh!
I'm hoping Babs can find the time to lead today's Mass Debate ...
ReplyDeleteTell us about things you've stolen? We won't tell, or judge you...
ReplyDeleteI'll get the ball rolling.
In 1964, I wanted the first Rolling Stones American LP release: "England’s Newest Hitmakers". Near my house in Brooklyn, was a record store that bought used records, so I brought my copy of The Four Seasons LP "Walk Like A Man", hoping, I could sell it to get the Stones LP cheaper. The guy at the counter was a total asshole, he berated me in front of a few people for having a Four Seasons record (he was a fake Beatnik), and didn't want it. So I went to the "R" section to Rolling Stones, took out "England’s Newest Hitmakers" laid it on top of the bin, put my Four Seasons record on top of it, put both under my arm, and walked out.
I've also stolen my fair share of office supplies, and buds from my older brother's stash.
It looks like Clarence Pune grew up.
I shoplifted a Precious Moments porcelain figurine of Nigel Tufnel from a gas station once in 1983. I still feel bad about it but I had to have it.
ReplyDeleteI've stolen a few paperbacks, Herman Hesse und andere, back when I considered myself liberating material on behalf of the countercultural revolution. Doorstop bottles of milk in pre-dawn hangovers. And one album - Procol Harum - which gave me such a fit of conscience I smuggled it back into the store.
ReplyDeleteNot direct stealing but.......
ReplyDeleteI love a message from my credit card fraud dept to tell me that there appears to have been fraudulent activity on my card. Why? Because it's happened to me three times and each time the credit card company has asked me to identify which items on my latest statement are mine and which I do not recognise and each time I have answered perfectly honestly and they have then credited my card for the fraudulent ones. But, each time they have totally screwed up and credited me back way more than they should have. Yee hah...
Tell you what, Nobby - leave your card details (don't forget the three digit security code on the back!) in a comment and we'll all profit from it! It's a goldmine waiting to happen!
DeleteYou know, based on my experiences, I'm half tempted, only half though.
DeleteA few questions
DeleteIn what city were you born?
What is the name of your favorite pet?
What is your mother's maiden name?
What is the name of your first school?
What was the make of your first car?
What was your favorite food as a child?
Ooh Babs, I hardly know you, but I am flattered that you are interested in finding out so much about me.
DeleteHe might have had a very different career if he'd gone on with more of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaERrNGRjAs
ReplyDeleteThat's another beautiful tune from "the maestro"! And he proved he could master the classical repertoire when he demonstrated "Beck's Bolero"!
DeleteStrangely, a classical music album was in the pipeline a few years ago, but abandoned.
DeleteI have JB playing Mahler* if anyone's interested. Poor sound quality.
*Mahler won after a penalty shoot out.
Back in 1964, I was at a classmate's house, listening to some blues EPs. They were of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. At the time, Hooker's " Dimples", and Chuck's "Promised Land" were in the charts, and of course, Bo was already huge amongst the top bands. I asked if I could borrow them and I never intended to nick the EPS, but I just forgot to return them. I remember the EPs were on Pye International and I still had them in 2000. If you are still with us, Ian, sorry, Mate!
ReplyDeleteAs a teen living in the smog-addled suburbs east of LA in the early 60s, I stole dozens of LPs from a local Thriftimart. It was part of a supermarket chain whose stores included racks of albums—mostly pop, rock 'n' roll, and country. My modus operandi was to buy a frozen Oh Boy Pizza Pie, that if memory serves, went for the lordly sum of 49 cents. I'd then head over to LP racks where I would surreptitiously slip an album or two into the pizza box that happened to be just a bit bigger than the covers. I'd make it a point to hand the box to the grocery checker in a way that minimized the risk of the LPs slipping back out through the now-inadequately sealed end flap I'd peeled back. Occasionally I'd get greedy and slip three albums into the Oh Boy box. I recall one slender-wristed checker nearly dropping the box due its unexpected heft. I loved going home, popping the pizza in the oven, and slipping my ill-gotten LPs onto the old man's Garrard for a first listen. As a callow youth of perhaps 13, I thought the pizza wasn't bad, and the records themselves would form the initial core of a lifetime of vinyl consumption and appreciation.
ReplyDeleteYou never slipped the albums into the oven by mistake, and put the pizza on the turntable? That's what most of us would have done.
DeletePerhaps today I might make that mistake, what with diminishing synapses. But back then, a couple of years before I became acquainted with Miss Maryjane, only testosterone tended to muddle my thinking .
DeleteAccording to The World Health Organization, Estrogen and Progesterone are the Fentanyl and Crack of hormones.
DeleteI had not considered until now that our endocrine secretions could be thought of as analogous with illicit drugs. It puts my misspent youth in an entirely new light.
Deletegasoline is the only thing I ever stole when I was a teenager
ReplyDeleteBetter you stay anonymous, then.
DeleteJust got the new issue in the mail:
ReplyDeletehttps://rg.to/file/7124029d4fd3c275df44873187364bba/mag_-_Hummel_Beck.jpg.html
Thanks, Hugh! I've added it to the piece.
DeleteThem Hummel figurines are awful, not sure if we had them in England, but we did have Franklin Mint decorative plates that were sold as 'collectable', and were equally awful.
ReplyDeleteStealing stuff, I think I got caught stealing a chocolate bar aged about ten, lesson learned very early on.
Eric Clapton's passion for the porcelain cuties detailed here: https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2019/05/i-always-hated-blues-eric-clapton.html
ReplyDeleteThey play Jeff's Hi Ho Silver Lining at Hillsborough as Sheffield Wednesday proudly come out onto the pitch and look what it did for them. Oh.
ReplyDeleteStuart Penney is perhaps the world's greatest authority on (and fan of) Jeff Beck, and I have already emailed him for forgiveness.
DeleteThe guy who "does" Stuart Penney's blog got me a ticket to go and see JB and we went with Tony Platt who's worked with Jeff.and many, many others. One of my rare schmoozings!
DeleteI'll fess up now and say that I'm a mega JB fan, although the jokes don't bother me. I get them!
Go, Nigel, go!
ReplyDeleteDid JB ever play a Flying V? Or is this some sort of piss take for which I have no cultural reference?
ReplyDeleteThe answer to that one, Steve, is "yes".
DeleteAnyone wanting to download my "play some new" selection from a couple of posts ago can now do so. I had messed up the link, it should have read:
ReplyDeleteM G Boulter : Clifftown 2021
https://www.imagenetz.de/gpPpt
Still highly recommended, if you like the singer songwriterly stylee
Thanks to Rob for pointing out the link was naff
Thanks for reupping
DeleteThefts?...the occasional library book...lots of little things when gigging.- it was almost a ritual to see what we could blag/filch/steal. The last thing I remember consciously half-inching was a pack of rather nice large cable ties from a lighting engineer while he was setting up. I still have some of them.
ReplyDeleteI stole a pack of cigarettes that my uncle had in his glove compartment when I was about ten. My punishment was being hooked for fifty years. (But I did enjoy them.)
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of when I was of a similar age, I stole a cigarette out of a packet in the kitchen drawer. They were French, probably gauloises, that my dad had bought out of desperation on holiday in France, and had abandoned as soon as he could get his usual brand. My parents were out, so I smoked it in the kitchen (what a dope, why didn't I go outside?). When my mother returned she thought the house must be on fire, remember they were gauloises and stank, so I had to confess. My father then made ne stand in the kitchen in front of him and smoke a full cigarette. I felt such a fool that I never smoked again, even though my parents, my sister and my wife all did. That was about the only decent thing my dad ever taught me!
DeleteNobby, I'm sorry for the accidental disappearance of your "no Russians" comment.
DeleteNo probs, I think your method of dealing with the matter was probably better than mine!!
DeleteNo, I appreciate the help. He's a bit obsessed.
DeleteFrighteningly believable
ReplyDeleteAll kidding aside, nobody can demonstrate the electric guitar and its accessories like Jeff Beck. It's why he's revered at sales conventions.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Punky is rehearsin' today
I'll just go over, 'n hear him play
His hair is so pretty . . . I'd like to bite his neck
I've heard a rumor he's more fluid than Jeff Beck.
Here's the UPP albums where Beck demonstrates what his backing band can do on their own (although he gives them a little help on the first).
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/QnNMXG74cbP
Excellent band indeed. Might have done better for sure if Jeff was included in the credits at the time, but not if contractual limitations prevailed. By the style Jeff was playing, he was probbably in the middle of recording Blow By Blow and Wired.
Deletewords. the only thing worth stealing.
ReplyDelete