The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

Just by coincidence that you were closer to friends that were black, You had more in common with them or, trying to be as PC as possible?????????

OMG!:argh::biglaugh:

My mom was a member of the NAACP and I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood. My dad was from the south but never used the N word...never. He used to tell us how much he liked black people and also Mexican and Hispanic people...and so do I.

I also love being around Native Americans.

I was very fortunate to grow up in a family that was about as un-racist as a family could be. I was invited to a birthday party when I was 5 or 6 years old where I was the only white kid there and when my friend's mom put a little birthday hat on me and called me "honey" I just felt completely welcome and accepted.

I think I'm a little like Stevie Ray Vaughn in that, like him, I sometimes wish I was black.

I've always felt very comfortable with people of color and to be honest, I think my own race is in near total denial over all the harm we have done to God's beautiful planet Earth and the harm we have done to people of color.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

Cool to hear about the MC5! -what stage were they at, early or late career? any backstage mayhem to recount?

-What's the worst thing that's happened to you onstage?

-What's the worst outfit you've gigged in?

-Do you cook? -and do you have a signature dish?

-if you had to replace your current collection with new guitars and amps, what would you choose? (let's leave Mission amps out, just for fun...)

-What amps out there would you like to try?

-what are the best and worst gigs you've seen?

-Have you ever had cause to don an animal suit?

Q1: The MC5 was at thier peak.

Q2: Bruce and I once did a gig at a Biker Bar. I was coming through the back door with a guitar in each hand and this biker was trying to get out into the alley through the same door...his cheeks were bulging and...well...I couldn't get out of the way in time. Which leads us to question #3.

Q3: the shirt that that biker blew lunch on. I had to go into the bathroom and clean up and the bikers had torn all of sinks off of the walls and the bathroom was flooded. I couldn't clean up and had to wear that shirt, turned around backwards onstage.

Q4: I make great enchiladas and burrittos.

Q5: I'm a Strat and Tele guy and can do without any other electric guitars. So I'd go for a new Nocaster and maybe one of those Eric Johnson Strats. Might have to install some Antiquitys in it though!

If I lost my acoustic guitars I'd get a Collings OM and a National Tricone to replace them.

If I lost my amps and had to own something new I wouldn't know what to get! I'm old school all the way when it comes to amps I pretty much just like Bruce's Mission Aurora's and my own old Fenders that have been modded to my own specs. I played some of Gerald Kendricks amps in Dallas that I liked alot...and an amp called a Talos that I fell in love with at NAMM last year. Curly liked it too.

Q6: Truthfully? None. I'm so pleased with what I have that I've got my sound that I hear in my head.

Q7: the Biker Gig I mentioned was the gig from Hell. Best gig? I've had some great experiences at playing music at church. I'm a practicing Buddhist, but I'm also a new agey kinda Christian and I love playing spiritual and gospel music with a big choir. Nothing else like it. I love it.

Q8: nope

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

this is my first post in the well threads but i respect lews musings and advice so here i go....

do you look like your avatar? :yourock:

EDIT: just realized you posted a pic which means my post is useless and makes me look like an idiot...sorry dude

so ill replace the question. to get an insight into who lew is...if you could be one other person for a week lets say, from this forum...based on their posts here, who would you be?

Interesting question. I have no idea what it's like to be anyone other than myself! I like most of the guys here, but I have to say that having met them both, both Evan and Seymour seem like a really cool dudes!

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

What decade had the best music (going back to the 40s I suppose)? There is a correct answer, I hope that your opinion matches the correct answer.

Good to have you as a host Lew, I don't know terribly much about you, besides that I hope to someday know as much as you obviously do.

Gee...thanks!

What decade had the best music? Wow.

I wasn't there...I'm not that old! But it must have been thrilling to hear guys like Robert Johnson or Son House in their hey day. And to have heard Louis Armstrong playing in New Orleans, maybe on a riverboat, and inventing the music, vocabulary and phrasing that was going to become jazz and eventually influence all of pop music would have been really something. Would've loved to have heard Hank Williams and the original Carter Family too.

I guess I don't have a favorite era. I love it all. Everything from Robert Johnson, Son House and Louis Armstrong to Hank Williams and the original Carter Family to Duke Ellington, Johnny Cash and Elvis to Miles Davis, BB King, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Haven't heard much from the 90's and 2000's that knocks me out...maybe because I feel like I've heard it all and all I hear these days is everything I've already heard recombined.

That's all new songs are anyway: just bits and pieces of old songs recombined.

If I have to pick a favorite era it would be the 60's: Motown, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, Stax, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan...just an incredibly creative time.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

That was beautiful! I loved seeing those pics.. It almost looks like you have a really cozy cabin in the mountain areas there..
I have actually thought about this for a couple of years now, and if I should ever be so fortunate to have the opportunity, I would love to bring my future family over to Colorado or Montana (somewhere around the Rocky Mountains at least..), and live there for 3-4 years perhaps..

Here's another question for ya: can you name a single band or artist, that you believe should be obligatory listening for us kids?

The Beatles...and the original Motown Band with James Jamerson on Bass. Get that Standing In The Shadows of Motown DVD.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

who's your favorite new artist...someone who's come out in the last 2 years or so?

Boy...I'm so out of touch when it comes to new stuff. Like I said, all of the new stuff sounds like a rehash of old stuff to me. All of the new songs I hear sound like bits and pieces of old songs recombined!

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

If I have to pick a favorite era it would be the 60's: Motown, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, Stax, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan...just an incredibly creative time.

It was the drugs! :laughing:

You named lots of great stuff in your post, so

. But you were one decade off, so I've got to dock you points.

7/10.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

What in life inspires you the most?

What are your pet peeves?

What was your scariest moment?

Will you ever tour out of your immediate area?

Who, in your opinion, of the current artists are the future guitar hero's?

Q1: Real courage and genuine wisdom inspires me. Folks like Jesus, Galileo, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Thich Nhat Hanh. Muhammad Ali has always been a huge hero for me although he alternately spoke with great personal wisdom and insight and then turned around and allowed others to think for him.

Q2: Right Wing Talk Radio and the Sheeple who listen to it and accept those views as their own. Sheeple who let others do their thinking for them while living under the impression that they are thinking for themselves.

Q3: A few years ago I climbed all day to the peak of a 14,000 ft mountain (Gray's Peak) all alone and when I got to the top I saw dark clouds rolling towards me and then lightning went off and hit the top of the next nearest mountain. It took me hours to get back down again and all the time lightning was hitting where I'd just been. It was horrific and the scariest thing that ever happened to me.

Number 2 would be the time my dogs and I were attacked by a mountain lion while coming down from Bear Peak and my dogs fought it off three times! It kept coming back and attacking us again and again.

Q4: I sure hope so. I think we're making the best music I've ever made in my life right now.

Q5: Stevie Ray Vaughn was the last guitar hero who really knocked me out. What a loss. I put him up there with the greatest of the greats. No one newer impresses me as much as Stevie.

What newer player impresses you so much that they might rank him up there with SRV, Hendrix, Jeff Beck, BB King or EVH? Certainly not John Mayer...although he's a lot better than some of us snobs here give him credit for.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

Since you're in Nederland...

What happened to Caribou Ranch?

The studio burned and the equipment that survived was sold off. The area is now Open Space and has great hiking trails. It's just a couple of miles from my home.

Lew

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

Being as you've lived up in the boulder area for sometime, Ever had a run in with Hunter Thompson?

\\Nope. He was an Aspen guy. I did pick up Allen Ginsberg hitch hiking in Boulder though!

At the time, I was driving a '62 Plymouth Valiant that had been in an accident and the passenger door could not be opened. Allen had to climb in and out through the window! lol! Lew

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

If "The Rockies" could draft or trade for any pitcher that's playing right now, who would you want it to be?

Babe Ruth.

Doh! I forgot...you said playing right now....

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

Name any woman in history and not presently alive whom you would theoretically bed if she were still alive and in her prime.

Next theoretical question...
Lets assume that there has been a terrible ice storm that has knocked out your power and all phone service (including power to the cell towers) and there is a very large rabid dog outside your door that has bitten your ankle and is now fixated on you for some reason and will not leave. What is your plan of action?

Q1: Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield were the pin up queens I lusted for in my youth...along with all three of the Supremes!

Had quite the thing for Joni Mitchell in her prime...but she's still very much alive.

Does Undead count? If so, Elvira's pretty hot!

Q2: Hmmm...if the dog is outside my door chewing on my detached ankle and I'm inside I guess I'd just let him have it and keep what's left of me safely inside!

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

The Beatles...and the original Motown Band with James Jamerson on Bass. Get that Standing In The Shadows of Motown DVD.

It's funny, because I was coming to this thread to ask you your thoughts on the Funk Bros. and if you've seen Standing in the Shadows of Motown?
I rented it last night, and was flabbergasted over what a musical education that DVD was. What a great band and a great era for musical influence!

Had you ever seen any club gigs that included any of those members, or have you seen them at Detroit music stores, etc? Any interesting bits of info on the Funk Bros?

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

What's the highest mountain you've ever climbed? I went up Whitney a few years back, probably the single best experience of my life. It's the highest in the lower 48, but I'd love to tackle some Alaskan ones some day.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

It's funny, because I was coming to this thread to ask you your thoughts on the Funk Bros. and if you've seen Standing in the Shadows of Motown?
I rented it last night, and was flabbergasted over what a musical education that DVD was. What a great band and a great era for musical influence!

Had you ever seen any club gigs that included any of those members, or have you seen them at Detroit music stores, etc? Any interesting bits of info on the Funk Bros?

David Ruffin sat in with us once. There've been a few others too that maybe Bruce will remember and chime in with. Bruce used to play drums with Gino Washington. Gino had a hit called Gino's A Coward.

When I used to work at Hewitt's Music some of the Funk Brothers used to come in although we never called them the Funk Brothers. I never heard that term applied to the Motown Band when I lived in Detroit.

But Earl Van Dyke, the great Motown keyboard player, used to come in.

And the man himself, James Jamerson, came in once and I sold him some stuff and listened to him trying out one of those Ampeg electric basses through a Ampeg B18. He was a genius but not show offy at all and what he played that day just sounded like ordinary bass playing that you hear all day working in a music store. He was anything but ordinary though!

Who was the other guy? Bob Babbitt...the bassist who played in the band after James. Met him once or twice at Hewitt's Music.

But the two other guys who really knocked me out were Jack Ashford, the guy who played tambourine, and Robert White, the guitarist who played the riff on My Girl. Classic.

Didn't Joan Osbourne do a blow out great job on "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?" in that film? I thought hers was the best performance of any vocalist who sat in for that film.



Lew

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

What's the highest mountain you've ever climbed? I went up Whitney a few years back, probably the single best experience of my life. It's the highest in the lower 48, but I'd love to tackle some Alaskan ones some day.

Long's Peak. It's a high fourteener in Rocky Mountain National Park. I've climbed it three times, with the last time being last summer. Totally kicked my butt. Totally! 14 miles round trip.
Hardest thing I've ever done.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

BTW Guys, I'll be away wednesday from my computer...it's my day off and I'm going hiking all day. Back again on Thursday. Thanks! Lew

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

Didn't Joan Osbourne do a blow out great job on "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?" in that film? I thought hers was the best performance of any vocalist who sat in for that film.
Lew

Joan Osborne is my favorite 'current generation' female singer. I had her 'Relish' CD in my truck all throughout the late 90's. A great CD. Listen to the song Crazy Baby.

 

[Rich_T]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

****, someone stole my Hunter Thompson question.

So, do you read much? What are a few of your favourite books? Fiction and non fiction.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: The Well 8. It's party time with the Collins Brothers!

****, someone stole my Hunter Thompson question.

So, do you read much? What are a few of your favourite books? Fiction and non fiction.

I don't read a lot of fiction. But Lonesome Dove and the Streets of Laredo (both by Larry McMurtry) are two of my favorite novels. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is one that I'll re-read every 10 or 15 years.

I liked a book by Davis Miller called the Tao of Muhammad Ali. A very good read.

Read the Secret. Wasn't that knocked out by it.

As far as non-fiction goes I tend to read a lot of spiritual stuff and books by Buddhist and Hindu teachers.