Playing it simple

Immediately after seeing Les Paul, as I described in my previous post, I jumped on the subway and headed downtown. Jim Campilongo was playing at the Living Room, where he has a Monday night residency. Jim is a master of the Telecaster, a great player, a great arranger, and a great writer. He’s got about seven albums out (now eight?), my favorite of which is Heaven Is Creepy. Check it out! It was Jim who inspired my current rig, and I was determined to see him play live.

The show was wonderful, and I was able to stick around for the second set. Jim’s trio, including Tony Mason on drums and Richard Hammond on the upright bass, was tight and perfect for tunes. I was thrilled to hear some new tunes as well, and hope they’ll be turning up on the new album. It’s great to hear new music still in it’s formative stage. I thought I detected a Hawaiian theme in one of the new tunes, but I didn’t get the chance to ask about it. Though I did get to chat with Jim afterwards. He was kind enough to sign my copy of the Blackguard book, even though he plays a whiteguard.

So what’s the connection with Jim’s music and my search for simplicity? First off, the simplicity of Jim’s rig attracted me. He plays an old Telecaster straight into an old Princeton Reverb. You can’t get much simpler. The trio maintains much of this simplicity: bass, drums, and guitar. That’s all these tunes need. I loved Jim’s patter (the Columbus Day rap was hysterical!), but the star of the show is the sound he coaxes from his Telecaster. No FX: the tone comes from the fingers through to the amp and out the speaker. And into my happy ears.

This past October, on Columbus Day, I had the chance to see Les Paul play at the Iridium Club in New York. It was an inspiration to see Les at 93 years old, playing and working the crowd with energy and good humor—and chops. He still has the touch. I’ve been a fan of the man, and the guitar he invented, for a long time. His innovations in multitrack recording made it possible for guys like me to layer sound on top of sound, building up thick and complex tracks in the comfort of our own bedrooms. Incidentally, I understand that Les himself recorded many of his masterpieces in hotel rooms while on the road, not in “proper” studios.

How does this relate to my search for simplicity? Two things—first, I was playing a Gibson Les Paul for years, led by players like Les, Robert Fripp, Neil Young, and many others. So that guitar was tied to my history as a player. Second, the very innovations that allowed Les to build up such complex sounds (like his Les Paulverizer magic box) was part of his road to simplicity. Multitrack recording allowed him to lay down tracks either alone or with Mary Ford and produce finished tunes without a backing band. Thus, his process was simplified from having to arrange for backing players to join him in a studio, to sitting down alone with his gear whenever and wherever the mood struck him.

So we see that the road to simplicity sometimes leads us through a certain amount of complexity first. More on this thought later.

I’m a Tokyo-based guitarist (not my day job) and I’ve been trying to simplify my set up. For a long time, I’ve been increasing the complexity of my set up, adding equipment like the Roland VG-99 V-Guitar system and GR-33 guitar synthesizer, an 11-string Warr Guitar, and other bits and bobs. Good kit, and I enjoy it all. But somehow, I found myself wanting to simplify things. For one, schlepping my gear to gigs and setting it all up is challenging here in Tokyo (I travel by subway or taxi and have no car). But also, I found it ironic that I was using ever more complex processors to approximate very simple and basic sounds, like a Telecaster through a tube amp.

So now I’m using a Telecaster through a tube amp. And surprise, surprise: it sounds great.

My current rig is an American Vintage ‘52 Reissue Telecaster through a Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue. On a few songs, I also use a Durham Electronics Crazy Horse pedal, but I mostly play straight into the amp. I find the built-in reverb and tremolo are all I need.

Anyway, I’ll be using this site to explore this quest for simplicity, touching on where I came from and seeing where the road takes me. For me, this quest extends to not just my rig and my playing, but also to my life and work. I’d love to hear how others are achieving simplicity in their rigs, their playing, and also in their lives and work.