Modern Vespa

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This is a great story. I suspect this might happen more often than we think.

Now, I have a friend who swears there's really only one Irish tune and as long as you play in "D" you'll get by.<G>

I was 2 years too young to be in this club. That's me on bass.

Same bass 20 years later

Recording @ Studio Red in North Hollywood. Covid sessions.

Most excellent, sir! As a former (alleged) bass player, a tip o' my chapeau to you!

Victor

1982? That's me at the far left. It was probably free, but if you told them they were on the guest list, they were more likely to show up.

I would pay $100 cash to see this right now.

Hmmm...a "C" note, huh? I could have 'em grown out to length in about 6 weeks! 🤭

BORN IN THE USA, (Played badly in Britain).

Okay Ill jump on the band wagon I was riding scooters long before I picked one of these CBGs up, I'm defiantly not a musician and I cant do JBs fancy finger work.
During Lockdown I was scrolling through YouTube and came across a guy based in Spark's Nevada USA called John, Red Dog Guitars, and wow I was taken back to the sounds he produced from these three stringers very simple and I was Inspired and don't even need to know a note of music, I've got to a level I'm happy with and also like using slide, my go to Amps are Vox Mini 5 and 3 and love the sound they produce, even looked into the history of CBGs fascinating.

The last two on the right I actually built myself.

I did think there would be more CBGs on this post .

When I grow up I want to be a rock star.

I am loving this thread so much.

^^^^^^Too right Seamus great post^^^^^^.

I have a case of all scale Hohner Marine Band harps and loved blowing the Blues through various Harp Mic's.

Again inspired by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and The Pogues, and for some reason I cant think why I stopped blowing them.

But I have to say America's got some awesome talented musicians.

Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour/Pink Floyd for me over here.

I've always wished I could blow blues harp. I knew Greg "Fingers" Taylor from high school and through his time with Buffett. Great fella...killer harp player!

As for me, I've been a fan of Mark Knopfler's since the first time I dropped a needle on "Sultans of Swing" when that first album came out back in 1978, back when I was first working on radio. Lord, that man can PICK! His elpee with Chet Atkins, NECK AND NECK, is supremo. And hearing "Romeo & Juliet" from ALCHEMY can make me ugly cry each and every time I hear it...to this day.

I have always maintained that David Gilmour's first solo album -- also from 1978 -- is the best Pink Floyd album that never was. Simply magnificent.

So my uncle had a bit of a mixed relationship with Mark Knopfler. My uncle was JJ Cale (wrote Cocaine, After Midnight, Call Me the Breeze and Magnolia)...unlike Clapton who he has good friends with and won a Grammy with...he felt Knopfler totally stole his sound, the Tulsa sound, from him and never gave him creidit. Just gonna say Neil Young said the two greatest rock and roll guitarists of all time were Jimi Hendrix and JJ Cale. Not Knopfler.

So, before my life all went weird back in '95, I played with a group of friends. Our other guitarist - at one point - was a guy named Phil. Phil was weird. He rarely washed his hands to the point he had crud built up on the fretboard of his guitar. Phil was also a big Def Leppard fan which, in itself, is not a BAD thing, but it really didn't fit in with the groove of what we were trying to do. Eventually we just quit calling Phil and he sort of went away.

Years later, after Facebook became a thing, I reconnected with him after no small amount of debate. Unlike us, he was still playing music. He was filling in for a solo act at a local restaurant / bar and invited me down. I went back and forth and decided at the last minute I'd go see Phil.

When I walked in I heard a guitar. I don't remember what he was playing, but he had this little PA setup with a couple of speakers and some pedals. Apparently his signature piece is "Sultans of Swing". When he started playing I was impressed. When he started singing I was really impressed. When he sampled the rhythm part and punched in for the solo I nearly stood up and clapped. He was really good.

I sat and had a beer with him, we talked a little. I don't even remember what we talked about.

I haven't seen him since, but he's still playing.

DiBiasio,

Those old photos are priceless with memories. Thanks for sharing the past and future. You are still rocking. All I do now is twang my Deering Banjo during commercials while watching the news at night. Do it every night. My blushing bride has cast me out of the family room to the living room where I can pick and sip brandy. Life is good.

Bob Copeland

That is one famous musician to call uncle.

P.s I have seen a Interview were Knopfler pays tribute to JJ Cale as a great guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Thanks for sharing

These stories are great.

So I guess Seamus, Phil had cleaned up his act.

And a big thank you Bob for putting up a great and Interesting post, I think everyone has embraced this with great Interest and also been able to reminisce with their past.
Thank You.

Hear, hear! I often use Bob's posts to gauge my own thoughts or feelings about this or that or the other.

And you, Buggsy, have given me a jumpstart or two on here. Thank you for what I've gleaned from you as well.

Great thread, great responses...an all-'round great forum.

Full version of Telegraph road for me, tells a great story. 😉👍

I think I know how your uncle felt, and I would listen to his music over Knopfler's every time, but everything is built on everything else and there may have been some blues and country guys in Tulsa (and elsewhere) who thought your uncle stole their stuff. One of the greats for sure, I'm just...thinking on it.

Imagine, If you could put the members of this forum into a clubhouse and share a beer or two, nobody would leave sober

I may not even arrive sober

Oh, I love Knopfler myself ...I think there may have been a tad bit of jealousy on my uncle's part. Clapton made him a ton of money, and he probably wished Knopfler would have covered some of his songs, too.

The title of this thread, "ModernVespa Posters…" got me to thinking about the other kind of posters. Our band Candypants was on a bill at The Fillmore in San Francisco where they have a long tradition of making cool posters for their shows so we were hoping that, even as the opening act, we'd get our name on one. When we got there, the people from the venue looked a little nervous and immediatly handed us a bottle of whiskey. "Sorry about the marquee, and…the poster," one of them said. Turns out it said, "Candy Parts" instead of "Candypants". Really? Candy Parts? Like nougat or artificial flavoring? Is it really that hard to get right?

It's actually pretty funny now.

DiBiasio, you need to find a church man, Pray and repent your sins.

Naaa, forget that, the priest wouldn't have that much time

Talking of great American guitarists like your uncle I've just read that Rock 'n' roll pioneer guitarist Duane Eddy has died last Tuesday aged 86 in Tennessee, I can remember my Mother playing his records years ago.

Funny you should say that... our initial set list was around 45 min and every song was C,D,and G chords that was speckled with the occasinal F, A, or E and a couple miners tossed in to accomidate the mandolin player who was learning as he went

nope

As for Mr. Clapton, I'm with you, skids.

And as for Prince, I'm with you, skids.

nope

Speaking of guitar players, I have just realized that I'll be seeing/hearing Todd Rundgren in concert out here in the desert on June 22nd -- his 76th b'day! I've seen him many times, starting back in 1975, and every single time has been a joy.

And he ain't a bad guitar player, either!

Victor

Trixie and I saw him in Denver when he was doing the Utopia Reunion tour some years ago, and of course, not to boast or anything (?), but there was the added thrill of seeing him and Kasim Sulton using three of my guitars for
those shows.

Well I s'pose so! Great looking axes, sir! TR and Kasim used your guitars at a show they did out here in the desert roughly 6 years ago, and I've seen numerous pictures of TR playing other guitars that would have to be your designs.

I'll keep my eyes open in June.

You just never know who you're gonna meet here on MV!

Victor

They were only used for the Utopia tour. He chose them simply because he thought they visually went with the general theme of that particular concert. Six years ago is about right for the time frame that the concert tour was performed.

He probably still has them, but I don't think that he's used them since in any live performances.

Those three are the only 'Backlund' guitar models he's used.

They are a blue/cream model 100, a red/cream model 100, and a black/green model 400.

They were provided to him for the tour by their Canadian manufacturer and marketer, Eastwood Guitars.

As long as I'm name-dropping and wallowing in my past and glorious accomplishments as an obscure designer of oddball stringed instruments, Joe Walsh also owns a custom model 100 that he had built to his specs back around 2010(?), that was when they were still hand-built customs being made in Chattanooga by luthier Bruce Bennet.
Unfortunately, there are no known photos of Walsh playing it on stage, though he did on several occasions, or so I'm told.

Yet another Wrinkled Rocker here...

I started in a garage band in 1967, playing guitar with a tape recorder mike gaffer taped to the sound hole and playing through a modified turntable as an amplifier. Our debut concert was in 9th grade. We didn't win a prize, but the performing bug bit us hard. Roll on a few years and we had reasonable Japanese made Aria or Ibanez guitars, good used Marshall and Fender amps and performed twice a month on Saturday nights at a local church hall for fellow school kids. We pooled all the income into equipment for the band. Life was great!

The band split up after high school when everyone went to university / work.

I kept playing irregularly with a string of musical friends over the next 20 odd years until I joined a loose-knit group of guys with day jobs and an urge to play. Our practice venue was a home on a country home where the neighbours didn't hear us much. It was in a street called Ballyjamesduff (after a horse, I believe) and so the Ballyjamesduff Blues Band began with me on bass - there were three guitarists already.

We drifted into playing rock covers and our blues fanatic left in disgust, so we became the Ballyjamesduff Band, playing music from the 60s and 70s to 40 and 50-year olds. Again, we didn't make much out of our gigs. We pooled any money we did make and once a year went on tour for two weeks, blowing it all on travel and accommodation and playing one-night-only gigs for people who had never heard of us before in towns we had never heard of before.

Commercial ambitions started turning 'playing for fun' into 'turning semi-pro' and I left about 25 years ago. I turned over my instruments and amplifier to my then adolescent son who had just started in a band.

Now my adolescent grandson plays the very same instruments, jamming with his father and music tutor.

My second son went all classical on me and took up the violin at school, tutored by my MIL. He achieved Performer Grade at high school, but stopped due to problems with the bones and tendons in his left wrist. He took piano as a subject at high school, sitting his first exam at grade 4, rapidly moving to Performer Grade too before entering Uni.

My daughter dabbled at the piano a while, and now teaches foundation phase kids music, art and drama.

We had a Final Concert of the Ballyjamesduff Band some ten years back when every member in the history of the band got together and played one last time at the Italian Pizza/pasta Restaurant that hosted out first gig. Over the decades, we had recorded a few numbers and as a parting gift, we all received a well-mastered CD of our material.

My most vivid memories are linked to music !
I totally recall and relive them whenever I hear 'that song'.

"Music was my First Love and it will be my last...
music of the future and music of the past..."

So, here is Fudmucker on stage at a gig a quarter of a century ago...

Just got back from a wedding gig. Only $200, but also only 1 hour of playing plus 4 dinners and all the booze an Irish band can drink. All the booze, ha...they paid in the end.

Great story, Fudmucker. Thanks for sharing.