Once upon a time in a galaxy a few decades away MTV was what it stood for: Music Television.
Jeff Beck’s guitar playing first tapped me on the ears in late 1985 or early 86, alls I remember is it was winter, and it was one of his videos being played on MTV (my, how times have changed). It was this one – bear in mind it was the 80s so cut the guy some slack:
I saw that video by complete accident. I used to sit in front of the TV and wait for videos that I wanted to see and record them so I could watch them any old time I wanted. Kids, welcome to what we did in the old days when people couldn’t hop on a computer and look things up on your internets and your Youtubes. If you wanted to see a video and you didn’t already have it on a VHS tape, tough cookies. You had to sit there and wait for it.
I don’t remember what video I recorded before Beck’s “Ambitious” but whatever it was I ran upstairs while it was on and left our 40 pound top-loading VCR recording. Eventually I headed back down to the basement, stopped the tape, rewound, hit the play button and started drawing pictures. The video that I intentionally recorded ended. I kept on a-drawing only to be disrupted by an electric guitar sound I’d never heard before: “errRERR-RRRERR-RERR!” (it occurs around 2:20 in the video above during Marylin McCoo’s cameo). I looked up. Woah, that sounded awesome. Hey, there’s Solid Gold host Marylin McCoo. I kept watching and wondering who this dude making all of those crazy guitar sounds was. It made me want an electric guitar even more than I already did. I’d just started taking guitar lessons around that time so had no real idea of what he was doing technically (or who he even was for that matter) but I sure liked what I heard. At the end of the video I saw the name JEFF BECK. I rewound to the beginning of the video, zeroed out the counter on the VCR so I knew where it started, and watched the whole video. I rewound back to 000 and watched again. And again. And again. In addition to the awesome guitar playing I thought he looked cool and was entertained by all of the celebrity cameos and sense of humor the video had (Herve Villechaize trying out for Jeff Beck?!)
The groove in “Ambitious” ear-wormed itself into my head and sparked an inner ambition to make the commitment of spending some of my hard-earned babysitting money on the album the song was on the next time the fam made a trip to Great American Music in Signal Hills Mall. A week or so later Jeff Beck’s Flash was finally inducted into my record collection. At that time my albums were mostly KISS, Motley Crue, Van Halen, Twisted Sister, and Stray Cats. At first I was worried that this hard-earned $7.98+tax purchase was an impulse buy. It was a little out of my comfort zone… I mean, look at the guy on the cover. He was dressed like he was heading to the mall for the afternoon. That wasn’t what my favorite rock stars at that that point looked like. I’d never heard of him before; he wasn’t in the HIT PARADER or CIRCUS hair metal magazines that I religiously read. He didn’t wear facepaint, spandex, didn’t have a crazy looking album cover… not even a crazy name. He didn’t even really look like the cool dude I saw in the “Ambitious” video, not to mention the version of it on the album didn’t have all of the extra guest voices the video did. Hmm.
Hit Parader: 100% Jeff Beck-free
I gave the record a few more chances and it grew on me like a parasite. In addition to the rest of his playing I memorized every little non-musical noise he made as if they were lyrics (much like I did with Brian Setzer’s playing a few years prior). This is how Jeff Beck’s guitar playing and I became best friends. He’s been my biggest influence as far as thinking outside of the normal guitar playing box and making weird noises goes. After trying out for a lot of bands in my 20’s and being in a few that stuck to 1 vibe and left me feeling empty it eventually dawned on me that if Jeff Beck can play whatever he wants, be stylistically all over the place and put things together that usually don’t go together, why in the hell can’t I?!
Brian Wilson weaseled his way into my musical palate a little bit later in life. I remember seeing my parent’s Beach Boys records with all of them in their matching striped shirts. I didn’t know who Brian Wilson was way back when but specifically remember that he reminded me of my dad’s cousin Jim in those pictures for some reason (I still can’t quite figure that one out). Fast forward to 1997 when the Pet Sounds box set was released. I read a review on it and was intrigued enough to check it out. As soon as I laid ears on “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” it was similar to how I’ve heard heroin junkies describe the first time they shot up – I INSTANTLY wanted more and needed that box set. Prior to my encounter with this box set I sort of wrote off The Beach Boys as a teenybopper band of their era who did “Help Me Rhonda”, “California Girls”, and “Kokomo” (ugh, gag me with a spoon). WRONG. Yeah, sure.. they did that stuff and although it has its moments there’s so much more to them than that. Sort of like when people only know KISS as the band that plays “Rock & Roll All Nite”.
I’ve spent countless hours dissecting and listening to Pet Sounds (and Smile in recent years) since. The vocal-only mixes in the Pet Sounds box set are some of my favorite things to listen to. The closest I ever came to meeting Brian Wilson is Chuck, the tattoo artist at Daredevil Tattoo in NYC who tattooed the Iced Ink mouse on my arm while we were on our 2007 NYC honeymoon. He resembled a young Brian Wilson. When we asked Chuck what he liked to do in NYC he told us to hop the L train and go check out Brooklyn. We did so and went and had beers and free pizza at The Charleston in Williamsburg; that was the night where I thought “Hm… living here would kinda rule…” It’s all Chuck’s fault.
Just like in the Steely Dan song, years were reeled in and time was stowed away. The summer of 2013 came along and a strong gust of music news collided with my eyes and shook my brain. It said something along the lines of this: Brian Wilson & Jeff Beck set 18 date tour. I checked the tour dates and saw the NYC Beacon Theater stop on there. There was no maybe, no perhaps.. there was only MUST. SEE. THIS. SHOW. And we did.
Never in my lifetime did I think I’d be cool with paying a little (okay… maybe a lot?) extra in order to do a meet-and-greet, but this proved to be the one exception that I would regret if we didn’t. Just to be in the same room as Brian Wilson and hopefully magically absorb some of his godlike musical powers was one thing. But to throw meeting Jeff Beck on top of that as well? Yes please. Ever since I was 18 or so I’ve had a list of Big 3 guitar players who I’ve always said I’d have sign me and get them tattooed in if I were ever lucky enough to meet them: Ace Frehley (check), Frank Zappa (not gonna happen), and Jeff Beck. I’ve met a lot of my favorite rock gods over the years – KISS, Bill Bruford, King’s X, Melvins, Sammy Hagar (Sammy haters, zip it) and Ozzy Osbourne to name a few. I have all of their signatures in books/posters/shirts hanging around our apartment. But I always felt it necessary to have those Big 3 autographs done on my person vs. a book or glossy promo photo if I were to ever meet any of them, and hell if I was gonna blow what could by my only chance at getting Jeff to complete the collection. He’s not necessarily the easiest guy to track down. Thankfully my lovely wifey was in full support of going for the VIP tickets and kept encouraging to order them. Decisions like these always bring to mind what the owner of our local record store In Concert once told me about a relationship I was in at the time (I was probably 19 or 20): “Shit or get off the pot!” Do or die wondering if you should have done it. After thinking on it a few weeks we ordered the tickets, and much to my surprise they weren’t all that much more than if we’d have just bought floor seats through Ticketbastard with how they price their tickets and tack on all of those gall damned “convenience” fees.
Show day came. According to the Beacon marquee when we got there it was sold out. We were herded into the 2nd row of the Beacon like cattle to watch the sound check. As we walked in we saw Brian sitting at his piano in his usual motionless state. The first thing I noticed were his eyes – looking into them you immediately get a sense of all of the deep, dark stuff that man has been through. They were the only part on his body moving and were scanning us carefully as we came in. We took our seats and kaboom – there was Jeff Beck off to the side goofing around with a slide, he kept on noodling and occasionally playing the melody to the Star Trek theme which made his band mates (and himself) laugh each time he did it. After getting the levels set for each band they sound checked both bands at once (both play for the grand finale of the show, 17 musicians in all). Jeff started playing one of my favorites of his, Brush With the Blues, and suddenly almost all 17 of the people onstage stepped up to their mics, opened their yaps and sang accompanying Brian Wilson-esque chord arrangements on top of it as I just sat there trying to refrain from drooling.
YES!!
Next up was meet and greet time. They like to keep things moving with these kinds of things and this was certainly no exception. Get in line, hand what you want signed to some big thuggy linebacker-looking fella (serving double duty as bodyguard, I reckon), stand behind the table they’re all sitting at, get your picture taken, and kindly get the hell out of there. Much like my Ace experience I was hovering on the inside as we approached the table. I went in for the kill: “Jeff! Jeff! I brought my arm all the way from Brooklyn and was hoping you’d be kind enough to sign it!” He said “Sure, just straight across right there?” pointing at my inner bicep that I’d already forgotten I’d presented him with. The next thing I knew his right hand was in my armpit as he was making the final stroke of the K. Holy. SHIT. I mumbled something about how beautiful sound check was and that I was looking forward to the show. He turned his noggin our way as we walked off and said “Thanks so much, man, I hope you enjoy it!”
We hovered out into the Beacon lobby next to a dude named Rob who we’d met waiting in line. I double checked my arm. Yup, okay, that just happened. We went out with Rob for a few celebratory beer drinks to kill the hour or so before the show and headed back to the Beacon for one of the best concerts I’ve ever experienced. We were a mere 30 or so feet from the stage. Brian Wilson and his band went on first – everything was crystal clear and sounded just as good (if not better than) the albums. Beach Boy members David Marks and Al Jardine were playing along and former member
Taken from our seats.
Blondie Chaplin also popped in for a few tunes. It was very humbling watching Wilson do his thing. It reminded me of when we went to see Les Paul – at times Les would take his hands off of his guitar and sway them in the air to the music as if it was pouring out of the sky and he was channeling it. Brian Wilson did a lot of that, it wasn’t like he was conducting the band so much as he was conducting the music itself and the vibe in the room. Outside of the rockin’ Beach Boy classics that got everyone up on their feet and moving around everyone seemed to be in a trance (myself included). After they played “You Still Believe In Me” I had to sneak out to give the beer I’d had before the show back to the land. I got back to my seat having only missed one song and after a few more tunes thought Wow, he’s really busting out the rare ones! Only after reading a review of the show the day after did I learn that while I was downstairs in the pisser Brian announced that they were playing Pet Sounds in its entirety, something that hadn’t yet been done on this tour. SCORE.
The man.
After being mesmerized by an hour long set, Jeff Beck & Co. took the stage to pick up where Brian left off and take everybody even further into outer space. I sat there studying his every move while mumbling the occasional ohmahgahd. He played “Where Were You”, something I’ve always wanted to see him play live. That ruled.
But wait – there’s more! Both bands joined together at the end for a few Beck tunes (got to hear the vocal-drenched version of “Brush With the Blues” again) followed by a buffet of Beach Boys hits. To hear that many instruments and layers of vocals live in an auditorium is truly an out of body experience. At times I’d look back and see the whole place standing there swaying in a trance just as I was – occasionally everyone’s heads slowly tilted backward together as if the music filling the air was a strong, slow gust of wind. I’ve never seen anything quite like that before and who knows if I will again. There was a great older couple we met during the sound check who have been Beach Boys groupies since the beginning and had the pictures on them to prove it. I can’t remember the woman’s name but she said she still had Carl Wilson’s sweater he gave her in the 60’s when she interviewed them outdoors and was chilly. Her husband asked me the cutest thing as we were filing out after the show: “So, we’ve never heard Jeff Beck before, he was really good… What would you consider his music, heavy metal?”
Apparently Wilson and Beck are working on an album together. I sure hope they cover some of their own material as they did at the show (I’d like to hear the Beck/Wilson version of “Surf’s Up” they did 1,000 more times, please) – but one thing I know fo sho, I will buy it the day it’s released, put on a neck brace, blast that sucker as loud as I can, and prepare for that hypnotic slow motion whiplash that listening to this dynamic duo at full-volume causes.
Freshly Sharpied by Jeff Beck
Needle & the damage done.
Wifey and I after the show.
