Ladies and gentlemen: 12 string guitar gawd LEO KOTTKE
Every time I go to sweep the dust bunnies out from under our bed I have to take all of the guitar cases out from under it, and every time I do I see a big black case, the contents of which I for some reason forget that I own: a 12 string geetar! As an avid Leo Kottke disciple since the age of probably 12 (coincidence?) it’s nice to have one at the ready in my guitArsenal of instruments, even if it spends most of its life under our bed and I forget about it. I obtained my first 12 back in 1988 that a few family members were awesome enough to pitch in to buy my for Christmas. I LOVED the thing, however abandoned it at some point because over time the neck warped, making it pert near impossible to play. A few years ago I got the 12 string itch and spotted a cheap Takamine on Craigstlist. A bike ride to a dude’s house and a couple hundred bucks later I was back in the 12 string groove again. (Side note: biking with a 12 string in a heavy hardshell case = not so fun.) Yesterday I cleaned out under the bed and there was the case with old twelvy in it, sitting there lonely and neglected. I promised myself to bust it out within the next 24 hours, and that I did this morning to take a break from the mind-numbing monotony of job searching.
“Airport Song” is one of the first solo acoustic tunes I ever made, I think it was born some time in the earlier portion of the 1990s. Version 1 was done in 2 separate parts on 2 separate tracks as sort of a guitar duet, because I wasn’t developed enough yet at that point to figure out how cram everything into one solo guitar piece. Version 2 was a big heavy rockin’ Joe Satriani-esque sounding thing with loud guitars and my drum machine… and then in the late 1990s it finally grew up and became Version 3, the final version – a solo guitar tune at last!
This 12 string of mine is much better for strumming than it is finger picking, but it’s still fun to rock out a Finnegan tune on it every once in a while. Hopefully some day when I grow up I can get my meat hooks on a Leo Kottke 12 string model that’s probably much more fingerstyle friendly. Here’s the best out of 3 takes of “Airport Song” on 12 string… And now, back under the bed it goes. Thanks for watching! If you’d like to hear the “real” 6 string version along with a whole album of this stuff feel free to head on over to http://mikekrenner.bandcamp.com!
