Gibson RD

The other night I saw Ghost in concert for the second time.  Since I already commented on the prior concert last year, I’ll comment on the guitars instead.   Aside from the singer, who calls himself Papa Emeritus III, the other band members – two guitarists, a bassist, keyboardist, and drummer – refer to themselves as “Nameless Ghouls” and dress identically.  Both years the costumes were black robes with various symbols on them, with the facial coverings differing:  in 2014 it was “plague doctor” masks (black, beaked faces like the medieval plague doctors who attempted, none too successfully, to cure the Black Death in the 1300s) and this time around it was silver devil masks, mouthless with horns.  Both are damn cool.

The two guitarists, NG/GB (guitarist, black) and NG/GW (guitarist, white) played Gibson RDs, in black and white, thus the names.   They traded solos, so each could be considered a lead guitarist.  Later in the set, NG/GB pulled out a sunburst RD.  Since he has an Omega symbol on his black RD, some of the fans have begun referring to him as Omega.  As you can imagine, calling them all Nameless Ghouls gets confusing.

The odd thing is that Ghost seem to be the first band to play these instruments professionally.  I’ve yet to see any other musician use them - except Jimmy Page playing one on "Misty Mountain Hop" at Knebworth.  And Gibson is a popular brand.   Les Pauls, SGs, Explorers, Flying Vs, ES335s, Firebirds, all have several musicians well associated with the specific models.   Krist Novoselic of Nirvana played a bass version. 

Design.  It looks like someone took brown acid, freaked out, and attacked an Explorer.  Then instead of using an offset headstock, 6 tuners in a row, they simply used the standard 3x2 Gibson headstock.  When the acid wore off, they decided that active electronics were cool – which we now associate with EMG pickups.  The Standards kept standard pickups, with the Artist and Custom models with the fancy electronics.  Active electronics were something Gibson was experimenting with back then, and the RD wasn't the only model they came in. "Artist" versions of the Les Paul and ES335 were also issued, but not very popular.  My guitar teacher, Joel, had an ES335 Artist model - a bunch of switches on an otherwise 50s style guitar was a dead giveaway.

Joel also gave me a stack of old Gibson sales literature which included the RD.  The original run was in 1977-79, with reissues sold in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2014; only the 2014 has active electronics. 

In addition to not seeing any professionals play this model until Ghost came around, I’d never seen any in music stores or used guitar stores – until I found a 2014 Artist at Guitar Center Times Square recently.  I might have played it briefly out of sheer boredom and curiosity, as I’d never buy it - white with gold hardware is not my scene, black with chrome/nickel is my preference.

The show at the Fillmore Silver Spring was packed – much more crowded than last year’s show.  Will Ghost be able to continue their momentum?  Who knows.  If they do, I can see Gibson RDs suddenly getting much more popular.   The guitar players among the Ghost fandom have already begun to notice.

Barnaby

I just finished Book 2 of the compilation series.  It says “2 of 5” but #3 isn’t even out yet, nor do I see dates for #4 or 5.  Anyhow, 2 was enough to enjoy for now.  I can’t take credit for discovering this on my own; Reason Magazine, which acts for the Libertarian movement as The Nation does for Bernie Sanders’ crowd, alerted me to this in an article last year by Jesse Walker, https://reason.com/archives/2014/12/25/our-fairy-godfather/print.

These comics (in Books 1 & 2) ran from 1942-45 (i.e. during WWII) in the US.   The author, Crockett Johnson, is best known for Harold and the Purple Crayon, so the style is familiar; incidentally, there are 7 Harold books, not just “Purple Crayon”.  Unusual for cartoonists, CJ used typeface for dialogue, in Futura Oblique; regrettably this font is not available in my current version of MS Word, otherwise I would have used it. 

Barnaby.  A young boy, about 5 years old.  He’s fairly clever but also quite sensible.  One night he wishes for a fairy godmother, and instead Mr. O’Malley shows up.  From then – until he turns 6, the cutoff age for fairy godparents – O’Malley serves as his best friend and companion.

Naturally his parents don’t believe him about Mr. O’Malley, but his friend Jane sees O’Malley, and other characters also see him even if they don’t recognize him as such.  Barnaby isn’t particularly special or heroic and fills the role of a typical child. 

Mr. O’Malley.  “Cushlamochree!”  He often exclaims.  He’s been around for some time, so long that he sometimes makes mistakes (e.g. confusing Thomas Dewey with Admiral Dewey).  He has magic powers, but tends to employ them by mistake rather than competently.  It’s never quite clear whether he’s genuinely trying to help Barnaby in some way or does so to advance his own agenda. 

Gus the Ghost.   Fairly quiet, demure, shy, and – oddly for a ghost – apparently scared of most things, when most people would be scared of him. 

There are all sorts of other characters along the way, including an invisible leprechaun, a few genies, and a witch who’s never heard of the Grimm fairy tales. 

While falling short of being psychedelic, they are somewhat surreal.  They have that endearing quality of being suitable for children while also appealing to adults.  I found I could follow most of the references, and whichever ones eluded me were helpfully explained by footnotes at the end.  The time frame of books 1 & 2 cover WWII, but there are far less references than I’d expect.  With the backwards-time ghosts, a newspaper headline says “RED ARMY SMASHED” (probably referring to a battle in 1941 or 1942) although it’s 1944 by then.  No mention of VE Day or VJ Day, various references to US civil defense and rationing, a demon also doubles as an Axis spy, but not much else.

What’s also remarkable is that Crockett Johnson (real name: David Johnson Leisk) was a socialist, but very little of that came out in Barnaby.  Fortunately for socialists, with the Soviet Union allied with the US after Pearl Harbor, views which might be construed as pro-Stalin were simply patriotic.  He bears a slight resemblance to Robert Fripp.  

Rod Evans

In August 1985 my family was visiting London, England, staying in an apartment we swapped with another US Dept of Commerce family who lived in southwest London, nearest the Baron’s Court Underground station.   Although I haven’t been back since then, if you dropped me off there, I could probably find my way to the “flat” by memory.  I could probably do the same with Michel-Ange Molitor in Paris to our apartment in Rue Van Loo, despite not having been there since January 1979, but enough irrelevant boasting.

Fortunately there was a record player in the flat which we used to listen to three new LPs:  Van Halen 5150, Judas Priest Turbo, and Deep Purple Book of Taliesyn.  This was their second album, released in October 1968, from the now-forgotten Mark I lineup:  Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Jon Lord on keyboards, Ian Paice on drums – the core of Mark II and III – plus vocalist Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper.  I knew of this lineup from a book on Deep Purple.  Did I buy it from WH Smith in Paris, or the Stars & Stripes at SHAPE in Belgium?  I can’t remember.  Anyhow.

Deep Purple Mark I.  This was NOT Mark II:  “Smoke on the Water”, “Highway Star”, etc.  This was…different.  Ritchie’s guitar and Jon’s keyboards were there, but the songs and voice…  Very different.  At this time (1968) Deep Purple was making an odd attempt at being a commercial band.  And they did have one hit, “Hush”, which even the current Mark VII lineup still plays in encores even if Ian Paice is the only common band member.  This lineup released three albums:  Shades of Deep Purple (7/68), Book of Taliesyn (10/68), and (self-titled) Deep Purple (6/69).  They were popular in the US and toured there, opening for Cream and Vanilla Fudge, and even featured on “Playboy After Dark”.  Back in the UK, album sales were dismal and audiences hated them, believing them to be a bubble gum pop American band.  I have a recent live release recorded on their US tour, opening for Cream (Live at Inglewood 1968). 

Back then I had to buy the vinyl, which I still have, in addition to later deluxe digitally remastered CDs with extra tracks.  Of the original three, Book of Taliesyn is one I regularly listen to, most often, out of sheer pleasure, though the others aren’t bad.  For the rest of you circa 2015, you’re in luck: all three Mark I albums are on Spotify. 

In summer 1969 the other three gave Rod Evans and Nick Simper the boot in favor of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, and Mark II was born.   Gillan and Glover had actually been their preference a year earlier, but at that time their band Episode Six was still on its way up, and the pair felt an obligation to push it as far as it would go.  By summer 1969, however, Episode Six had run out of steam.

Simper wasn’t very happy with his departure.  Later he formed a band called Warhorse, which to date I’ve never heard.   To my knowledge he’s still alive and active, his latest band being Nasty Habits, with a new album, De La Frog Conspiracy.   Check out his website (www.nicksimper.com).   He’s obviously not forgotten that he used to be in Deep Purple.

Captain Beyond.  Rod Evans initially retired from music, married, and moved to the US.   But later he joined a band called Captain Beyond, with some castoffs from Iron Butterfly.  Captain Beyond recorded two albums (plus a recently released live album) with Evans, Captain Beyond and Sufficiently Breathless.  They’re still around, though without Evans and without Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, the lead guitarist, who died recently.  This music is excellent 70s’ psychedelic rock, in the vein of Bloodrock, Sir Lord Baltimore, Dust, Budgie, and those obscure bands guys like me listen to but no one else does. 

However, Evans quit Captain Beyond after those two albums.   So far as I can tell, he was unhappy as a musician and never recovered from being sacked by Deep Purple, however sanguine he might have been about the departure when it actually happened.  But he wasn’t done yet….

Deep Purple 1980.   The last lineup, Mark IV, split up in 1976, and guitarist Tommy Bolin died of a heroin overdose a few months later.  By 1980 the former members were either in Whitesnake with Mark III/IV vocalist David Coverdale, Rainbow with Ritchie Blackmore, or minding their own business.  Ian Gillan had his own band, but I’m not aware of any ex-DP who ever served in his solo band.  Since DP was dormant, some sleazy promoters put together an ersatz Deep Purple to tour around.  Nick Simper refused to be part of it (to his credit) but Evans showed poorer judgment and agreed.  The other band members - Tony Flynn (guitar), Tom de Rivera (bass), Geoff Emery (keyboards), and Dick Jurgens (drums) - shared nothing in common with Deep Purple.  DP’s former managers couldn’t enjoin the farce, but they did put out ads in in the local papers warning that no member of Mark II or III would be present on the tour, which lasted May to September 1980 in Mexico, the US, and Canada; some footage of the Mexican shows is up on Youtube.   When fans realized it was a hoax, the scene got ugly.   Mind you, these guys weren’t claiming to be a NEW lineup, they were claiming to actually be Deep Purple, and playing Mark II and III material as if it was their own.  DP’s management eventually secured a substantial judgment (US $672,000) against Rod Evans, which has effectively killed what was left of his musical career; any subsequent earnings would be levied upon to satisfy the unpaid judgment. 

A website devoted to this band, somewhat complimentary (oddly enough) is here: http://www.cream-revival-band.com/Bogus_Deep_Purple_1980.html.

To date, his whereabouts remain unknown, and given the circumstances I’m sure Evans wants to keep a low profile.   Some people on the DP website asked about that, and one person replied, “leave the poor guy alone.”

Voice.  What does he SOUND like?  Well, he has a rich, deep, voice, well suited for sensitive ballads, a little less so for hard rock or heavy metal.  This was the reason given for Deep Purple’s dismissal of him in favor of Ian Gillan, whose shrieking ability is well known by now (even if he shrieks less often these days and his hair is short).  However, he did a fine job in Captain Beyond, and guitarist Larry “Rhino” Rheinhardt (RIP) noted that while Evans was very insecure about his vocal ability, the band thought he was great; he’s competitive with the other singers of that era and tops Burke Shelley of Budgie.  Clearly the two CB albums are worth checking out, but I’d start with Book of Taliesyn.    

Innocents Abroad

I finally finished Mark Twain’s travel diary, written in 1867.   Original name Samuel Clemens, and best known for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain went on an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East, then came back to write about it.  It was his best selling work during his lifetime.

By the way, this is not his ONLY travelogue.  Roughing It covers 1861-67 but was published after Innocents.  It covers his travels in the American Wild West.  A Tramp Abroad (1880) covers travels in Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy.  Life on the Mississippi (1883) covers… life on the Mississippi.  This guy was on a river boat, it seems.  Who knew.  Following the Equator (1897) covers… the British Empire.

The trip left from New York City, traveled across the Atlantic to the Azores, to Gibraltar, and to Marseille.  From Marseille they took the train north to Paris.

Paris, France.  He attended Napoleon III’s Exhibition which was the French Emperor’s formal unveiling, as it were, of the new Paris he and Baron Haussmann had spent the last 15 years or so renovating.  He seemed impressed with N3 but less so with the Ottoman Emperor who accompanied his French counterpart.  Mind you, the Eiffel Tower was still 20 years away (1889 exhibition). 

England, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia?  Nope – at least not in this book.  

Italy.   Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii (no Pink Floyd).  Lots of art, lots of museums, etc.  He enjoyed messing with the guides by professing ignorance of Christopher Columbus.  Also, they called all the guides “Ferguson” regardless of actual name or nationality.  He did find it odd that many churches all claimed to have relics of saints, sometimes the SAME relics.  Guides tried to tell tourists what they wanted to hear – imagine that.

Greece.  The ship was quarantined off the coast at Athens.  Fortunately, at night, he and a small group succeeded at sneaking ashore to visit the Acropolis.  So his tour of Athens, as it was, ended up being a sneakfest in the dead of night. 

Russia.  He actually met Tsar Alexander II in Odessa.   Since no one in the tour group was a celebrity, aside from him, and he didn’t consider himself important enough to merit the personal attention of a reigning monarch, this impressed the hell out of him.  He had a highly favorable impression of the Tsar.

Turkey.  Constantinople, as Istanbul was called back then.  They sampled the famous Turkish baths.  Smyrna, Ephesus and other places also got the Twain Treatment.

Holy Land.  Damascus.  Jerusalem.   The biggest thing which struck Twain was how small it was.  I’ve heard Israel described as being the size of New Jersey (i.e. not that big) and sure enough everything seems close by.  For my part, I was struck at how pious and believing Twain was.  For a guy as acidic and cynical about everything, he displayed none of that on the substantive issues of Jesus, Mary, and basic tenets of Christianity.  He seemed to shine his beam of cynicism on the pilgrims who accompanied the group:  overworking the animals to make a three day journey take two days, and knocking off bits of masonry as souvenirs.  Also, the guides threatened that the local Bedouins were hostile to pilgrims, so that guards were necessary for protection, but they never seemed to be in any danger – he suspected it was overstated to spread the wealth to guards personally related or acquainted with the guides.  Twain got a major kick out of visiting all the places mentioned in the Bible – for real.  WOW.  Mind blown.  Etc. 

Egypt. The Sphinx and the Pyramids.  Remarkably similar to what I saw in Egypt on a class trip during high school (1985).  As usual the locals try to fleece the tourists.

Back home.   By way of Tanger.   By that time everyone was so burnt out they just wanted to get home again.  Nothing much would faze or impress them – least of all Twain himself. 

I read it on Kindle – itself a swindle, as despite being described as “illustrated” there were NO illustrations included; I had to observe them online. 

It took me awhile to read and wasn’t nonstop action, fun, or wit.  He stops short of being completely full of himself, so I never lost patience, but it was somewhat of a lengthy digestion, not a book to be quickly devoured over a single weekend.  Nonetheless, being personally familiar with much of the area he was covering, and vicariously familiar with the rest, I certainly enjoyed the journey. 

The most important element is – as I’ve noted – his delicious cynicism and skepticism.  He frequently quoted contemporary guide books, all of which put the places in improbably positive lights.  “I’m not sure we visited the same place,” muses Twain.  If he saw shit, he’d tell us – and not totally ignore it.  I found Bucharest (which he didn’t see) to be extremely dirty.  Hell, aside from Barra da Tijuca and some parts of Ipanema and Leblon, Rio de Janeiro is very dirty.  And I’m not even talking about the favelas.  But he has such a clever way of knocking things that it’s entertaining in its own right.  So enjoy the travel diary of a man who wasn’t afraid to tell it like it was.