The cool thing is that you can see LD is just in awe up there on the stage
with his hero, that was cool to see. And hanging right there with the man.
Popper gave him space and props too. I just wish the sound was better. And
you cannot deny the audience is going nuts!
However, I was walking through a public shopping square area in Sydney
today
and there were three young yardbirds-type kids busking, all had the hair
so
long you couldn't see their faces, and also the aviators that are in style
now (sunglasses). Jimmy Page type guitarist riffing all over the place,
another kid strumming rythm (both electric), and a drummer. The thing was,
these kids were REALLY BAD. I'm serious, I hate to talk bad about a
musician. I can't believe they'd been playing very long at all. But guess
what - the guitar case was *full* of cash (holiday spirit?) and there were
beautiful women dancing and looking at them like they were gods, people
snapping photos, etc. I had the trusty C harp in my pocket, I wanted bad
to
jump up there, hell I couldn't have made them sound any worse and would
have
fit right in, haha. But the point is these kids were having a ball and
probably "accomplished the objective" of a 20-something year old musician
after the show and went home with some bucks to party. You don't have to
be
good to get an audience to go nuts, to the dismay of all you out there who
have made an art of your craft. But it helps, haha.
So back to Popper, well I also have a newfound respect for him. The
rock/pop
band I sit in with when they come to town asked me to add a new number to
my
repetoire that they want to do. Yeah, you guessed it - Run-Around. I tried
like hell to talk them into Whammer Jammer instead (hell, if I'm going to
spend weeks/months learn a harp opus I'd rather it be a more traditional
blues one!). So off I go, I've listened to this song so many times and
worked on parts of it I'm going to puke if I hear it again. I have the
first
solo down pretty well, about half-way through the second, which features
the
more blistering runs. The third/final solo doesn't sound that bad compared
to the other two. You folks that learn this stuff by plugging it into
Amazing Slow Downer guess what - it's still DAMN fast even at the slowest
setting and I can't pick up shit as far as the tabs using bendometer even
at
this slow setting. Let's see, I might be ready to play this by 2008! I
can't wait until this is done because it's holding me back on all the
other
stuff I want to learn, but I guess any time the harp is in your mouth you
are learning. BTW is there any OB/OD on this song? One tab I've seen has a
6-blow bend which would be an OB, unless that's a mistake in the tab. Not
really leaning on tab, really just the song, slow downer, and my ears to
try
to pick it all up. I think I wore out my practice harp on this one song so
far, the blow bends are a mother at that speed.
PS Well I think Matt maybe meant to private mail me on the Stones comment,
so the Copy All monster strikes again if that's so. No biggie, I've done
it
myself, we all have probably. But the stones did let Sugar Blue sit in
(and
feature on the song Miss You) but you can see they didn't let him blister
as
he often does (and he's right up there with Popper on that stuff). He does
a
much more Popper-like rendition of Miss You on his own CD (well really
Sugar-like since that one is truly in his style).
PSS See my report on seeing Popper in San Fran not long ago, good show, I
don't think I did it justice but I enjoyed it, just cranky because I had
to
leave early at that point (and didn't get to hear Run-Around if he played
it). It's not blues traveler, some other band he has, Popper Project, but
they're excellent musicians so go on our and support them. If Jason's in
town the same time though, go to the New Blood, haha. Now that would be
cool, seeing JR and Popper up there together. The universe would probably
implode from the sheer pressure of the vortex that would form, a crack in
the time-space continuum and maybe Little Walter would come strutting back
through the black hole through time that would appear.
Bill Hines
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 1:44 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Youtube of LD Miller with John Popper
> Stunning. That kid can blow, man. Hyper-fast runs like LD Miller and
> Popper do are certainly not great for every song, and I think they can
> both
> go overboard at times, but I love hearing this stuff in the context of
the
> fast rock music provided by Blues Traveler. The best part of the video
is
> towards the middle when the rest of the band gets quiet and the two harp
> players synch up beautifully. The audience is clearly going nuts over
> this
> stuff -- keep that in mind, ye detractors. These guys are very
> entertaining.
>
> Also, more than ever I am ashamed of myself for having not yet seen
Blues
> Traveler live.
>
> Jonathan Metts
>
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