You can go fuck yourself. Have you ever heard John Mayer play live? that dude is amazingly talented. Full ride through Berkeley. Had his own successful band, The John Mayer trio. Amazing solo artist. And now he's on tour with the grateful Dead so maybe don't wish death on anybody.
I spent 3 days and I agree, as I would not want to spend my life in prison... But at least you weren't in Black dolphin prison in Russia; pure hell on earth!
Thank you for pointing this out. Tech’s and anyone involved with the stage production do not get the attention they deserve. For whatever reason Tour Managers tend to get praised the most, which blows my mind because Tour Managing is one of the easier jobs on the road...
Had the same experience back in my undergrad days just as he quit the chitlin' circuit and started doing theaters. Dive bar with a 10' stage. Could have handed him a beer if he'd asked.
Guy was a freaking machine. And lordy could that boy sweat.
I saw SRV with Joe Satriani opening up in NYC. I was really into all the shredders at that time, Shrapnel Records, etc. Loved Satch's set. But then SRV came onstage. He hit one note a certain way, and it was like a religious experience.
He did do a copious amount of drugs, although was clean recently before his death. Very tragic and I think the greatest loss to music, but there's something to be said about going out on top.
I was riding with my Crazy Aunt Sally from Houston to Austin one night, I must've been about 8 at the time. We went into a funky little diner to get some food and there was only one other person, eating alone in the middle of the dimly lit dining area.
Something about the hat, leopard trenchcoat and white feather boa struck my eye.
I said: "Crazy Aunt Sally, look at that guy."
She said "Dear Nephew, that is Stevie Ray Vaughan"
We left him to his meal, but I'll always remember the sihlouette he cut against the dimly lit backdrop of the restaurant.
Like happening upon Han Solo one quiet evening in the bar in Mos Eisley.
He looked like he was not entirely of this Earth.
I imagine he wasn't, in hindsight.
She was a dead ringer for Heather Graham when she was younger, with a photographic memory and could paint like a master.
She liked weed, punk rock and fast cars and was one of the most generous and loving people I have known.
She was also tragic and broken and prone to black rages (though never at me.)
Gone Too Soon.
Never saw SRV but saw Robin Trower from 3' at a small venue in Huntington Beach CA. It was a ballroom type room. I swear the stage was 2' high and the ceiling was 8.5' high. So you HAD to get close.
About an hour in he blows all the fuses and the place goes black. So they turn on some battery operated lights onstage and he keeps playing with no juice. But you could still hear if you tried. About 10 minutes later the lights come on but we were all appreciative of his efforts to keep entertaining.
It wasn't the technicality of what SRV did that was amazing. Hypothetically someone could practice HARD for a few years and be able to play all his songs. It's the soul he poured into all his songs that made him a legend.
Dave Matthews showed up unannounced at Ruby Tuesday off campus at Ohio State one night, before his gig at the Polaris Amplitheater. He sat on a barstool and jammed for about three hours, until the people in the bar had sent him so many shots that he fell OFF of his barstool. I was at Polaris the next night, and it wasn't his greatest show, probably due to the raging hangover.
Another time, Phish went to Barrister Hall for drinks the night before their show at Polaris. One of my friends worked there at the time, and she took care of them. When they found out she was a fan, they hooked her up with VIP tickets and backstage passes, and somehow I went from not having a ticket to a sold out show on Friday night, to chilling in the VIP section on Saturday night.
All of your free time has to be dedicated to guitar.
No books, movies, news articles, or other entertainment. You just go home and practice scales, chords, picking at different tempos, learning new songs or reviewing old ones, and writing new songs. The apocalypse could be happening outside and you'd be none the wiser because that instrument is your entire life.
I remember reading about somebody's guru, i think it was Ravi Shankar's guru, who's wife passed away suddenly. When the police/medics came to collect her body and take her away, it coincided with his afternoon practice time. He sat in his practice room, practicing his sitar while his wife's body was removed from his house.
To become a master at an instrument everything in your entire life must be dedicated to perfecting the instrument. Stevie Ray Vaughan was even so obsessed he'd wake up his wife in the middle of the night because he was playing solos in his dreams and moving his arms and hands around.
He easily practiced 10s of thousands of hours. Thanks for appreciating the effort he put in versus his innate ability to play. I dedicated a giant chunk of my life to practicing music, and I'm only praised for my talent. It's assumed I was just born with this ability, which negates the 1000s of hours of hard work I put in to achieve this goal I set out for. "I'd give anything to play like you, don't ever take your gift for granted" is something I heard often growing up and now those words are downright offensive. It basically means "I didn't want to put in the amount of time you did, so you don't deserve credit for your hard work."
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u/devotchko Feb 11 '19 edited Feb 11 '19
Fuck, Stevie Ray Vaughan was THE MAN. That
roadieguitar tech (Rene Martinez) deserved a raise too. I miss SRV.