Rubberneck Guitar!

oh this is ever so cool. look what I just found in the StudioCloset.
the rubberneck guitar from laurie anderson's home of the brave movie.
it's amazing. it was in 1985 we made the movie (still not available on DVD)
before we began our month+ of filming, the propmasters byron lovelace and michael benson
asked if they could make me something special.
"oh yes, please", I said, "how about a rubberneck guitar"?
the first two they made were, how should I put it...flaccid.
so they came up with the brilliant! idea of putting metal vertabrae inside the rubber.
nice.
later I used the rubberneck guitar in the video for oh daddy
and received a chastizing formal complaint from some old clam
in canada saying I was vulgar.
speaks volumes about her thoughts, not mine.
it's such a fabulous prop, too bad you can't actually play it.

Roland, Roland, Roland, keep them doggies Roland...

when I prowl around in the studio closet
it's like being alone in a museum,
it's almost scary.
I find all kinds of hidden artifacts.
like the first Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer I ever saw.
blue. rectangle with a thick python-like chord sticking out,
and a big metal head you clip into your guitar. chung!
it's sitting in the StudioCloset.
new terminology like attack time and unlatch.
on my second trip to japan (with talking heads 1980)
Roland gave it to me.
like giving a kid a new universe to toy with.
I used that synth on so many records.
and then as the technology sped up I kept adding universes. some of them live in that closet.
guess what else is hidden in there?
robert's black Les Paul Custom
from In The Court Of The Crimson King.
looks a little tired now.
so it's sleeping.
metal fatigue.
but what an awesome beast!
and so many tapes, masters, dats, adats, CD's, and cassettes? of so much music!
I could never hear it all.
which bring me to a new subject.
dust.
music which sits on a shelf.
no longer. download me, baby.
each week we'll now offer a new particle of musical dust,
heard, or never heard before.
you can choose as much or as little as you choose.
(try not to have too much before bedtime. it can cause uneasiness).
ever your loyal public servant, I will try my best
to provide a runny commentary.
don't hate me if I fail.
so when does the glorious adventure shove off?
next week.
right after the SuperBowl.

a friend in deed..

you're having a warm and fuzzy dinner with friends.
what would you say to the one who told you
a 3-legged dog walked into a bar and said
'I'm lookin' for the man who shot my paw!
what would you say to that man?

Ian Wallace told me that joke, my favorite joke,
and I told it to Maynard (Tool) at mayard's halloween costume party.
turns out maynard starting telling it onstage. ha!
Ian and I like having dinner in a nice restaurant.
it's a weakness we indulge.
and when Ian and Margie lived here in nashville we indulged
our weakness every friday night at Houston's.
those were very fine times. filled with Ian's wit.
for about 5 months now, Ian has not had a nice dinner or a fine glass of wine.
if you look up "insidious" in the dictionary there's a picture of cancer.
Ian's fighting cancer.
like his friend george harrison.
Ian has many friends having played with bob dylan jackson browne henley .com
he is a king crimson alumnae. drummer.
as a drummer he rarely receives residuals. he's usually paid as he goes.
drummers live hand to foot.
Ian hasn't worked for quite some time
time.
it is time to help Ian.
on this matter, more to come...

Gorgeous George, The Blond Bomber*

next on the auction block from the fabulous Adrian Belew Collection comes this gorgeous
and very playable Heritage 575 archtop electric guitar. if only I could play jazz guitar like my pal mike gallaher I would probably keep this one, but it's wasted in my hands. it is a beautiful instrument with natural maple high quality craftsmanship throughout. and sounds, well, just like a jazz guitar! waarrrm. this is the Heritage version of a Gibson ES-175 like Steve Howe uses. I played it/recorded it for
conversation piece from
op zop too wah. as with most things I own, you could eat off of it. perish the thought.
OCB indeed, you should see me when I have almost finished a meal: there is always one single bite of each food group left on my plate. I can't help it because I don't know I'm doing it!
but evidently I ration myself as I go.

back to Heritage Guitars. an interesting story. the old gibson craftsmen refused to move
from kalamazoo. gibson moved here to nashville. but the old gibson craftsmen refused to move. so they made a deal with gibson to keep the old school guitar-making gizmos and they started Heritage Guitars.
everybody wins.
this piece of heritage is as good as they come.
flatwound strings. wood pickguard. humduckers.
check it out on ebay beginning Friday evening January 26 at 6:00p.m. pacific time.
you have 10 days to make up you mind:
how much do I love this guitar?

* gorgeous george was a blond TV wrestler in the early days of such cudge. my uncle jack used to watch him.
even though it has nothing to do with the sophistication of this instrument,
I call this one gorgeous george, the blond bomber..

hoots and shouts!

great news...the Adrian Belew Power Trio will be playing on the 15th of February in Cleveland at the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame. then on friday night at Canal Street, a cozy club in Dayton, Ohio. after that,
get ready to have your best hoots and shouts put on a live record!
The AB Power Trio is making side 4 the live record at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky on February 17th. this promises to be an awesome show for posterity and I'm hoping to see every greater cincinnatian I've ever known in the audience.
somebody bring me some Skyline! this is what I live for.

Cuddlefish or chameleon, you decide.

those of you visiting this site know by now of my propensity to change colors often. and so it is again. I had plans for touring march with something Robert Fripp (forever hereafter known as robert) calls K3. which would involve ProjeKct 6 (me and robert) as the opening act for the Tony Levin Band, followed by the Adrian Belew Power Trio, followed by an encore of robert, tony, adrian (the 3 kings of crimson) and eric slick playing a half dozen crimson classics.
that was the plan, but this is the music business and rarely do things acquiesce to our wishes.
as it turns out K3 will have to wait until the fall. this combined with the need for julie slick to finish out her semester until june caused a New and Improved! plan to be devised. the AB Power Trio will be bach (to quote the governator) post-june. meanwhile...

Lions and Tigers and...

you got it, Bears. who are nearing the finished line on our next as-yet-untitled effort, which we think may be our finest. we plan to have our record available by the last of march in time for a BEARS TOUR sometime through april-may. our agent Joshua Knight has already begun therapy in preparation for the big event. where would we like to play? well, everywhere there are people stupid enough to, no wait, that's not it. let's just leave it at everywhere. so start telling all your stupi, er, all your friends The Bears are coming. you never know, it could be our last tour ever, so let's pretend it is. it will take a few weeks before the dots (pun intended) start to connect (or else Joshua throws some darts at a map and that becomes the tour). but I will blog you to death when I know more.

Brownie

here she is, the Laurie Anderson Adrian Belew Fretless Wonder. there are two of these beauties, the other one is blue and fretted and shall remain on the StudioBelew wall. a true 1980's relic replete with early Roland Synth pickup and black Kahler tremelo. in its day this was state-of-the-art. still sounds and plays smooooth. I used this on some of the songs for the movie Home Of The Brave and then put it up on the wall as art.

testing 1 2 3

hello, is this thing on?
can anybody hear me?

testing 1 2 3

hey everybody look at me, Im a blog.
I'm not sure I belog here (pun intended)
but I'm ready to join the future.

for my first order of business
I was hoping to announce some very special dates coming up,
but now I'm told they may not happen after all.
welcome to the music business.
that's why I turned to auctioneering.

A Brief History Leading To A Large Yard Sale

guess what I've been doing this past December into January 07?
becoming a photographer!
that's right,
with the tripod the umbrella light, all that stuff.
I've been taking pictures day and night.
teaching myself how to photograph by taking shots of my gear.
guitars, boxes stomp boxes cases amps chords & more boxes.
they have taken over my studio.
the place looks like a shipping dock.

Ken is gone and I'm a little lost,
finding it hard to get started on anything new just yet.
without Ken I find myself wandering around StudioBelew
like a child moved into a new house.
there's so much stuff sitting around, most of which I never use,
it's like an attic and
I've decided it's time to clean house.
start fresh.
I'm finding things I haven't seen for years mingling with things I cherish
underneath things I didn't know I had.
housecleaning when you have a 10-year accumulation can be a taunting flask.

so it was in early January I gave up my position as
one of the world's guitarists
to take up my rightful place as an ebay salesman.
Adrian Belew, Auctioneer.
now I'm selling items on ebay day and night.
packing tape scissors and more boxes.
the extended computer facetime spent staring at a screen makes my left eye ache,
but the enjoyable part of my new job is making my own hours
and never having to say much.
after all, the selling is online
and photography is a one man show.
I'm snapping all the time. lighting things.
frame by frame.
(I suppose here I should insert a picture of me taking a picture).

on ebay you can tell my photos by the yellow wall backdrop against the maple floor.
it's the trademark of my ebay ads.
(always in the musical instrument listings).
to this point I have only sold little bits: guitar effect pedals mostly, amps, a few,
but now I am poised for auction excellence.
the next things I have in store (so to speak):
Fabulous Guitars from the Adrian Belew Collection.

our first item on the block is an historic art piece.
not much of a guitar perhaps (they forgot to put frets on it!)
but a true art piece.
hand painted by a true artist,
Laurie Anderson.
I played this guitar in Laurie Anderson's movie Home Of The Brave.
while wearing a sombrero!
a brown guitar.
Brownie.
it is brown but when you turn it around and upside down it makes a face.
like the ones in Laurie's movie.
yes, it's a fretless guitar, in fact a fretless guitar synthesizer,
if you have the old school connectors that came with Roland guitar synthes of the 80's.
or you can just plug it in per normal and play fretless guitar.
it features locking tuning keys, 3 single-coil pickups, a black kahler tremelo,
it has a painted-on telephone, lightning bolt, and a revolving chair.
a historic piece of 1980's state-of -the-art guitar technology.

to me it is more art piece than guitar and belongs on display
as it has been in my studio for nearly two decades.
Laurie Anderson hand painted it!
I said that, didn't I.

so...collectors with healthy PayPal accounts take note:
the hand painted, fretless Laurie Anderson Adrian Belew guitar art piece will go on auction
on ebay beginning Tuesday, January 23.
you will have 10 days to bid past its lofty reserve
and hang this beauty on your wall.

good luck and happy bidding.