Steel guitar, not country

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 28 Sep 2009 10:25 am

I just saw a posting of this video from Analog Live, a show at the RedCat Theatre in LA, 2007. Which was a collaborative performance of analog synthesizers, including Alessandro Cortini, Richard Devine, Gary Chang, Thighpaulsandra, Peter Grenader and myself. I was included on steel guitar and another large instrument called the Towers, because I have a synthesizer background.

This is a shortened version of Alessandro Cortini's piece where I'm playing the long tones and Gary is adding harmony with his Wiard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pavBmNdVfQY

Daniel Morris · Post by **Daniel Morris** » 28 Sep 2009 1:56 pm

Dang, I wish I could pick up gigs like that!
Nice work, Chas! Was Cortini familiar with steel guitar? Whatever the case, your playing complements the music superbly.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 28 Sep 2009 8:25 pm

Daniel, they don't come along very often and the logistics on that one was pretty complicated. Richard is east coast and Thighpaulsandra lives in the UK. Each of us had a piece and the idea was that it would be a collaboration. There were a couple of now-what-are-we-going-to-do rehearsals, where not much happened, huge equipment hassles, Richard was too sick to go to any of the rehearsals and Peter had to completely rewrite his piece the night before we played it, not to mention that the day before the show was an all-day load in and set up. So much for the dress-rehearsal. Still in all, it went very well and the place was packed.

Alessandro is a very bright young man. I'm sure he knew about steel guitars, beyond knowing what I do and he gets some really impressive sounds out of the Buchla. That track on Youtube is only the intro and the end.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 28 Sep 2009 8:49 pm

This was the "dress" rehearsal.

A couple of Alessandro and yours truly:

And while we're at it, my solo on the Towers:

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 30 Sep 2009 8:52 am

Chas, I'm not sure what part of what I'm hearing is you. I see you doing something physical, but I cant separate it sonically from the rest of the droning. Is this all that different than, say, Phillip Glass? Enlighten me.

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 30 Sep 2009 12:10 pm

Barry, what's going on here is Alessandro is doing "point" loops and patterns and I'm "forcing" it into a tonality with a layering of 'long tones', if I remember correctly, that were around I and IV in F and then Gary supports and complicates that. The idea being, not to make chord patterns, but to simply have a center, at least in the beginning. Basically, if Gary was to play something like a "IV chord", I would have played a I or V to take away the specific tonality or I might have played a IV a half a fret down to muddy it up. Here, I'm playing diads and moving the bar around to keep it from getting too stationary and when Gary gets a little further out, I play a diad, straight up, to keep it centered, at least in the beginning. The Youtube has a jumpcut to the ending. Things got a lot more complicated and I spent a lot of time on the bass neck.

The thing is, once you state where you are, it kills all of the places you could be.

Steve Hotra · Post by **Steve Hotra** » 30 Sep 2009 2:47 pm

Chas,
I like it.
Pedal Steel guitar is way more versatile than people give it credit for.
Nice playing.
Steve

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 30 Sep 2009 3:27 pm

Great stuff Chas. My hat's off to ya

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 1 Oct 2009 4:34 am

Very cool.

Paul Graupp · Post by **Paul Graupp** » 4 Oct 2009 3:31 am

I've said this before but it bears repeating:

You're THE Man !!

Regards, Paul