Grateful Dead

....but Beck and Depp put out a release last July. Playing it now while I do the dishes.

Just yesterday, my 12 year old asked me "who are the top 5 rock guitarists of all time?" I said, "there's only three on that top tier, Jimi Hendrix, EVH and Jeff Beck."

Ironic that Beck passed today. I've been on a Beck binge for about the last week, completely unknowing about his illness... I was going through my library and got on eBay and found copies of the last four missing albums I did not have.

Truth arrived today... listening to it now. Fantastic. My favorites are actually Blow by Blow and Wired.

Jeff Beck is the finest musician I ever saw in my life - twice. The last time, he did his instrumental version of "A Day In The Life," and it was all I could do to keep from crying... it was so emotive, so enchanting, he actually distilled the Beatles and the 60s and the entire sad death of the dream down to one song and it nearly broke me. So beautiful.

God bless you Jeff, you truly had God in your hands whenever you picked up a Stratocaster.

\m/

First, my thoughts and prayers go out to all those in California, including family out there. In shock to hear about Jeff Beck's passing, how can it be, expected him to hammer on for years. Like the very first time I heard Jimi, I recall exactly where I was when first heard the "Shapes of Things" version from Truth. I knew the Yardbirds well enough in the 60s, what Beck had done there, Truth was his launch pad to greater things. Only time I saw him, October 1968 when his group opened for Big Brother at the Alexandria VA Roller Rink. A virtuoso, like Jimi, like Roy, like Jerry and a very few others, his guitar could talk, communicate unspeakable emotions, reach right into your heart and tickle your mind.

Only got to see him once, but it was in my favorite era of his, late '70s or so shortly after Blow by Blow and Wired had come out. So most of what he played that day was from those releases.

Years later I'd listen to these discs and still marvel at his inventiveness in throwing notes where you didn't think they'd be, or quite imagine them that way until you heard him do it.

My most ironic experience with his music was driving on a two lane highway in Utah a few years back coming out of the mountains in the winter. Freeway Jam came on the radio, one of the few times I ever heard a tune from Blow by Blow on the radio in recent decades. I was passing a double long semi going somewhat uphill, pumped up by the tune, and didn't see the passing lane ending sign because the truck was blocking it.

All of a sudden the truck is pulling into my lane as I'm only half way past it, and another car is coming at me from the other direction and not moving over at all to let me finish my pass. I had a split second to decide, and gunned the car to pass back in front of the truck just in time to avoid the oncoming car by a few feet. I'm normally a pretty even keeled customer, but that one shook me up for a few hours. Glad that I didn't become Freeway jam myself.

Lately, I listen to Beck's Rock 'n Roll Party album pretty often. Another great road trip disc where he hits on his rockabilly roots.

RIP to one of the best.

Me and the Mrs. gonna do a tribute on the big stereo tonight. My collection is quite good. So many great memories.

....I pay very close attention to the snow that the western slopes of the Rockies get, because that's what feeds the Colorado River, which in turn fills Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Saw on the news the other day that the water level in Lake Mead actually went up a foot last month.

Favorite Jeff Beck solo release.
Peace

Last fall I saw a news article about a climate scientist who ran calculations and said that an atmospheric river would come this winter to CA. He predicted that it would be like the last bad one to hit CA in the late 1800’s, may have been 1865, and there was a black and white photo of downtown Sacramento with people walking in waist-deep water.

It’s like a slap in the face to get the water you need during a drought, only to have it wreck everything as it quickly goes to the ocean.
Snowpack is needed, not flash floods.

What a virtuoso and then some! Sounds like bacterial meningitis came out out of nowhere. Dammit. . . I bought Truth when it was released during the summer before 10th grade. What an album: Shapes, You Shook Me, Ain't Superstitious, . . . sheesh the whole album . . . even has Morning Dew. Once I got wheels, I remember blowing away friends on the 8-track I’d cobbled into my ’62 Chevy Bel Air while we cruised the cotton fields in Arkansas. Yeow! What amazing music we grew up with back then. Thank you Jeff Beck! Bravissimo!

And it goes without saying, but hope all of you in California are somehow managing to cope with the deluge. A few days ago Marye mentioned the flooding around her, and it hasn't let up since. The images on teevee are unbelievable and sickening. Hang in there and best of luck y'all. Onward.

Oh, and while I'm at it, "FUCK PUTIN!"

Funny someone here mentioned doing the Star Wars trilogy. I discovered a box set of the first three SW at a garage sale, and this became our viewing over a period of months all the nine star wars from the beginning, episode 1. Very enjoyable, and you can see the 9 episode story arc pretty well.

This December, we visited Santa Barbara on our return from San Diego visiting Mom over Christmas. We foresaw the Southwest Air meltdown, and holding air tickets to SB, we cancelled our tickets and reserved a car. When we picked up the car, the agent said it was good we had done this several days in advance, because now he didn't have enough cars for the demand, and the cost had gone way up. After a pleasant three day stay in Santa Barbara, we then took a train back to Portland over NYE. The rains in California caused our train to wait at the Sacramento train station, then they waited some more because they needed an engineer qualified to take the train on a different route through California. We ended up sitting in the Sacramento station for 27 hours! Finally got home safe and sound. Now Santa Barbara is flooded right in the neighborhood we stayed. So we dodged several bullets on our NYE California Odyssey.