Deke Dickerson remembers Les Paul

Today, a seemingly immortal man proved to be mortal, after all.

When contemplating the loss and legacy of the music industry's biggest giant, my thoughts turned to Deke Dickerson, a master guitarist renowned for his passion for modern music's roots, and for his love of vintage guitars and recording gear.

From album to album, song to song, Dickerson presents a myriad of six-string stylings, but the ones that ring most sweetly to me are his most direct nods to Les Paul's classic, multi-tracked, reverbed signature (for example, "Rockin' Gypsy," from 2004's My Name is Deke).

Within moments of our afternoon conversation's beginning, my instinct to hear Dickerson's thoughts of Paul's passing proved to be the correct one. Rather than listen to someone pay lip service to an icon, I talked to a performer who was honestly mourning the loss of an inspiration and true hero.

SS: Les Paul was 94, after all, but today's news still must have been shock to you. A very sad day, indeed.

DD: I was in New York almost a month ago — I was backing up the Collins Kids and some other 50s rockabilly acts, and knew a a few weeks ahead of time that I had a few days off there. I was tryin' like hell to get out to New Jersey and interview Les — I had a bunch of questions that I don't think have ever been asked of him, questions that now will probably go forever unanswered.

It looked like it was going to happen, but about four days before we got to New York, Les went into the hospital. I said to the band at the time, this really sucks, as I don't know how many more opportunities I'll have to interview him, with our schedules and all. And, as it turns out, I don't think he left the hospital.

SS: I imagine you've seen Les play his New York gigs.

DD: I have, and I've also seen him a couple of times out here, at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. And I've been fortunate enough to talk to him a few times backstage, which was super-cool.

SS: He was one of the few people that can make any rock star — Slash, whomever — weak in the knees.

DD: The funniest thing about Les is that there's Les Paul the musician, the inventor, the recording pioneer... and then there's all these people who think of him as the signature on a guitar's headstock. I get the feeling that Slash and some other guys have never heard a Les Paul & Mary Ford record in their lives — it's the 'Les Paul' combined with 'Gibson' that gets them weak in the knees.

SS: What was one of the questions you had for Les?

DD: Well, it's very well-known that Les Paul pioneered all these recording techniques, like overdubbing, multi-tracking... he helped develop the first 8-track tape recorder for Ampex. But no one's really asked Les about how he came up with the concept of the direct guitar input.

You've got to understand, he came from doing a very typical thing — playing an arch top guitar in a big band — and within the space of a couple of years, he decided to plug his electric guitar directly into the input of the recording board. This was a fairly revolutionary idea; it was probably 20-25 years before people began really picking up on the stuff that Les was doing in the late 40s.

One thing that I find interesting is that in almost every other avenue of technology, we've taken these things that were invented in the 1940s and 1950s and improved them, surpassed them by leaps and bounds, or replaced them. But if you go down to Guitar Center and look at ninety-nine percent of the guitars on sale, they're pretty much using the same technology that Les Paul was using in the 1940s. And pretty much everyone agrees that most of those [guitars] suck compared to the old ones.

SS: The aspect of the 'Les Paul legend' that appeals to me most is that he had such a can-do, Rube Goldberg-type engineering spirit — an attitude you don't find often anymore. Didn't he fashion a recording head out of a Ford flywheel, or something like that?

DD: Well, it was more like a turntable... the first records were before recording tape, they were recording directly onto disc. Back then, you needed an extremely dense turntable so you wouldn't transfer the vibrations from the motor to the recording. Les figured he could use a Cadillac flywheel for that purpose. Now, they did have some expensive transcription recorders at that point in time, but he used something that cost a lot less money to do the same thing.

SS: When was the first time you heard a Les Paul record?

DD: My dad was sort of a record collector, and he got me into a lot of those types of records. I started playing guitar at age 13, and I was a typical teenage kid, into rock and heavy metal and all that stuff. When I first heard Les Paul and Mary Ford, I didn't really understand them, but I knew that they were significant and impressive enough that I needed to keep them until I could understand them. I had a few of the 10" records, and when I played them again when I was 20 or 21, I was really knocked out.

SS: Have you considered how modern music might have evolved without him?

DD: It's sort of hard to put into words what Les did, because he was like the first caveman to rub two sticks together and make fire. Now, one could assume that at some point another person would figure out how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together, but I think the music world would have come along much differently without him.

SS: I would have to guess another slew of Les Paul tributes are around the corner...

DD: When Les would play these gigs at the House of Blues, it would be billed as something like "Les Paul and Friends." It would be packed, because everyone knew that big rock stars would be showing up.

Les would start the show with his trio, and I'd be right up front, all excited — 'Wow, Les Paul is playing his songs with the trio!' — and I'd look behind me, and no in the audience gave a crap. They were just waiting for the rock stars to play. And when they came out, Les would just unplug and go backstage.

A while ago, I had the chance to buy a very cool Les Paul Black Beauty; I got Les to sign the pick guard. I later joked to some friends, 'I'm probably the first guy in 40 years to buy a Les Paul because he wanted to sound like Les Paul!'

SS: Perhaps you should round up some of your SoCal, old-school friends — oh, the Paladins, Billy Zoom, those sorts of performers — to record a tribute album.

DD: That would be nice. But I'm sure there will be the tributes by Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, etc.... we'll have to wait for that to die down first.

Deke Dickerson's new CD, King of the Whole Wide World, is in stores now. A US tour — plus dates in Spain and Finland — continues on Aug. 14.

http://www.lespaulonline.com/

http://www.dekedickerson.com/index.php

Remembering John Hughes

Upon hearing of director/producer/writer John Hughes' death, one of my first thoughts was, what would the 80s have been like without him?

And the other half of my brain couldn't answer, because the concept is so unthinkable. To someone who turned 16 in 1984, Hughes was an omnipresent companion who had a habit of giving wonderful gifts that complemented and supplemented our adolescent development.

The purely irreverent National Lampoon's Vacation, containing little educational value, was a hilarious exception.

For a thirty-something adult, Hughes had an uncanny knack of updating age-old teenage crises, re-wrapping them in contexts that we could understand. His teen drama-comedies correctly portrayed "Me Decade" parents and authority features as self-absorbed, upwardly mobile foils of rebellion, but he also subtly acknowledged the fact that there is no one more self-absorbed than a teenager. Sure, bullies were cut down to size and tormenters were delightfully stymied, but Hughes reminded us along the way that people were often not as they seem.

Indeed, while many of his contemporaries chose black and white palettes, Hughes often preferred to work in shades of grey.

As we awkwardly waded into true relationships with friends, lovers and unrequited loves, Hughes reinforced our realizations that people behave in certain ways for a reason — and that family disfunction was hardly unique to our own addresses. In many John Hughes films, we not only found cinematic heroes, but allies in our struggles for acceptance and empowerment.

In the frightfully shallow pool of emotion in which the 80s floated, a Hughes film added the gentle weight of humanity as ballast. And, as we grew older and the end of the decade drew near, he gave us hilarious, poignant glimpses of the pitfalls of adulthood that lie just over the horizon.

In evaluating that oh-so-formative decade, it's easy to say that John Hughes was as influential as MTV, that he gifted my "Generation X" with pop-culture icons. The truth is, however, he gave us so much more than that.

The Impossible Dream, made possible

We suspend our disbelief so easily when it comes to transforming robots, the Force and pointy eared aliens, but when it comes to comprehending how men could actually journey to the moon, we're still at a loss.

Imagine, just imagine standing on a cold piece of rock that a few generations before, some folks were convinced was made of cheese — or was inhabited by exotic animals. Since the dawn of man, this bright orb in the sky was the object of wonder, of worship, of dreams and prose.  And now you're looking at rocks, dust, little hills through the visor of a suit that's keeping you alive. You look up and see a beautiful ball, a big blue marble that contains everything and everyone you've ever known. While you're taking in this astounding sight, wars are being fought, triumphs are being celebrated, old men are gasping their last breaths, babies are taking in their first. All on this bright sphere in the distance.

Hours go by in a flash, and it's time to pack up your lunar picnic basket and start the last leg of the boldest, most dangerous adventure a man has ever undertaken. Three days later, flames lick at your plummeting tin can; you and your two fellow travelers splash into the ocean, instantly becoming the most unique and most envied people on the planet.

Although you have traveled so far into the sky, you're hardly a superman back on earth. Once you were separated from your neighbors by over 200,000 miles, but you're back home now... back to lawn mowing, grocery shopping, traffic jams and barking dogs. Every day for 40 years, someone wants to shake your hand while you recall your fantastic journey, a journey that only a handful of people understand. Every night for 40 years, weather permitting, you gaze up at this moon, this alluring alien land that you once claimed for all mankind. You stare and imagine that you can see the footprints — your footprints — that still mark its surface. And you must wish, "If only I could do it again."

Michael Jackson, and a moment of clarity

Yesterday, we mourned the tragic, untimely death of the King of Pop; his life was eulogized by the King of Opportunism, Rev. Al Sharpton, and his musical and humanitarian legacies were celebrated around the world.

But who mourned the tragedy that was the last 20-odd years of Michael Jackson's life?  

Michael Jackson, the man, or Michael Jackson, the icon, positively affected and inspired millions of people, as evidenced by the global response to his passing.  Just think what Michael could have accomplished over the past two decades if he hadn't become unhinged.

Of all the controversies that have resurfaced in the past two weeks, Michael's mental and/or emotional decline is one that has not been disputed.  Anyone who saw the re-runs of the Martin Bashir interviews was reminded of how deeply disturbed Michael had become.  The singer clearly needed psychiatric help, but apparently wasn't getting any.

Of course, Michael's fans chose to interpret the over-the-top signs of illness as the traits of a misunderstood, eccentric, child-like innocent.  They seemed to view him not as a man, but as a musical messiah or an all-powerful, benevolent alien sent here to right the wrongs of the world.  But, as they witnessed yesterday, Michael Jackson was, in the end, merely a man, a man whose children no longer have a father.

A man whose death, in all likelihood, will be linked to his profound problems.  A man who was removed from reality, a king that was seemingly above the medical profession, and quite possibly, the law.  A ruler that had more or less lived in exile for the past 10 years.  A performer with unprecedented talents and unlimited potential whose illness(es) —  undoubtedly sparked by the double-edged sword of superstardom — turned him into the butt of jokes for almost 20 years.

It's beginning to sink in that the most meteoric celebrity in world history is dead.  We've watched the videos over and over again, and mourned not only the loss of an icon, but the loss of our youth.  And now that the man is laid to rest, that little nagging nugget in the back of our minds can resume asking the question, "What the hell happened, Michael?"

The question of the ages.  Michael left behind one of the most complicated histories and mysteries of any figure, and it will never be completely unraveled.  We're at the tip of the scandal iceberg; decades of wildly conflicting views and opinions and unauthorized biographies has just begun.  The opening salvos of the legal and financial battles haven't yet been fired.  The freak show that was Michael Jackson's later life has folded its tent, but the big top will be in town for a long time to come.

As we indulge our sick, morbid curiosities and watch this circus go through it's three-ring act again and again, let's occasionally put down the popcorn and pause for a moment of clarity.  Let's shake off the cloak of denial that coats our precious memories in warm fuzziness.

Michael Jackson was a kind, generous, unique, gifted and very, very troubled man who achieved something that few have ever achieved —  and that something swallowed him up and took him to places that we would never, ever want to go.

More popular than Neil Armstrong

Of all the unforgettable music moments captured on television, a handful truly stand out: Elvis' and the Beatles' Ed Sullivan appearances, Madonna not-so-virginally writhing on the ground at the MTV Music Awards, and Michael Jackson breaking into the moonwalk at the Motown 25th Anniversary Special.

The latter performance is the first thing that comes to mind when contemplating Jackson's legacy, a day after his death. The Thriller premiere was a huge, huge event that epitomized the effect of the music video, but Jackson's first TV moonwalk — people went out of their minds when that occurred. Unbelievably influential.  The next morning, people all over the world were trying to imitate his moves, and that backwards glide.

Jackson had dazzled us with Off The Wall, but this was something entirely different. He had a new look, new choreography and a new sound that was instantly omnipresent. The Thriller album was on fire for more than two years — seven singles!  And "Billie Jean," with that moonwalk... that was the groove of the decade.

And, like witnessing Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel" and the girls screaming for McCartney, you had to be there on May 16, 1983 to grasp the enormity of Michael Jackson's impact, this unbelievable display of talent.

I'm not the only one today choosing to ignore the past 20 years and remember a man at his most glorious.

The Ventures’ Bob Bogle, 1934-2009

Above anyone else, Bob Bogle made me feel that I had made the "big leagues" as a music journalist. Ten years ago, I interviewed Bob and Ventures bandmate Don Wilson by phone for a story for The Rocket; they were to play a gig in Seattle, and I later arranged to meet them for the sound check and say hello to the rest of the band.

When I caught up to Bob that afternoon, he reached into his wallet, unfolded a piece of paper, and asked if he had gotten my number and address right when we had talked earlier.

Bob Bogle, rock 'n' roll legend, had my name and number in his wallet! I had made it! I told that story for years afterwards. The truth is, I was nobody special, but Bob made every journalist, fan, and fan/journalist feel important. In a band filled with the most gracious musicians one could ever meet, Bob was the nice guy. In a group of humble giants, he was the most humble. A guitar player's guitarist, he achieved a popular version of the American Dream: he was a construction worker with very meager beginnings who became one of the most-heard rock musicians in the world.

And now he is gone, and I am crushed. I knew Bob was very sick, and I thought this day might very well come, but the news of his death has hit me harder than I expected. Or I'm just selling Bob, and myself, a bit short. After all, I've been a Ventures fan since birth, and the privilege of catching a few minutes' worth of conversation with Bob Bogle here and there over the past ten years — well, that tops just about anything I've ever achieved as a writer.

I've enjoyed chatting and interviewing every member of the Ventures, but backstage, somehow I always eventually gravitated towards Bob. Everyone did. Mild-mannered, he was nonetheless a great storyteller, if asked. Before a show, he was often seated away from hustle-and-bustle in the room. Bob once told me, as he approached 70, that conserving energy was the key — in other words, he saved it for the stage. Oh, Bob had a sense of humor. I recall during that first interview how he and Don were explaining their decades-long relationship. They were best friends who never fought.

"We're not gay or anything," Bob added, "just best friends."

Professionally speaking, Bob Bogle was a supremely influential and very skilled guitarist, though he was more well-known for his bass playing and songwriting. He and Don, performing as a duo on that famous first tour of Japan, introduced the electrified rock 'n' roll guitar to that country. The two defined the relationship of lead-and-rhythm guitars in a rock band, and anyone who has ever caught a Ventures show could tell he enjoyed playing lead guitar — he would perform a couple of numbers, with Nokie Edwards or Jerry McGee switching to bass. However, Edwards and McGee were more accomplished players. So Bob simply became a great, great bassist, the band's anchor. A practical, humble man.

Bob told me on several occasions that he could never imagine retiring, could never imagine not being a Venture. And he got his wish. To my knowledge, Bob had spent time in a recording studio every year for almost 50 years. Amazing feat, amazing man.

I once prepared a sandwich for Bob Bogle, rock 'n' roll legend. I've occasionally let that tidbit drop ever since the first story got old. I think I will boast about both "events" from now on. After all, Mr. Bogle, a man who never forgot where he came from, somehow made everyone feel that they had made it, too.

My heart and thoughts go out to Bob's wife Yumi, the band, longtime Ventures manager Fiona Taylor, and especially Don Wilson, who was at his side for more than 50 years.

Photo: Bob Bogle, Steve Stav and Don Wilson, June 1998.

Hit the Ground Running

Ah, we're back -- my Webmaster has fixed some technical issues, including the all-important ability for you to comment on my meanderings and sketchy work... see below.

New in the archived Aural History section are 2000 interviews with Dave Dederer, Sushirobo, Deke Dickerson, Dorkweed and my first chats with Dave Alvin and Tim Finn.

The Finn feature has particular sentimental value to me. Done to promote his beautiful Say It Is So album and an upcoming gig at Seattle's Tractor Tavern, it proved to be a revealing conversation with one of my teenage "New Wave" idols-turned-favorite singer-songwriters. Super-nice, down-to-earth gentleman with an amazing talent and great voice.

Interestingly enough, my future wife was at that Tractor Tavern show -- I hadn't seen her since 1987, when we parted ways in college. And I didn't see her at the gig, either; while she filed out of the club, I went backstage to sit with Tim on the Tractor's loading dock. No matter, the stars eventually aligned themselves.

The photo here of Andrea and Mr. Finn was snapped by me, backstage at the Paramount Theater after a 2004 Finn Brothers concert. If she looks a bit giddy, it's because she was.