Joe and I go back decades. He is responsible for jump-starting my career as a music journalist. He has played guitar with PJ Harvey, Tracey Chapman, and Tom Waits, been an editor at Guitar Player Magazine and Premier Guitar, worked on guitar-based things for Apple’s Logic, and designed pedals. He just released his terrific first solo record, Falling Through Time: Music From The 1300s. A collection of ancient music played on modern instruments. We talk about everything under the sun.
Move over James Brown, Samo Salamon may go down in history as the hardest working man in show business. He has written over 300 compositions and recorded 35 albums as a leader to date. Last year Salamon recorded two terrific albums of Covid-required remote duets, and begins this year with an album of solo, acoustic guitar performances of works by Eric Dolphy. He has also posted over 150 YouTube interviews with a variety of jazz instrumentalists including modern guitarists, Bill Frisell, Nguyen Le, Joe Morris, Eivind Aarset, Elliott Sharp, Mary Halvorson, and others—all in roughly one year! I turn the interview tables on Samo in this fun session.
It seems that, prior to 2015, I was able to embed YouTube videos with http in the embed code. At some point since then YouTube and or Word Press decided that unless the code was https the videos would no longer appear. I assume this has something to do with security, so fine. I just had to go back and change all the http code to htttps, and now the videos are back again.
If you have visited any of those early posts and wondered where the videos were that is what happened. Feel free to revisit them and check out the videos. If you discover any missing videos post 2015, please let me know. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about the videos that say “No longer available.” Those have been taken down by YouTube, the artist or the manufacturer.
A few years ago, I was contacted by Andy Summers’ publicist regarding interviewing him about his then new record, Metal Dog, a masterpiece of modern guitar mayhem. Now he has a new book of hilarious short stories, Fretted and Moaning, and a new record, Harmonics of the Night, so it seemed like a perfect time to chat again. We spoke in general terms about gear but he was kind enough to also send me a more specific list, available below.
I deem November 4th Fuzz Day, as two major pedal companies have chosen it to reveal their latest entries into the fuzz world. The new Hizumitas is a collaboration with Wata of the Japanese band Boris and EarthQuaker Devices. It ticks off the Big Muff box, while Boss’ new FZ-1W Waza Fuzz resides more in Fuzz Face territory.
