A SPECIAL CHANCE TO WIN AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR AUTOGRAPHED BY NILS LOFGREN AND BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!
ALSO FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE
1. THE NEWSLETTER Q&A WITH ROBIN TROWER
2. GET THE BLUES WITH THE LEGENDARY JIMMIE VAUGHAN
3. FORGET CIGARS, MEET CUBA'S GREATEST EXPORT
4. CALENDAR OF EVENTS
This Saturday evening, October 13th, Nils Lofgren will raffle off a Takamine acoustic guitar autographed by Nils and Bruce Springsteen. Proceeds will benefit the Port Authority Police World Trade Disaster Survivors Fund. You can purchase raffle tickets by credit card online now at the Pony's web site, right up until the drawing takes place at Saturday night's show. Each ticket is $5 and you can purchase as many tickets as you would like. Here is a very special opportunity to win a unique guitar, while helping a very worthwhile cause. Of course, tickets will also be available to those in attendance at the show to see Nils and his talented band rock the Pony's stage. You do not need to be in attendance at the show to win so buy your tickets now!
To purchase your raffle tickets online, visit The Stone Pony Store, by clicking on the "Store" link at www.stoneponyonline.com. At the store, click on "Charity Guitar Raffle" on the left-hand side of the screen and follow the directions. When you see the Shopping Cart, you will be able to select the number of tickets that you wish to purchase.
Good luck to all of the newsletter's readers!
Robin Trower's loyal fans feel that their guitar hero should have his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mr. Trower wouldn't necessarily agree. "There are some people, really, that I hugely admire that I feel ought to be in there", Trower is quoted as saying in an October 2000 interview. "But unfortunately there are also some people who I think 'why are they in it?'... I don't want to be one of the people that other people say 'what's he doing in there?'" But his fans would point to a career that started late-1960's England, with bands such as The Paramounts, The Jam and Procol Harum and progressed, along with his unique guitar sound, into a solo career which features the Bridge of Sighs album (1974), which remains his most notable work. Besides, says Trower of all of the Hall of Fame questions, "I'd rather that they not ask me. I'm not comfortable with it ..." So, we didn't, but we did ask about the evolution of his sound, his current career, and the future of Blues music.
The Stone Pony: You've been called one of the great guitar soloists in rock and roll. What makes a great guitar solo? How should a solo fit into the overall context of a song without the song just becoming a way to pass the time while waiting for the solo to come?
Robin Trower: I can't tell you what makes a great guitar solo, but I can tell you what I aim for (and only rarely achieve). A solo should lift the track to the next level, and my main thrust is to make it as soulful as possible. Most of my best solos have been live events, those special times when the music, the audience and the vibe were just right. It's impossible to predict, and not always possible to capture in the studio. Great solos just seem to create themselves when the time is right.
The Stone Pony: Today, guitar solos seem to be the domain of metal guitarists, and it seems to be a lost art in other genres. How should a guitarist approach learning to play lead guitar and do you feel there is more skill involved in being a great lead player as opposed to a great rhythm guitarist?
RT: A great lead player needs all of the talent of a rhythm player plus a sense of melodic potency, and the skill and technique to pull it off. The only way to get there is to practice.
The Stone Pony: You are usually mentioned as one of the group of groundbreaking guitarists of the late 1960's and early 1970's, such as Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix. That was a period of incredible growth in the creativity surrounding the instrument and players had a different approach to their guitars and an inventiveness to create diverse and unique sounds. Can you offer any explanation as to why that trend occurred at the time that it did and what caused the radical progression of your own style?
RT: The musicians you mention are (or were) very creative people. Also the period saw the collision of two different musical cultures (British and American). My own style developed by my being inspired by the very soulful (B.B. King) and very inventive (Jimi) players who were making records at the time. Also other varied influences crept in, including the orchestral (movies scores, classical music), and jazz, particularly Charlie Mingus.
The Stone Pony: Are there any guitarists today that you feel are following in your footsteps and bringing new and innovative approaches to the instrument?
RT: Although there are may fine players making records today, there are none who catch my ear at this time.
The Stone Pony: You've been quoted as saying some your material from the late 1980's is not your best work, that you were making those albums more for record companies rather than your own creative vision. On the other hand, if someone reading this article has never heard any of your music, which album(s) would you want that person to listen to as the best introduction to your career?
RT: The three albums that are the best introduction to what I do are Bridge of Sighs (obviously), Robin Trower Live, and the most recent release, Go My Way.
The Stone Pony: You've cited B.B. King as a major influence on your sound. Many rock legends from the late 1960's and early 1970's openly cited blues greats as their heroes, but that blending of sounds seemed to disappear in the late 1970's. Do you consider yourself more a blues guitarist rather than a rock guitarist, and where do you see the blues progressing over the next several years?
RT: I consider myself to be a Rock and Roll guitarist, heavily influenced by Black Music (Blues, Soul, R'nB). Blues could naturally die out as an art form as one by one we lose the true exponents of it. Blues is always of its own time, and of its own people, never to be repeated.
The Stone Pony: For many years, fans would collect recorded bootlegs of your live shows, and openly share them with each other. In recent years, digital distribution of music over the Internet has made this practice even easier. You have been very successful in selling your music via the Internet, on mp3.com for example. How you feel that digital distribution of music has changed the industry, and do you look on the trading of bootlegged music as a good way spread your music among fans, or as theft?
RT: It can be either or both. Depends on the circumstances. On MP3, it has been a great way to spread my music among fans. But in other places my music is posted for anyone to download free, without my consent, and I consider that to be theft. Trading tapes of live shows is pretty harmless, though. But there are some people who sell that stuff. We recently found a website with someone selling not only bootleg audio and video tapes of shows, but also unauthorized copies of my Hot Licks instructional video. What can I think about that kind of disrespect?
The Stone Pony: What can fans expect to experience when they attend your performance at The Stone Pony on October 12th? Will you play songs from throughout your entire solo career? Is there new music that you're working on that fans will hear? How long before the show will you come up with the set list or do you just decide which songs to play as the show is in progress?
RT: The songs in the set are taken from Chrysalis albums (from Bridge of Sighs to Victims of the Fury), some songs from the last three albums, and some as yet unrecorded material. We are going to shoot a live DVD in Florida on this tour, and these new songs were written by Richard and I especially for that event. We'll be working in the new material for the first time on this tour. I'm really excited about the new stuff, and hope the audience likes it as much as I do. [Publisher's note: Richard Watts is Robin's vocalist and bassist]
The Stone Pony: Any closing comments for fans that will be attending your show in October?
RT: I always look forward to New Jersey audiences. They really tell you when they're having a good time. I hope I see you all at the Stone Pony!
Be sure to be at the show on Friday, October 12th and let Robin know that you're having a good time! For all of the latest information and gossip about Robin Trower, visit his official web site at www.trowerpower.com.
Have your Holiday Party at the Pony!
The Stone Pony is the perfect place for your holiday party. We can accommodate six or 600, or anywhere in between. Of course, we can arrange the entertainment as well. For details, call The Stone Pony Cafe, at (732) 502-0600, extension 12.
With his latest album Do You Get The Blues? (Artemis Records) rising on the Billboard Top Blues Album Chart, Jimmie Vaughan brings his distinctive rhythm and blues sound to The Stone Pony's stage on Wednesday evening, October 24th. Vaughan has been playing guitar since he was 13 years old, quickly becoming a known talent within the Dallas music scene. Within a few years, he had become drawn to the sounds of the great Blues masters, eventually gaining mainstream notoriety with The Fabulous Thunderbirds and a collaboration with his brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan. After taking three years off to deal with the devastating death of Stevie Ray, Jimmie Vaughan returned to the stage, and began to produce solo recordings, including the acclaimed Strange Pleasures (Epic/Sony) and Out There (Epic/Sony). Vaughan has often stated that he has played the guitar every day since he started and that effort has earned him three Grammy Awards and recognition from the likes of Eric Clapton, B.B. King and Buddy Guy. Guy's praise leaves no doubt as to the extent of Vaughan's talent: "I play probably 80 percent of what I can play. Jimmie plays one percent of what he knows. He can play anything." Take advantage of your chance to see just how well he can play, by coming to see him perform at the club on October 24th. For lots of information about Vaughan and his music, including merchandise and downloadable music, check out Vaughan's official web site, www.jimmievaughan.com.
The Stone Pony Cafe: Good food and drink from 11:30 am daily!
For thirty years, they have been Cuba' s greatest dance band. Founded in 1969, Los Van Van ("The Go Gos") have mastered the creation of challenging and complex music, bringing together diverse sounds and musical styles. To call Los Van Van a dance band is far too-limiting an adjective. While many descriptions of world music tend to get weighted down with lots of meaningless descriptions that try and classify it, Los Van Van has been so successful that a genre of music they created, "songo", has simply taken over as the primary sound of Cuban dance music, which blends together native Cuban sounds and African rhythms, plus funk and jazz influences from the United States. Last year, the band was the subject of a Cuban documentary film, Van Van, Empezó La Fiesta! (Van Van, Let's Party!), which has been screened at film festivals and cultural events around the world, bringing the history of the band to audiences everywhere. The opening scenes of the band playing for 100,000 people in Havana attest to their popularity in their native country. A band capable of getting such a large crowd to move and dance along will be a sight to see and hear in the intimate surroundings of The Stone Pony, so don't miss them on Sunday, October 28th, in a special matinee show. For an introduction to their music, you can listen to their 1999 album, Llego Van Van ... Van Van Is Here (Wea/Latina/Caliente), which won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Salsa Performance. This extremely prolific group's most recent CD, Que Voy a Hacer Si Tu Te Vas (Sony Discos/Orfeon) was released just last month, so perhaps fans will be able to experience some new music when the band hits the Pony stage in late October. Like many international bands, a good discography for Los Van Van is almost impossible to compile (my best estimate is they have released at least 30 albums), and obtaining some of the albums can be very difficult, but they are gaining more exposure in the United States, and there is enough material available to keep fans moving. Of course, no recording can match the thrill of a live performance, so buy your tickets now!
For news and information about Asbury Park, New Jersey, visit asburypark.net
Thursday Nights. Bounce Is Back! The Ultimate Dance Party with DJ Matrix and MC BJ, 20-oz. $1 drafts and $1 tube shots all night long, ladies free until 11, free with Monmouth University ID, 18 & up for everyone with two forms of ID, doors at 9:30.
