Solo Electric Practice Videos

Attic videos for the Basement Section.

It’s too cold in the basement.

These are the closest I can get to the To Camera Tiktok stuff my concert promoters want. That I’m comfortable doing, that is. And I need to practice anyway. I’ll post here, first, and maybe some outtakes, here, too. Then I’ll post the best ones on SM to hopefully boost ticket sales…

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Mr Wrong

A little odd sounding with electric guitar and unamplified voice.. but that’s the deal up here in the attic. I found several new inversions for this that didn’t make sense on acoustic. Really optimistic about this, one of my best songs, IMO.

Do I look a bit Status Quo, with tele and t-shirt under cardigan?

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Music In A Foreign Language

This is good news and bad.

Good news is it sounds lovely with a 5th fret capo. The acoustic version is open - no capo. Starting in an open C shape. That sounds not so good on electric. But capo 5 and start on a G shape… it’s the same notes, I know, but it sounds much better and then the G chord is played with a D shape and I can play that little trill that sounds like the lalala. I only figured this out today, so this video is far from polished. I’m confident it will be great, though.

The bad news is it sounds too similar to the 5th fret capo version of Woman In A Bar. So that will need to take a sabatical. That’s OK. I’ve played that much more than Music IAFL, the last few tours.

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2nd Fret Capo Practice

On Pain, No Blue Skies, Trigger Happy, Jennifer She Said

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The ‘66

Sadly, this guitar can’t come on tour anymore. It’s irreplaceable, and the pickups have become microphonic. It’s almost as old as I am. I’m pretty sure it’s the best guitar I’ve ever owned. My son William certainly thinks so. It’s become the yardstick for the forthcoming tour. If the new guitars can sound close to this good, then we’ll be fine.

It’s a 1966 Fender Telecaster. It was white when it was made, but now it’s faded to almost blonde. It came with a white scratch plate, which I still have, I put a black one on as soon as I bought it in late ‘88 or early ‘89… That’s all I changed. It cost me $2500 from Rudy’s Music Stop on 48th St. in Manhattan. I think the reason I was attracted to it (other than the look) was because the middle position wasn’t weak and watery sounding, like on most of the teles I’d played up to that point. Quine was most impressed by this. And for the first few years I played it on stage, it was usually in that middle position. These days I’m on the neck pickup 90% of the time.

The original case disintegrated. It lived for the last few decades in one of the two white Calton tele cases I bought for the Negatives touring set up. They will now be taken by the new guitars and, for now, it’s living in the case that William’s Backlund came in.

I played it at our local open mic a couple of times, while the luthiers were working on the new guitars. I like to think I’ll bring it out, from time to time, for that sort of thing. It still records wonderfully, obviously.

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3rd Fret Arpeggios

The video starts with the Barbershop drive added, then taken away mid 2CV, then added again for Why In The World?

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That Tele Strum Sound

This is the main reason I’m using a telecaster for the Solo Electric show. I’m not aware of another electric guitar that sounds so musical when strummed as the tele in the neck pickup position.

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29

In open Eb.

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Name That Tune!

The chorus part is a new idea, and there’s riff/hook missing that I can’t play. Still, these shapes sound pretty good to my ear…

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Moments And Whatnot

Another open tuning. Same shapes as the acoustic version but much better sounding on electric IMO. However, right now, the lovely tele sound with its reverb makes my unamplified voice sound awfully weak 😩 Pretty sure it will sound fine with a mic and a PA 🤞

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I’m Gone

Closer contender.

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