Life as a Porsche owner/supporter is remarkably like being an Eric Clapton fan. You are continually assaulted with a veritable fusillade of utter and complete garbage created for no possible reason other than to squeeze every last red cent out of a thoroughly impressionable audience— Money and Cigarettes, the Cayenne, Clapton, the Panamera, Crossroads Festival 2010, the upcoming Cajun, the list goes on. Just at the moment when you’re ready to pack it in and find another object for your affection, however, you happen to put on the ’66 Bluesbreakers record or take a drive in the current GT3 or GT3 RS, which are likely to go down in history as the last great Porsches.
Last but one, anyway.
The impeccably neat and always rep-tied Colum Wood reports that Porsche may be readying a four-liter variant of the GT3 RS. There’s no reason not to: the four-liter’s already been proven in racing applications. Such an engine could knock on the 500-horsepower limit and rev up to 8200rpm. Placed in the engine room of the already capable GT3 RS, it could be enough to make us all forget about whatever fresh abomination Porsche is currently hatching in its so-called “design studio”. One thing’s for certain: such a 911 would certainly have a rock n’ roll heart.
Clapton, the Golden Calf of guitarists.
“Thou shall not put any god before me.”
-Jeff Beck
Don’t diss the Panamera. With you behind the wheel, it could be a shoe-in for the next Cannonball record holder :)
Always sad to see a tarp covered car with a tree halfway through it. Not survivable. And a car with a roll cage at that.
Nothing says “aging boomer” like the words “lead guitar”.
Classic 911 wreck: oversteer followed by backing into an obstruction. Note to Porsche: Develop the Cayman and put the 911 to rest.
@beater: Nothing says “Knows nothing about music and can’t play an instrument” like criticizing people for using terms like “lead guitar”.
Now go back to listening to The Black-Eyed Peas and lecturing people on how many Grammys they’ve won.
—
Otherwise:
Cream was great, but Eric Clapton is like the Yanni of Blues Guitarists. -Mystifyingly successful over a very long period,
esp. when EVERYONE knows Nana Mouskouri is way better.
I was going to say Vanilla Ice, but those aging boomers can still swing a fold-up chair pretty well, so you gotta watch out.
Commence guitarist flamewar if you must…
PETER GREEN 4 LYFE YO
They all pale next to Mike Bloomfield.
Here’s a show from 1970 where Peter Green and Duane Allman sit in with the Dead.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-11.late-set2.aud.smith.99152.sbeok.flac16
Here’s Green sitting in w/ the Dead a couple weeks earlier
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-01.sbd.kaplan.9629.sbeok.shnf
My favorite guitarist story is the one about seeing Hendrix play for the first time and not being able to pick up their axe for a week. The identical story was told by Bloomfield upon seeing Jimi play in NYC just before leaving for the UK and stardom, as was also told by Jeff Beck, who saw Hendrix play at a club in London a few weeks later.
Don’t agree w/ much you write Jack, (don’t hold that against me) but your Porsche/Clapton is spot on as is your accessment of the most fantastic Peter Green. 66-67 John Mayall and early Fleetwood Mac are brillant.
Magic Sam was the best.
I take it that Mr. Baruth did not hit the Clapton auction.
“Urge to Own That Clapton Guitar Is Contagious, Scientists Find” By John Tierney on March 9, 2011, at page A16 of the New York Times.
Robert, if you’re going to go old school, Son House and Rev. Gary Davis deserve some props too.
If We’re to argue the merit of the British whiteboy blues set then please consider the magnificent Mick Taylor. LOOOOOOOOVE than chunky Les Paul sound!
NINE NINE ONE, NINE NINE ONE
“…which are likely to go down in history as the last great Porsches.”
How often have we heard that before?
It’s been said before but it has rarely proven true. At this point in Porsche’s history, with their coffers full, there’s no reason why the next generation won’t be lighter, more powerful, and faster. The 991 will make the 996 and 997 look like The Lost Years.
@beater, @me: mulling this further, though I hate the 4-minute-solo as much as the next Johnny Marr, it is SO much different from singer-songwriter/rhythm/joe-power-chord,
that playing competent, non-noodler, non-wanker, non-pentatonic-minor-enslaved ‘lead’ guitar,
should be classified as an Entirely Different Instrument, that’s 9x more difficult than that^, as defined by the ISO and the AEC.
not even transcribing and playing back someone else’s work is as hard; Cliffs of Dover or otherwise.
(no matter how badly you screw up Eric Johnson’s 3s and 5s).
ex: one guy I don’t even LIKE; from Living Colour used to transcribe freaking John Coltrane and Charlie Parker solos and play bits of them back in his songs, for chrissakes.
JOHN
****ING
COLTRANE
-!!!
A heavy metal guitarist that I used to know would practice by playing Paganini.
BTW, check out Steve Kimock, a really tasteful improvisor. I can’t say that I like everything that he does, but a lot of his playing and writing gets me to places that Zappa and John McLaughlin’s lyrical work got me.
As for Mr. Clapton. I found myself listening to some old live Cream and they were playing Crossroads. For a second I forgot was I was listening to and said to myself, “boy, that’s a cliched guitar riff”, and then I laughed, realizing that when Clapton first played it, it wasn’t a cliche, he was inventing modern rock guiltar.
A friend of mine plays and teaches. He’s also a big Ace Frehley fan and can’t stand Clapton, saying that a good guitar player should have hundreds of stock phrases at his fingertips and that Clapton only uses about 150. I don’t care if you can only play three chords, as long as you can play them evocatively.
Funny how in high school we all started loving & believing the Clapton is God ‘claptrap’… but as we get exposure to other players we see him for what he is. I mean, he’s no slouch, but he’s not even a harvey mandel for godsakes!
@Ronnie Schrieber: Interesting stuff. -Hundreds- of stock phrases? -Terrifying.
I agree on simplicity too; I’d rather hear Jack White than some wanker dude. Even Adam Jones is evidence that simple but well-executed can be powerful.
That being said, and not being a shred-head: Unofficial World-Record Rimsky-Korsakov Face Meltage: http://www.urlesque.com/2011/03/01/fastest-guitar-player-urdb-feat-of-the-week/
I am glad to hear there are others who believe EC is over-rated. The first album I ever bought was Disraeli Gears (I still have that one), so I bought into the Clapton is God hype. Cracks started to show with the Blind Faith debacle followed by his backing of Duane Allman on Derek. I thought that might inspire him to re-assess his blues roots, but I was smacked in the face by 461 and its post junkie drivel. His coffin was nailed shut for me in 1974 at Winterland when Carlos Santana blew him off the stage. Had Clapton not brought Carlos out to trade licks for an extended jam, the audience would’ve delayed the show. A legend in his own mind.