Lucas & Films

By Lucas, I refer to guitarist Gary Lucas, who forced his acoustic guitar to make sounds that most guitar players would consider impossible. That is because they don't know how to properly use old-fashioned stomp-box FX. That's all thatLucas used- dozens of them through a stereo pair of borrowed amps. Most players can't pull that off without degenerating into useless dissonance . Most guitar players are idiots when it comes to FX.
Lucas is no idiot. He is a bit of a tightwad, however. More on that later.



His sonic landscapes were the perfect soundtrack to the films shown - or the films were the perfect backdrop for the unearthly sounds produced by Lucas' guitars- depends on what you like, I suppose.
The films were by early 20th century dadaists and surrealists and featured things like animated insects in adulterous comedies, lips, lots of reflections, Swedish ballerinas , leaping Frenchmen and Man Ray playing chess on a rooftop with some famous guy whose name escapes me.




All set to live music , of course.



My life-long best pal Ron and his band (Hotel X) got to jam with Mr. Lucas.
Ron has always dressed funnily but he's an amazing musician.



I wish I could tell you what a great guy Gary Lucas is but I hardly spoke with him. Ron introduced us - Lucas seemed more interested in my 'Australia' jersey than my feeble utterances- it was crowded anyway. No time for chit-chat.

So I was checking out his CD's- quite an interesting lot and I had exactly $15 on me, which was the asking price- but which one to pick? I didn't mind spending my last dollar- I really wanted a CD. He had five or six and they all looked like something I'd like . Which to buy?

Mr. Lucas decided for me.

He made some sort of remark about the affluence of the crowd (?) and raised the price of the CDs to $20 while I was looking at them. I laughed- surely he was just kidding, right?
Uh, no.
Or if he was, it was a pretty subtle in-joke and I, alas, was out.

Oh well. No CD for me. It was a great show anyway.