Sometime in 2008 or so, Canadian folk musican Dave Carroll lost his Taylor guitar
to the United Airlines baggage monkeys…
Well, he didn’t lose it, but after they were through (or threw) with it
it wasn’t much good, at least as a musical instrument…
United was not (at least initially) sympathetic… That loss
led to three songs (start with “United Breaks Guitars”….
Search from there) and a line of airline
proof guitar cases… The first song has
something like 16 million downloads… likely many more…
I may have blogged
about it… in 2009… 4 years ago… I
may have I mentioned how much I dislike United Airlines… I pay extra to avoid
United Airlines…
Fast Forward… I have a favorite radio station… KFOG… For a
big commercial radio station they are surprisingly local and accessible… I may have blogged about them too… More than once… including several posts about
the retirement of long time DJ Dave Morey… an icon of Bay Area radio… the
father of 10 at 10… the first DJ back on September 16th 1984 when
the station, at least the rock version was born… Back in December 2008, (December
19th, 2008) Dave retired… Steph and I waved “Fogheads Love Dave”
signs at the Christmas concert… I noted his last song on the blog (this blog)… plus
the songs played by Annalisa afterward… (Steph and Annalisa got to know each other… at
a Live from the Archives release… Annalisa
called me, while I was boarding a ship… in Tampa, headed for Central America)… we
may have seen Annalisa since… even since she left KFOG…. There are blog posts
about that too)
KFOG has a recording studio in the station… they invite
artists into the studio to record tracks both for general radio play, but also
for inclusion in their annual “Live from the Archives” CD… They invite listeners in… 20 at a time… to
the recording sessions… either via email, or by being “caller No 10” (it is not
always caller no 10… but you get the idea)
over the years, I have been caller No 10 4 times… once, they changed the
date… and I had to pass, but, I have been in the studio three times…
Most recently… last week…Steph and I were there to see folk
singer David (aka Dave) Wilcox… Steph
and I were at the Studio at 8:30 am… on a Thursday… into the studio by 9:00… It was a great session… conversations and
introductions then 5 songs, then conversation, then one more song… for Rosalie…
DJ… host… person who gave me tickets… (for I was caller No 10... )
We discovered that Dave Wilcox has a different
airline/guitar strategy…a airline proof guitar… no wood, all carbon fiber…
nearly indestructible… you can hand it to baggage monkeys with confidence, Indestructible…
the coackroach approach… He says it it is a good guitar… not a wonderful rich
lively guitar… but a good guitar… and you can hand it to baggage monkeys…
Then, he sang a song about worn things… before, he talked
about a ride on a cable car… and how he appreciated
the well used character of the car… chipped and worn paint… a patina… not worn out, but well and long used… Equated this to a guitar… no a carbon fiber
guitar… a wooden guitar…
The tale of the cable car spoke to a personal experience… My hobby is rebuilding old, wooden railroad cars….I have a bit or experience with cable cars, and the men who
today maintain them. Today, in a shop
south of a street formerly called Army, three men build and rebuild cable cars
for the Municipal Railway of San Francisco… building new cable cars of wood,
pulled together with iron rods…
A few years ago, I tuned a wooden passenger car… a wooden
car held together with iron rods… as I tightened rods, the car straightened…
sags disappeared… It was magical… I have
spent the last three years researching, trying to find a 19th
century reference to what happened when I tightend the various rods holding the
car in tension… much like tuning a guitar…
The cable car guys I have talked to tell me a new cable car
isn’t right for about 10 years… it’s too tight at first… too rigid… it needs to
break in… get loose, and get lively…
It seems a cable car, a wooden railroad car is much like a
good guitar… It is alive… The use, and cracks add to the beast… we could make it “better” out of iron and graphite…
but it wouldn’t be as lively… as alive…
I will stick to wood…
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