No Quarter

None asked for, none expected, and none given — neither to myself nor anyone else.

Compromise may be unavoidable in life, but if you don’t dodge it at all costs in your music, enjoy the slippery slope to sucktown. Even if you find “suckcess” there, will the money paper over the shame of knowing you’re just another party clown for kids? I don’t think so, no matter how many clueless bedwetters you cram into a stadium or into your oh-so-“edgy” Kmart clothing line.

To me, it’s total commitment or stay home. How do I know when I’m warmed up? When the bloody calluses on my fingertips split open. I just seal 'em back up and keep on playing. (Hey, there’s a reason they call it Crazy Glue, not Well-Adjusted Glue. Trick-of-the-trade tip for you, compliments of the chef.)

Uncompromising is just the ante. I don’t care if you play the triangle in a basement bingo parlor. If you’re not standing up to push the limits, sit down. Forgo the struggle and you loose the soul, the blues. You loose Billie Holiday’s voice, Hendrix’s swirling feedback landscapes, Stevie Ray Vaughn’s eardrum-inverting bends. Hey, dedicated suffering comes with the gig. So while you might think my urge to stuff Justin Bieber in a rusty steamer trunk and kick it down the Grand Canyon is cruel, I’m just hoping to help the kid's music a bit, if possible. He seems like a nice girl.

Me, I’m a natural born attack dog. Tone. Style. Every element of a player’s sonic fingerprint stems from their attack, and on the fretboard I become an aggravated swarm of angel dust-addled Maori warriors wielding broken baseball bats. Unrelenting. Unforgiving. My sound leaves a mark. Every time.

And leaving a mark is really the only distinguishing characteristic human beings possess, yet 99.98% never even try. People are born creative and then those instincts are schooled right out of them. They climb into the mold and let everything unique be sliced away. They conform. Well, the operative syllable there is con. I say don’t fall for it. Fight.

No struggle, no sustain. And whatever gets thrown at me for turning my back on the soul-embalming, inspiration-crippling black hole of the rat race I just absorb and spit back at the bastards with my playing.

No compromises. No quarter.

No Quarter

None asked for, none expected, and none given — neither to myself nor anyone else.

Compromise may be unavoidable in life, but if you don’t dodge it at all costs in your music, enjoy the slippery slope to sucktown. Even if you find “suckcess” there, will the money paper over the shame of knowing you’re just another party clown for kids? I don’t think so, no matter how many clueless bedwetters you cram into a stadium or into your oh-so-“edgy” Kmart clothing line.

To me, it’s total commitment or stay home. How do I know when I’m warmed up? When the bloody calluses on my fingertips split open. I just seal 'em back up and keep on playing. (Hey, there’s a reason they call it Crazy Glue, not Well-Adjusted Glue. Trick-of-the-trade tip for you, compliments of the chef.)

Uncompromising is just the ante. I don’t care if you play the triangle in a basement bingo parlor. If you’re not standing up to push the limits, sit down. Forgo the struggle and you loose the soul, the blues. You loose Billie Holiday’s voice, Hendrix’s swirling feedback landscapes, Stevie Ray Vaughn’s eardrum-inverting bends. Hey, dedicated suffering comes with the gig. So while you might think my urge to stuff Justin Bieber in a rusty steamer trunk and kick it down the Grand Canyon is cruel, I’m just hoping to help the kid's music a bit, if possible. He seems like a nice girl.

Me, I’m a natural born attack dog. Tone. Style. Every element of a player’s sonic fingerprint stems from their attack, and on the fretboard I become an aggravated swarm of angel dust-addled Maori warriors wielding broken baseball bats. Unrelenting. Unforgiving. My sound leaves a mark. Every time.

And leaving a mark is really the only distinguishing characteristic human beings possess, yet 99.98% never even try. People are born creative and then those instincts are schooled right out of them. They climb into the mold and let everything unique be sliced away. They conform. Well, the operative syllable there is con. I say don’t fall for it. Fight.

No struggle, no sustain. And whatever gets thrown at me for turning my back on the soul-embalming, inspiration-crippling black hole of the rat race I just absorb and spit back at the bastards with my playing.

No compromises. No quarter.

No Quarter

None asked for, none expected, and none given — neither to myself nor anyone else.

Compromise may be unavoidable in life, but if you don’t dodge it at all costs in your music, enjoy the slippery slope to sucktown. Even if you find “suckcess” there, will the money paper over the shame of knowing you’re just another party clown for kids? I don’t think so, no matter how many clueless bedwetters you cram into a stadium or into your oh-so-“edgy” Kmart clothing line.

To me, it’s total commitment or stay home. How do I know when I’m warmed up? When the bloody calluses on my fingertips split open. I just seal 'em back up and keep on playing. (Hey, there’s a reason they call it Crazy Glue, not Well-Adjusted Glue. Trick-of-the-trade tip for you, compliments of the chef.)

Uncompromising is just the ante. I don’t care if you play the triangle in a basement bingo parlor. If you’re not standing up to push the limits, sit down. Forgo the struggle and you loose the soul, the blues. You loose Billie Holiday’s voice, Hendrix’s swirling feedback landscapes, Stevie Ray Vaughn’s eardrum-inverting bends. Hey, dedicated suffering comes with the gig. So while you might think my urge to stuff Justin Bieber in a rusty steamer trunk and kick it down the Grand Canyon is cruel, I’m just hoping to help the kid's music a bit, if possible. He seems like a nice girl.

Me, I’m a natural born attack dog. Tone. Style. Every element of a player’s sonic fingerprint stems from their attack, and on the fretboard I become an aggravated swarm of angel dust-addled Maori warriors wielding broken baseball bats. Unrelenting. Unforgiving. My sound leaves a mark. Every time.

And leaving a mark is really the only distinguishing characteristic human beings possess, yet 99.98% never even try. People are born creative and then those instincts are schooled right out of them. They climb into the mold and let everything unique be sliced away. They conform. Well, the operative syllable there is con. I say don’t fall for it. Fight.

No struggle, no sustain. And whatever gets thrown at me for turning my back on the soul-embalming, inspiration-crippling black hole of the rat race I just absorb and spit back at the bastards with my playing.

No compromises. No quarter.

Straight Up

It’s about more than just substance over style.

To me, substance is style. And I need mine straight up. I want to see and feel the proverbial natural wood grain, not have those precious imperfections buried under some glossy varnish or slick paint job.

Sure, I can appreciate Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, but too many misguided people have since taken those walls and built a prison around the essence of music with one big, overproduced, sterile Pro Tools assembly line.

In my book, lifeless digital perfection has become the greatest imperfection, with hype and all the sonic trends du jour just more planned obsolescence. The expiration dates keep coming faster and faster.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to climb on a high horse or tell anyone else how to live. I’ll leave that gig to the marketing executives. But, for my money, it’s the paths away from all the frills and ringtones that are worth traveling. In what I put out and take in, I’m after timeless quality.

Give me core components. Give me raw analog purity. Give me roots music. Give me something that skilled, dedicated human hands labored over and real sweat poured down on, whether a well-crafted tune or a custom-made guitar. Give me Wilco. Give me Keith Richards — on his acoustic. Give me Frank Sinatra in a small room with one mic, warm acoustics, and a little cigarette smoke.

Style is what you can do with less anyway. Anyone can put on a $5000 Armani suit. But look at James Dean in jeans and a plain white t-shirt. If you want to hear straight up style, well, no one with a top-of-the-line Strat and all the effects pedals in the world has yet to surpass what some of the original blues players could transmit through a busted, homemade, out-of-tune guitar.

That’s why we’re still listening to their scratchy recordings and probably always will be — there’s soul in simplicity and enduring power in the authentic.

And newsflash: there’s no ham in Spam and no humanity in Auto-Tune, folks.

That’s why I close my eyes to the packaging, to all the gimmicks and hollow obsessions with appearances, and just tune into sublime unprocessed sounds ringing true.

Straight up — no chaser.