Bay area guitarist and composer Chuck Johnson has assembled his fingerstyle guitar compositions into a new digital-only collection called A Struggle, Not A Thought. Chuck is a great picker, and was featured on this summer’s fantastic Tompkins Square compilation Beyond Berkeley Guitar. You can stream the songs on Chuck’s Bandcamp page. You can also read our recent interview with Chuck here.
by David Leicht Today, Three Lobed Recordings releases Steve Gunn and John Truscinski’s fine debut album, Sand City. The LP features four instrumentals, recorded live at Black Dirt Studio in New York City’s northern exurbs. Percussionist Truscinski is known for his work with the Ecstatic Peace!-affiliated “drone/scrape” trio, X.O.4, and guitarist Gunn for his contributions to the acid folk group, GHQ, as well as his solo work. While Gunn’s recent albums have delivered heavy doses of acoustic blues, on Sand City he works in the open-tuned modal style of improvising that’s become prevalent in today’s folk guitar underground. Examples of this style of playing are scattered through Steve’s previous work, including the vibrato-heavy electric guitar solo, “Jadin’s Dream”, from Boerum Palace (2009). Continue reading
by Raymond Morin, above photo by Jennifer Baron
As many of our regular readers know, this summer saw the release of Petrifidelity, a new CD and Tablature book of original guitar duets, featuring myself and my fingerpicking cohort David Leicht. It being a limited release, and not (yet) available in any online/digital format, it seemed a good idea to take the record to the people, to go on a little musical jaunt to the east coast and back, raising awareness about our latest work. Longtime readers of this site might remember my similar trip from last year, promoting 2009’s Holykyle LP. The summer 2010 journey ended up being a lot of fun, and different for a few reasons. I had a new touring partner, a beautiful new guitar, and got to catch up with some good folks that I hadn’t seen in quite a long time. Continue reading
by Buck Curran
Like a lot of relationships these days, Laurent Brondel and I began talking through the internet, and our first conversations were about guitar making. We initially agreed to meet at an open mic that my wife Shanti and I were hosting in Lewiston in 2006, and have been friends ever since. Laurent is an amazing musician, master craftsman, and supremely talented guitar maker. His instruments are gorgeous and inspirational, and his aesthetic and sound are uniquely his own. It was a pleasure to officially interview him for Work & Worry.
W&W : You are originally from France. Where did you grow up and in brief, what is your musical background?
I grew up in Paris and spent a lot of time with my grandparents in rural Picardie, 100 miles east of Paris. Nobody played or listened to music in my family, but when I was around 5 or 6, I insisted to get Beethoven 5th symphony, don’t ask me why. My Godmother bought me the 6th, the Pastorale, maybe the store was out of the 5th, who knows? I had to wait a year to get an old tube record player from the ’60s, the ones with the speaker in the cover. My father’s Godmother gave it to me. So the Godmothers were really active and involved in my family. Continue reading
by David Leicht
In June, Work & Worry interviewed Oakland-based guitarist Ava Mendoza as part of its week-long series celebrating Tompkins Square Records’ new Beyond Berkeley Guitar compilation. Ava’s contribution, the ebullient “Regional Redwood Park Blues: Between Hay and Grass” is one of the collection’s highlights, sounding rather exotic in context with the other, more contemplative entries. Ava studied classical guitar technique while growing up, then traditional music theory at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and modern classical/electronic theory at Mills College in Oakland. Her formal musical background will come as no surprise to anyone hearing “Regional Redwood” for the first time, given its sophisticated chord movement and voicings. Yet, Ava plays with a sense of wonder, a sort of illusory naiveté, using a gritty-sounding, amplified Gibson ES125, exaggerating bends and ripping through runs with abandon. This dichotomy between sophistication and sense of wonder is in full bloom on her new solo guitar album, Shadow Stories. Continue reading
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