Happy New Year. Feels like it’s going to be an interesting one. To start it off as such, how about pulling out some skeletons in the closet?
Lauren Weisbecker, the twelve year old daughter of my high school bandmate and drummer, Will Weisbecker recently posted a comment on The Early Years. In response, I dug around for a live recording of our band, Renegade, that Will had unearthed and sent to me a few years back. Check out my completely bizarre guitar solo on this Lynyrd Skynyrd song:
Now, I’d like to think that I was channeling Robert Quine, but given the fact that I had no idea who he was back then, it is but wishful thinking.
While surfing around for that nugget in my strange but true audio folder, I found two others that merit exposure.
This was written and recorded by my friend and fab musician, Gunnar Madsen back in the late 90’s when Gunnar was a staff composer for Atari Games. He hired me to play metal guitar on this diddie for use in an auto racing arcade game called California Speed. Just imagine yourself tearing down Highway 101, becoming airborne, literally flying, smashing into trees, cars, rocks, and miraculously crossing the finish line - no doubt propelled by this double shot of caffeinated metal riffage. Since neither Gunnar nor I own any rights to this tune, I post it in the hope that one of us will get sued by Atari. We could use the exposure.
The game only received a very limited release, but I did encounter it once in real life while on tour with Ramona the Pest. We were hanging out in some sports bar in Denver, Colorado when, incredibly, the tune sort of wafted by. I exclaimed, ‘Hey that’s my guitar!’ to my skeptical bandmates, who made a beeline for the game and played it quite a few times.
This is a recording made in the late 90’s for an ad agency competition. Two friends of Steve Lucky’s worked for a big firm in SF and Steve got me in on the gig. We recorded it on a 1/2″ 8-track reel to reel deck at my warehouse space in Berkeley. Steve plays organ and I play the slide guitar bits. A fun tune that apparently earned an honorable mention, but lost out to…a heavy metal tune. Apologies for infringing on someone’s copyright here.
January 7, 2008 at 16:20
dude - you are definitely in the running for “hardest working man in show business” status. one would almost think you enjoy it or something.
the skynryrd cover sounds like blue cheer with vernon reid on guitar to me. slow down the heavy cop track and you could have fu manchu, and you know how much i love stoner rock. giant jeans, though, is truly like nothing else. commit that sucker to wax!
January 10, 2008 at 16:07
I remember the video game in Denver! I was not skeptical!
And damn, that’s some pretty major shredding for a fifteen year old, Mr. Needle & Spoon!
January 14, 2008 at 18:16
Oh my god, thank you so much for recognizing me on Kingtone!! My dad, Will the drummer, showed me yesterday on his laptop!! I have to thank you a million times!!!!!! Now when I type my name in on Google, something actually comes up!! Now more about my dad, he is still rocking as usual, still has the curly hair that looks like a bush, and works at EPV inc. for solar power stuff. He is in Germany right now, but hey, he is doing great, thanks again, Lauren Weisbecker
oh wait i want to tell you something. My cousin is named Wendy Starland and has an amazing voice, you can check out her site at wendystarland.com thanks one more time!
April 4, 2008 at 01:05
Mr. Shred, I am humbled to hear your singe-ing tones on Heavy Cop once again. And I must say, that was some pretty good drum programming I churned out for that. I channeled Lars Ulrich for a brief flaming moment…
Mucho Lucio forever!