Neville’S AdvocAte
Nev Marten gets ready to be one third of Eric Clapton at Bristol Jazz & Blues Festival. But which guitar to use?
Some of you may recall that last year Jamie Dickson, Mick Taylor, bassist Eric Ofako and drummer Matt Smith and I honoured the 50th anniversary of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album, Are You Experienced? The event sold out the 400-seater Lantern Room at Bristol’s Colston Hall, so Festival organiser and friend of the mag Denny Ilett suggested this year we might like to mark the half century since Cream’s demise, with a similar show.
Matt couldn’t make it, as he’s on the road with blues force-of-nature Kirk Fletcher during most of March, so Mick enlisted Doug Mussard, drummer from That Pedal Show co-host Dan Steinhardt’s old band, Tin Spirits.
GearDilemmas
You might presume that guitars and amps are a foregone conclusion. Eric’s Cream set-up is well documented and hardly extensive. But with our trio sharing sixstring duties it’s not so straightforward (and can we get the “Eric did it all on his own but it takes three of you” gags out of the way now, please?).
We all own Gibson ES-335s, Jamie and I have SGs, and a Strat of some sort features in everyone’s arsenal. I have a Les Paul, which Eric used in early Cream, but it’s a Goldtop and he has never favoured those. None of us owns a Firebird.
However, my 335 is a cherry red ‘block inlay’ just like Clapton’s. It would be ideal as it was one of two Gibsons he favoured in 1968 (along with the Firebird I), up to and including the Farewell concerts. But I might just prefer the SG as that was his main squeeze through 1967.
Of course when Eric, Jack and Ginger briefly re-convened in 2005, old Slowhand reverted to Fender simply because he had become so attuned to them over the years. Mick’s a total Strat-head as you know, so he might err on that side anyway.
What I don’t want to do is hump a truckload of instruments to the gig, find stands (and room) for them on a crowded stage but end up using just one. There should be backups, of course, in case of string breakages, etc. My guess is the others will feel the same so possibly we’ll end up with Jamie and me taking ES-335s and SGs, and Mick using an ES-335 and Strat.
Amp-wise we are talking to Marshall about possibly borrowing the new singlechannel, very vintage-styled ‘Origin’ range. Three 50-watt half-stacks would look so cool and sound the canine’s cojones, but they may not even be available by then and if so it’s back to the drawing board. Did Eric ever use a Line6 Helix?
Pedals were minimal in Clapton’s Cream rig – just a wah and a fuzz on a few songs although we’ll need a Leslie effect for Badge. It was flat-out Marshall stacks that created their live wall of tone so I’ll probably ape that with a Marshall-style drive pedal and a touch of ambient reverb. It’s certainly a no effects fest and of course volume is always an issue.
Now, if that’s the sort of meal we make of the gear for a 75-minute set of 12 songs, imagine the fun in divvying up the parts. We’re all quite different players and it was agreed that if anyone wanted to bag a particular solo or riff (for instance I took I Feel Free, Jamie wanted Strange Brew and ‘Wah-Wah’ Taylor fancied White Room), that would be the diplomatic way. Bassist Eric and Mick are both great lead singers so they’ll be sharing front vocals, while I’ll take Eric’s top harmony with Mick doing ‘Jack’ on several of the songs.
SoloEtiquette
Being a generous musician is a most welcome and laudable thing. When it comes to extended solos it’s perfectly right that each player should be allowed to soar unrestrained – and if Mick or Jamie are ‘in the moment’ and fancy another chorus or two, then I’m right behind them. They feel exactly the same. But also we can’t have three greedy six-stringers falling over each other to play the same part – and inevitably not doing it quite the same. So we are having guitar-only sessions at my place, in between getting together with bass and drums in a proper rehearsal studio, so it’s a carefully considered musical attack rather than 18 strings of Creamy cacophony.
Next month I’ll tell you how we got on. But if you fancy seeing for yourself (you have a week to get your tickets!) we are at the Lantern Room, Colston Hall on 17 March – we’ll catch you there!