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On the town with Derek Trucks

Posted in MUSIC by Tim Brookes on Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 11:00 am

It’s not yer average guitarist who begins a conversation, sitting amid a thicket of empty wine bottles in Radio Maria in Champaign, with a casual reference to Bruce Chatwin’s wonderful (if anthropologically controversial) book The Songlines, about the Australian Aborigines and their fascinating relationship with their landscape, whose geography and history they convert into songs that also act as maps. (Hence the title of his 2006 release, Songlines.)

But then again, if you’re on tour 300+ days a year and you’ve been working at that pace for close to 17 years, you’ve got to do something on the road to keep your mind alert. So what has Derek Trucks been reading recently?

Well, just now it’s been classic short stories, such as Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. But that was actually triggered by reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, along with a slew of Murakami’s other works, while the band was in Japan. There’s something they don’t teach you when you’re getting your MFA in guitar at Berklee or the Miami School of Music: when you’re touring, immerse yourself in the literature of the country where you’re playing.

He’s also a connoisseur of good beer: on tour in Belgium, he tracked down all seven of the Trappist beers, including the almost mythical Westvleteren variety, sold in bottles without a label and found only within a 20-mile radius of the abbey where it is brewed. The Father Abbott of the Westvleteren Abbey has been quoted as saying, “We are not brewers. We are monks. We brew beer to be able to afford being monks.“

All of which leads me to imagine a scene in the Great Band Room in the Sky, where guitarists who never had time to read, or never learned how to read (it’s a matter of dispute whether Django couldn’t read, or he simply couldn’t be bothered to read any of the contracts that were shoved in front of him), finally get all the time in eternity to lounge around with a good book. What would they choose?

I can see Hendrix hanging out in a corner with the collected works of Sherman Alexie, finally getting in touch with his Native American roots. Les Paul, a relentless self-improver, has some kind of Great Books stack on the floor beside him, maybe a bunch of James Michener, or Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization. T-Bone Walker, always smarter than his nickname (which he hated) and his crowd-pleasing nightclub act, has made his way through W.E.B DuBois and James Baldwin and is now reading everything he can find by Barack Obama, just to make sure the guy is all he’s supposed to be. And Stevie Ray Vaughan? Well, call me prejudiced, but I see him finishing The Da Vinci Code, flinging it into a corner and saying, “Damn, man, I could have done better than that.“

Add your own ideas here. What would your favorite dead guitarist be reading? Or, come to think of it, what do you imagine your favorite living guitarist is reading? Who knows? Maybe word will trickle through the Internet and s/he will post back to let you know if you’re right….

Tim Brookes is the author of: Guitar: An American Life and the forthcoming The Greatest Guitarist in the History of the World. He’s in town to act as emcee, interviewer and man-on-the-sidewalk for the Ellnora Guitar Festival at the Krannert Center. Check out his blog at www.timbrookesinc.com.

1 comments

Ben Valocchi avatar featured_post

Ben Valocchi

09/11/09 at 09:12
#1

unbelievably good show tonight

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Thanks for the article, Ben.  I was not familiar with this band until now and even though I won’t be able to attend the show on Friday they are now on my radar.  A *good* jam band is hard to find, and these folks appear to fill…

Posted by Rex Bennett to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/02/10.
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Nice article, love the Dead quote in the beginning. If they can get down here to Central FL I’ll definitely be heading out to the show. Some of my friends have finally stopped wincing when I say “jam band.“ I’ve now tried my best at more descriptive…

Posted by @bbryon to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/02/10.
Ben Valocchi avatar

good call on that Herring recording, Josh. Love that version of Exit Music….here’s a clip of the Cinco de Mayo show (from about six months prior). As I recall, this Shakedown went on for roughly a half hour, while getting into the Trampled Underfoot jam in the…

Posted by Ben Valocchi to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/02/10.
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sux

Posted by thisband to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/02/10.
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whats a zmick?

Posted by Phinestone to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/01/10.
{username}

Here is a link to download the aformentioned 2007 show at Red Herring, a true gem from the early Zmick archive, again recorded by Ben Valocchi: http://www.archive.org/details/zmick2007-11-02.logitech

Posted by Josh to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/01/10.
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My biggest concern is that the free Caribou show at the Krannert is now not at the Krannert and no longer free. But then, I guess if that’s my biggest concern, then I’m doing pretty well—at least I still have potable water! Still, I would prefer it…

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Who’s got the crack?

Posted by Adam to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/01/10.
JPSherrill avatar

Any band that makes the effort to pay homage to ! = Metallica @ = Beatles # = 2pac $ = Moldy Peaches % = Grateful Dead ^ = Dave Clark 5 All in one show!  (with Herb Alpert interpolations to boot) That’s what tasty jams is all about  

Posted by JPSherrill to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/01/10.
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THE CAKE IS A LIE

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By Jason Brechin to the entry 'Champaign Library to start charging Tolono and Mahomet residents on 09/02/10.
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By Dan Schreiber to the entry 'Champaign Library to start charging Tolono and Mahomet residents on 09/02/10.
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By Pete to the entry 'Mug club! on 09/02/10.
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Thanks for the article, Ben.  I was not familiar with this band until now and even though I won’t be able to attend the show on Friday they are now on my radar.  A *good* jam band is hard to find, and these folks appear to fill…

By Rex Bennett to the entry 'Zmick: Don't fear the jam on 09/02/10.
{username}

Nice article, love the Dead quote in the beginning. If they can get down here to Central FL I’ll definitely be heading out to the show. Some of my friends have finally stopped wincing when I say “jam band.“ I’ve now tried my best at more descriptive…

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Ben Valocchi avatar

good call on that Herring recording, Josh. Love that version of Exit Music….here’s a clip of the Cinco de Mayo show (from about six months prior). As I recall, this Shakedown went on for roughly a half hour, while getting into the Trampled Underfoot jam in the…

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