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GUITAR UNBOUND
But at the end of the day it's all Rock and Roll
A new Documentary about Gary Lucas—premiered on the Dutch Arts
Channel (Kunstkanaal) on October 1st, 1995 (broadcast six times that
day!).
The press release for the documentary follows:
A guitar man: that is Gary Lucas, but not in the traditional way. To
him the guitar is an instrument made from flesh and blood with a will
of its own, remaining adolescent for-ever. Gary Lucas likes to play
the guitar through the whole musical spectrum.
"There is something about the guitar and the physicality of bending
the strings that really appeals to me. It's like an agression. You
feel a life force when you're squeezing this thing. May be similar to
when I had a gun when I was in summer camp, growing up. They
discovered I had a very good eye and could shoot very well in target
practice. It's the same kind of feeling, squeezing that trigger is
like squeezing the strings on the guitar. With the guitar it is
better, because you get this noise you like to control, you can shape
and sculpt it the way you want. A gun just goes bang."
In the seventies Gary Lucas (Syracuse, New York, 1952) played with
Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. "I had to study his records first to
hear what was happening. To learn Beefheart's music required a
complete rearrangement of my technique. The notes playing with your
left hand while picking in he right, weren't orthodox in any mode of
blues or rock and roll scale, folk scale. They were more outside, he
liked to step outside."
After the years with Beefheart, Don van Vliet, Gary Lucas made a
series of solo performances, all over the world, using various
guitars and electronic equipment. He wrote a number of new
compositions and variations of existing pieces inspired by a broad
range of music traditions, folk, blues, modern classical, popular
music from the fifties and sixties and of course rock and roll. He
now combines his solo work with his band Gods and Monsters.
Based upon an interview following a performance in De Binnenpret,
Amsterdam June 1993, "Guitar Unbound" paints a portrait of the guitar
artist Gary Lucas. Much of the historical footage is from his
personal archive.