View source for Friends Of Dan Podcast: Allan Holdsworth 2017 interview

==Part 1==

welcome to the friends of dan music

podcast i'm dan miles

my guest today alan holdsworth is one of

the most influential guitarists in the

history of the instrument

his name appears on a very short list of

truly visionary players like django

reinhardt

jimi hendrix and eddie van halen whose

musical imaginations and unprecedented

technical ability have led countless

guitars to completely rethink their

approach to the instrument

and forever expanded its vocabulary and

share possibilities

on april 7th 2017 he'll be releasing a

12 cd box set featuring remastered

versions of all 11 of his groundbreaking

solo albums from 1982's iou through

2001's flat tire

plus his 2003 live album then

this epic career retrospective is called

the man who changed guitar forever the

allen holdsworth album collection while

that title is entirely appropriate i can

guarantee you that it was not alan's

idea to call it that as he's always been

quite modest about his achievements as a

soloist and composer

the set will also include a

comprehensive 40-page booklet and even

though it's well worth the investment

understandably a 12-disc set is bound to

be on the pricey side so on the same day

he'll also be releasing a 2-cd set

featuring 28 tracks he has hand-picked

as examples of his finest moments though

we're recording this interview in march

and neither product has been officially

released i'm happy to say i am in

possession of an advanced copy

of the 2cd set which is called eidolon

the allen holdsworth collection so we're

going to be able to listen to samples

from the new remastered collection i'm

going to start things off with one of my

personal favorite holesworth

compositions featuring one of my

all-time favorite holdsworth solos

for long time fans of allens this will

serve as a nice reminder of his epic

skill

and for the uninitiated will be

experiencing his artistry for the first

time well

prepare to have your mind blown

as originally featured on his 1985 metal

fatigue album featuring jimmy johnson on

bass and chad wackerman on drums here is

the newly remastered version of alan's

composition

devil take the hindmost

[Music]

so

[Music]

so

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

me

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

me

[Music]

oh

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

is

[Applause]

[Music]

so

[Music]

joining me on the phone from san diego

california is alan holdsworth welcome

thank you well through the courtesy of

your co-producer dan perloff i have an

advanced copy of the two disk set you'll

be releasing next month i recently drove

from la to phoenix and i took the

opportunity to listen to all 28 tracks

uninterrupted

so the first thing i wanted

oh it was it was exciting so the first

thing i want to do is compliment you on

the sequencing of the album i appreciate

how the tracks flow together it isn't

purely chronological in either direction

but musically it's logical i was

wondering because i said well this isn't

you know front to back back to front but

as i listened to the tracks you know it

all made sense and the second thing i

want to compliment you on is how good it

sounds

i did side by side comparisons with the

earlier versions and there's a

noticeable improvement so what were your

specific goals uh for remastering this

material well i relied on dan for that

because he had a

mastering company and a mastering

engineer that he really liked to work

with so they sent samples of all the

tracks and i thought he did a wonderful

job actually considering that

the source material isn't particularly

the further back you go it wasn't uh

wasn't as good as the newer ones

obviously but i think he did a wonderful

job on it

yeah all the instruments sound very

present but to me it's the drums that

really stand out they have a depth and a

rumble to them that wasn't there before

because i wasn't listening to downloads

i was putting cds the actual discs into

my you know bose system in the car and i

was going oh my this sounds really great

an exclusive feature of the set is a

previously unreleased version of the

song

road games with jack bruce on lead

vocals instead of paul williams what was

the story behind that

well the story behind that actually was

the

past i had a big war with the ted

templeman who was a fantastic producer

as you know one of the problem with is

what i signed with warner brothers they

didn't really give me enough up front of

what they wanted me to do

and i think i wanted to do what kind of

i thought i would do before which is to

do exactly what i wanted

but i imagine that but they uh they

decided that they wanted to um

change it and ted what didn't like the

paul williams for some reason and i i

loved paul actually i thought he was

fabulous but um

he wanted me to

use different people and

kind of force the issue and in the end i

kind of just gave up on it and that's

why the original album just says peru's

produced by circumstance because

we were supposed to have at least eight

to ten tracks on there and we only ended

up doing six and then i was uh

unceremoniously dropped by the label

which is fine because what happened was

that in the contract it said that they

had to pay for me to do another demo

so i went back to the studio of my

choice and recorded uh mentality and

just it was a bureaucrat you know i just

had to send the tape to ted temple which

they just declined i don't think he even

listened to it but the fact is that they

ended up paying for the majority of uh

mental fatigue and i i gave that to my

friend bill hein who uh was the

the boss at uh enigma records

but came back to your question

was that jack was on the original uh

uh original

well actually he was paul on everything

originally but then

we

replaced him with jack and then because

it was part of the deal

so uh

and i couldn't get out of that but

eventually what happened was

we recorded it obviously with jack and

then

ted templeman never came to the studio

once and he listened to all of the mixes

over the phone

in the end because i figured that he

knew that we weren't going to agree

to differ or whatever so he said okay

well you just go finish it yourself

so i took the tape back to uh i flipped

the tape out of water brothers and took

it back to the music grinder and

did a mix

with paul on it which is why paul was on

only on the original version yeah but

but we don't we already have the jack

bruce version and i love jack obviously

yeah so i thought it would be

interesting for people to hear jack sing

that song so i decided to use that

version as opposed to the original i

know from your perspective road games

was very problematic it's always going

to be a sentimental favorite for me

simply because it was my personal entry

point to your solo work but of course

jack bruce and paul both sang vocals on

the album and so it was interesting to

see that um resurface now and uh

i like both performances but you know

the one that's been in my head all these

years is paul's um

i don't have the 12 disc set yet but i

reviewed the track listing for more

exclusive content people can look for

there are three bonus tracks on disc

seven which are tokyo dream and the

unmerry go round parts four and five

which i believe have been released

before but only in japan on disk 12

there's a bonus version of funnels

and on disk 10 there's a track called

material unreal which is the title i

don't recognize um what's the story

behind that track

oh basically it was just uh i think it

was just like an instrumental version of

it i i think there was no vocals on that

track for what i remember gotcha i just

added that actually as a bonus track on

the 16 men obtained but it was a limited

edition that uh eddie johnson added to

it when he was distributing that record

for a short time i just used that

version on this album yeah well as i

said i haven't heard um the 12 disc set

yet so i only was able to read the track

listing but you know the real point of

it is just to hear

the remastered collection and i'm

looking forward to that what i want to

know uh just more generally as you were

developing your signature style which is

often characterized as being fluid or

legato

was it a case of hearing a sound in your

head and trying to develop a technique

to capture what you heard in your head

or was it more of an instinctive process

of just you know doing what felt natural

to you well it was both it was because i

originally wanted to play a horn i i

really wanted to play saxophone

or any uh wind instrument really yeah i

did play clarinet for a while and i

meant with the saxophone later on many

many years later but basically it was

like a kind of um it was kind of

instinctual for me to want to try to get

the guitar to sound a little bit more

uh liquid than you know because

as you know it's a percussive instrument

and i tried to get it sound to sound

like uh

and not a non-progressive instrument you

know i was always striving to try to

find a way to

make it more fluid that was all really i

guess it was just an unconscious desire

to still want to play at saxophone

you know another thing that's frequently

commented on beyond the actual notes you

play is your tone and with very few

exceptions jazz guitarists tend to favor

clean tones avoiding any hint of

distortion you know at all costs but

you've taken the best aspects of

distortion controlled feedback and warm

sustain to create a very rich and

pleasant sound did you ever experiment

with clean tones in your early days have

you always been drawn to a more rock

oriented guitar sound

no it was

it's actually kind of a blend really

because

i like to i needed to try to use some

sort of distortion to assist with the

sustain because i know that in order to

make it sound more horn-like i needed to

get the notes to be able to be a little

bit longer than they would be with a

clean tone

however

with the clean sound

i always use a very clean sound at least

i thought for the chordal stuff

so it was like a mixture you know so

and it was it was not easy in a way

because i i wanted to try to make it

sound

fluid but

not really naturally distortion you

started you know i was trying to get a

more liquid

not so quite aggressive as a regular

rock kind of sound

obviously your uh chord voicings are

very clean uh you really wouldn't be

able to hear the details if those were

distorted i was really speaking of your

lead guitar tone i guess i should have

been more specific

um no no that's right but that's

basically what i did is i tried to you i

tried to control the distortion to a

point where it really didn't sound that

distorted at least later on i just tried

to keep pushing myself into trying to

find a way to get

a kind of like the sustain without

without having a really nasty sound you

know you're right it is occupying a

middle ground it to me it sounds like a

singing voice it just it just sings it

doesn't it never sounds unpleasant to me

i appreciate that thank you so much for

the compliment

==Part 2==

well speaking of compliments um you know

as listeners of the show can attest i

know uh quite a few elite guitar players

who are big fans of yours i reached out

to some of them to solicit their input

uh some responded in writing others in

audio and you know don't worry i'm not

going to force you to sit there

uncomfortably while i heap a lot of

random praise on you uh that's not what

this is about what i want to do is take

some of their observations and use them

to springboard into some uh interesting

discussion points um let's start with

mark benia who among other things was

the lead guitarist in the keith emerson

band for many years i mentioned road

games being my entry point into your

solo work but it wasn't my first

exposure to your playing i'd already

heard some of the work you've done with

other artists i mentioned that because

it was also the case for mark so here's

what mark had to say

when i first heard that final guitar

phrase on allen's second solo break in

jean-luc ponte's enigmatic ocean part 2

i literally fell off my chair it was

like this nubile young temptress had

entered through the beaded curtains and

started massaging my neck lulling me

into this blissful altered state only to

have my neck snapped in one short stroke

with a flick of five fingers

i was never the same after that alan's

phrasing is so unorthodox patient at

times feeding you a spoonful of sonic

nourishment letting you chew your food

taste it and swallow it before handing

you another and then magically growing

six more fingers in order to pave the

fretboard in no choices and sensual

tones heretofore undiscovered or

expressed that's what the right beer can

do

apparently

no that's pretty sweet that was very

kind very kind words indeed

so thank you mark for your typical blend

of eloquent insight and down to earth

humor um you know enigmatic ocean was

also one of my first exposures to you so

i know exactly the passage he's

referring to and his description of

hearing you for the first time i think

and we all had a pretty uniform reaction

which was you know who is this guy it's

like hearing hendrix or van halen for

the first time it definitely commands

your attention um and rather than

getting your reaction you know to our

reaction to your playing i want to know

have you ever had a similar experience

where you were blown away by an artist

the first time you heard them

yeah i i was uh i felt that way when i

first heard john coltrane

of course yeah

i felt that way when i first heard keith

jarrett because because i didn't because

of my

upbringing my dad had a lot of it was it

was a fine pianist and he had lots and

lots of records you know the jazz guys

from the eras before and i remember when

i first said keith jarrett

i played it to my dad and he but he was

like oh my god that's insane you know so

uh yeah no i had um

because with guitar players too you know

obviously like when i first heard john

mclaughlin or

any of the great guys i mean

they're all they all affect you in some

way or another

i never had the desire to kind of to try

to uh knock them off in any way but i

was certainly

inspired you know by almost everybody

that i've ever heard there's so many

great players out there now it's insane

yeah i once bought um a jazz guitar

compilation and it was the first time i

ever heard wes montgomery and you know

his playing particularly compared to all

the others it was just so tasteful and

so confident and so elegant he made it

seem so effortless it was like well of

course you play jazz guitar like this

why wouldn't you you know that's the

message i got from i was going oh my

gosh and so i immediately got everything

else he ever did

um yeah yeah

i also appreciate what mark said about

your phrasing you know because while you

do have the ability to play quite

rapidly when you want to if that's what

you're feeling you obviously you know

mix it up it's not just about velocity

that's why i'm so fond of

your devil take the hindmost solo i

enjoy the slow parts as much as the fast

ones

you know i i i tried to kind of

for me everything's about trying to make

melodies out you know not just to kind

of demonstrate how rapidly you can do

something you know how fast can i run a

mile it's not it wasn't like that for me

i mean if that happened you know

then it was fine but um i just like try

to make melodies because that's for me

like what improvising is all about it's

about

trying to solo over the chord sequence

and try to

make melodies out of it you know

well now let's hear from another

talented guitar player

here's what jesse solomon had to say

allen's music was incredibly important

to me in my development as a player his

chords and swells were inspiring even

though i had no idea what he was doing

the tone he drew from his guitar and

electronics was extraordinary i never

felt like trying to recreate his music

as much as i like to emulate the

emotions that it made me feel in that

sense his influence on me wasn't as

apparent to somebody listening to me i

like a lot of his sensibilities with

layers solos and overall arrangements

and his interplay with the musicians he

plays with the picture of alan and eddie

van halen in the brochure for musicians

institute was all it took for me to want

to go there

seeing alan play back in 85 when i was

at git was amazing and also having chad

wackerman come to the school was

inspiring of course jeff berlin was a

teacher there too

a memory i have of helen was a time i

was at the namm show

looking at some guitars and he came over

said hi to me and said you're from fort

collins he saw that on my badge i said

yes but i was thinking this is alan

holdsworth how come he's saying hi and

how does he know fort collins he went on

to tell me he had friends from boulder

that he'd enjoyed some coors beer and

touring the brewery in golden so that

was a cool little exchange i'm happy to

have been able to watch him play over

the years and have more conversations

with him most recently when my friend

chris van tassel at rocket petals

designed a pedal for him i like what

jesse said about and you said something

similar

a little bit ago about

trying to recreate the emotions you made

him feel in his playing and when he

played he wants to recreate the emotions

as opposed to just copying licks

that seem that seems very wise and

insightful to me

and i can also relate to what he said

about there being a sense of mystery

with certain aspects of your playing you

know that how is he doing that factor um

what's the uh pedal jesse's referring to

uh it was like i was trying to um

before that i'd been using uh for many

years i still do actually use a tc

booster pedal

because it's not a distortion pedal at

all it's just like uh i always like the

sound of uh

al nico pickups you know the ones that

like the old original pafs from the of

the gibsons back in the day they were

pretty low output compared to modern

pickups so i like to use the booster it

was just like another way to

push the front end of the amplifier a

little harder

without adding any extra distortion you

know you just actually

still using the amplifier to make the

sound without adding any uh extra grunge

to it or whatever so what we tried to do

with that pedal that i worked on with

chris was

like a combination he had a clean boost

to it but he also had a section which is

which could develop some

kind of distortion because they wanted

to do that for the guys that were more

used to that kind of a sound it was kind

of a hybrid pedal

i see interesting

well we have one more written comment

before we break out the sound bytes uh

this is from mike jacobs who says

along with jaco pastorius and jimi

hendrix i can't think of another

musician that has been a bigger game

changer on an instrument than alan

holdsworth from his astounding facility

and technique and innovative use of

technology and equipment to his forging

of a harmonic and compositional identity

like no other allen has created his own

sonic universe that is virtually

unrivaled in depth and scope

from rockers to jazzers he's inspired

and influenced multiple generations of

guitarists in countless ways there are

probably a hundred different things you

could do on guitar that might elicit the

response he or she

has listened to holdsworth

he's a wonder and a true musical

treasure

again very very very very kind chap

yes he is he's and he knows his music he

knows his music mike does um i i know

what he means about the transparency of

your influence because i've heard

recordings of myself improvising and

soloing and they definitely include

moments that would expose me as a quote

unquote guy who's listened to holdsworth

i'll be listening and saying oh that

series of notes is you know you you come

into the person subconscious and it just

comes out you know so when you hear

other guitar players play something

that's clearly derived from your style

do you feel flattered or do you feel uh

proprietary no no i i've always

it's nice it's cool no if it's too

blatant then i don't like it so much

because it's like oh you could have

spent just as much time trying to figure

out how you want to do something as you

did trying to figure out what that was

you know it's like yeah but but it's

still uh

it's still a nice thing you know oh i

guess that guy all that that gal or

whatever was

actually listened to something and then

and it affected them in a way that they

wanted to employ it themselves in some

way so

the only ones that get offensive are

really when it's it gets too deep into

it then

i really don't like that because i think

that person or that individual could

have spend more time trying to develop

their own voice rather than trying to

figure out how somebody developed their

voice you know trying to emulate

somebody to a point is okay but after a

certain point it gets

it becomes a little obnoxious you know

i've done it i've done it myself but the

thing is mostly i let the music inspire

me rather than the specifics of it if

you know what i mean i do like if

somebody sees you playing they should go

i like what he did there i'll find a way

to incorporate it into my style and put

an original twist on it instead of just

copying a note for a note because it's

been done already um you know i have to

tell you i asked dick dale the same

question about surf guitarists um you

know

and i can tell you he definitely landed

in the proprietary camp because uh my

feeling was all these bands like the

ventures and the safaris you know they

were having big hits they were blatantly

derived from a style that he had created

so what i was wondering is if he had you

know felt a sense of community we're the

surf guitarists

if if you create a style the way he did

and then a year or two later wipeout and

walk don't run comes out are you going

to think oh great people have done stuff

with my style are you going to think ah

they're ripping me off he never really

answered it but the impression i got was

he didn't like it i think he wanted to

be the only surf guitar player in the

world

well

i i got over that pretty quickly really

because

as soon as the you know particularly

with the you know with the internet and

everything it's like nothing's sacred

anymore it's all it's all up to

everybody and uh and it's good because

if if somebody could take something

that i did and move it forward you know

and make it better because i'm an old

man now you know i'm 70 years old so i'm

i don't have the same kind of uh

outlook on life as i did when i was 25

you know i might have been more offended

when i was younger than i am now i i

just

think it's all okay you know it's okay

yeah remember 70 is the new 65 or

something like that however they say it

no in my case i feel every every minute

of it believe me

well now it's time for our first audio

clip um let's check this out hi my name

is joel martin i'd like to thank allen

for constant and extreme inspiration for

30 years which is almost the entire

length i've been a musician

i started playing guitar a month before

i turned 12

and two years later in 1986 i joined my

first two bands

one featured a nine-year-old brooks

whackerman and i'd heard that brooks's

brother played with this alan holdsworth

guy and frank zappa but those were only

two names i'd heard in guitar player

magazine

the other band had a young female lead

singer and she gave me a cassette tape

of her songs you know that she'd

recorded on like a tdk or something

and

i listened to her songs to learn

and then they ended and this music she

taped over started and it was the most

glorious guitar sound i'd ever heard in

my entire life i just did not know how a

guitar could sound that good so i went

back to her and said what was this

she said i have no idea it's just a tape

someone gave me and i taped my stuff on

it

so

i thought that was done into that story

so the following year i was going to

school grove school of music and i see a

friend with some headphones on and go up

to him and i'm like hey what are you

listening to because i'm listening to

alan holdsworth like oh i've never

really got to check him out before he

goes what you're a guitarist and you

don't know alan holdsworth so it was

just like a movie it was an incredible

moment he put the headphones on my head

pressed play and the beginning of metal

fatigue started and every part of my

brain must have lit up you know i'm a

young impressionable guitarist and that

was just

perfect music

so i was hooked it was complete devout

allen holdsworth fanatic and i went to

every show that my fake id could get me

into uh in southern california i even

got to see a special show because of my

brooks whackerman connection chuck

wackerman's middle school and high

school band concert in seal beach

featuring the allen holdsworth band

loved it and about the same time i was

getting into progressive rock and

learning about king crimson and getting

into bill bruford and john wetton so i

found out that there was this uk record

with everybody on it

and i went and found it and i'm

listening to it down and at the end of

side one there's never more and there

was that guitar melody that i'd heard

years before i finally

got to track it down and know that it

was alan which completely made sense

so i just want to thank you alan because

all of your records have really affected

me from lifetime all the way to your

current work and i just want you to know

that thank you cheers

well thank you joel

indeed no i can relate to what he said

about hearing that uk track filing it

away in his head and then somewhere down

the line experiencing that moment of

discovery like oh that's what that is

you know i think we've all done that and

you know one of the things about doing

this show is i learned things about my

friends i mean i didn't know he played

with chad wackerman's brother and

everything it's pretty interesting to

hear too

but sometimes people hear something and

they think they know what it is when

they really don't for example there's a

rod stewart video with jeff beck in it

so everyone assumes all the guitars on

that track were played by jeff when they

weren't and similarly um while the solo

on michael jackson's beat it is

performed by eddie van halen all the

rest of the guitar on that track which

is considerable

was done by steve lukather um you know

and speaking of jeff beck and michael

jackson uh next we're going to hear a

clip from a guitarist who has

collaborated with both

so let's hear what jennifer batten has

to say

allen is about 10 levels above a black

belt on guitar and it's a level that

most guitar players don't even think of

aspiring to because it's in a whole

other dimension

i had a great conversation with chad

wackerman once and he told me alan

explained time like this

when you're having a conversation it's

not stiff and boxed in time a spoken

paragraph isn't necessarily going to fit

into two or four bars rhythmically

so if you have a couple extra words

beyond the bar line that bar might

become maybe five four or nine eight

so he looks at music like a conversation

and that makes a lot of sense in theory

his approach would seem a lot more

natural and human

in fact all blues guys that didn't play

with the drummer did it that way

they made their bars fit their words

i spoke with another drummer that worked

with alan and he agreed with me that we

both had no idea where one was for his

entire shows until that guy actually

learned the tunes and then it made sense

steve lynch from the 80s band autograph

was a fellow student when i was at git

and i learned tapping from him and he's

the guy that turned me onto a one of the

soft machine records that allen was on

and it was stunning how original and

fluid his sound was

to the point where it actually sounded

kind of like fretless

and i think that's one of the

inspirations for steve to get into

tapping to make the guitar sound more

fluid than picking each note

years later i had a student that spent a

lot of time trying to cop alan's style

or his sound

and the guy's fingers were so strong he

could pull the strings towards the nut

to make them go flat

he told me alan didn't use the tremolo

bar as much as you would think because

he used that technique

i tried briefly to give it a shot and

realized i just didn't have the kind of

strength

to do that so

instead i used the snot out of the

tremolo bar and the whammy pedal set to

a whole step down to get those bends

the last time i saw him was in portland

when he did kind of a free-for-all with

tony levin and terry bozio

only the cream of the crop would have

the balls to attempt a show of total

improv

having faith in their creativity at any

given moment to make that work

i worked on uh one of my favorite songs

of his tokyo dream that was released in

a song book

and maybe one other in that book and

i think maybe inside that book or maybe

it was in a guitar player article

it was explained that alan would come up

with scales that would work for the

wacky chords he came up with

which just seems crazy for the rest of

the world including myself using known

scales is enough for a lifetime of work

he's definitely the cream of the crop

and i have the utmost respect for him

well thank you jennifer

beautiful very kind again because she's

fantastic yeah she is she's amazing

she's been on the show twice um she

mentions you being a black belt on the

guitar so do you want me to start

calling you sensei for the rest of the

interview no no no absolutely no i'm you

know

a white belt you know i haven't even

started i don't know do you need to

pause and break a board or anything

==Part 3==

i like that analogy which he's basically

saying is don't fight this guy on guitar

because you're going to lose

but it was it was interesting what she

said about your approach to time being

tied to normal speech patterns you know

your playing doesn't have to fit a

particular time signature if you want to

add a beat or lose one go ahead don't

confine yourself to you know established

practices that's interesting thought to

have because how weird would it be if we

all spoke in perfect measures or if we

said everything in haiku or something

you know

um you know so if you can speak with any

rhythm you want you should be able to

play that way too did she get that right

is that did chad have that right yeah

but also franklin said that also he said

you don't you don't speak in 4-4

tell me about your new album yeah i

guess it would be yeah pretty much yeah

yeah

perfectly logical actually but yeah it

is when you actually stop and think

about it but many people probably don't

question progressive rock there are a

lot of riffs um that are built on odd

time signatures you know but in terms of

soloing i guess as long as the other

players are really listening carefully

because jennifer made that point about

not knowing where the one is you know as

long as the guys on stage have a basic

idea i guess

she also mentioned that technique that

sounds like a whammy bar but it's done

with the fingers uh do you know what she

was referring to

i know exactly what she's referring to

yeah it's just when you grab the string

if you pull the string from below the

fret before you thread it

and push

towards the bridge that will be very

sharp

and likewise if you grab if you're going

to say i just like say playing an a on

the e string and you grab it from above

when your finger lands on the on the

note you want to play if you pull it

towards the nut it will be really flat

so you can get it to move like actually

if you get good at it you can actually

stretch it a tone you know i i don't

know that i've ever been able to do more

than that but

usually a half step that's interesting

well that's why i reached out to these

other players because you know they have

stuff on the brain that's not on my

brain you know so i'm glad she was able

to contribute that um

well i have a feeling you're going to

enjoy this next clip let's spin it

[Music]

hey dan miles this is carl jaw from

atlanta georgia

when you told me that alan holdsworth is

going to have a

12 cd box set released

my first thought was

man that's a lot of notes

a lot of notes

if i had a penny for all the notes on

that collection

i'd be a wealthy man

but seriously folks no alan holdsworth's

a master

master brewer the man likes to make beer

what is this a roast

that concludes the comedy portion of our

show

i'm here mondays and thursdays try the

veal

the name allen holdsworth first blipped

on my radar

when a friend brought an album to my

house he says you got to hear this

guitar player i've never heard anything

like it

it was called bundles by a band called

soft machine

and they were progressive english band

and

it was

groundbreaking you know the highest

compliment you can play any musician

is that they're original and this was

very original

it sounded like a crazy saxophone and

the tone was amazing and

we're like

how does he play like that what what

what is this

so we followed alan holdsworth you know

i got velvet darkness i still have a

vinyl copy of velvet darkness as well as

having a vinyl copy of metal fatigue

metal fatigue was an album that i think

a lot of people embraced

it had a lot of rock overtones and he

got on a lot of people's radar i think

with that album

but i've pretty much heard everything

and it's it's all great it all is

original and brings something different

to the table every time i got to see

alan holdsworth play twice

early on i saw iou play at the roxy

theater

uh jeff berlin on bass chadwakam and the

drums

and man

a lot of noise coming off that stage for

for three guys it was pretty amazing

and years later i saw him at the coach

house

down in san juan capistrano gary husband

was on drums i can't remember the rest

of the band but again equally amazing

show

and i actually met ellen holdsworth one

time

uh around 1990 91 dred zeppelin was

touring england

and we were at this rehearsal studio

playing in the studio for like a press

you know recording it and interviewing

the band so i went to this little

corner coffee clutch little thing to get

a cup of coffee on the floor we're at

and who's standing there but allen

holdsworth so i introduced myself to him

and we chatted a bit

he was there rehearsing with level 42.

he did a tour with them i think maybe an

album even and uh very nice guy very

personable always ready to talk about

guitars and uh just had a little brief

chat and he was off

but he was very friendly and seemed like

a real nice guy

so those are a few of the bright allen

holdsworth moments in my life

i just want to say alan

you've inspired many people many guitar

players many musicians

12 cds is an amazing accomplishment

i wish you many more

and i hoist my glass in your direction

cheers

the one and only carl just

that's awesome

[Laughter]

that was funny and when carl sent me his

audio clip he also sent me a picture of

you guys together um must have been that

level 42

event he was talking about um you know

another aspect of your work that

probably isn't mentioned enough is your

sense of humor uh which can often be

found in your song titles and more

importantly you know i often detect a

sense of whimsy in your soloing um you

know humor is obviously an important

tool just to get us through life in

general but in terms of musicianship you

know how important do you think it is to

incorporate some humor now and then

i think it's very important actually i

uh yeah because it's like if you look at

life in a you know i

you have to find something uh you have

to try to find something fun in it you

know to make it to to ease the pain

you know it's just

most of the musicians i've worked with

have a fantastic sense of humor they're

all usually very very funny guys you

know

chad has

got one of the driest wits of all he's

very funny i think it relates to

intelligence and you know playing the

type of music you do

you're not gonna have a lot of dummies

playing bass and drums in your band so

it seems like it would go hand in hand

that they would be smart and funny and

talented

well i've been extremely lucky in that

department i've uh

most of the most everybody that i've

played with i think

in the you know

keyboards based drummers

are actually

some of the most amazing musicians

around um

and uh it's been my pleasure to work

with all of them and the the

most everybody i've worked with that had

their

kind of own personality and their own

like uh

you know they all bring something really

different

to the table you know and i i really

enjoy that i like to incorporate that in

the music where i

i'm not very strict in terms of um

interpretation

if they want to interpret

it for themselves you know i i let them

do that because i think that that's a

good thing

it makes them kind of uh

find their way through the music you

know and then hopefully make it more

enjoyable and

try to tell somebody well you do this

here and you do that there i tend to let

them

make their own

rules you know as long as they're

playing the the music which they all do

you know um they can interpret it in

different ways one example is i do the

track with gary husband and jimmy

johnson

and uh which was actually was never

released and then i did the same

uh song again with uh joel taylor and

ernest tibbs which is still on release

but

i was gonna put them both on the same

record because

they sound

with the exception of being able to

recognize the melody and the actual

composition

the interpretation is completely

different

it's just like two

different universes

and i love that i really like that i

like to let the guys kind of find

themselves

and that inspires me too because it

makes it pushes me into a

evolve what i'm doing and put it in

their

interpretation as opposed to trying to

force a direction

if you know what i mean

i know exactly what you mean a lot of

the guests we've had on this show have

been professional studio players and

they will show up for a job and it can

go either of those two ways they can be

told all right

play what's on that sheet music and do

not bring yourself to it at all or they

can be given you know the freedom to

really contribute and uh you would think

that's what you would want if lisa comes

in or jay grade and her elliot randall

or some player who's in the studio all

the time let them contribute like you

just said and they said yeah you think

so but you'd be surprised how often you

get in there and and they give you

something that anybody could have played

they're not putting their personal stamp

on it at all which seems kind of crazy

to me it's like take advantage of the

talent you know you're paying for it

yeah yeah you would think so you know i

i did a few

session things i

sometimes

i go like well why did you have me to do

this you know it's like

anybody could have done it you know

but if if they don't want you to

to be yourself then what's the point you

know

i hear you man um well one thing that uh

i can't remember which guest mentioned

this to me but he said there was a time

probably in the 70s when the record

companies wanted just to have lots of

names in the liner notes so instead of

just getting one rhythm section they

would have a different bass player and a

different drummer the biggest names they

could get so you'd have russ kunkel on

this one but you'd have jeff percaro in

that one and he just likes having lots

of names and then of course the album is

less cohesive when you do that obviously

um

but uh you know speaking of humor and

you uh

from in my own experiences this i found

this kind of humorous and ironic you

know back in the day because um i used

to tell people that i suspected you were

a time traveler because whenever i

watched you play i felt like i was

looking into the future

and um then you came out with this album

called the tavicron where you're wearing

a star trek uniform on the cover and

standing in front of a time portal and i

thought hey maybe my theory's not so

far-fetched after all i

was going the wrong way i was going back

into the past

it was just funny because i had been

making that joke about you uh my

watching you play and looking to the

future etc before a tavicron came out

and so after it's having came out i it

was a little bit too eerie i didn't want

to make that joke anymore

yeah but as an example of your musical

humor i'm gonna play a track that both

joel and carl mentioned um the title

track from metal fatigue you know which

on this appears to be a bit of a dig at

metal guitarists so um were you trying

to sort of gently chide them for the the

repetitive nature no no no it was just

it was just uh just to play on words

really no

it didn't have anything to do with that

at all really it was just that when i

first start when i was writing that song

it kind of reminded me of a like a

you know and then when um

i'd worked with paul williams and i uh

originally used to write some lyrics of

my own but then i decided that

it seemed to be to give the vocalist the

freedom

also to uh make sense out of the lyrics

for themselves yeah i would let like

paul uh come up with like his own lyrics

you know so

and he just hadn't put that in there so

it just became a

heavy metal fatigue

it wasn't a digger at all not at all i

mean there's so many great metal guitars

i i i thought it was kind of fun

experimenting with the

with the pitch pitch shifting and all

that stuff you know which i've

experimented with a lot and

so it was basically that i was just kind

of having fun

yeah as i said i'm glad you clarified

that because you're playing on that

track it's really wild and then

combining the lyrical thing because i

can tell you as a guy who was kind of

traveling

uh in the circle of metal musicians when

that came out

i can tell you no metal guitar players

were offended so even if that was your

intention

it wasn't it was it wasn't intended to

be that way at all it was just uh it was

like i said it was just fun

we we were just having fun you know it

was

it just came up as

i

quite often will have an idea of

what the piece of music is going to be

and the title

often will be based around i'll write

the piece of music based around the idea

that i have for that particular title

but in that case it it wasn't it was

just uh it's just something that grew

out of it you know it's like

the album when we did the album uh hard

hat area with the schoolish person on

bass and uh

gary husband and

steve hunt on keyboards one of the one

of the things after the show like school

he came up to me and he goes hey man do

you see all the people in the front row

he said

they look like we needed to be handed

out hard hats

so oh it was funny because he's another

very very funny guy yeah and then then i

just came up with a title for the album

you know

but it was it was not a put down in any

way it was just a just a humorous you

know it was just humor really

yeah well that's why we were talking

about humor now that's a good example of

it and you know no matter what the

intention i think we can all agree that

the result was pretty badass

so let's go ahead and enjoy the

remastered version

of metal fatigue

[Music]

[Applause]

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it's time to

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so many words to justify

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let's go

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let's see

[Applause]

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maybe the wind will drag your endless

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show me a river that is

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here

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so much worse

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oh

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[Applause]

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[Applause]

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uh

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if you believe

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so this worse

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so much

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oh

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you

==Part 4==

[forthcoming]

==Part 5==

i just want to thank everybody for for

being so kind to me and all those great

musicians who've said those nice things

about me it's very moving

i appreciate it um i was very happy that

um

dan and evan cohen you know from

manifesto records

uh

kind of

asked about doing a compilation you know

as an old guy and everything and just

like kind of re reissuing this stuff

because of the fact that they were

mostly either discontinued or boot legs

or remastered who knows where

and they wanted to do a a nice job and i

think they did a great job actually i

mean obviously some of the material

depending on the

you know depending on how old it was you

know some of it was two inch some of it

was happening some of it was digital

tape machines and uh

so

but i think overall they did a great job

and it was kind of like a liking to look

back over my shoulder which i don't

really like to do but as an old man now

i feel

that it was okay to do that

i was not happy with the title of the

compilation box because of the fact that

it's outside the realm of my normal

uh way of thinking you know to to

self-promote in that way so i

but they'd already

spent time and the money on doing you

know doing the cover and i was only

concerned with the music i just wanted

to make sure that the music was okay

yeah i think they did a wonderful job

and that really what i'm trying to focus

on now is the new album you know like uh

the newest one i'm working on now with

the virgil bernardi and jimmy johnson

and uh

but i don't know how long this will take

you know

yeah but but we'll see

i'm glad you summarized the project the

way you did because i said as i said i

have an advanced copy of eidolon which

is the two disk set and then um the 12

cd when you write i mean

you i had forgotten that road games had

been out of print for a while and

they've been you know problems getting

some of these things it's it's very nice

to be able to have you know iou through

flat tire soundtrack for non-existent

movie also there's a you know live album

at the end and as you've also stated and

i'm glad you did

you're not finished making music you

have more music you're going to continue

to make but it's really nice to have

this set and you know there's a lot of

music for people to chew on where

they're waiting for the next one and you

know i want to stress the point that

when the next one is done please come

back so we can talk about it i'm very

curious to hear it you bet you bet thank

you so much

so everybody if you're new to allen's

music or if you're a long time fan you

know now is the perfect time to discover

or rediscover his solo recordings

because they've literally never sounded

better it sounds really great the

remastering was a roaring success again

the release date for both the expanded

and abridged collections is april 7th

but both are available right now for

pre-order on amazon.com

so reserve yours today for our exit

music we're going to treat everyone to

that jack bruce version of road games we

mentioned earlier then after that we're

going to hear alan's rendition of the

irving berlin standard how deep is the

ocean

well alan i want to thank you for

joining me today you've been a musical

hero of mine for many years now so i

really appreciate this opportunity to

speak with you well it's been my

pleasure thank you so very much for

giving me the opportunity and just like

i said to all the

people that have stuck there with me

over the years

i really truly appreciate it thank you

all so very much

i want to thank everyone who sent in a

comment or an audio clip

i also want to thank allen's

collaborator dan perloff

extra special thanks to ann layton for

her assistance arranging this interview

thanks to tom bowers for engineering and

editing the podcast and thanks once

again

to the one and only alan holdsworth

and now as promised here are a couple

more tastes from his upcoming remastered

collection

first we have the title track from road

games featuring chad wackerman on drums

our friend jeff berlin on bass and jack

bruce with a previously unreleased

alternate lead vocal

and then we have alan's irving berlin

cover how deep is the ocean

featuring gary willis on base kirk

covington on drums

and gordon back on keyboards basically a

whole lot of top level musical content

coming your way don't forget to

pre-order your alan holdsworth

collection today or if you're hearing

this podcast after april 7th 2017. don't

forget to rush right out and pick it up

thanks very much for listening

and we'll see you next time

so long everybody

[Music]

foreign

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i can see miles and miles away

seems like the road forever

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the heat of the sun is on my brain

is

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ah

[Applause]

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this

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hey is

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forever

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so

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you

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so

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[Applause]

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so

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so

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do

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so

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do

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do

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do

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do

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you