It's nice to be back. It's not easy for me, a Watt, to transmit anything teslan,
and I've been typing about him quite a byte lately. So it's nice to be back, doin'it the reit way.
reitze, have you ever tried using the juice from a generator on your bike?
I would think there's enough to get an amp going, maybe, I don't know.
I never really had one for long. The ones I had made a real drag on the pedals,
so they didn't last long, even if I had some pretty neat lights.
My new banana seat came in. It's hard to believe the same seat is still out there,
and only cost $3 more than twelve years ago, and $6 more than over forty years ago.
The same seat from the same catalog.
I almost feel as good about that as thinking about when I bought a Stratocaster in 1970.
Not that the value was going up, there wasn't much left of that guitar towards the end.
It needed frets for sure. I couldn't file them down any more.
That guitar would be worth what, $15,000 if it was in good shape, but I don't care.
I really felt like I played it out, there was nothing new left in it, and it was just a rightie, not a reitze.
My right-handed attempt at playing out my mayoral campaign is producing some hybrid results.
I'm being contacted by a lot of media, but they're not printing everything I'm saying, just yet.
And a lot of people are saying what I've been saying all along is true, even if they're not sure they can vote for me.
But you should see me. I haven't cut my hair since May Ist, and I've been told I should be in the Bounty,
play Custer with my bad dark blonde wash away the gray, and.... and.... some people just can't handle
me pealing up with my bike and skidding to their stop. I have to make brake sounds with my mouth,
and rev myself down, not being self-powered like you.
I like my idling sounds though, getting a pop pop pop like European diesels.
This big, long-haired guy on a bike ahead of me didn't know I was behind him,
and he made a little braking sound, so I laid into him, hitting him from behind and going rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..........rrrrrr,
just like a big Harley. I scared him. He was a little upset, but when he saw it was me he said be careful,
he heard I signed the papers.
Yeah, see what I mean? I'm going on about making motor and brake noises,
but here in Welland I can just sign some papers and everybody hears that.
I know how to be noisy, not just onstage.
And reitze, what's another nice thing about being a lefty?
There I was, being asked to raise my right hand to swear the oath.
Which I did, but I also raised my left hand and put it over my heart, and felt it.
It's so nice to have both happening.... sometimes.
Once again though, I decided to get into dangerous musical territory.
That's when the regressive side of my nature expresses itself.
I decided to try and make up another riff that only I can play,
and I came up with something really sick. It almost hurts me to hear it.
It just doesn't stop. I did my usual thing, starting in a key so I have an open chord,
at the end of the neck, something to give my barre chord fingers a rest,
but I didn't need it. This constantly pounding bass with the riff working with it,
goes anywhere on the neck. I'm not sure what kind of music it is, even.
I feel like I've got what Jimmy Page had happening for Whole Lotta Love,
but it's not a little, duh-duh, duh-duh, it's more like eight duh-duhs in a row,
and then again wherever the bass note is. I have to be careful.
I'm playing more than I can hear sometimes. It's bending my brain, so I got a good one.
And I can just sing my heart out, it's so easy to play. What a good day!
Other guitarists are saying, John... just play the riff, John, just play the chords,
or John... stop playing the bass, I wanna hear the guitar.
I gotta go. I got 52 new photos uploaded and installed in my domain, two new pages,
so I have to provide some narrative, not comments.
That should cause most members here some mental distress, trying to imagine me being narrative,
not just commenting casually like I do in music forums. rrrrrrr... that was a printing press,
after being told to halt the presses. John said something else.
I gotta admit, everyone, everyone, is starting to agree with me.
This might be the first election in Welland to feature a candidate fatality.
I'm thinking this Thursday night, after the televised mayoral debates.
No-one but me knows what two new things I'm going to be talking about.
When those bits hits their fans, I think I'll catch more than hybrid applause.
Some people are starting to say they're saying they'll vote for me, just to help keep me alive.
It's really not nice to see some fear in others eyes, afraid for me even if I'm laughing.
But I got over that look the first few times I stood up there with a Marshall behind me.
Back them some people thought it might make them want to do acid.
yeah... it's a good thing some people thought I wasn't a real guitarist and just left me alone.
But there's no way I could just plug my guitar straight into the amplifier,
even if that's all Richie Blackmore was doing when I saw him that year, 1970.
Deep Purple played a one-nighter in Montreal, coming to North America the first time,
and got held up before they could go over the border to Buffalo, for a six-nighter.
A radio d.j. was talking about them setting up to run through some new tunes,
in a mall in Toronto, and someone was taking cash to get in. $2.
By the time we got there from Welland, there were over two hundred.. uh.. musicians there.
Deep Purple was set up on Board of Education risers, six inches tall, 4x8 one inch plywood,
at the one mall intersection. We went and got some munchies and came back, it was so good.
Everyone was talking about the band, some guys had some hot guitars just to show off,
and the audience was like a floating jam, and we were getting into it, making sandwiches
and giving them away. We were in the middle, twenty feet from the stage.
I still can't say what Deep Purple were doing, walking onstage. They looked around,
they looked at each other, you couldn't even tell if the equipment was on, except for the lights.
And then bang, they were playing and it just didn't stop.
Every time Ritchie even made a little move towards his amp,
two big guys would go rushing behind it, until finally he made some big moves,
running up to it, running up it, and then flipping over backwards, while he was playing.
And it sounded like the record. I still don't know what that was.
I couldn't see his fingers. And Jon Lord, playing with knives, sticking them into the organ,
looking just nasty, but then taking the knives and sticking them between the keys,
making more notes than humanly possible, and riffing off like some wild man.
They all were. Nobody could count those notes per minute. Nobody thought like that back then.
And then it got quiet, and it seemed just as everyone started lifting their head,
looking around like the worst is over, you heard a quiet, breathy organ, doop doop doo,
doop doop doo, and then a little riff, eight notes, a little louder, Ritchie coming in,
and it became Sweet Child in Time, ripping your brains out while they looked angelic,
for a little while. Strange to say, but only Yes pulled off a moment like that,
something I'd expect from them. But I was there when Deep Purple did it. That was the best.
And they were something you never heard before.
Ritchie had that "tearing" sound, unique, from his Strat, a Les Paul tone,
but other than that he sounded classical, like a violin or cello most of the time,
just plugged in straight to his amp.
He'd be holding up his guitar like a sword and doing flamenco stomps with his boots.
What I didn't expect was they looked like a band, all dressed in the same purple shirts,
black pants and black boots. I thought for sure they'd be navel gazers, not head bangers.
No, no, they were Deep Purple for sure, whatever that was.
And what was the one thing I really learned, watching them all up close?
Ian Gillan kept talking while the band adjusted things between songs, he was entertaining.
He said they had a new little riff they wanted to try out, and it wasn't on Deep Purple in Rock,
their new album. We all bought one before we left Toronto. We had to stand in line.
Ian's still rapping away, moving in to talk with audience members, shaking hands,
keeping his hair out of his face, saying they wanted to smoke it up a little onstage,
even if they couldn't call it that, and Ritchie started Smoke on the Water.
I know, I know, Mozart can cry and scream in pain, but at least we retained that riff,
and could play it when we got back, kind of.
You knew Deep Purple had something because when I played the riff at the store back home,
it got everyone going. Deep Purple originated a lot of hard rock song styles.
That's still the only single to sell over a million with the original recording,
and then selling over a million again when a live single version came out.
And that's when selling a million was really selling.
I haven't seen one of those record for over thirty years.
I think that's because I always say that might be the only thing I'd ever lose it for and steal.
Believe me reitze, nobody was thinking old Delta blues.
After we went outside, the sun seemed an alien event, and we just sat on some benches.
We should have stayed and watched them tear down and talk to some roadies,
but our minds were blown, we didn't care, we banged on the wood and sang smoke on the water,
and fire in the sky. A couple of older winos even came over, offering us some booze.
gotta go... as never before, John Watt
