fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

The Best Guitarist in the World at Bearsville

by John Burdick
April 1, 2016
in Art & Music, Entertainment
0
Blake Mills in the studio
Blake Mills in the studio

I don’t get asked “Who’s your favorite rock guitarist?” nearly often enough. I have an answer – a crafted koan of an answer that both satisfies and confounds the asking, exposing deep pools of aesthetic and cultural theory if you fix your attention on its paradoxes long enough. Your loss. It’s embarrassing to have to interview yourself all the time. Socrates without a willing boy is just another crazy man.

The young, in-demand guitarist and producer Blake Mills plays at the Bearsville Theater on Friday, July 24, still supporting his exceptional 2014 solo outing Heigh Ho. Although he is appearing here in his identity as a (very worthy) self-producing singer/songwriter, Mills represents the first real threat to upset my stock answer to that guitar question in several decades. I will be taking the long road back to the subject of Mills, so let’s get the awkward straw-man part of this “dialogue” rolling, shall we?

“Hey John, who is your favorite rock guitarist ever?”

Thanks for asking. I don’t have a favorite rock guitarist ever. That’s why my favorite rock guitarist ever is Dave Gregory.

The non-songwriting member of the British New Wave/progressive pop band XTC, Gregory was once called by majority songwriter Andy Partridge the “icing chief,” the tricky bits player, the one whose imaginative, chameleonic and historically informed finish work elevated the band’s (arguably) hit-and-miss songwriting into the deliriously musical and original stuff that it is.

Like any candidate for favorite rock guitarist, “Gregsy” has chops – way more than you or me, most likely – but you really have to sample a broad cut of the material to appreciate them. He demurs the guitar-god role (except when playing it for a purpose), privileging the song and the arrangement at every turn. He acts like a natural-born composer/arranger who happens to be occupying the lead guitar chair.

Dig: There’s a subtle-but-critical perspective difference between asking, “What would I do on guitar here?” and “What would I have the guitar do here?” Gregory embodies the latter more than any player I can think of (though I can hear the calls of “Johnny Marr!” “Jon Brion!” and “Nels Cline!” right outside my window). It helps that Gregory has all the moves and colors under his fingers, so if the answer is “something that Neil Young would do,” no sweat. If the answer is “something that Darius Milhaud would do,” no sweat either. As a result, XTC just has better details than most bands, no matter what you think of the songs.

I hardly even think of him as a guitarist, so instrument-agnostic is his vision, so independent of the dialects and limits of the guitar. He plays all the fancy keyboards too, and if you know XTC’s critically decorated 1986 album Skylarking, think of the McCartney-meets-Anton Webern string quartet song “1,000 Umbrellas.” That’s Partridge on guitar, but it’s Gregory’s string arrangement: a bit of chamber art so tense, articulate and outlandishly musical that it exposes all the rest of Todd Rundgren’s pandering and hackneyed orchestrations on the album for what they are. So Dave Gregory is my, uh, “favorite rock guitarist ever.”

Enter Blake Mills. This phenomenal sideman/producer/singer/songwriter from Malibu has a nickname. It’s “the Best Guitarist in the World.” Don’t expect a find a playlist of pyrotechnic YouTube videos to convince you of it. They don’t exist, nor should they. Perhaps you’d be happier with some six-year-old “blues prodigy” doing a real swell Bonamassa impersonation, or the Suzuki Method girl who shreds a Flying V at impossible BPMs? Is that how you will find your next Lama?

(Come to your senses: Please stop spreading those horrible memes. If it is too late for you, do it for the children, for those poor young “mindblowing virtuosos.” Let them take their lumps playing real music with real people, and maybe save them from the life of the one-trick circus freak who has to be the center of attention or nothing at all. Would you want that kid playing on your song? Thought not. More often than not, musical greatness lies in sublimating the self, not glorifying it. /rant)

Enter Blake Mills, again. You’d want him to play on your song. You’d probably want him to arrange, produce and write it too. But to appreciate the scope of this guy’s talent, you really need to sample a broad cut of the all the diverse music in which he has been involved. Some of it is roots/rock and country, some electropop, some prog/folk, some Afro-Cuban. It’s a slow burn, this epiphany, but when you find yourself asking, “Sh*t, who’s playing that?” (“Who arranged that?” “Who produced that?”) and the answer comes back “Blake Mills” time and time again, the light dawns. You don’t waste a second of your precious time worrying about his incendiary chops; you just gasp at the imagination, beauty and range of his ideas and his heartbreaking tone, feel and control, and how, from the guitar chair, he makes everything better, he makes everything happen. This is a master – a Lama, in fact – possessed of authentic values and a preternatural maturity.

There is one shortcut to appreciating Mills’s genius, though you might have missed your chance. You had to see him live with Fiona Apple on one of their recent co-headliner tours. Words cannot describe how breathtakingly exquisite his accompaniment was on those dates, and that is not something that I am in the habit of saying, for if I were I’d be out of a job.

Don’t take my word for it; take the word of Lucinda Williams, Jesca Hoop, Neil Diamond, Alabama Shakes, Diana Krall, Connor Oberst, Norah Jones, Kid Rock, the Avett Brothers, Lucius, Ozomatli, Eric Clapton, Dawes, Julian Casablancas, Weezer, Jenny Lewis, Bruce Hornsby, Joshua Radin, Jeff Bridges and Lisa Marie Presley.

Better yet, do me a favor and don’t even take their word. I have done a grave disservice to Blake Mills in this article. At the Bearsville, he won’t be sticking his extraordinary guitar-playing in your face; he never does, in fact, but this A+-list player/producer, whose batphone never stops ringing, has chosen the rough road of the roots singer/songwriter in a vastly oversaturated market. Start your journey with his solo album Heigh Ho. Over the course of its 12 exquisitely written, arranged and produced chamber/roots tracks, you will have your Blake Mills moment; I guarantee it.

Blake Mills performs at the Bearsville Theater on Friday, July 24 at 9 p.m. Tickets cost $18 in advance, $20 on the day of the show. For more information, visit www.bearsvilletheater.com. The Bearsville Theater is located at 291 Tinker Street in Woodstock.

 

Blake Mills w/Sam Outlaw, Friday, July 24, 9 p.m., $18/$20, Bearsville Theater, 291 Tinker Street, Woodstock; www.bearsvilletheater.com.

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Kids’ Almanac: Dragon Boats, scavenger hunts, comic book expo and Alice turns 150

Next Post

Letter: Glaring omissions in complaint about Saugerties Legion baseball heckler

John Burdick

Related Posts

Woodstock gallery celebrates the life and art of Carol Zaloom
Art & Music

Woodstock gallery celebrates the life and art of Carol Zaloom

June 1, 2023
Legendary NYC avant-punk polymath performs live in Woodstock this Saturday
Art & Music

Legendary NYC avant-punk polymath performs live in Woodstock this Saturday

June 1, 2023
Dozens of activities for all ages in Ulster County this week
Community

Dozens of activities for all ages in Ulster County this week

May 31, 2023
All the art events in Ulster County this week
Art & Music

All the art events in Ulster County this week

May 31, 2023
Century-old Woodstock music venue hosts open house this Saturday
Art & Music

Century-old Woodstock music venue hosts open house this Saturday

May 31, 2023
Ulster County live music guide: First week of June 2023
Art & Music

Ulster County live music guide: First week of June 2023

May 31, 2023
Next Post

Letter: Glaring omissions in complaint about Saugerties Legion baseball heckler

Trending News

  • Kingston’s new tap room and beer garden was made for locals 4.5k views
  • Victim’s mother was assured by Kingston school officials that her son would be safe, notice of claim now entered against the district 3.6k views
  • Who’s to blame for Kingston’s inadequate playing fields? Just ask the parents 833 views
  • Pride reaffirmed in New Paltz 712 views
  • Horsin’ around in Saugerties (photos) 571 views
  • At iPark 87, things do seem different this time 410 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
90°
Sunny
5:23 am8:24 pm EDT
Feels like: 90°F
Wind: 6mph N
Humidity: 30%
Pressure: 30.03"Hg
UV index: 7
FriSatSun
93/61°F
70/48°F
73/48°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing