The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: Heavy Metal

  • Pickup Truck Strut

    My Heavy Metal brother was here: “… It’s a long, long road, from which there is no return, while we’re on the way to there, why not share?” (Lyrics from “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” by Scott and Russell, and a 1969 soft rock hit by The Hollies). And share we do, for example the “Live at 5” pandemic concerts we played weekly on Instagram Live; by the way, Instagram now limits “live” streaming to Instagramers who have at least 1,000 followers, creating a perceived scarcity – as if anyone watches anything to its end anyway, attention spans diminished as they are these days. So now we record short videos and post them as pre-recorded videos to Insta but also to our YouTube channels.

    Anyway, while CB was here, he wanted to do a cover of “Stray Cat Strut,” the 1981 hit by the rockabilly group “Stray Cats.” Mainly, he wanted to try out my Gretsch1, which is good for playing in the rockabilly guitar style. It’s interesting that once again the British brought back a defunct American song style. Rockabilly was a 1950s sound originating in the South by players like Carl Perkins (“Blue Suede Shoes, 1956), Gene Vincent (“Be-Bop-A-Lula,” 1956), Buddy Holly (“Midnight Shift,” 1956), and Eddie Cochran (“Summertime Blues,” 1958). Rockabilly, the word, comes from a combination of the rock in rock ‘n’ roll, and the billy in hillbilly music, a description of mountain folk music, which evolved into country western, but which is still played in its original forms where it’s usually called old-time music.

    Though his preferred guitar sound is heavy metal, CB is more of a perfectionist than I am on the guitar or with vocals. He also knows more than I ever will about guitar electronics, pedals, influences, and songs and players of the Metal sound. But I do like a raw sound, and a simple format. The original Buddy Holly and the Crickets, for example, was a simple trio of electric guitar, drums, and a stand up bass, and in those early recordings, you can hear the instruments individually, and it’s not a wall of sound coming at you like an electronic tsunami. Even when the rhythm guitar was added, the sound was still clear and concise. Meantime, volume has reached a reducio ad absurdum in some musical venues and recordings. Ironically, that loudness is often subdued by streaming platforms using loudness normalization.

    After CB left, I decided to give “Stray Cat Strut” a go, but after a short while gave up on it, but as I studied it, I found both its lyrics and chord progressions interesting. The cat is a cool cat indeed, and I ended up taking the idea a couple of steps further, into the arena of the absurd, with an anthropomorphic pickup truck the main character. I satisfied myself with a short imperfect recording in a kind of country style, though others may of course have a different view of it. I made two recordings, one with vocal (with the 1970 Yamaha Red Label FG180), the other instrumental (with the Gretsch). Song chords and lyrics below, and link to YouTube instrumental recording at bottom.

    Pickup Truck Strut

    G7                                      E7
    Sitting in a lot watching the lights go by
    A7                                   D7 
    Gas tank on empty, tires pretty much flat
    G7                                  E7
    Surfboard sticking fin up out of my bed
           A7                     D7     G     
    I'm an old pickup truck and I got no strut

    C7                  B7
    Stray cats climbing into my cab 
    E7                      A7
    Kids stealing all of my mooncaps 
    C7                      B7
    I don't take off chasing Chevys in town
    E7                     D7
    I rumble away from the big city crowd

    G7                        E7
    Surf guitar playing on my radio
    A7                          D7 
    Stand up bass, high hat and snare
    G7                   E7
    No red Corvette candy apple chic
          A7                          D7     
    I got tools and a surfboard in my bed

    G7                            E7
    Sitting in a lot watching the lights tonight
          A7                D7           G  
    I'm a used pickup and I ain't got no strut
    1. The Gretsch is a G2420 Streamliner Hollowbody Electric Guitar with Chromatic II Tailpiece – “Village Amber” finish. Year 2021: with Maple Top, Back, and Sides, Nato Neck, Laurel Fingerboard, and 2 Humbucking Pickups. ↩︎

  • Heavy Metal

    Sounds industrial, like the noises in a factory made repetitive by machines, the floor covered with curling steel shavings. And a kind of marching music, an industrial march, urban with trams and busses, honks and trucking heaves. Heavy Metal is the four piece rock band’s alternative to the symphonic orchestra. The full brass and woodwinds, operatic vocals, orchestral percussion – all accomplished with guitars and drumkit, pedals, and amplifiers. Heavy Metal music can sound like lead stretched thin as wire, or walking on the Earth’s crust with steel spiked boots, the band poised like the Levitated Mass over an arena crowd.

    Our latest guitar quest (Live at 5 now already seems as old as the Ed Sullivan Show) has moved to YouTube where in partnership with metal expert CB we record short videos of original pieces or answers to various musical challenges, about one to three minutes, CB taking Metal Monday while I have Telecaster Tuesday (Washboard Wednesday still open). I posted a couple of Telecaster Tuesday short videos here at the Toads – as I continue to find myself drifting further and farther from words, but I’m not sure the blog is the best place for music activity. For one thing, videos are space hogs, while links to anything outside the blog can wind up for the reader like getting on a wrong bus to the zoo.

    I’m not sure it has anything to do with hearing impairment, though it might, but I’ve often had trouble hearing lyrics clearly, the vocals sounding like another instrument, which of course they are, but without sharp definition – in my ears. Maybe that’s why I’ve steered away from loud rock, but any type of music can be played loud, or too loud. But you don’t have to play music loud to feel it. At a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert some years back, I could literally feel the sound in my chest – that’s a bit too much, though I get that it might be necessary if one wants the full effect. But often one wants to hear the breeze over the “The Eolian harp” sitting on an open window sill. Still, as evidenced in some of CB’s videos, the loudness has passed, and now rings like a train rounding a corner in the distance, its ringing still vibrating on the track: