Help me Johnny Naugahyde, you're my only hope

(In this new addition to the blog ordinary fans ask extraordinary questions to be answered by Johnny Naugahyde, John the drummer's better looking cousin and multi-instrumentalist from the bands CribKickers and Prairie Dogs.)

Fan: I want to play guitar but I don't really know how to play or have any discernible musical talent, what do I do?

Naugahyde: The answer is simple Fan. Get a guitar and tune it to open-G (D G D G B D). Now you can strum it and hold a finger across all the strings and still make great chords. You can even make up your own chords by playing around with where you put your fingers. Keith Richards wrote a bunch of Stones riffs in open-G and he's a drug laced heavy drinking Englishman...imagine what you could do? Of course, alot of songs might start to sound like they're coming from the South Pacific if you're not careful. But then again that's good drinking music...mai-tais, grog, margaritas. I think the world just might be ready for the next Margaritaville and with the weather the way it is right now, I'm going to head down to the beach with my open tuned axe and write it. Maybe Recliner will even cover it.


Yours in rock,
Johnny Naugahyde

Notes from SXSW

Just home from a week of rock at the annual SXSW music conference. 14 hour days filled with RockNBusiness. Besides some of the best Mexican this Irish boy has ever had here were my "highlights" of the festivities.

1) My Morning Jacket on Thurs at Austin Music Hall - Support was Yo La Tengo, good set but they took a backseat to the best show of the week by MMJ. Talking with industry folks after the show about this band playing MSG in the next two years. Freaking amazing live band.

2) Cut Copy and British Sea Power at the Rhapsody Party on Thursday. Cut Copy had an excellent set that had the day party dancing the entire set, great time. BSP opened the show with a solid performance on support for what I think is the best album to date.

3) Lou Reed Keynote. Cranky and full of quoteable bits including "I have a B.A. in Dope but a PHD in soul. He was promoting a new film on the recent performance of the Album "Berlin".

4) Jay Reatard - 3 fat kids (not over 20) tearing up the MF at Emos during the Pitchfork Day party Friday. They play like the Ramones meets Black Sabbath. Flying Gibson V's and all. Entire set in about 18 min. Wow

5) Detroit 7 - the *highlight* from Japan night on Friday. If you are luck enough to be in a city where this show is coming, go. Power trio, two girls (Guitar/Vox) and Drums and a lucky dude on Bass. When was the last time you saw a cute chick in a skirt rock your world? I'm sold.

Next up Coachella. Fired up for Justice, The Verve and Roger Waters.

Wooo

George (Bass)

How Soon is Now?

Every song is coming out sounding like the Smiths. Not a bad thing, mind you. This amp just has such a nice shimmery tremelo. Mmmm.

But I've had bronchitis for the past week, which hasn't made me want to play much. Mmmm.

New Gear

Can a piece of new gear enable better song wrting? Well, no. At least that's what I always thought. Ultimately, the song comes from within. At least that's what I always thought. But wait...a high performance bicycle make you go faster, a new surf board can help you catch bigger waves, and a kick-ass set of speakers can help you hear things in a song you never had before. So, why wouldn't a new piece of gear help write a song?

Well, that's just the theory I'm testing this weekend. At my front door arrived the most indulgent piece of gear ever purchased by me - a Bad Ass, I mean Bad Cat Trem Cat amplifier. Ooooooh, she's shiny, and has lots of knobs and buttons, and tones that purr. Yes, I'm a geek. But we'll see how this thing turns out. I sold my revered Vox AC-30 for this privilege, so it better come out in my favor.

I'll post the results and let you know how it went. Happy, happy gear, gear.

Maiden Voyage

Hey there Blog-o-sphere, Recliner here. Yup, your favorite San Francisco indie rock band. Up to now, we'd been relegating our posts to our main website in our diary section. But that took HTML skills, and by and large, our web master is completely unreliable, although very handsome. And we think he may be a cyber terrorist.

But the point is, we've got our own blog now, and this make it easier than ever to post our thoughts, clips, movies, whatever. So check back early and often for all the happenings in Recliner's world.

Thanks for stopping by.