Oy, I was out doing a little pre-celebration for my birthday with my buddy Mike. Did a little too much drinking and now I’m waking up a bit late with today’s post. Thus the reason why I’m choosing this song, my mouth feels like a desert. But met some cool people while there anyway.
Actually Eric is an amazing musician, he got some good recognition but never really hit it big with the general populace. He generally known for his instrumental guitar playing, but I feel like he could have done much better to be singing more. He’s got a unique voice and his musical choices are cool to me. Which means that it’s gonna be outside of the mainstream but he’s so damn good he should be mainstream. Oh the funny twists life can take.
There are stories that Eric can hear the difference between different kinds of batteries in his equipment. Like he can tell the difference between a duracell and an energizer in his distortion pedal. To me that’s a bit overboard and what I would figure has to be impossible to tell. I have pretty darn good ears, but there’s no way that I think I could hear that kind of difference. But there is rumor that a tech of his attempted a blind test and Eric eventually figured out that his battery had been switched on him. I wasn’t there to witness the blind test, though I find it insanely crazy that he can hear it.
One thing I will say for Eric, he certainly is a tone freak. Which isn’t a bad thing, but when so many people hardly care about the upper-end quality, why worry about it to the point that it alienates you? One can drive themselves batty worrying about it. I know. I used to do it. I still prefer getting as good a sound as I can, but I won’t worry about the battery unless it’s a dead one. As for seeing Eric play live, he’s actually a bit boring to watch. This may be a huge contributing factor as to why he never really broke out. One thing a lot of great musicians forget is that it’s about entertaining people live. Heck, I’m guilty of it myself. But I’ve been working on that part. I’m trying to be more entertaining.
Lucky for us this song does happen to be on iTunes. I can’t imagine why it’s the only one he chose. Lucky for me because it was the song I did happen to think of. I have several of his CD’s. On this particular CD ‘Ah Via Musicom’ there is a plethora of amazing guitar playing. ‘Forty Mile Town’ is a great mellow song. ‘Song For George’ is a fantastic acoustic instrumental – I recommend the whole CD and his other one ‘Tones’.
Why you should buy this: It’s an awesome album to listen to when you need to take a trip by closing your eyes in your living room.
(** disclaimer: If Eric Johnson or his label come by and say its time to wash out the desert, I’ll be removing the audio in less time than a catus flower blooms and dies. The review will stay until the internet dries up. **)