My dad, Tech Guru and Master Musician Bob Lee, has been experimenting with some crazy stuff again. He first did this on his classic album, "The Technical Academy Plays B0b." It's an algorithm that plays music in the key of Odd, and a time signature that I like to call, "*Facial Twitch." Take a listen if you dare.
*I actually have a physical reaction to the Technical Academy. Do you?
That's my dad (Bobby Lee Quasar) on pedal steel, playing with Manzanita Moon. They play better now than they did when I was a kid! Must be all of that practice. I'm pretty sure he's been playing with Michael Kane (on fiddle) for almost my whole life? Every dance, private party, outdoor shindig, county fair, or wedding in the 1980's in Sonoma County, it seemed like my dad would play with Michael Kane or some outfit like this, some of these same songs, and I was there, mooching root beer from somewhere and sitting on a fencepost, trying to find some other kids to play with, but usually talking with my dad's fans instead. They always said the same two things: "Your dad's amazing," and "You look just like him." (Unfortunately, they weren't talking about his looks when they said the first part.) All history aside, it's a nice set they do here. I'd hire them. :)
Full disclosure: Bobby Lee is my dear old dad. My *gaffer, as Samwise would say. So I've been hearing him play my whole life. But this is by far my favorite **album of his. It's a culmination of decades of experience and creativity, practice and patience, and yet it is as raw and fresh as a cold swim in a wild lake at dawn. It's a blues album, mostly. The gaffer knows his stuff, and now he's having fun with it, to our delight.
*Sources here at Mindless Minion Headquarters tell me that "gaffer" actually refers to Samwise Gamgee's grandfather. But I maintain that Bob is a grandfather, now, so he's still a gaffer.
**There is no pedal steel on this album. This European Steel Guitar Hall of Famer is just playing his acoustic lap steel, whose name is Stella. (It's an awkward title, "European Steel Guitar Hall of Famer," but nevertheless true. The European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame is right next door to the European Bassoon Hall of Fame, and across the street from the European Banjo Hall of Fame. (The rumors about shotguns being fired and volleys of molotov cocktails going back and forth across the street between the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and the European Banjo Hall of Fame have been greatly exaggerated.)
***Actually, I just made up that whole part about the European Banjo Hall of Fame and the European Bassoon Hall of Fame. The bit about my gaffer being in the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, though? Totally true. It totally exists. He's totally in.
*****Except that Bobby Lee actually has never been there, to the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. I mean, he's in it, as in he's represented in some imaginary or tangible form, but his actual bodily self? Never been to Europe.
******Stella is a Harmony. He gave me his other Harmony guitar, the Harmony Rocket, which I treasure:
My Dad, unlike most hippies, leads a second life as a successful country and western musician.* He plays steel guitar.
Years ago, probably in the late 1980's or early 1990's, he played a gig at a high school prom. The band he was with was a country band, but everyone in it could play all sorts of music, so when the kids at the prom didn't seem so into the country, they switched over to rock. The high school principal had chosen a country band in order to keep things under control, so it was not much to the principal's liking when the band veered off into that wild rock n' roll territory. Things really came to a head when the band played the old Eric Clapton hit, "Cocaine." They completely rocked the house. By the end of the song, the entire junior and senior high school class was screaming, "She's all right, she's all right, she's all right, COCAINE!"
They were never invited back.
*And he's probably lost fifty pounds since that picture on his web page was taken. Get a new picture, Dad!
Later Edit: See b0b's comments here for the real story.
