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WALKIN'
WITH FRANKIE
ALASTAIR GREENE TALKS TO ROCK WIRED ABOUT
WORKING WITH FRANK GOLDWASSER,
CAPTURING A VIBE,
AND WALKING AWAY WITH A SMILE
INTERVIEWED BY BRIAN LUSH
Great music is like a chemistry project. You mix this and that together
and you get a reaction. In the case of blues guitarists FRANK
GOLDWASSER and ALASTAIR GREENE, you get a fucking explosion. FRANK
GOLDWASSER W/ THE ALASTAIR GREENE BAND is a mix of raw blues riffs,
world-sounding percussion, attitude and urgency. Everything that you
expect from a great blues recording. If you didn't know that the CD
was recorded in 2005, you'd swear that MUDDY WATERS or BUDDY GUY were
in
the same studio with these two cats.ALASTAIR GREENE TALKS TO ROCK WIRED ABOUT
WORKING WITH FRANK GOLDWASSER,
CAPTURING A VIBE,
AND WALKING AWAY WITH A SMILE
INTERVIEWED BY BRIAN LUSH
And what about these two cats?
ALASTAIR GREENE is Southern California's premier ax-man. The guy gets around playing live with the likes of JEFF PEVAR of CROSBY, STILLS & NASH, JUAN ALDERETE of THE MARS VOLTA, COUGAR ESTRADA of LOS LOBOS and GARY MALLABER of STEVE MILLER BAND. His band, THE ALASTAIR GREENE BAND, has gained attention by opening for legends like JOHN MAYALL AND THE BLUESBREAKERS, THE FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS, and that other young guitar great JOHNNY LANG.
Parisian born FRANK "PARIS SLIM" GOLDWASSER was first exposed to the blues through HOUND DOG TAYLOR's "NATURAL BOOGIE" LP. From that moment on, he never looked back. By the time he was 21, he was supporting SONNY RHODES who him to the San Francisco Bay Area where, he immediately became a fixture of that vibrant blue scene alongside other such distinguished gentlemen as LOWELL FULSON, PERCY MAYFIELD and CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE.
These two great musicians brought something to the table and have made one exciting blues record.
ROCKWIRED had a chance to speak with ALASTAIR GREENE over the phone. Here is how it went.
How are you this evening?
Pretty good.
Love the CD.
Cool.
You've got other right?
Yeah, ive got two others that I've put out myself so far. I've got a studio album from 2002 and a live one from 2003.
The CD that I have is the FRANK GOLDWASSER CD. Was that your first time working with FRANK GOLDWASSER?
Yeah. this was the first time we recorded together. We had done some gigs together before and we figured that it would be a good idea to get into the studio and do little recording.
How old is this CD now
We put it out in July of 2006 but we had it recorded in January of 2005. We kind of sat on it for a while before deciding to put it out ourselves.
How did music begin for you?
Just in general?
Yeah.
It was probably my parents record collection which consisted of THE BEATLES, STEVIE WONDER, LEON RUSSELL, ELTON JOHN. Actually my father's father was a professional musician he played trumpet for the STAN KINTON jazz band back in the late forties and early fifties. That was kind of a constant source of inspiration knowing that my grandfather had played on some records and had gotten to play with some heavy cats and stuff. I started playing saxophone early on and took piano lessons and finally when I was in high school I stumbled on to the guitar.
You playing out much at all.
Yeah but not in my own name with my band right now. I've been playing out with various local Southern California bands. I'm working a lot with MITCH KASHMAR who is a harmonica player /vocalist whose got a couple of records out on the DELTA GROOVE label. He actually just put out a new CD and I got to play a tune on that . I'm doing a lot of acoustic and electric gigs with him. Besides that I'm playing with a couple of female vocalists like ZOLA MOON. I do what I can to try and stay versatile.
Who is the ALASTAIR GREENE BAND?
Well, for about seven or eight years now it's TOM LACHNER as the drummer, and JACK KENNEDY on bass. Right now we're on hiatus cause those guys have got other things going on in their lives so we haven't been performing as ALASTAIR GREENE BAND much but we still do on ocassion.
How did you and FRANK meet?
FRANK moved to town 3 or 4 years ago and just rhough the musician circles, I kept hearing about this great blues guitar player who moved to town. I played this festival and I saw him play and was struck by how authentic he sounded yet had this originality about him. A few years later, the bass player in my band (JACK KENNEDY) did a gig with FRANK and MITCH KASHMAR and JACK called me after the gig and said "You've gotta call this guy. This guy's the real shit! You should call him up, go to house and see his record collection." I got FRANK's number and suggested that we get together and play some guitar. It was an instance of the younger guy going to the older guy and going " hey man,can you show me some of that stuff?" I get really humbled when I get around some these older players. these guys have more years on me and have dedicated their lives to the art. It was neat to kind of go to him and pick his brain. We started doing that once a week. I'd go to his place and take some beers and play guitar. The next thing you know we're friends and we start playing gigs together. It was this natural progression of wanting to learn more from a guy who knew it. That's how this music has survived. The younger player are going to the older players saying "Hey man, can you show me how to do this? Can you show me how to do that?" That's how it gets passed on. It gave me a feeling being connected to that lineage a little bit.
What brought about recording a CD?
He was moving up to Portland. That was why we did the CD when we did. He'd been down in the area and I had been playing with him. I actually got to go to Europe with him and perform at a blues festival back in 2004. We kind of figured that we had a good vibe, and we are two totally different sounding guitar players that we thought it would be interesting to get into the studio and see what happens. He's the real deal man. I think a lot of people use that term loosely and sling it around but FRANK is one of the last guys come out of the Oakland Blues Scene of the eighties and he got to play with SONNY RHODES and CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE, a lot the real cats in that area. The real unsung heroes of the Bay Area scene. He lived it and played it with the real scene. he's up there with pretty much any white living blues guitar player that I can think of. There's a handful that are great but I would definitely put FRANK in that same sentence as a JUNIOR WATSON.
Is FRANK's moving reflected in the CD cover?
A little bit. One of the guitars on the cover of the CD he actually found in a trash can in Germany. There was kind of vibe that we set early on in the recording sessions. It's recorded mostly live,. there are very few overdubs on it. He like that real kind of raw sound. That sort of warts-and-all, don't rehearse it to much kind of thing. There was an aesthetic to this whole project that was really raw. i think we really captured it. You can tell that we're having fun on a lot of these tracks. I think that back cover of the CD symbolizes what we wanted. We wanted it raw.
It sounds like old MUDDY WATERS. It's got that real vintage sound.
Yeah it definitely has that vibe. For sure.
How did you guys come across the material for the CD?
We had a pretty limited time frame to work with. Basically, FRANK had some ideas for some songs that he wanted to do. Mostly covers. One of the themes for the CD was that we were going to be covering a lot of old songs, but we wanted to re-work them. We got together and listened to a bunch of these old songs. Some of them are obscure but there are a couple in there that people will recognize. He's also into a lot of African music and African percussion which is reflected in a few parts of the CD also. We tried capture some different grooves and different percussive instruments to create a kind of funky African/world music vibe on some of the songs. The material pretty much came from FRANK. He's into some many different cats that even I haven't heard of. This was a great learning experience for me.
With this CD finished are you working on anything else at the moment?
I'm working ion a new studio album. It's outside of the ALASTAIR GREENE BAND even though JACK and TOM play on it. It's kind of Southern Rock oriented. I've got a lot of songs that I've written going back to the 1990's that I wanted to work on and record. The last few albums that I put out all kind of had a live vibe to them. This new CD that I'm working it going to be more - I don't want to say over-produced - but more orchestrated with a few more overdubs and stuff like that. I'm working on getting that out early in the coming year.
You said you learned saxophone and took piano. What drew you to guitar?
I started playing some bass in junior high and i was like "okay this is cool but I think guitar would be a lot cooler." In high school I started getting more and more into rock n roll and stuff like that and the guitar just appealed to me. Unlike the bass I was looking for an instrument that I could write with and play as a solo instrument. The guitar was the next step.
What do you want a listener to walk away with after hearing the CD that you and FRANK made?
I want them to walk away with a smile. I want them to feel like they just checked out a couple guys having fun playing some really great tunes. The CD is eclectic. I think it's going to appeal to people outside of the blues purist world.
