![\"Leo](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Leo-Kottke-1.jpg\")
LEO KOTTKE<\/h1>\nLEO KOTTKE<\/h1>\nI don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like being Leo Kottke, let alone playing 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars the way he does so singularly.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s exhilarating to the point of exhaustion just watching him.<\/p>\n
He talks, pauses, plays, pauses, talks, etc., etc., sometimes with coherence, always with edge-of-the-seat suspense: Will he finish a story? Will he start a tune? Is there any difference between the two?<\/p>\n
He pretty much nailed it at the second of two City Winery nights last week when he explained that his playing was like \u201can argument between you and your hands: They all do things you don\u2019t have anything to do with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hands seemed to win every time, for sure on an especially blazing version of his 12-string slide showpiece \u201cVaseline Machine Gun.\u201d Phrases and runs seemed to rush into, over, under and around each other without ever damaging the beauty of his chords.<\/p>\n
\u201cI live for major thirds,\u201d he declared, explaining later how the ringing chords are considered \u201cuncool\u201d by those whose \u201cgreatest fear\u201d is sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a risk,\u201d he conceded, \u201cbut if sentiment is excluded from music, you’ve got nothing but ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hence his continued play of the 1974 Cymarron pop hit \u201cRings\u201d\u2014and he pointed out how Nashville veteran Eddie Reeves had co-written it about a wedding that \u201ceveryone in town knew should not take place,\u201d yet had to congratulate the couple, \u201cjust as you would at a hanging.\u201d The song is full of major thirds, he pointed out.<\/p>\n
Nashville was further represented the first night, when he played a note-popping version of Tom T. Hall\u2019s \u201cPamela Brown,\u201d whimsically prefacing it with \u201cOrville Redenbacher suggested this song to me.\u201d And the second night he sang another old favorite, \u201cLouise,\u201d after refusing to play it the night before since it didn\u2019t fit in with \u201cthe curve of the set.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToo bad they\u2019re not here,\u201d he said of the unlucky ones who requested it then. But clearly, Kottke was playing for himself as much as the audience, and as much as said so.<\/p>\n
![\"Leo](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Leo-Kottke.jpg\")
\u201cWhen you start playing, you\u2019re trying to blow your own mind,\u201d he said. \u201cYou find something, and go nuts. But then it turns out that when it\u2019s your job, you have to learn to play with dispassion. In other words, I can\u2019t blow my own mind anymore\u2014but I forgot and went off on that vibrato on the last tune! It\u2019s cruel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then again, \u201cYour best intentions are your worst enemies,\u201d he stated. \u201cNever trust your own judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or putting it another way, perhaps, he asked, presumably rhetorically, \u201cWhat good is a corpse to a sadist?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m alone a lot,\u201d he may or may not have answered, though he said this directly after, then added, \u201cYou have to find something to entertain yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Kottke\u2019s case, it was learning to play guitar after becoming disenchanted with the trombone back when he was 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole life I\u2019ve been trying to turn my thumb into a finger,\u201d he said, then enacted the thumb-strengthening exercises he employed in order to virtually do just that. It should also be noted, though, that he also worked just as hard at getting his eyeballs to move independent of each other, a feat, alas, that he could never himself witness when looking into a mirror.<\/p>\n
And speaking of faces, he made note of the jazz drummer Buddy Deppenschmidt, who had a habit of making faces and \u201cplaying backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI play like I\u2019m in pain,\u201d he subsequently offered. \u201cWell, I am in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sitting on a stool way at the front of the stage (the bass level was too high further back, he explained), he contended, on the second night (after proclaiming that he had on the same socks as the first night) that he was \u201cstaying out here because I want to intimidate the crowd. I feel the chill, so I know it\u2019s working.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then invoked English jazz saxophonist Ronnie Scott, who once said, at his own club (\u201cRonnie Scott\u2019s!\u201d), that he should have stayed in bed, since there were more people there.<\/p>\n
Kottke had started off the first night with another question requiring no answer: \u201cAre you ready for some professional entertainment?\u201d<\/p>\n
His show, of course, is anything but, and thankfully so: He promptly started conversing with the people virtually at his feet at the table below him, then knocked over his 12-string. Looking embarrassed and annoyed, he muttered, \u201cI bet Bob Mould didn\u2019t do that last night!\u201d as his fellow Minnesotan had been on the same stage the night before, no doubt further back.<\/p>\n
Leading into a song called \u201cFour Cents,\u201d he discoursed on the nature of song titles\u2014merely a convention, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy songs have nothing to do with the title,\u201d he informed, gratuitously. \u201cIf it\u2019s a song about Halloween, it\u2019s called \u2018Christmas.\u2019 If it\u2019s about Christmas, it\u2019s \u2018My Old Paint.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDisassociating,\u201d to use a word that he then brought into play, he rambled on about diaries he\u2019d read by 17th Century English Parliament member Samuel Pepys and his contemporary, the English writer John Aubrey. He could just as easily, he suggested, have recited his medical history, or his time on the USS Halfbeak submarine SS-352, where, incidentally, his hearing problems had begun.<\/p>\n
Instead, he shared how Pete Seeger \u201cdid things instrumentally that no one else did,\u201d specifically, \u201chis rhythm was within his right hand, and he had very sophisticated harmonies that somehow remained invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kottke, after playing Seeger\u2019s \u201cLiving in the Country,\u201d also related how after asking Seeger for his phone number, Seeger instead drew a map to his house. Playing \u201cThe Last Steam Engine Train\u201d\u2014a tune, he said, that Doc Watson loved to play, he noted that \u201cDoc always liked to sharp his B-string,\u201d and that the first words Watson said to him when they met were, \u201cYour low E is flat\u201d; 35 years later, Watson actually reached over to sharpen Kottke\u2019s E string himself.<\/p>\n
And Kottke dusted off a song he\u2019d \u201cretired\u201d 40 years ago\u2014\u201cBusted Bicycle,\u201d after it became an \u201canachronism\u201d\u2014reinvigorating it with a lift from Tommy James and the Shondells \u201cCrimson and Clover.\u201d To top it off, he played orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert\u2019s 1961 instrumental hit \u201cWonderland by Night,\u201d along with his concert staple \u201cCorrina, Corrina\u201d\u2014followed, as ever, by \u201cLittle Martha.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, as ever, the sets were marked by that ever fascinatingly weird interplay between Kottke\u2019s mind and hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like I put a dent in the set at the beginning, then spend the rest of it pounding it back out,\u201d he analogized. Pointing to his head, he also stated the obvious: \u201cIf I couldn\u2019t play guitar I\u2019d be in an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n
And at the end, he gratefully acknowledged, \u201cIt baffles me that after all this time, anybody still falls for this. I\u2019m glad, because it took a lot of failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
As if to drive the point home\u2014needlessly\u2014he said, \u201cMy daughter, who\u2019s married, won\u2019t allow a guitar in her house. You can see why\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jim Bessman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LEO KOTTKE Ever Fascinatingly Weird Interplay Between Mind and Hands I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like being Leo Kottke, let alone playing 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars the way he does so singularly. But it\u2019s exhilarating to the point of exhaustion just watching him. He talks, pauses, plays, pauses, talks, etc., etc., sometimes with coherence, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[7376],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12178,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12175\/revisions\/12178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}