To tell you the truth it really gets on my nerves. I mean any somewhat motivated kid, with the proper instruction, can do what most of these kids do. The difference between most of these “child prodigies” and any other reasonably talented kid (with the right instruction) is overzealous parents.

I’m not trying to say anything negative about the kids. On the contrary, I think it’s great that the kids are working hard to master the guitar. My beef is with the adults.

A few years ago I had a 9 year old student that learned some Satriani licks from tab with his previous teacher. He played them sloppy and with no feeling, but he was hitting all the right notes. He had no idea what the notes were, and absolutely no sense of phrasing, but hell, the kid was 9.

The kids father thought that this kid was going to be the next Eddie Van Halen. And though he himself knew absolutely nothing about music or what it takes to play the guitar, he insisted on telling me what I should be teaching the kid. He sat in on the lessons and kept interrupting. He never let me do my job.

Needless to say, this was unacceptable and I we agreed that maybe he should find another teacher. It was a shame because I could have really helped that kid.

I did see them again about a year ago. The kid is a teenager now and still playing entirely off tabs. It’s a shame really.

I’m telling you all of this to give you a peek into my psyche. These are the things that go through my head when someone tells me about some kid on the internet or on TV who can really play guitar. All of this is what went through my head when a family member shot me an email about Lucciano Pizzichini.

Now, take a look at this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TChp3L1kZ4o

This time I gotta admit it…this kid can play guitar!

So when I stumble across new music that is not only cool, but absolutely 100% free, it is a gift from the music gods. Hallelujah!

Daytrotter is a recording studio in downtown Rock Island, Illinois. Daytrotter.com is their website, which is not merely cool, it is unbelievably cool. What these fine people do is invite musicians into their studio for one day, record them and make 5 songs available online for free. Simple, and beautiful.

And to make it even better, at least to me, is that these recordings “…are all live, no overdubs, straight to tape. What you hear is what happened in the room that day.”

In these days of computerized tweaking, overproducing, soul sucking sterile recording it is so refreshing to really hear the band, not the technology. I like to hear the room, the interaction between musicians, the musical event.

Daytrotter.com has so many great free music downloads that you will need to buy a new hard drive just to store them. The daytrotter.com home page shows that they have posted over 7 million songs. At the time of this writing, the daytrotter archive page had 614 awesome artists, some of whom are well known, like Aimee Mann, Death Cab for Cutie, and Ani DiFranco, others awaiting your discovery.

But wait, the audio is not all. They also have a limited number of performance videos. And the way cool art on their website makes it a really nice place to be.

Do yourself a favor and when you check out daytrotter.com be sure to subscribe to the daytrotter.com feed so you don’t miss a thing.

There are a lot of articles and blog posts already about this, so I’m not going to go into detail about the history of The Cramps or the circumstances of Lux’s death. Here is a good article that covers those details.

Although I am late in writing about this, I feel compelled to offer this post because, well, I love the Cramps, and I have for years. In fact the death of Lux Interior was one factor that compelled me to start GuitarWiz.net.

I was introduced to The Cramps in 1982 by my friend Jakki Repellent, bassplayer for The Repellents, a punk band from Anderson, Indiana.  I was  18 and punk rock was fresh, and exciting.  The Cramps were eerie and bizarre, an incredibly unique blend of b-movie camp, horror , rockabilly and punk rock. I loved them immediately.

In 1984 I saw them live at Phantasy Theatre in Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. To begin the show, Nick Knox came out, sat at his drumkit and started a beat. Then Kid Congo Powers came out, picked up his guitar and started to play. Next came Poison Ivy wearing a long flowing leopardskin cape. It lifted in the air as she twirled and removed it. A stagehand took it from her and another stagehand helped her on with her guitar. She began to play.

Then Lux Interior shot out on the stage, grabbed the microphone and began to sing.  By the time the show was over he had stripped down to his leopardskin underwaer, he had broken 2 microphone stands into pieces, the microphone itself was broken, he was on top the left P.A. column lying face down with his hand in his pants, howling with the microphone in his mouth.

Everyone in the place was on their feet and dancing and soaking wet with sweat…it was a BLAST!

As far as I’m concerned this was one of the best shows I’ve ever attended.

And to top it off, as I left the theatre I saw the Cramps leave too. In a hearse.

It has always served as lesson to me that music is more than the notes, it’s show biz.  Alot of musicians forget that.

So in remembrance of Lux Interior, I offer this video.  This is how I will always remember him.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCQ4QLFl01g