Tonight at the Knitting Factory - Jim Campilongo - with his white 1959 Tele and a small Fender valve combo - and the other two members of his electric trio. I was sitting about 7 feet away from the amp - just where I like to be. Lots of drummers were on the stand during the three sets - none less than extremely good. Expressionist atonal country - Jim Dale meets Twin Peaks. I was well impressed especially with the musical vision that informed the music. And of course fascinated by the amp timbres vis a vis my forays into amp simulation.

I met a guy in the audience who played with Country Joe and the Fish in the 1970s and who actually owns an original Danilectro. He is still in touch with the lead guitarist of Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. Funny old world as usual. His mate who I also chatted to had played the NEC when he was backing a Monkeys revival European tour. He knows the people who run Ludlow Gtrs where I tried the Bronco earlier this week.

Jim Campilongo Bio

"Born and reared in the San Francisco Bay Area, Campilongo launched his professional music career in the late 1970s while still in high-school, playing in funk groups and party bands. After a decade or so of performing covers and doing studio work for other musicians, Campilongo, a bit restless and unfulfilled, began writing his own compositions and devoted all of his time to playing and writing music. In the early 1990s he attracted offers to perform in other bands. Instead, Campilongo chose to risk what he feared would be "commercial madness and suicide," and record an album of his guitar compositions, including duets for electric guitar and pedal steel guitar. With nary a vocal on the tracks, the album, entitled, "Jim Campilongo and the 10 Gallon Cats," was a rousing success. With this debut album, Campilongo succeeded in paying homage to the traditional country music from the Age of Vinyl while demonstrating his penchant for melodic lead runs over sophisticated chord progressions and his remarkable guitar-playing wizardry. Soon after this album's release, national and overseas press upped their calls for interviews and for transcriptions of his sophisticated guitar riffs. Campilongo travelled to London and Italy. In the next few years he wrote and recorded two other albums with the 10 Gallon Cats, "Loose," (1997), and "Heavy" (2000) --two distinctly jaunty rides down a few twisted Country roads. Yet, it was with his third album, performed with the Jim Campilongo band, that Campilongo firmly established his musical eclecticism. Aptly titled "Table For One," this 1998 release is a departure from the speed and jangle of previous albums, and is comprised of sweetly melancholic compositions; an album signaling Campilongo's move away from the sway of Country/Americana to more contemplative Jazz. Campilongo's performance style on "Table For One" is also his most reserved and introspective to date. In 2000, Campilongo recorded a live album at San Francisco's historic nightclub, Cafe Du Nord. Recorded over two nights, "Live at the Du Nord," showcases Campilongo and the Jim Campilongo band performing several of Campilongo's newer compositions. "

Brooklyn Brown Ales surprisingly good. Apparentlty there is a hot guitarist at the Cutting Room 6-8pm Fridays and free - now in my diary.

James Vita and Yvonne caught the plane out of JFK during the evening. During the day we went to a Skate Shop on the Upper West Side - yes I thought that was a funny place to find one. Then we went down to the Whitney. There was an exhibition of quilts made by Afro-American women who live in a village by the side of a river in Alabamma. Quilt making has been a communal activity over most of the 20C. Art historians can see the link with African designs in their work. There was some video of the women talking about their work. I found this really moving.