Podcast: Fender Telecaster Guitar

Podcast: The Telecaster Guitar by Eduardo Lopez 

Fender Telecaster

Fender Telecaster 50th Anniversary edition.

Everybody inside the music industry and even music fans are aware of the influence Fender made to music for more than 60 decades.  Fender right now produces a variety of guitars (electric and acoustic), basses (electric and acoustic), guitar amps, and bass amps.  Back in 1945 when Leo Fender created Fender Company, his main interested was to build electric guitars.  The first and one of the most famous electric guitar Leo invented (along with the creation of the Stratocaster later in 1954) was the Telecaster.

The Fender Telecaster was the first guitar that was designed toward to mass production.  Also, it was the guitar that “put the solid-body guitar on the map” (Bacon & Day, 1998).  The Telecaster’s single coil pickups (guitar’s microphones) gave the guitar a rich high frequency response complemented by a warm lows. These guitars have been used in almost all genres of music (rock, jazz, country, pop, latin, etc) merging its sound since the beginning of the 50’s up to today’s society.  

Classic bands like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queens, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, the Police, and Led Zeppelin used the Telecaster guitar in their recordings and live performances.  Also, newer bands like Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, MUSE, U2, and Prince uses the Telecaster extendedly in their recording and live performances.

One of the most outstanding characteristics of the Fender Telecaster guitar is the capability to customize it.  The use of different pickups and/or textures from the pickups itself helps to give a different “character” to each mod.  Some of the most popular versions of the Telecaster are the Thinline, Deluxe, Plus, Jr, J5 Triple Deluxe, etc.  Also, the Telecaster has the advantage of being a solid-body guitar, which it makes it harder to break than the hollow body guitars.

Keith Richards live with his 52' Telecaster named "Micawber".

Keith Richard’s crunchy guitar sound is mostly thanks to his '52 Telecaster, which features a 5-string open G tuning and a humbucker in the neck position.  This rich sound can be appreciated in the guitar solo in Sympathy for the Devil from the Rolling Stones’ album “Beggars Banquet”.

In my opinion, the Telecaster is one of the guitars that changed the music.  It can be proven by the vast of records that has been used since its creation in the late 40’s.  The Telecaster is a guitar that posses crunchy high frequencies that are an advantage when doing solos and also provides a warm low-end that can be used to play rhythmic parts (riffs).  

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Electronic Music Innovation

Robert Moog.

Moog synthesizers have been a standard brand of electronic instruments since the mid 60’s.  Dr. Robert Moog developed the first Moog synthesizer in 1950.  The “Moog sound” can be found from rock to hip/hop, pop, experimental, electronic and more styles of music.

The American composer and electronic instrument inventor, Raymond Scott, influenced Moog by showing him “there were more elegant ways of controlling an electronic circuit”,  (Moog, 1970s).  This made Moog to progress with his own company (created when he was only 19 years old) and develop new technology to manipulate sound and “shape” the way you want.

If were not of Moog’s creations albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon”, “St. Pepper’s Lonely Harts Club Band”, and “Led Zepplin IV” would not be created or be at least the same as they are now.  The unique capabilities of Moog Synths are not even replicated equally by other companies. 

Moog Synthesizers had and still have a huge impact in electronic music by giving the musicians more capabilities to create new sounds by using its different VCOs (Voltage Controlled Oscillators), filters, pads, etc.  Bands like Kraftwerk, one of the pioneers in the electronic music (Please see “Electronic Music” entry for more information about this band) helped to make this technology more “industry standard” with their use of the Mini moog in the “Autobahn” album, (Bussy, 1993).  Also, Moog Synths can be found on well-known electronic bands from today’s society like MGMT, Justice, Deadmou5, Skrillex, Tiesto, etc.

In my opinion, Moog was one of the few pure scientists that revolutionized the music or added another “color palette” to music.  Mr. Moog was not a musician and did not have any background in music education.  He knew what to look for and what musicians demanded.  Moog Synthesizers have become a standard instrument in the music industry for almost any music genre since the 50’s.  

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Electronic Music

Florian Schneider (left) and Ralf Hütter (right).

 Kraftwerk is an electronic band from Germany.  Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider formed the band in 1970.  They are considered to be the pioneers of the electronic music.  They used synthesizers like the mini moog and the ARP Odyssey, electronic organs, flutes, electro-violin and drum pads to compose their unique music.  They also sung through a vocoder to create a more “computer sound” or generated the lyrics by a computer-speech software.  Kraftwerk used session musicians to record live guitars and acoustic drums.  Their image was different from the bands in the 70’s.  It was strange by that time to see on a stage four people with computers and synthesizers with no acoustic guitars, drums, bass or any type of band-instruments.  Although with their unusual stage “instruments” and their uniforms (mostly a combination of red, black and sometimes white) Kraftwerk “innovated and influenced modern pop music” (Coprano, 2009).

Between 1974-1981, Kraftwerk released five of their major albums in their catalogue.

“Autobahn” was released in 1974; it featured acoustic instruments like the violin, flute and guitars. (you can listen to some of those instruments in the 22 minutes song “Autobhan”). 

In 1975, the album “Radio-Activity” was released.  In this album you can listen to songs in English and in German.  In the song “Radioactivity” you can listen a mix of English and German lyrics when they say, “Tschernobyl, Harrisburgh, Sellafield, Hiroshima. Stop radioactivity. Is in the air for you and me”.

In 1977 and 1978 Kraftwerk released “Trans-Europe Express” and “The Man-Machine”, respectively. These two albums got good recognitions after they were released.  “Trans-Europe Express” was placed number 253 on the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” from Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones, 2003).  The single “The Model/Computer Love” from the album “The Man-Machine” was charted #1 for 21 weeks in the UK’s Single Charts (Colin, 2004).

“Computer World” was released in 1981. This particular album talked about the computers and its integration into society. This album was made entirely by electronic instruments (mentioned before) and processed vocals.  The success of this album implied the release of the single “Pocket Calculator” in German, English, French, and Japanese.

Kraftwerk influenced big bands of today’s society.  For example, the famous song  “Talk” from Coldplay is just a motif (musical idea) from the song “Computer World”.  Also, the minimalistic stage decoration influenced electronic artists like Deadmou5 and Tiesto.   

I did not know that Kraftwerk influenced that much popular music.  Personally I do not feel connected with their earliest albums, but not till after “The Man-Machine” I felt this band was contributing to today’s sound and music.  Even if you are not interested in experimental bands, Kraftwerk is a band that is a “must” to listen to, because I can assure you that in their song you are going to find samples or ideas used in today’s bands and artists.

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Podcast about the Revolver Album

Eduardo's Lopez Revolver Review Podcast.

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Cover Art of "What's Going On".

Marvin Gaye was an American songwriter and musician (played mostly drums and piano) that “helped to popularize the Motown Sound by the late 60’s”  (Moss, 2009).  Gaye’s exceptional music productions and songwriting skills made him obtain a reputation of an exceptional solo artist. After the death of his friend Tammi Terrell due to a brain tumor, Gaye entered to a great depression.  Another reason that helped Gaye’s depression were the racial, political, and social problems going on around the world in the late 60’s.  Also, he used to receive letters from his brother that was serving in the Vietnam War.  

After the song “What’s Going On” was recorded, Motown Records denied to publish it, because of is political content.  This song was protesting against racism but mostly against war.  There is a part of the song where it says, “You see, war is not the answer”, clearly stating his position against the war in Vietnam.  Although the song was looked as a protest song, Marvin Gaye did not looked at it the same way.  Gaye told to the Four Tops (a quartet from Motown Records) once: “It’s a love song, about love and understanding.  I’m not protesting, I want to know what’s going on” (Edmonds, 2001).

What’s Going On was recorded in one of the Motown’s Studio, but it did not possessed “the Motown Sound”.  Instead, Gaye used instrumentation and musical arrangement different from Motown’s formula.  Gaye used a cardboard box with a pair of drumsticks to create a more “hollow percussion sound” (Moss, 2009) in some of the songs.  Also, instead of using the usual three back-up singers Motown often required (that was a crucial part of the Motown Sound), Gaye used a background chorus to support his lead vocals as he walked around the recording room with the microphone in his hand, trying to capture the best sound possible in each part of the room.

There were two major obstacles for Gaye to record and release “What’s Going On”.  After the dead of his friend Terrell, Gaye entered into a depression, negating him into writing, recording, and performing songs.  After he listened to the earlier version of the song “What’s Going On” he felt the song reflected his mood and attitude at the moment.  After recording another version of the song, where Gaye obtained total creative control was when they decided to record the album.  After the album was done (1970), Motown did not want it to release it, because it was “too weird to release it” (Moss, 2009) and for its political content.  In response, Gaye denied to work with Motown until they release the song. One year later Motown released it.  

In my opinion “What’s Going On” was a risky, but intelligent move by Marvin Gaye and Motown Records.  This album was the first album released by Motown without  “the Motown Sound”.  I said it was an intelligent move, because the album was a proof of Gaye’s true creativity.  One of my supports to this statement is that the song “What’s Going On” was ranked number 4 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. Also, this album posses a strong message to wake up society from hatred and at the same time gives you the sense of hope and love. 


 

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The Velvet Underground & Nico

Cover Art.

The Velvet Underground & Nico was the debut album of The Velvet Underground.  The style of music found inside this album is “dark-clouded” (Howard, 2004) compared to the “euphoric sunshine daydream”  (Howard, 2004) music scene in the West Coast at the end of the 60’s.  This band made experimental music for the time, which only captured a selected group of people in the beginning of their career.

The Velvet Underground had two main songwriters, Lou Reed and John Cale.   John Cale, a “gifted piano and violin player “ (Howard, 2004), studied Classical music at London’s Goldsmith’s College in 1960.  After getting his degree, Cale got a Leonard Bernstein scholarship to study modern composition in Massachusetts, USA.  Cale then moved to New York “seeking for more open minds” (Howard. 2004), which leaded him to the “quietly intense songwriter” (Howard, 2004) Lou Reed.  Lou Reed was working as a songwriter at Pickwick Records in New Jersey.  

After playing together as the Primitives, Reed and Cale kept rehearsing together along with other musicians.  By the end of 1965 Reed, Cale, Morrison, and Mauren Tucker formed the Velvet Underground.  Reed was the main lyricists and composer, while Cale provided his “viola virtuosity, inventive basslines, and pulverizing piano assaults” (Howard, 2004) to help create a “sonic futurists” (Howard, 2004).

Andy Warhol was the person who supported, promoted, and produced The Velvet Underground & Nico.  Warhol was the “leading artist of the visual art movement called, pop art” (Economist, 2009).  Warhol did not know anything about music production, but he featured them in his artistic exhibitions (Promoter) and paid the recordings for the album (Executive Producer).

The Velvet Underground & Nico album was an album that did not have any success when it was first released in 1967.  Tracks like, “Venus In Furs” and “All Tomorrow’s Parties” showed clearly the dark compositions compared to the upbeat tracks produced to the West Coast by this time.  The minimal style of music from the Velvet Underground & Nico was something that the society in the end of the 60’s were not used to listen.  This style of music required the use of instruments unseen in popular music before like guitars, acoustic bass, violins, and hand percussion. Despite its relative lack of success upon release, the Velvet Underground & Nico album became after time one of the most influential albums of all times (RollingStone, 2003).

In my opinion, The Velvet Underground & Nico album is hard to digest the first time.  Like, Joe Harvard said, “I wasn’t raised listening to The Velvet Underground. When I first heard them, I didn’t like them! I thought it was a piece of s***, but after time it came by coincidence to me and I loved it!” (Harvard, 2008). I first listened to that album when I was 15 years old and I did not like it.   After listening to the album recently made me appreciate what was really going on musically and socially in the end of the 60’s, how well produced this album is, and how their sound/style of recording reflected in bands and artists like Donovan, MGMT, etc. 



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