Barret, Schiebermütze oder wie auch immer man das nennt… ja, aber genau der isses. Hat auch bei Zoom Tour Live von ELO 2001 in der Band mitgespielt und muss vorher gefragter Sessionmusiker gewesen sein. Mit System of A Down glaube ich hat er auch mal was zu tun gehabt, und auch bei den zwei neuen Beatles-Songs Mitte der 90er war er beteiligt, hier als Computerspezialist. Da hat ihn Jeff wohl kennengelernt. Der Mann scheint auch immer auf dem neuesten Stand der Technik zu sein. Ich kenn' mich da zu wenig aus, aber in Sachen Synthesizer/Gitarrensynthesizer etc scheint er den Dreh rauszuhaben. Ich erinnere mich schwach an einen Artikel in einem Keyboard/Synthesisermagazin.
Hier noch das angesprochene Interview mit IDLE RACE Mitgliedern Dave Pritchard und Greg Masters über Jeff als Gitarrist. (aus dem ELO-Fanzine FACE THE MUSIC 16 (1993)).
Dave remembered, „We were like a schizophrenic band, if you like. We were a good rock band, a guitar rock band on stage, and on record we were a good vocal band who coul churn out a nice song.“ … It could be said then, that those of us who know The Idle Race from the albums and singles, and have never heard the band live, only know half the story! [Anm.:Dasselbe könnte man über das ELO der 70er sagen] It seems too, that little is realised about Jeff as a guitar player. … „That's the thing Jeff hasn't licked as far as I'm concerned,“ declared Dave, „He's never shown people on record what a tremendous guitar player he is. It's one of the things that used to annoy me, because we used to have to force him to do it, to do gigs sometimes. He just couldn't be bothered. It was too much trouble. I used to have some right goes at him. I remember one particular occasion, a gig we did in Coventry at a pub. He'd gone there and he didn't want to play, and I had a real big argument with him because he was such a tremendous guitar player and I'm not. There was somebody who was a really great guitarist and didn't want to be, and I did. He used to agree with me, though. There's nothing worse than someone who can do it and doesn't like to, and someone who really wants to but…“ …“I've got an acetate of us doing Marc Bolan's DEBORAH on stage,“ admitted Dave, somewhat dangerously (!), „and the guitar Jeff played on that is good, but it's not the best he could do. He'd get a fabulous sound out of his guitar. He'd get this violin sound…“ [Anm.: Aha, daher die Idee zum ELO] „People swore blind it was a violin.“ chipped in Greg. „…'cos he used to get his little finger round the volume knob and get some vibrato as well. He had a Telecaster, and the way the controls are, he used to roll his little finger round the volume knob, and the strings were quite loose. No one really played like that at the time, and it sounded unearthly! People used to come and stand around the stage saying, 'Where's that sound coming from?'! He was as good as anyone around. I mean, Jeff could've done the PURPLE HAZE single with Jimi Hendrix.“
Soweit das Interview. Und ehrlich: die Jungs von FTM haben dabei keine amerikanischen Verhör/Foltermethoden angewandt. :D
--