Flesh Guitar (8 page)

Jenny accepted as graciously, as gratefully, as she knew how, all too aware of the sullen, graceless presence of Billy Nation. She no longer felt any need to chastise or berate him, but neither did she feel any responsibility.

She said to him, ‘You know, I've been thinking about the way certain American popular songs can be used as song-lines. Look at “By The Time I Get To Phoenix”. When she's rising he's in Phoenix, then when she's having her lunch he's in Albuquerque, and by the time she gets home from work he's made Oklahoma. You could draw his journey on
a map.

‘Or how about “Route 66”? Some of it's just a list of names: Missouri, St Louis, Oklahoma City and so on. Follow the names and you could never get lost. Isn't that exactly what a songline is?'

Billy shook his head at her sadly and with all the condescension he could muster. He was trying to imply that she was stupid, that all she had done was confirm that she was too crass ever to understand him or his culture, and perhaps ultimately that was true, but there was some consolation in knowing she had the ability to play to an audience, any audience, and entertain them and make them happy.

Billy Nation walked out into the night and Jenny was about to shout something mildly abusive after him, to tell him to get lost, but she decided that was no longer necessary.

Number one: the nails

Jenny Slade says, ‘You know
a lot of women seem to think that in order to get that authentic snarly, slutty, rock chick look, they have to wear their fingernails as long and sharp as talons, and that they should be painted blood red or Goth black, or in some metallic cyber shade. But I'm afraid it's not that simple.

‘There are two problems here. One, a right-handed guitarist can't have talons on her left hand at all, because if she does they'll get in the way of holding down the strings.

‘Secondly, even the strongest non-chip enamel will get trashed by the time you've played two hours worth of shred and burn guitar, especially if you do any amount of finger picking. And, despite Courtney Love, most of us still believe that chipped nail varnish is a sin second only to a visible panty line. You could use false nails, I suppose, but in my humble opinion false nails are an abomination against nature.

‘So you see, my advice to young female guitar players is really pretty simple: keep the natural look at your fingertips. Get a good manicure, eat gelatine, keep your nails short and unpainted. Let the authentic snarly, slutty, rock chick persona come from your playing, not just from your cosmetics.'

Reprinted from the
Journal of Sladean Studies

Volume 3 Issue 12

Jenny Slade was staying in a tourist
hotel in Haiti when she first met Tom Scorn. She was lying out by the pool, eyes closed, gently working on her tan, slowly working off a queen-size hangover, when she became aware of someone casting a shadow over her face. She opened her eyes, looked up and saw a scrawny, thick-lipped young guy standing there, apparently trying to summon the courage to speak. He was tall, had spiked hair and big eyes, and now that she was actually looking at him, his first reaction was to run away, but he steeled himself, swallowed and said, perhaps a little too loudly, as though he had been rehearsing it, ‘Miss Slade, I'd like to say how much I've always enjoyed your music.'

Jenny was not entirely unused to receiving such compliments, nor to dealing with them efficiently, and she handled it as gracefully as she could. ‘You're very kind,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

Sometimes this exchange would be enough, but more usually it would be followed by a request for an autograph, which she usually agreed to, or by an attempt to involve her in a muso conversation about guitars and guitarists, which she was skilled at avoiding. But this particular boy
did none of the usual things. He wouldn't go away but neither would he say anything more.

When the situation had become unbearable Jenny said, ‘Is there something else I can do for you?'

‘Well maybe,' he said. ‘I'm a music student.'

Jenny was unimpressed.

‘Actually I'm studying piano, saxophone and composition, with particular reference to Stockhausen, Cardew, Wally Stott. And yourself.'

‘That's very nice,' Jenny said, though she wasn't really sure it was nice at all.

She saw that he was carrying a tan leather music case and he now held it up in front of him like a breastplate.

‘I have some of my compositions in here,' he said, sounding simultaneously proud and diffident. ‘Maybe you'd like to take a look at one or two of them.'

Jenny had a firm rule about not accepting things that strangers shoved into her hands. If she was handed a demo tape she knew it would be dreadful and incompetent and unlistenable, but nevertheless the makers of the tape were all too likely to sue her for plagiarism at a later date. If she was handed a note, a piece of ‘creative writing' perhaps, it would inevitably be somebody's sick little sex fantasy. If somebody gave her drugs they would always be tainted. So she made it a rule not to accept gifts from strangers and she was on the point of saying a firm no, when the boy began to fiddle with the case and it fell open so that sheets of manuscript paper spilled out and scurried across the pool-side tiles towards the water. Jenny put out a hand and lazily caught one sheet while the boy headed off to catch
the more fugitive pages.

She intended to hand the page straight back without looking at it, but she couldn't help noticing that the paper in her hand was a cover sheet, a title page that read ‘
Forty Guitar Solos for Jenny Slade
by Tom Scorn'. She liked guitar solos and couldn't help being intrigued.

‘You're Tom Scorn?' she said.

‘Yes. It's my composition.'

‘Show me the rest of it,' she said.

He dipped into the case and fiddled again. She hoped the music wasn't too complex. Like all the best guitarists her sight-reading was pretty rudimentary.

‘Here you are,' he said, handing over a bundle of paper, some of it creased, some of it damp around the edges.

She saw that she needn't have worried. The pages contained words rather than musical notes, quite a lot of words she noticed, rather too many to absorb all at once.

‘OK if I take this away with me?' she asked.

Tom Scorn sighed as though all his dreams had come true.

‘What if you need to get in touch with me?' he asked.

‘I'll find a way,' she said, and she waved him away, not with contempt but with finality, and once he was out of sight she began to read his compositions.

(In these compositions it
is assumed that the guitarist is right handed and plays a conventionally strung instrument. Left-handers should make the appropriate reversals.)

1) The Lubrication Solo

The player takes a guitar and places it on a stand so that it is upright, leaning backwards at a slight angle. She opens a two-gallon tin of motor oil and pours its contents down the neck of the guitar, varying the rate and quantity of oil so as to vary the sound produced. She continues until the tin is empty.

2) The Spherical Solo

The player arranges a number of different guitars on stage. She then moves to the back of the hall where there is a large pile of balls of various sizes and weights and densities. The player hurls these balls one at a time at the guitars on stage, attempting to hit them cleanly on the strings, but inevitably inaccuracies will occur. Some balls will miss the strings, hit the guitar's body or machine heads, with rich unpredictable results.

(Possible projectiles include cricket balls, baseballs, cotton-wool balls, footballs, meat balls and, at outdoor winter gigs, snowballs.)

3) The Hot Solo

With her left hand the player begins to play the chord changes of a standard I-IV-V progression (‘Louie Louie', ‘Wild Thing',
et al).
In her other hand she now takes an ignited blow lamp and ‘strums' the strings with the flame until either
the strings melt or the guitar body catches fire. (The noise subsequently created by the use of the fire extinguisher is to be considered part of the solo.)

4) The Fall Solo

The player selects a number of guitars, tunes them to Open E and places them under the spreading branches of a large deciduous tree on a breezy day in mid-autumn. As the leaves fall they land on the strings and play fragile, delicate notes and half chords.

5) The Blackboard Solo

The player holds down a chord of C 7th. She then inserts three sticks of chalk (which may be coloured or plain white) between the fingers of the right hand and rubs them hard up and down the guitar neck so that they crumble and snap and disintegrate. The solo continues until the chalk is completely pulverized and there's nothing in the hand but chalk dust.

6) The Spanking Solo

The player inserts a thin plank of wood between the guitar strings and the fingerboard. Using a hand saw she then starts to cut the plank. The solo consists of the vibrations and movement passed through the plank to the strings and the guitar. It ends when the plank is sawn through.

7) The Inflated Solo

The player holds a guitar horizontally. She takes six balloons and fills them with helium and varying amounts of gravel. One balloon is attached to each guitar string, so that the balloons float at various points above the guitar. Slowly, and with feeling, the player bursts each balloon in turn so that gravel showers
down on the strings and body of the guitar.

8) The Stubble Solo

The player coats the guitar strings in lime-scented shaving foam. She then takes a disposable razor, preferably one with a swivel action head, and proceeds to give the strings a very close shave.

(Depilatory cream might be used as an acceptable alternative, but the use of hot wax would constitute a different composition, as would the use of an electric razor.)

9) The Dog Solo

The player finds a large dog, preferably of a bouncy, good-natured variety, and uses a length of string to attach the dog's tail to the whammy bar of her guitar. The player now attempts to perform a version of the Shadows”Apache', while the dog expresses its natural exuberance. The piece ends when dog and player can stand it no longer.

10) The Literate Solo

The player takes a text, preferably an English classic, and places it on a music stand in front of her. She begins to read the text silently to herself. Each time the word ‘the' appears in the text the player strums the chord of B minor. Each time the word ‘a' appears she strums the chord of A minor 7th. Each time the word ‘and' occurs she strums the chord of C 6th. The piece may be of any length.

11) The Explosive Solo

The player takes three or four fireworks, say a Snowstorm, a Mount Stromboli, a Roman Candle and an Air Bomb Repeater, and weaves them in and out of the strings
of her guitar. She then lights the blue touch paper and listens very carefully.

12) The Stretched Solo

The player stands on stage firmly holding a guitar. (A guitar strap should not be employed.) Two powerful bungee cords are used to attach the guitar to the back wall of the hall. The player strums diminished chords until, as the spirit takes her, she lets go of her guitar and watches it fly through the air and strike the back wall to produce remarkable sonic effects.

13) The Cool Solo

The player begins to perform a series of blues-based hammerons and pull-offs and slides with the fingers of her left hand. She then takes an aerosol of freezing medical spray and directs it at the playing hand, continuing until that hand loses all feeling and playing becomes impossible.

14) The Tinsnip Solo

The player sets up her guitar to produce a low, regular, howling feedback. She then takes a pair of tinsnips and cuts each string in turn, from low to high E.

15) The Restrained Solo

The left and right wrists of the player are put into two separate pairs of handcuffs by an assistant. The free handcuff on the left wrist is closed around the neck of the guitar, the free handcuff on the right wrist is closed around the strings close to the bridge. Thus restricted and with the loops of the handcuffs rattling against the strings, the player now attempts a rendition of ‘I Fought The Law'.

16) The Errol Flynn Solo

(It is said that, as a party piece, Errol Flynn used to take out
his penis and let it drop on the piano keyboard to play individual notes and form a tune. How much more impressive if he'd played the guitar.)

The player attaches a rubber dildo to herself (she may be naked or fully clothed as she pleases) and holds the guitar in such a way that she can use the dildo to strum the chords of ‘Mull Of Kintyre'.

17) The Sub-Errol Flynn Solo

The player holds a guitar in front of her in a phallic posture. She bangs the neck of the guitar against a microphone stand until one or other droops.

18) the Free-Range Solo

The player takes half a dozen hen's eggs and smashes them at various places on her guitar. She then takes an egg whisk and beats the eggs, and to an extent the guitar as well, until small peaks appear.

19) The Considerate Solo

The player holds a guitar in one hand and a house brick in the other. She considers the myriad possibilities, but does nothing.

20) The Prophylactic Solo

A large, opaque plastic bag is placed over the guitar and the player must wrest sounds from the instrument through the plastic.

(In a minor variation of this solo the plastic bag may be placed over the player instead.)