The drive to 2010

Dear friends,

I was just thinking about the remark you made recently about Dave Longstreth—about his unconventional guitar playing.  Or rather I should say about his guitar playing, since the substance of the remark was that his playing is unconventional. Unusual picking, I believe? Anyway, I recently saw him perform with his combo, The Dirty Projectors, last night, and I bore that remark in mind, attending more than I probably otherwise would have to Longstreth's playing.  I know the conversation's moved on now, and I hate to seem a bore, but I thought I'd drop you this brief note to let you know what my thoughts on the matter were.  I hope you find them as interesting and even eye-opening as I found yours.

Briefly (I must be brief now, having wasted so much space with preliminaries—I must ask your indulgence), the conclusions I reached were two. First, that especially, but not only, when he solos, Longstreth put me, at any rate, in mind of Sonny Sharrock: think of the Space Ghost album, for instance. Second, what with the increased prominence given in the live performances to various intertwining guitar parts on the part of Longstreth and the fleet-fingered hottie whose name I don't know who plays guitar and sings, that the current lineup of the DPs (call it the Rise Above lineup) is the 80s King Crimson for our decade.

Those are the things I thought while auditing the band, at least; now, in the cold light of day, I'm not sure how well either identification holds up, even granting that they were all along supposed to be loose, dare I say it, analogies. It's funny, isn't it, how that can happen? How something that, in the rush of the moment, seems like such a good idea, can appear much less certain not ten hours later… Anyway, I'm rambling.  I hope there are no hard feelings.

Yours,
Willard Maas