John Watt
Member
What days those were, me in high school, never trying smoke or drink, a virgin, during the late sixties long after the summer of love, Woodstock and Altamont. It was just American news, and it took a while, but even Hell's Angels made it up here to The Niagara Peninsula. All of the hype and propaganda of this era was out there. It all stuck to Jimi Hendrix. Long haired hippies, the wild loud sounds, Marshall stacks, the smoke, the lights, the acid, the clothes, the nudity, marijuana leaf, stems and seeds, Viet Nam, cocaine, Deep Purple, The Beatles over Christ, Clapton is God, Dylan gone electric and Jimi as voodoo chile, runnin' wild, shootin'cid in his eyeballs, playing upside down with a guitar that talked back. And he had a return engagement in Toronto, Maple Leaf Gardens. And coming over the border he was arrested for heroin possession, which he said he didn't know, just a fan's gift tossed in luggage. The judge let him off, saying he had to talk about the perils of drugs. The news photos showed him walking out of court, fur coats, Navaho hat, beautiful white women on each arm, laughing.
It was no wonder my bass playing friend's parents didn't want him to go alone. So he asked me and ordered our tickets, $5.50 each, with $4.50 & $3.50 prices. My newspaper route paid $5/wk, so I could afford it. Wow! Driving up the Q.E.W. to Toronto, dropped off in front of Maple Leaf Gardens, the arena ice hockey built. Late afternoon. You could see and smell all of it. The crowd, some sitting and lying on the sidewalk, lounging around. The sound of harmonicas, recorders, flutes, bongos, singing, all around. Joints and pipes. Couples laying under blankets. The door opened, we slowly moved inside.
The ice was covered, folding chairs were arranged in patterns, and two flat-bed trailers were parked end to end where the net would be. Smuff: violin, keys, bass'n'drums, and Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys were exciting. Local celebrities spoke. Equipment and wires everywhere. A lot was happening. Our seats were centered forty feet away, the crowd growing to over 9,000. It hushed, when a white and black Stratocaster were stood onstage. A sense of expectation dominated the room. Jimi Hendrix walked out and the crowd went wild as he looked over the equipment, turning knobs and strapping on the white Strat. The rest of the band walked on to applause, and Jimi started talking. It sounded like a microphone. He started pointing out to the audience, reacting to shouts, talking and laughing, saying everyone had to come down, he wasn't there to take you higher, he wanted to make you wider. He wanted everyone to hear. No security, only roadies. A few police stood around the doors. This is where my memory starts to fail me.
Jimi started with a hit pop tune we could hum along with, until it started to sound different. The double microphones for everything, the placing of many speaker cabinets, the roadies watching Jimi behind his amp and in front helped make the sound wash sideways and over your head, as he moved around with his guitar, acting out the song. Intense and serious, a torrent of sound. The crowd got quiet, and Jimi started talking with a mike in his hand as he leaned down to switch wires and effects and change his amplifier settings. This was not a letdown. He talked about Haight Asbury, Greenich Village, London, growing up black and Cherokee in America. It didn't seem like it, but he was playing again. Now it was obvious there were speakers in the corners of the arena, the sound slowly spinning, phasing, flanging, effects Jimi created mechanically with his Air Force Radar Technician training. When he jumped up and landed on his wah-wah to start Voodoo Chile, people screamed.
After the third song, the audience was quiet. Jimi kept talking and gave a guitar lesson: his picks, strings, wearing moccasins so hard shoes on cords didn't make noise, asking if everyone was okay, directing caregivers to obvious trauma. You could hear his footsteps. A buzz spread someone was having a baby, Dylan was backstage. When he played "Purple Haze" he sang "scuse me while I kiss this guy", making a move on a roadie to great laughter. The story in The Toronto Star said he played for 45 minutes. It went on forever. You couldn't see or hear everything. And then Jimi took off his guitar and leaned it against one of his stacks, and Noel Redding, bassist, did the same with his Fender bass. Mitch Mitchell, drummer, quieted down and stood up as the feedback grew, as they walked offstage smiling and waving. This rising clashing dual harmonic feedback started to spread out, swirling around the room, becoming the loudest sound of the night, and a voice could be heard saying "the ocean is the biggest living thing on the planet". Gradually, the sound faded, becoming still. Roadies started moving around. The crowd didn't move. No-one shouted, no matches in the air, no applause, with people looking around saying they felt sad Jimi and the sound was gone. People said they loved Jimi. And it was a very different crowd walking out into the cool, night air.
What other Jimi was out there? American cities were burning. Doctor Martin Luther King was assassinated by a Texan. The Police Chief came to see Jimi, asking him to cancel his concert in his city. Jimi prevailed, and took the stage. Lots of Police presence, Black Panthers paying, everyone was angry and nervous. Jimi walked out and talked, saying he would play for Martin Luther King, and started jamming alone. Soon, everyone was in tears, everyone, and Jimi kept singing and playing with his band. It was quiet in Jimi's part of town, the only such city not to burn, inspiring "House Burning Down" (Electric Ladyland) That dented my brain more than Abraham's "a house divided".
My fiancees father was a steel factory supervisor, saying he could get me in. I walked away from grade 12, an art bursary or scholarship. Bringing home $2 a week more than my steel working father, I didn't get married, buy a house, car and cottage. I bought the first Strat sold here and the third Marshall amp in The Peninsula. I used a hacksaw to even the horns, painting it with car model paint. Other guitarists thought it was set up like a jazz guitar. I played all the time, riding my bike downtown strapped on or hitch-hiking. Having that equipment saw many musicians call me up, invite me to jams, and when I was 21, legal age, my first gig, a five piece chick singer showband. I was out there, still a non-smoker, non-drinker vegetarian. MyCoy Tyner, Return to Forever, Deep Purple, The Niagara Symphony Orchestra, George Benson, Pat Methany & Lyle Mays, Joe Zawinal & Wayne Shorter & Jaco Pastorius: no-one sounded as deep and exciting as Jimi, and no-one else ever confronted me with such influential artistry. I love Jimi Hendrix. His sound lives on everywhere.
I attest to this on an inherited, very ceremonial, The Holy King James Bible, of The Church of Scotland, as Master John Alexander Hay Watt, of dual Scottish Highland descent, maternal Royal Buchanan and paternal Doctor James Watt, inventor. Aaaah! Nick-named wattage, even then. Jimi, Jimi, no, no, not now, I know, a redefined Strat, stereo digital Marshall rack with microdigital effects, Jimi, it's my turn to play.
"There once was a boy, whose heart was a frown, 'cause he was crippled for life, and couldn't speak a sound, 'til one day he drew his wheelchair to the shore, and to his legs he smiled you won't hurt me no more, but suddenly a site he'd never seen before made him jump up and say, look! a golden winged ship is coming my way, and it didn't even have to stop, it just kept on going, and so castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually".
Jimi Hendrix: Axis; Bold as Love: Castles Made of Sand, third verse.
It was no wonder my bass playing friend's parents didn't want him to go alone. So he asked me and ordered our tickets, $5.50 each, with $4.50 & $3.50 prices. My newspaper route paid $5/wk, so I could afford it. Wow! Driving up the Q.E.W. to Toronto, dropped off in front of Maple Leaf Gardens, the arena ice hockey built. Late afternoon. You could see and smell all of it. The crowd, some sitting and lying on the sidewalk, lounging around. The sound of harmonicas, recorders, flutes, bongos, singing, all around. Joints and pipes. Couples laying under blankets. The door opened, we slowly moved inside.
The ice was covered, folding chairs were arranged in patterns, and two flat-bed trailers were parked end to end where the net would be. Smuff: violin, keys, bass'n'drums, and Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys were exciting. Local celebrities spoke. Equipment and wires everywhere. A lot was happening. Our seats were centered forty feet away, the crowd growing to over 9,000. It hushed, when a white and black Stratocaster were stood onstage. A sense of expectation dominated the room. Jimi Hendrix walked out and the crowd went wild as he looked over the equipment, turning knobs and strapping on the white Strat. The rest of the band walked on to applause, and Jimi started talking. It sounded like a microphone. He started pointing out to the audience, reacting to shouts, talking and laughing, saying everyone had to come down, he wasn't there to take you higher, he wanted to make you wider. He wanted everyone to hear. No security, only roadies. A few police stood around the doors. This is where my memory starts to fail me.
Jimi started with a hit pop tune we could hum along with, until it started to sound different. The double microphones for everything, the placing of many speaker cabinets, the roadies watching Jimi behind his amp and in front helped make the sound wash sideways and over your head, as he moved around with his guitar, acting out the song. Intense and serious, a torrent of sound. The crowd got quiet, and Jimi started talking with a mike in his hand as he leaned down to switch wires and effects and change his amplifier settings. This was not a letdown. He talked about Haight Asbury, Greenich Village, London, growing up black and Cherokee in America. It didn't seem like it, but he was playing again. Now it was obvious there were speakers in the corners of the arena, the sound slowly spinning, phasing, flanging, effects Jimi created mechanically with his Air Force Radar Technician training. When he jumped up and landed on his wah-wah to start Voodoo Chile, people screamed.
After the third song, the audience was quiet. Jimi kept talking and gave a guitar lesson: his picks, strings, wearing moccasins so hard shoes on cords didn't make noise, asking if everyone was okay, directing caregivers to obvious trauma. You could hear his footsteps. A buzz spread someone was having a baby, Dylan was backstage. When he played "Purple Haze" he sang "scuse me while I kiss this guy", making a move on a roadie to great laughter. The story in The Toronto Star said he played for 45 minutes. It went on forever. You couldn't see or hear everything. And then Jimi took off his guitar and leaned it against one of his stacks, and Noel Redding, bassist, did the same with his Fender bass. Mitch Mitchell, drummer, quieted down and stood up as the feedback grew, as they walked offstage smiling and waving. This rising clashing dual harmonic feedback started to spread out, swirling around the room, becoming the loudest sound of the night, and a voice could be heard saying "the ocean is the biggest living thing on the planet". Gradually, the sound faded, becoming still. Roadies started moving around. The crowd didn't move. No-one shouted, no matches in the air, no applause, with people looking around saying they felt sad Jimi and the sound was gone. People said they loved Jimi. And it was a very different crowd walking out into the cool, night air.
What other Jimi was out there? American cities were burning. Doctor Martin Luther King was assassinated by a Texan. The Police Chief came to see Jimi, asking him to cancel his concert in his city. Jimi prevailed, and took the stage. Lots of Police presence, Black Panthers paying, everyone was angry and nervous. Jimi walked out and talked, saying he would play for Martin Luther King, and started jamming alone. Soon, everyone was in tears, everyone, and Jimi kept singing and playing with his band. It was quiet in Jimi's part of town, the only such city not to burn, inspiring "House Burning Down" (Electric Ladyland) That dented my brain more than Abraham's "a house divided".
My fiancees father was a steel factory supervisor, saying he could get me in. I walked away from grade 12, an art bursary or scholarship. Bringing home $2 a week more than my steel working father, I didn't get married, buy a house, car and cottage. I bought the first Strat sold here and the third Marshall amp in The Peninsula. I used a hacksaw to even the horns, painting it with car model paint. Other guitarists thought it was set up like a jazz guitar. I played all the time, riding my bike downtown strapped on or hitch-hiking. Having that equipment saw many musicians call me up, invite me to jams, and when I was 21, legal age, my first gig, a five piece chick singer showband. I was out there, still a non-smoker, non-drinker vegetarian. MyCoy Tyner, Return to Forever, Deep Purple, The Niagara Symphony Orchestra, George Benson, Pat Methany & Lyle Mays, Joe Zawinal & Wayne Shorter & Jaco Pastorius: no-one sounded as deep and exciting as Jimi, and no-one else ever confronted me with such influential artistry. I love Jimi Hendrix. His sound lives on everywhere.
I attest to this on an inherited, very ceremonial, The Holy King James Bible, of The Church of Scotland, as Master John Alexander Hay Watt, of dual Scottish Highland descent, maternal Royal Buchanan and paternal Doctor James Watt, inventor. Aaaah! Nick-named wattage, even then. Jimi, Jimi, no, no, not now, I know, a redefined Strat, stereo digital Marshall rack with microdigital effects, Jimi, it's my turn to play.
"There once was a boy, whose heart was a frown, 'cause he was crippled for life, and couldn't speak a sound, 'til one day he drew his wheelchair to the shore, and to his legs he smiled you won't hurt me no more, but suddenly a site he'd never seen before made him jump up and say, look! a golden winged ship is coming my way, and it didn't even have to stop, it just kept on going, and so castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually".
Jimi Hendrix: Axis; Bold as Love: Castles Made of Sand, third verse.
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