TomFlannery.com

What the world needs is more guitars. And more obnoxious twits to play them.

More volume. More riffs. More attitude. More swagger. More angels off-stage and devils on it. More strings to snap and amps to blow and knobs to twiddle. More neighbors who will put up with the noise coming from the garage across the street. More crafting the new and bludgeoning the old (but with reverence). Less judging and more dancing. More 25 year old vans filled with duct-taped equipment and empty beer cans and pillows and 20 somethings willing to play for the adrenaline and gas money and the possibility that girls might finally notice that acne mysteriously disappears when a kid learns 3 chords. We need less people in ties and more people in Doc Martens.

I remember Pete Townshend saying that when he first heard the Pistols and the Clash….he felt that he was too old to participate….but was thrilled to be able to watch. I feel that way. My punk rock days are over. But the squeal of a Gibson SG still makes me feel, if only for the length of the song, young again. There is no sound quite like it. They say Muddy Waters invented electricity. I like that one.

So onward I go….with my acoustic Gibson jumbo, crafting soft laments and trying to tell stories with a hush built in. But I still grasp at new kids with loud guitars. And old kids too.

With enough decibels pointed back at us, we’ll never really get old.

In a bit…

–tf