MEDIA
Preview
BY CHRIS KIES, BEN OTIS, PAT SMITH AND JORDAN WAGNER
Videos
tunes; he plays them beautifully and gets a
pretty authentic Chet tone with his Taylor T5.
Just in case all this good stuff isn’t enough
for you Volume One also includes some classic Chet videos, three from The Purina Show
in 1955; The Poor People of Paris, Side by
Side, and Makin’ Believe, and from 1958’s
Ozark Jubilee; Villa and Say Si Si. It’s always a
joy to hear Chet in his prime and it’s worth it
just to see the outfits these folks wore.
state of their artists work, captured in a way
that lets their talents speak without the interference of presenters, logos or audiences.
He does this simply by making the music the
focus with few if any distractions.
Pickin’ Like Chet
Chet Atkins’ Vintage Classics
Volume One & Two
Taught by Pat Kirtley
Stephan Grossman’s
Guitar Workshop
So hey Chet fans, rejoice and check this out,
you may learn something. Be sure to visit Pat
Kirtley on My Space at myspace.com/patkirt-ley; he has posted some nice clips including
one of “Mystery Train” from this set. –PS
List: $39.95 per volume
guitarvideos.com
With each artist performing either one or
two songs, the DVD has a seamless flow from
track to track, artist to artist. In addition to its
stripped down demeanor, it provides gearheads with a healthy dose of rare and peculiar guitars and amps. Whether you’re a fan
of Jack White’s Sears Silvertone 1485 amp
paired with a 1965 JB Hutto Montgomery
Airline guitar; Sonic Youth’s pairing of a vintage Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar; or PJ
Harvey’s unidentified 12-string acoustic used
on “The Piano”, this underground series covers many gear-loving bases.
Pat Kirtley has impressive fingerstyle guitar creds having done a stack of CDs and
instructional videos, to say nothing of
his being 1995 US National Fingerstyle
Champion, and National Thumbpicking
Champion in 1994. He is obviously a big
Chet Atkins fan and in these DVD sets
Kirtley has delivered up a huge serving of
great Chet tunes. Volume One is 173 minutes of Chetty goodness featuring “Hidden
Charm,” “Mystery Train,” “You’d Be So Nice
To Come Home To,” “St Louis Blues,” “Oh
By Jingo,” and “Chinatown, My Chinatown.”
Volume Two clocks in at 122 minutes and
contains “Rose Ann,” “Down Home,”
“Somebody’s Knockin’,” “Trambone,” “Drive
In,” and “Alice Blue Gown.” These are classic Chet tunes and several of them are must
haves for Chet-o-philes. Kirtley takes his
time and explains each tune in detail with a
full speed performance and then each tune
is shown slowly bit by bit. The set comes
with a book of transcriptions as well as PDF
files on the discs. Kirtley also covers information about effects like reverb and delay as
they apply to the songs.
Now if you are like me in that you love this
sort of DVD lesson, then you probably have
a stack of DVDs—some of which make you
think why the heck did I buy that junk? and
others that you go to over and over again.
This is one of the latter. Frankly, lessons
aside, I just enjoyed hearing Kirtley play these
From the Basement DVD
Ever wonder what it’d be like to have a collection of TV show performances on DVD
from some of contemporary indie’s biggest
names without the grotesquely gushing TV
hosts? From the Basement does just that
and does it well. The series of artist performances was originally recorded and aired
from a UK basement studio, and was later
picked up and distributed in the US on the
Rave channel and also on IFC. There are
performances from Radiohead, including two
In Rainbows tracks with just Thom Yorke on
piano; the disc also includes PJ Harvey, The
White Stripes, Sonic Youth, Beck and Albert
Hammond Jr. of The Strokes fame.
The recording producer of these sessions,
Nigel Godrich, wanted these performances
to be seen as the truest representation of the
The only negative was the fact that there
was no on-screen identification for songs or
artists. However, the overall setup and production is uniquely cozy as the DVD provides
a platform for the artists to play seemingly
directly to the viewer… in their own basement. –CK
List: $14.98
eaglerockent.com
King’s X: Gretchen Goes to
London Live DVD
The year 1990 was a turbulent one for rock
music. The Seattle Sound was gaining notoriety, and among those bands slowly garnering
more attention was King’s X.
Originally rising from the ashes of Sneak
Preview, the band regrouped and christened
