Link fans west of the Hudson rumbled with their
hero on July 11th, 2002 at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ. New Jersey has been a
special stop for Link since 1958. New Jersey’s infamous DJ, “Jocko”,
was one of a very small group of radio personalities to support Link and play
Rumble after it was banned from the airwaves, regardless of the risk to his own
career.
I live in New Jersey so the Maxwell's shows are
real special for me. I came prepared with an album (my beloved
Beans
And Fatback) to be autographed and a special gift I’d selected for Link,
however parking near Maxwell's was an impossibility. I left my stuff
locked in the car, many blocks from Maxwell's, and figured maybe I’d come back
for it later.
It was still early when I arrived at Maxwell's,
so I had a couple cold ones and enjoyed the two opening acts. I really
enjoyed “The Sights”. They were a cross between The Black Crows
and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion; In other words, they were a trashy, nasty,
greasy, bad assed rock and roll band! Excellent opener. The next
band, “The Newborn Naturals”, didn’t do too much for me. I was not
impressed with their song writing, musical skills, or stage presence. Enough
about the preliminaries!
Link came on about 11:00PM, but before commenting
on Link’s performance I’d like to comment on Link’s great rhythm section
as well as Link’s guitars and setup. Please skip over the next couple
paragraphs if you find this technical mumbo jumbo boring.
Firstly, Link’s famous red Yamaha, “Screaming
Red”, is not on this tour. I do not believe there is any reason for
concern; Red has seen a lot of action the past few years and is probably overdue
for some fret work and routine repairs. Link’s main guitar is currently
a traditional looking black Fender Stratocaster, probably a Standard or similar
model. Link used this guitar as a backup for Screaming Red on the 2000
tour. The backup for this guitar is a beautiful wine red “Fat Strat”,
a Strat which has a humbucker in the bridge position rather than the more common
single coil.
Link played through a Marshall JCM 900 head, a
great all tube amp head. I’m not sure that Link actually owns this amp,
though. I’ve never seen his team actually carry this, or any other amp,
for that matter, into or out of a venue. I n other words, Link may prefer to
travel light and use house amps. However, there is no doubt that he enjoys
these Marshalls and plays through them whenever possible. Before the show
Link’s bass guitarist tunes up the guitars with a Boss TU-12H electronic
tuner, though Link prefers to use his own good sense of pitch, and no
electronics, to keep his guitars tuned correctly - or incorrectly - if that’s
what the song calls for, during the show.
Link is using two stomp boxes on this tour, a
Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer and a Soundtrack Digital Delay. Using the
two pedals simultaneously results in a strong, modulated sound akin to the
reverb and tremolo drenched sounds Link helped to popularize in the late 50s and
early sixties (before fuzzed-out wah wah and other sounds became popular).
Now a couple words about Link’s fine rhythm
section. Link has been working with members of a San Francisco based band
named Dieselhed (please visit
www.dieselhed.com
for more information about this band) since 1996. I asked Link’s drummer
for the correct spelling of his name, and he suggested that he write it down on
my pad himself. He wrote Lee Kepo Pokeeli. So what’s so difficult
about that? I asked Link’s bass guitarist for his name, and he took my
pad and simply wrote Atom (not Adam) and he drew the o in Atom as a ring around
a nucleus. Well, like I said, they’re from San Francisco! Lee told
me that Atom has been consistently working with Link since ‘96, but that he
has shared the drummer’s stool with Danny Heifetz (another Dieselhed) since
then. He told me that working with Link is very much hard work and that,
in the way of example, though they often start a show with a set list, Link often
strays from it early on and that they go along for the ride like everyone else
and just do the best they can to keep up with him! Link obviously loves
these guys and often affectionately refers to them as his adopted sons.
The show in Hoboken started with Rumble, of
course. I tried to accurately write down all the songs played in the order
in which they were played, but I’m a fan and not a good journalist... I gave
up on my pad and pencil after the first three chords of Rumble! I just
couldn’t be distracted by writing, or anything else. I can’t really
tell anybody just how good this show was, it was much more than a good
show. Beside Rumble, Link not only performed Rawhide, The Batman Theme,
Deuces Wild, Branded, and Jack The Ripper... he performed them all twice during
the evening! We even got seconds on Viva Zapata! Other tunes
performed included the much requested Run Chicken Run and Comanche. Link
performed The Black Widow but introduced it as Spiderman (The Black Widow is
camouflaged as Spiderman on Link’s 2000 release on Ace,
“Barbed
Wire”.) Link commented on the movie of the same name, explaining
that his song was recorded long before the movie was released.
Strats don’t hold up very well in the fierce
hands of Link Wray, and it didn’t take long for Link to out of necessity move
from the black Strat to the wine red model. And in due time the red Strat
suffered serious casualties and a hard tailed, whammy-barless white Strat was
brought up and placed in Link’s hands. Something rather curious occurred
during one of these intermissions when guitar changes and technical repairs were
taking place. Somebody passed an album toward the stage to be signed by
Link. And then somebody else passed another album forward, and this went
on for some time. I saw an original Swan Records (not reissue) Jack The
Ripper handed to Link for autographing; a mint Bullshot came through the
crowd. Some guy passed up the liner notes from Rhino’s The Best Of Link
Wray CD and another guy passed up his 1971 Polydor self-titled Link Wray
album. Of course, the ubiquitous Epic Records Link Wray And The Wraymen
(this one looked like a reissue) found its way into Link’s hands at one
point. Needless to say, all I could think of was how stupid I was to have
my Beans And Fatback locked in my car six blocks away! As if this weren’t
enough, some kid (he looked very young, but he probably was already in his
teens) pushed his way through the crowd holding a gorgeous blonde Fender
Telecaster. Without saying a word he handed the guitar to Link. Link asked him
something like, “Do you want me to play it or sign it!?!”. The kid made it
clear that was hoping to get the guitar signed by Link, so with heavy marker in
hand Link started writing on the guitar’s beautiful lacquer finish. And all I
could think of was that as the years and eventually decades go by this kid is
going to have such a cool story to tell, he’s going to have so many good times
telling his kids and maybe even grandkids about the night Link Wray signed his
Tele at Maxwell's.
Link performed a few songs with the white Strat,
including Rumble. When the time came to operate the vibrato bar, glaringly
missing from the white Strat, Link jokingly went through the motion of
using the bar even though it wasn’t there! About 1:30 AM the management
cued Link that the show had to wind down (local ordinances and all). After the
show, Link graciously hung around signing even more autographs. Some guy hugged
Link, explaining that he caught every one of Link’s New York City area shows.
Another guy stood next to Link as his buddy shot a photo of the two together.
My ears were ringing as I walked through the
streets back to my VW. This was even better than
the
2000 show at Maxwell's and that show was great. I had to drive
directly past Maxwell's to get back to Washington St. which would eventually
lead me back to Rt. 3 and the way home.
Driving south on 11th St. past Maxwell's I
noticed Link’s van and I instinctively stopped the car and pulled up hard on
the handbrake. Fortunately it was almost 2:00 AM and there was almost no
traffic left in Hoboken! I grabbed my package and ran around the island in
the middle of 11th St. toward the van. When I got to the van Julie and
Link were sitting together on the middle seat, unwinding from the show and just
talking. I handed Link my package, a recently released Elvis CD (please
visit www.elvisnumberones.com
for
information on Elvis material currently being released to the public) that I
knew Link hadn’t seen or heard ‘cause it was so new. Link worships
Elvis.
As he began studying the cover his eyes lit
up. Link didn’t say much but I knew he liked the CD and both he and
Julie expressed their gratitude. As for my Beans And Fatback, well, it was
still underneath the front seat of the VW while all this was going on!
That’s OK though. I t’s been putting smiles on peoples faces for almost
thirty years without being autographed and I think it can go a little further
without being Christened.
I have to switch gears a little bit before I wrap
this up. Many artists representing many artistic fields have addressed the
occurrences and aftermath of Sept. 11 in many different ways. Keeping this
in mind, anyone living or working anywhere in the vicinity of Hoboken on Sept.
11, 2001 witnessed the attack on The World Trade Towers firsthand and actually
saw the buildings burning and collapsing in front of their own eyes. And
many of these witnesses still haven’t completely rebounded psychologically
from this experience. Of course, those who had friends or relatives across
the river in those burning buildings are in even worse shape. Link never
spoke to 911 directly, however he added a song to the set list which under any
other circumstances might have been out of context considering the other
material played.
Specifically, during a more quiet moment Link
introduced “Fallin’ Rain” off of the ‘71 award winning Polydor release,
“Link Wray” (in musical circles this album is known as Link’s “comeback
album”... Link’s next release, in 1973, was Beans And Fatback). Link
had some difficulty recalling all the lyrics but the performance was so moving
nobody seemed to care. At one point Link stopped singing and urged
everyone to buy the Neville Brothers’ cover of the song if they liked it ‘cause,
according to Link, The Neville Brothers did it so much better than he.
Bologna!!! Trust me, the version recorded by the Wray brothers is, and
always will, be the most beautiful recorded version of Fallin’ Rain, with all
due respect to Aaron. Before performing the song Link looked out at the roomful
of his loyals and in a serious, but not somber, tone explained that he felt the
song had great meaning today. I understand Link is performing Fallin’
Rain at other stops on the tour as well, and I’m sure it’s making a strong
impression wherever it’s played.
Well, I could go on and on about how much I love
Link and the importance of Rumble not only to the development of rock and roll
but also to the expansive changes that took place in American culture beginning
in the 1950s, but I’ll give you a break and let Link have the last word!
As of this writing there are still a couple opportunities to see Link in 2002 if
you haven’t already. And support Link if you like what you hear by
purchasing one or both of the Link CDs released this year, specifically
“Slinky” on Sundazed Recordsand “Law Of The
Jungle” on Ace.
So long as Link wants to Rumble, let’s keep on Rumbling with him. Maybe we can
take it another notch higher in 2003.
Howie Fishman July, 2002
Fallin’ Rain by Link Wray
I hear a sound, it’s going
through my brain
I hear talk of people, I feel the
fallin’ rain
I see a man crying ‘cause the
whole world has let him down
Kids are laughing at the funny
faces of a clown
My mind is like a spring in a
clock, it won’t unwind
I can’t see, I can’t think, I
can’t feel, I’m out of time
I’m up, then I’m down, tell
me where is it going to end
You say start at the beginning,
again, my friend
I hear thunder and I can feel the
wind
I can see angry faces in the eyes
of men
And don’t forget kid’s stake
where kids lay bleeding on the ground
And there’s no place on this
planet where peace can be found
So there’ll be stabbings and
shootings and young men dying all around
And it keeps going through my
brain and I can still hear the sound
I hear talking of people, the
whole world has gone insane
And all there is left is the
fallin’ rain
And all there is left is the
fallin’ rain
All there is left is the fallin’
rain