Alvino Rey and Talking Steel Guitar Puppet Stringy actually talked

Alvino  Rey

and Talking Steel Guitar Puppet

Stringy,   actually talked

 

•14,489 views•

•14,489 views•

Alvino Rey   

Talking Steel Guitar 

  "Stringy"

•14,489 views•

•Dec 7, 2011•

•1173 Shares•

Doug Meet

Alvino Rey's 'Talking Steel Guitar' could actually talk!

 

Giving Rey's orchestra its distinctive sound -- some of Rey's critics called it a 'gimmick'

 

Rey played with virtuosity, demonstrating his guitar's 'singing' quality by manipulating tone and volume.

 

'Stringy' (the guitar's nickname) was Looks as if 'HE' were Singing words to the songs.

Of course

 

Stringy' weren't no bibulous dry drunk dream, his mouth was moving.

 

Luise King, Rey's wife,

and one of  America's

royal music families,

King sisters,

  In Bizarre ritual,   taboo --  musician's sexual fantasy  or

totemic   fetish.

 

Rey's wife 

Luise, stood backstage --

in her hand,

 a small plastic tube,

connecting her mouth, which grasped firmly the appurtenance between lipstick lips

and

bitten down securely  upper and lower  teeth.

 

 

Wife, Luis, Rey, Rey's magic-seeming Gibson Steel Guitar, connected to his Gibson amplifier, truly producing the guitar sounds the audience heard, but with the addition of magical misdirection, requiring just a little suspension of disbelief, Rey's astonishing gliss bliss, smooth as glass and shrill as Minnie Pearl, doubled, if you will, not by a hidden guitar behind the curtain (sometimes actually done, and done still to this day with some instruments), but the furtive Oz in up to her ears in gear, dressed to  her husband's strictly White Tie Tails signature, by now, imprimatur, marking an upper class, or required mode of presentation a Potentate whose job it was to be at the beck. and on call at all times of a visiting dignitary, or much more excitingly, a Royal Family member's daughter, sister, or niece with which it was his filial responsibility to squire Her Ladyship among the fragrant gardens and salons where he would jauntily offer a cigarette out of site of the King and his guest, around the first corner which offered privacy and a view of the land which lay before them like a dreamed vista of evanescence, fecund, and amorously intoxicated, where with boyish, somewhat dashing hesitation in his voice (more like, habituation), his  demeanor hardening at the prospect of the crime, he would produce his inscribed with tender words and crested gold Dunhill cigarette holder and produce a blue Dunhill filtered cigarette, while whispering to invite mutual subrogation,  infamy and mischief of a fourteen-year-old, but enough to gain trust, project naivete, and invite a shared secret en deux -- her lips reddened by a flush of longing and by the cold luxurious security the mechanism produced, a muffled lovemaking session from the guests above her suite (it was a rush holiday) at Le Cap de Monaco, where she had pleasured herself for the first time, to for the first time, hearing actual coitus from two people whose desire and passion was real and feral and existed even if it be a tryst or rendezvous, she gasped beneath the soft sheet, her nipples and the cool folds of silk sheets caressing her ass.,

She

found herself crying out, unexpectedly coming for the first time, and not  knowing what she had done to cause it.

But

she thought of it now, as  two days and tonight at this chateaux and grounds, now to her, all rooms for  passionate lovemaking and the beginning of a fabulous love affair which a sixteen-year-old Princess was bound to enjoy.  

 

The flash in her eyes registered enlarged pupils of sexual desire redoubling her effort to shrug all of it off  resulting in a paroxysm of coughing from her overdone first inhalation smoking, which we shall infer was not countable in months. 

She

did inhale all of  what she hungrily sucked into her mouth and into her delicate papillae, its tendrils on her lungs  shrinking away like her cat  from acrid but calming fog whose comfort she felt in her chest, then her head -- spurring her on to exhale lest she forget; but she had inhaled enough nicotine to render her capable of continuing to speak, expressing  great knowledge and rare experience whose commonality of Royalty one is never afforded. 

Admiring all new and beautiful things, and one newer still -- whose hand now brushed her silken bustle, producing a frisson privee du chambre, a sound of falling into her

Lit a la turque made for   Sovereign and brave Marie Antoinette, appointed as such for she whose utter  delight AND bon mots reserved for week's end.

How

disparaged her subjects with shame and contempt, some weeping, some yelling for the executioner's blade to fall.

If

here discernible, her carriage, fearless, impregnable of subjugation. 

Marie's

look could not have been invented by peasant -- overly florid if by poet,  its utterance, hooded,  as were its subjects, impetuous wretches, one child, absconding with her courtly slippers, and all as the thousands, unwashed mobs, brown, pruned winter leaves. 

Her green

 whimsical topiary she imagined and designed  herself, shielded among those  hoary from age, not condition, as was she, their din graciously cut short by her literal beheading disembodiment.

Its

head and neck, ridiculously cleaved cleanly asunder were eyes from foots, the two were of different location, apart, but faintly, there was he who did see the half-smile visible on lips  her deadhead reignite over her twitching fingers' Majesty.

And now, her

head lofted in air, grasped by its fallowed locks, white wig, but did not they know of her condition?  

A

grotesque Butcher Special held in victory as if to sell  first customer, served by masked executioner,   wind blowing cool  for as long, then flustered no more; no ghoulish festivities either to mark inside itinerary, unsteady from gin, but mostly occasion,  lustily witness all, whence  collective stomachs fell the same, no noble Queen -- refusal to quit Her Versailles until the end -- and then stragglers -- sighs winnowing in air,  departing her soul, final heir, Queen of France,  her beautiful, horrible, headless moor.

 

 

His

 

 

distinguishable formality suggested unremarkable distinction -- an avant garde pioneer of innovation -- au courant, unavailable in America (of course -- more now) existed.

Rey's Wife, through Rey's auxilliary amplifier speaker, forming words with her lips, breath, vibrations inside her mouth, and the vocalizing movement her throat muscles made naturally as she performed a sort of ventriloquism on a dummy which she couldn't see to the perfect pitch and timbre of a shrill stertorous stringed gliding tumble of notes together except for her husbands sure hand.

 

Rey would make her make 'IT' say his name as he glided the steel bar along the strings.

 

his steel guitar playing perfectly, it obedient like a great dog on spindly legs shining of Astor and tiger maple like tortoise which surrounded the nut sumptuously proclaiming something exotic but palatable was on the menu at this another supper club.  dressed in perfect

tuxedo.

 

With device, Rey and Luise  created eerie vocals  in human-seeming, or doll-made four- or five-part harmonies -- 

 

more ghost note overtone, a pleasant warble two  floating notes, human and Guitar, vying for pitch, linting either too early, too late, or exact.

And

mysteriously, all of it seemed to him too, from his steel, or puppet,  and sometimes he almost thought it stringy, and sometimes stringy thought it too.

 

 

The 1972 double album Something/Anything? is Todd Rundgren's third and most successful album as a solo artist.

Though heavily influenced by the Singer-Songwriter movement - Laura Nyro in particular - different songs range into psychedelia, Motown Soul, Power Pop, early Synth-Pop, and even opera. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Something/Anything? sessions involved copious Ritalin use by the singer. Rundgren played every instrument on the first three sides, but after an earthquake struck his Los Angeles studio, Rundgren set up live sessions in New York City and at his upstate Bearsville studio to complete the final side with a rotating series of session players chosen for him by keyboardist Moogy Klingman.

The commercial and critical success of Something/Anything? was something of a double-edged sword for Rundgren, who set out immediately to avoid being pigeonholed as a Singer-Songwriter on the followup A Wizard, A True Star, aiming away from the pop mainstream towards cult status. Paradoxically, this ensured that Something/Anything? would remain his best-known release. The album was listed at #173 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and spawned the major hit singles "I Saw the Light" and "Hello It's Me". "Couldn't I Just Tell You" subsequently became a Power Pop classic that served as a major influence on subsequent works in the genre.

Track listing

Side One: "A Bouquet of Ear-Catching Melodies"

Side Four: "Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots (A Pop Operetta)"

1. "Overture–My Roots: Money (That's What I Want)/Messin' with the Kid"
2. "Dust in the Wind"
3. "Piss Aaron"
4. "Hello It's Me"
5. "Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me"
6. "You Left Me Sore"
7. "Slut"

---

Before we go any further, I'd like to show you a tropes list I made up, and one can be made for any album, even this one:

• Alliterative Title: "It Takes Two to Tango".
• All There in the Manual: The liner notes give commentary on each individual song, either on their concept or the meaning of the lyrics. This includes additional context for the Rock Opera, including additional libretto.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: "Couldn't I Just Tell You"
• Audience Participation Song: Liner notes invite the reader/listener to participate by going to a mirror while listening to "I Went to the Mirror", as it's a "multimedia experiment." "Intro" invites listeners to find examples of poor production on their favourite recordings, and then proceeds to demonstrate them.
• Break-Up Song: "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference"
• Call-Back: The track "Overture–My Roots: Money (That's What I Want)/Messin' with the Kid" is made up of archival recordings Rundgren made with other bands. "Hello It's Me" was originally a hit for the Nazz.
• The Cover Changes the Meaning: The original Nazz version of "Hello It's Me" is a Beatles-styled ballad. The version here pushes the tempo up and goes for more of a pop-jazz feel a la Carole King. In the process, the lyrics change tone from regretful to wistful.
• Cover Version: "Money (That's What I Want)", originally by Motown artist Barrett Strong, and "Messin' with the Kid", originally by blues musician Junior Wells. These are archival recordings from Rundgren's earliest bands.
  • And Rundgren's remake of his own "Hello It's Me", which he first recorded with The Nazz (and which has become much better known than the original).
• Distinct Double Album: Exaggerated Trope. Instead of two discs with distinct concepts, each LP side has its own overriding concept:
  • Side one is described in the liner notes as "a bouquet of ear-catching melodies".
  • Side two is "the cerebral side".
  • Side three is "the kid gets heavy".
  • Side four is "Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots (A Pop Operetta)".
• Downer Ending: The Rock Opera that closes out the album ends with the protagonist not getting the girl and then dying from exhaustion after screaming his lungs out. This probably won't be obvious without the liner notes.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Slut" is an ode to a slut. Similarly, "Torch Song" is a torch song, and "Song of the Viking" is about Vikings.
• Fading into the Next Song: The entire fourth side is gapless, mostly linked with Studio Chatter. Apart from this, "It Takes Two to Tango" fades into "Sweeter Memories" and "Intro" fades into "Breathless".
• Friends with Benefits: The most popular interpretation of "Hello It's Me".
• Genre Roulette/Genre-Busting: Like many of Rundgren's other albums, Something/Anything? covers a wide range of musical territory.
• I Am the Band/Self-Backing Vocalist: As lampshaded in the album's artwork◊, on the first three sides of the album, Rundgren is the only featured performer, and also produced everything himself (the majority of them were recorded with the assistance of James Lowe and John Lee, though he recorded some of the songs himself at his home studio). He initially intended to do the same for the fourth side, but after an earthquake struck his studio in Los Angeles he decided to take a different approach and performed the songs in New York City with anyone who showed up to the sessions.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: "Hello It's Me" has a narrator stuck in a Relationship Revolving Door telling his partner that he's content to keep things that way because "it's important to me that you know you are free."
• Instrumentals: "Breathless" features only drums, piano, a Moog synthesizer, and a small amount of Scatting.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: "Piss Aaron" and "Slut"
• Last Note Nightmare: "The Night the Carousel Burnt Down". "Saving Grace" is an inversion, being a standard soft-rock song other than starting off with a creepy bass note and unintelligible Black Speech.
• Medium Awareness: In "Intro", he invites the listener to search records for mastering gaffes — hiss, hum, popping P's, bad editing — whoever finds the most, wins!
• Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness - spans from 1 to 5. Examples:
  • 1 - "Hello It's Me", "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference"
  • 2 - "Saving Grace", "You Left Me Sore"
  • 3 - "I Saw the Light", "It Takes Two to Tango"
  • 4 - "Couldn't I Just Tell You", "Wolfman Jack"
  • 5 - "Black Maria", "Little Red Lights"
• Musical Pastiche/In the Style of...: "I Saw the Light" for Carole King, "Wolfman Jack" for Motown, "Song of the Viking" for Gilbert and Sullivan, "Little Red Lights" for Jimi Hendrix, "Slut" for The Rolling Stones.
• My Girl Is a Slut: "Slut", of course.
• One-Man Song: "Wolfman Jack" and "Piss Aaron".
• One-Woman Song: "Black Maria" and "Marlene".
• One-Word Title: "Intro", "Breathless", "Marlene", and "Slut".
• Power Pop: Despite scraping the bottom of the charts as a single, "Couldn't I Just Tell You" is one of the most influential songs in the genre as a whole, often cited or covered by other artists.
• Protest Song: "Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me", supposedly.
• Record Needle Scratch: How "Intro" ends.
• Rock Opera: Side four.
• Shout-Out: "Wolfman Jack" is a shout-out to the legendary radio DJ of the same name.
• Silly Love Songs/Real Life Writes the Plot: Several songs are about one of Rundgren's botched high school relationships, which in turn led to mild Creator Backlash.
• The Something Song: "Song of the Viking", "Torch Song"
• Song Style Shift: "Hello It's Me" starts out as soft-rock before the horns and chorus drag it into Soul territory.
• Spelling Song: "Slut".
• Spoken Word in Music: On "Intro", Rundgren creates makes a game of spotting potential production errors on any album, maybe even your favorite album! Then he gets cut off and "Breathless" starts up.
• Studio Chatter/Throw It In!: All over the record, most famously the botched drum take and "Mother of Goooddddddd!" introducing "Couldn't I Just Tell You".
• Stylistic Suck: On "Intro", the award-winning Record Producer demonstrates what poor production sounds like. Spot examples on your favorite album - whoever finds the most, wins! This qualifies as an arguable In-Universe example of Self-Demonstrating Article: Rundgren invites listeners to find them on "any record, including this one", and of course, there they are, right where he's demonstrating them.
• Wanderlust Song: "Little Red Lights":
  But once I hit the open road
  I'll be sailing off and on my own.