Saturday Fluffernutter: Jon and Kate plus the babysitter; Them Crooked Vultures; Les Paul 1915 – 2009
Saturday Fluffernutter – all the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities.
Oh, oh! Jon and Kate’s separation has turned to the ugly side. Kate arrived at their Wernersville, Pa. home Friday when Jon was supposed to be having his quality time with the Plus Eight. 
Turns out Jon called in a babysitter; turns out Jon has been tutoring the babysitter, or so says a) the tabs b) Kate. Which is odd, because Kate keeps using her couch time on their TV show, “Jon and Kate Plus Eight,” to talk about how the tabloids make all this stuff up. So suddenly she believes them that Jon is boffing 23-year-old Stephanie Santoro, the “babysitter” in question? Well if it’s good enough for her, well I guess it’s good enough for me, Kate is the torrential bitch the tabs have been saying all along.
Led Zeppelin rumour of the week, courtesy of Ramble On:
John Paul Jones new band, Them Crooked Vultures, premiered last weekend at a post-Lollapalooza show at The Metro in Chicago. The Vultures (TCV in the appropriate newsgroups) feature Jones, Foo Fighters singer/guitarist/ Nirvana Drummer Dave Grohl on Drums and Queens of a Stone Age guitarist singer Josh Homme on, well, guitar and vocals. Reviews are suggesting that TCV are the greatest band since, um, Led Zeppelin.
Them Crooked Vultures are said to be releasing an album on October 23rd titled “Never Deserved the Future.”
Les Paul (1915 – 2009): Three summers ago the family and I were in New York. After dinner, we decided to stroll to the Borders in Chelsea. For the first time in two days, I didn’t have a 5 pound camera slung over my shoulder. We walked in the store and this little old man was wrapping up a book signing. “Hey, that’s Les Paul,” I said.
“Who?” the family asked.
“You know my guitar at home, the Les Paul guitar?”
“Yea.”
“Les Paul,” I said, waving my hand in his direction.
As I said, he was wrapping up, talking to his rep and, well, he looked 100, so I didn’t want to bother him. But there I am without my camera. The family established a new New York rule after that, never go out without a camera.
Last fall I was back in NYC, and passed a club with 20 or so people lined up outside. “Who’s playing?” I asked.
“Les Paul.”
Ninety-three years old, and still playing. That’s what they call a working musician. But it’s not for his playing that Les Paul will ultimately be remembered – even now he’s barely remembered for that.
Les Paul was an innovator. In the Buddy Holly Story, a studio tech asks Buddy (played by Gary Busey), where he learnt to overdub? “Same place as you,” Holly says. “From Les Paul.” The whole idea of using two or more tape heads to layer sound one upon the other. In the early 50’s, Paul had specially made an 8-track tape recorder. By the late 1960’s, the Beatles where busy making Sergeant Pepper on a four track player, half the player Les Paul innovated out of thin air more than ten years earlier. A remarkable improvement in the way recorded music was produced. But really, who will remember him for a technical innovation, no matter how significant.
Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar.
As Paul McCartney sang, “Who’s that movin’ cross the stage, it looks a lot like the one used by Jimmy Page.”
There can be no mistaking the visualization: Jimmy Page moved across the stage with a Les Paul Guitar. In rock and roll circles, it is the guitar. A stunning visual and audio instrument, the Les Paul is a perfectly balanced hunk of Mahogany that drove rock and roll from the mid-60’s to the present day. Jimmy Page, Slash, Cream era-Eric Clapton, Early Jeff Beck, Comes Alive era Peter Frampton to name just a few. The Les Paul guitar is the face of rock and roll.
Les Paul passed this week at the age of 94. He is being remembered for his music, especially his work with his wife Mary Ford. He is being remembered for his technical innovations that have altered how music is made. It will be, however, his namesake guitar for which Les Paul will achieve immortality.
More importantly, Les Paul was a true musician, working to the end and man who lived a full life worth living. May the same be said of all of us.
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